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MSII Extra serial 321. Have LC-1 Noise issues and settings in error help!


motomanmike

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Well guys i've logged about 200 miles since i've gotten up and running and have hit a wall. I have 2 issues and have some questions I hope the seasoned guru's can help me with.

 

The goods

Stock L28ET 1982, using stock distributor.

Stock low z injectors

Megasquirt II V3.57 with MSII extra serial 321

Megasquirt relay board

GM IAT sensor

Using stock head temp for CLT

LC-1 wideband O2 sensor.

MSA downpipe into all 2.5 inch exhaust with magnaflow muffler

Walbro fuel pump

 

I got a basic tune that was ok to drive. Pulls hard in boost but my AFR's are all over the place!!! Never leaning out in boost though, always in the 12's or lower. The car bucks at cruising speed say 2500 rpm, the EGO has no clue what to do at all because of it, which i've totally turned off EGO, and totally stepped it up and it really doesn't change what its doing.

 

In addition I'm getting an error. "Settings Configuration Error, TunerStudio is online Correct Settings and Power Cycle the controller. Reported Setting error Serial problem---noise---possible cable or computer hardware problem, you must correct this error then power cycle the controller" This happens every time I try to datalog anything now.

 

 

All my relay board grounds for MS and my ground for my LC-1 is on the battery. I bought a Deka intimidator AGM with marine terminals so I have my main starter and block/chassis grounds on one set of terminals and the MS wiring on the threaded marine terminals. I've routed all the wiring as far away as possible for the LC1 from anything else I could. The only wire I can't really get out of the way from others is the signal wire to the MS relay board from the LC1 controller. You simply just can't space it very far away just due to its nature of design. i'm not saying there is a single thing wrong with it i'm just saying I have done my due diligence trying to eliminate my issue. I've unplugged the alternator also just trying to troubleshoot.

 

All my other readings are pretty decent, a few ripples here and there but no where near as bad as my AFR's they look more like a heart monitor than an AFR reading. However unlike a heart monitor i'm searching for a much flatter line LOL

 

Things I've done.

I have reprogrammed the LC-1 to its lowest lag I think it was 1/3 a second. Free air calibrated it out of the exhaust twice. I also read a thread that people put a capacitor on the positive feed wire to the LC-1 controller so I bought one at radioshack, the 4200uf i think like 35v and installed.

 

I've also played with noise filtering and lambda delay or % in tunerstudio up to the 90 range and it still is fluttering.

 

None of this corrected the issue.

 

Sorry for the long winded post but I wanted to be as descriptive as I could of what i've done.

 

The option for posting the topic isn't allowing me to go to advanced and post the datalog, not sure if its still where they are tweaking the site or what. I can PM it to anyone willing to help.

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I guess what I really need now is a CLEAN RUNNING CAR data log to compare if what I've done is producing a clean enough signal to go any further tuning. I've got a little bit of jitter on the o2 signal now but now where near as extreme as it was. My email is the same as my user name on here @yahoo I didn't want to type the whole thing in case a bot sniffs it out. I appreciate any help guys.

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Which problem are you trying to fix? The LC-1 not giving the correct readings due to noise (you reprogrammed it for some reason)? Or are you trying to fix the "Settings Configuration Error..." which would be an MS thing. Or the bucking problem, which would be tuning.

 

You've described a lot of simultaneous stuff happening.

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I'm trying to fix my LC-1 signal. I can't really tune this thing right to eliminate the bucking because running the VE analyze to help fix the VE table its all over the place its that bad. The settings in error is saying its ---noise--- on the serial cable which from the way i'm interpreting as being the tuning cable.

 

My LC-1 is extremely noisy. All my other signals look good from what i'm seeing. I do want to utilize the EGO correction but at the moment that would be impossible because it is really confused as to whats going on.

 

I'm really also thinking about taking the MSA downpipe to a friend and weld a bung lower on the pipe and reposition the wideband in the exhaust itself.

Edited by motomanmike
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Is your car a hydraulic lifter car?

 

If you have a lifter laying down on you, then it won't matter. Even if you can't hear it ticking yet, if it's going soft, then you WILL see a crazy wideband signal.

 

Is the LC-1 throwing error codes? If it's not, then I would start looking for exhaust leaks, bad lifters, misfires, and ignition noise. You ARE running suppressed plug wires and resistor plugs, RIGHT?

 

if the LC-1 isn't throwing codes, then look at your tune. The VE analyzer won't do it all for you...you have to give it a reasonbly nice tune to start with before it can start the refiniing process.

 

DO NOT enable EGO correction until you have your tune as good as you can get it. It'll mask tuning errors and cause you no end of trouble. Use it ONLY after you have gotten your tune as good as you want it to be, and then use it to compensate for mediocre gasoline, weather changes, ect. That's what it's there for...it's not a bad-tuning-corrector.

Edited by Xnke
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Well, I am using the regular P90 head and just did a valve adjustment before getting up and running. Valve lash is good. No ticking and I have very solid compression readings across all cylinders.

 

The LC1 is not throwing any errors but like I said it is alot closer to the turbo than I am comfortable with so I plan on moving it lower in the exhaust stream as soon as I can get the pipe off to weld a new bung on.

 

The tune is the key for sure. I have the EGO turned off but I turned it on with a very low authority to see if it would change the way the wideband acted just testing but it really doesn't. I feel my wideband though is still way too close to the turbo using the fitting on the MSA downpipe so i'm going to lower downstream this weekend hopefully.

 

I have a really good understanding of VE tables, AFR target tables and how the EGO correction works but I do not have an understanding of how to get a good timing map. I've read and read but for the life of me can't wrap my head around it. I know the timing before TDC will increase as RPM and boost increase but the ranges and how to get a feel for how much are beyond me at this point.

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MAP correction was playing some role in the off readings, well the blending of MAP and TPS, i've favored TPS 95% now and it made a huge difference in the AFR stability. I've gotten everything wired up in the passenger compartment and that made a huge difference. Zya thanks for letting me see that timing map. The car is overpowering a brand new stock turbo clutch now so I'd say we have progress :)

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Its all EMI somewhere. Im chasing noise.  I'm not going to post too much speculation.  Just have to find it and fix it. I've eliminated the basics from the equation such as grounds.  All sensor returns and signals are on the relay board and I've tried running the relay board power, switched and grounds all directly off the battery. Its a noisy coil, fuel pump, or low z injector noise I believe. Fun fun. If that car pulls that hard with a noisy MS i can't imagine what its going to do when its right so i'm hopeful. I'll let you guys know what I figure out.

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Its all EMI somewhere. Im chasing noise.  I'm not going to post too much speculation.  Just have to find it and fix it. I've eliminated the basics from the equation such as grounds.  All sensor returns and signals are on the relay board and I've tried running the relay board power, switched and grounds all directly off the battery. Its a noisy coil, fuel pump, or low z injector noise I believe. Fun fun. If that car pulls that hard with a noisy MS i can't imagine what its going to do when its right so i'm hopeful. I'll let you guys know what I figure out.

 

Don't forget to drive the car and have fun with it while you're chasing the noise down. At some point I believe you'll find that you can't get rid of all the noise in your AFR readings and will just have to accept it for what it is. I could be wrong but that's the impression I get from reading more and more about the LC-1.

 

All the whiz-bang gadgetry we have access to makes it great for tuning and dialing things in just right, but for me it is becoming cumbersome. Before I got my wideband hooked up, I was stoked the car was actually running and idling smoothly. The one time I drove it, it actually drove quite well and I couldn't have been more pleased. Now that I've got the wideband telling me my AFRs are too rich at idle, I've been fiddling with it and trying to get it to idle smoothly at what I would call a reasonable AFR, but the car just doesn't want to cooperate. It wants to idle nice and rich, so who am I to tell it otherwise.

 

I've learned a tremendous amount during my Megasquirt journey but I'm getting more inclined now to turn off the laptop and just drive it blind... like the good old days.

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Yeah, mine starts runs and idles great. AFR's are in the 13.5-14 range at a nice steady idle. Instead of an IAC right now when its cold I just pop the vacuum line for the fuel pressure regulator until she warms up LOL. Then I get the bump bump misfire. Very feint, but deep down looking at the logs I know what it is. Its a spike or sag in voltage caused by noise.The car is jittery, very jittery. The tune isn't all that rough now either i've spent alot of time trying to dial in decent values and have a good base. Yes it has been a fun journey. I can't complain because at least knowing what gremlin i'm chasing and that is a relief to me. I fought the stock set up initially trying to get this swap running with the stock harness/ecu and the most I could do was get it to start and idle. I replaced all sorts of connectors, sensor, wires etc trying to get the stock setup to be driveable with no luck. It turned out the ECU was bad i just went MS. Its been a HUGE learning curve. Now that i've gotten it this far I would do it all over again but i've read numerous stories from all sorts of installs on other applications having noise issues with MS. It just is a part of going with the MS setup. Like I said above though this car rips now. I'm amazed that it pulls as hard as it does under boost. I will be much happier when I get this noise issue figured out because it really isn't driveable long term. Sure it was fun for a Saturday. The excitement of having my turbo swap Z on the road and running after 8 months of work. But now i need that refined feeling when I drive it to call it complete because its rough feeling at the moment. Jittery is the best description I can give. I had 4 resets in a 12 minute data log the other night, I can see them happening too, the little red light in the pcb is lighting every time it jitters. It doesn't always throw a reset in the datalog but I know its happening. I moved a lot of wiring last nite. Re routed my injector harness. Eliminated any potential 40 year old car wiring from the equation and tried the MS power, switched power and grounds right off the battery but i'm still getting resets. I'm powering my 12 feed for my injectors off the relay board 12v feeds. Going to try moving them to another power source. Also going to try another coil and possibly some other spark plug wires. I'm running taylors and they run right over the valve cover almost. I just wish there was an easy way to isolate where it was coming from.

Edited by motomanmike
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Mine wants to idle at about 11-11.5:1 AFR. I can get it to idle at about 12-12.5 AFR but it stumbles around and it just doesn't sound right. Perhaps the L28E is just this way, but it doesn't seem like it should be that far off the L28ET. Part of it I'm sure is due to me running relatively large injectors (440cc) on MS1 instead of MS2, but I'm not willing to switch to MS2 just yet.

 

For spark plug wires, I'm running Magnecors because I read a ton of posts about people having trouble with anything but those.

 

For your noise issues, I'd take a read here if you haven't done so already. Since a car produces an inherently noisy environment, making the MS unit more robust against noise is your best bet, rather than trying to eliminate all of your noise sources. I haven't done any of those mods yet, but I plan to.

Edited by OhBilly
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The Magnecor wires are great, but if you plug them into non-resister plugs you lose

quite a bit of the benefit.  Seems too obvious to overlook, which is likely why it is

sometimes missed.

 

At idle, unless you are running sequential injection your best idle will be on the rich side.

The 440cc injectors and resolution in the MS1 are likely not helping you, if it runs well

off idle through high load and tracks your AFR targets, then you might want to upgrade

to have better control of your injectors.

 

Oh, and exercise extreme care when moving the injector power source.  If you have injectors

powered when the ECU is not, you can end up with a engine full of fuel.

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Been there with a fuel filled engine when an injector driver burnt up.  I'm just thinking of ways to reduce the EMI.  Maybe put a separate relay for the injector 12v and the coil 12v.  Two more relays but if it solves my problem I could care less. I'm not picky about how it looks under the hood.Many don't know half the time what they are looking  so if the valve cover is shiny its got to be fast. LOL  I'm going to spend my saturday this weekend wiring and testing. Hopefully a full 8 hours in the shop i can resolve it.

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Well, back to the drawing board.  I decided to install resistors on the power feed and try running the MS with the PWM current limit at 100.  Set opening time to 1.0 and PWM time threshold to 25.4.  Well, the car fires right up, will idle fine but it will NOT connect to tunerstudio at all.  I pulled the ECU out of the car and tried it on a stim and it still will not connect to tunerstudio.  Before starting it, it came right online. I started it. The car ran for maybe 30 seconds and then the controller went offline and won't come back.  I've emailed Matt to see if I can send it to be fixed. I don't know how to work on this pcb it was a preassembled unit initially.  I will not be trying this again. I will remove the resistors and go back to using PWM settings I had previous to this attempt. I'll find another way to get rid of noise but it won't be with injector resistors. Ah well. Its too freaking cold to do much outside anyhow but i was hopeful this would have helped and instead it took me two steps backwards. Just my luck.

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It is frustrating but i'm to the point with this MS swap that it is what it is, I can't waste energy getting upset about it anymore. I don't really think its a critical problem with the board.  I'm not by any means knowledgeable in circuit boards, that's why I went with the preassembled pcb.  The car starts and runs, but will not no matter what connect to tunerstudio to tune it.  I tried another laptop too just to be certain my DB9 port didn't fail on the laptop but still won't connect.  Strange one.  Matt at DIY has been VERY helpful throughout all my woes with this build and I'm confident he will point me in the right direction. I have the car back at my house now so i'm not pressed for time to get it anywhere. We will see what happens.  I'll keep you posted.  Thanks for looking Billy, how are you making out with your set up?

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Do you live near a radio tower?  I had a CD player that wouldn't work until I surrounded it with a Farady cage built from copper mesh.  I took it back to the store twice and it played perfectly, intalled it at home and it wouldn't do anything.  My apartment was about 100 feet from the antenna.

 

Just another noise anecdote.  Maybe your serial cable from the MS ECU to the computer needs shielding.

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