Stage IIe

I converted to E85 today. The only map change I have made so far is changing the injector scaler (multiplied 0.6975).

I went to the gas station with the gas gauge below empty - probably a half a gallon or so. I flashed the same map with new scalar while adding 1.5 gallons of E85. The car started right up, although it was a pretty rich/low idle for a few seconds while it was burning a little pure 91oct in the lines. I let the car sit and idle as I watched AFR Learning #1 and AFR Correction #1 for a bit. Not surprisingly (because of about 25% 91 octane still) Learning A went to about -10 after a while and stabilized.

I drove a 6-8 mile loop around back to the gas station. I wanted to make sure the car was good and driveable before putting more E85 in. No problems at all, so I went back and added 10 gallons E85.

I had the logger going and did a couple WOT pulls from just 2k-3krpms. Car felt good. At a light I checked a log and saw some logged WOT AFR of 9.7 and figured I better stay off the throttle until I get my wideband reading lambda.

I messed around with the LC-1 trying to get it to read lamda for about 20 minutes. No luck. After spending the morning fine tuning my 91oct WOT AFR's with the new injectors I am out of time to spend on the car today.

At idle and partial throttle you wouldn't know it wasn't straight gas. The joys of the improved tq/hp will have to wait a day or two...

I'll work more with my E85 map once I know I am running nice AFR's, although I don't anticipate doing much. I'll probably add a few degrees of timing around peak torque and not much else other than smoothing over the tune.

P.S - It's $2.79/gallon here! Much better than $4.09-$4.19 for premium.

I know your tune for stage2 was developed quite nicely.

Did you take note of the temps when doing WOT runs? If so it would be nice to see some comparison graphs showing E85 to 91 fromthe same section of road at the same temp.

Post of screen shots of airboy's sheet, from the accel tab.

I know your tune for stage2 was developed quite nicely.

 

Did you take note of the temps when doing WOT runs? If so it would be nice to see some comparison graphs showing E85 to 91 fromthe same section of road at the same temp.

 

Post of screen shots of airboy's sheet, from the accel tab.

I plan on doing comparative plots of rpm vs. load, rpm vs. boost, and time vs. rpm. I will use my usual 3rd gear logging hill and will make no other changes to the tune. I'll shoot for the same temperature.

I plan on doing comparative plots of rpm vs. load, rpm vs. boost, and time vs. rpm. I will use my usual 3rd gear logging hill and will make no other changes to the tune. I'll shoot for the same temperature.

I wish we had E85 out here or premium for just $4.09

I agree! I wonder if E85 will gain any popularity around here.

Does CA 91 qualify as "premium":lol:

Not really....

I pay $4.60 for 92 octane.

Can't wait for the E85 to start flowing around here. By then PDXtuning should have their maps nicely fine tuned (check out the PNW forums for more info ).

I did a free-air calibration on my LC-1 wideband first thing this morning and did a couple runs to get some WOT AFR's around 0.72-0.76 lambda. I didn't spend much time on it and was just happy to get it in that range quickly. The real tuning with the new fuel will start next week and it's clear I'll need to do a few things.

I kept the tune exactly the same as the tune yesterday with 91oct (other than tweaking AFR's, which were only done after 5500rpm). Yesterday's 91oct, by the way had WOT AFR's around 11.1.

These logs were taken with 3/4 tank of fuel today vs. less than 1/8 yesterday. Temps today are cooler (64F) vs 70F yesterday.

Neither of these tunes was optimized and both needed smoothing over, etc. I had taken a few steps backwards, performance-wise, as I was tuning these new injectors. I haven't done anything yet to take advantage of E85. The important thing is that the tunes are identical - same boost targets, WGDC, etc. All graphs are 3rd gear up the same hill.

This first graph is boost vs. rpm. I hit peak boost of 15psi (~18.5 sea level equivalent) by 2788rpm with E85 and 3000rpm with 91oct. Temps might account for a tad of the difference, but I think it's safe to say boost is coming on quicker with E85.

http://beeez.com/lgt/boost.jpg

The second graph compares load vs. rpm on the same 2 runs. Again, the change in fuel alone shows an improvement.

http://beeez.com/lgt/load.jpg

The last graph here is acceleration from 2500rpm-6000rpm. The x-axis is milliseconds and the y-axis is rpm's. Note that the runs don't start at exactly 0. When my stage 2 tune was really dialed in with the stock injectors, I would hit 8.6s-9.0s on my 3rd gear runs with a best ever of 8.55s. I mentioned already that the 91oct tune yesterday was not so polished, and that is evidenced by a time of 9.6s. Nonetheless, the exact same tune today ran almost a full second quicker.

http://beeez.com/lgt/accel.jpg

Conclusion: The change in fuel alone shows a good improvement in power. The butt dyno isn't blown away by it, however. My hunch is that the fuel change accounts for about 1/2- 2/3 the differerence in power, while tuning for the fuel change accounts for the rest. We'll see as I begin tuning this next week.

You should compare boost plots at exactly the same temp. IME it makes a HUGE difference.

I have all sorts of logs from all sorts of temps, and I can hit 23 psi in 3rd at anywhere from 2700 rpms to 4300 rpms depending on temp.

You should compare boost plots at exactly the same temp.

Ok. I just went out and grabbed another 3rd gear log and updated the plots above. The new E85 log is 2 degrees warmer than the 91oct log yesterday. Still same tune.

A couple notes on the boost chart. First, I really ought to add at least one more 91oct boost run from around the same temp (70F). I know I've had boost curves, especially during spool, that have been from the same tune and same temp that have different onset.

Second, I think I can get better spool with E85 and will post results after trying it. I rescaled my boost target table to get high resolution from 2k-3500rpms. I did so primarily to get good control of overboost in 4th and 5th gears. I'm really happy with having those low rpm targets set just 250rpm apart in this range, as it makes the 4th and 5th gear boost curves look a lot more similar to the 3rd gear boost curve.

Anyhow, I set each target up in this range by setting it to a value just barely unattainable by 3rd gear. The goal being a balance between not to hamper 3rd at all but not to let 4th or 5th get away with anything that 3rd can't. Long story short is that upon review of my first couple E85 logs, I can see that I am now overboosting in 3rd as low as 2500rpm. I'll need to raise the targets to see how well 3rd can realistically spool now. In sum, I should get better spool than above as I rework my boost yet again.

I think you are right.

pm sent

Every time I make a tuning change and for every set of logs I use the same stretch of road, which is a slight to moderate uphill. I always note the time it takes me to get from 2500rpms to 6000rpms in third gear. I just went out and hit a personal best this a.m. of 7.6s.

I decided to compile my last 5 runs (on E85) vs. my last 5 runs on 91 octane. Temperatures varied in both sets of runs.

With E85: Average 8.02s (7.6, 8.3, 7.7, 8.1, 8.4)

With 91 : Average 9.06s (9.4, 8.7, 9.1, 9.2, 8.9)

Wow that's a full second on a rip through 3rd gear! I had thought I'd only gained a half second or so. In addition my E85 tune isn't finished, but I think it's getting close.

I decided to determine which part of the power band has made the greatest improvement. I took another look at the third gear runs, and this time only compared 2500rpm-4500rpm.

With E85: Average 4.12s (3.9, 4.4, 4.1, 4.3, 3.9)

With 91 : Average 4.88s (5.0, 4.7, 5.0, 4.9, 4.8)

Again my worst E85 run was still better than my best 91oct. For the full powerband the gain was 1.04s and for 2500-4000rpm the gain was 0.76s.

So, 73% of the improvement of E85 comes from "early" in the powerband (2500rpm-4500rpm) and 27% comes from "late" in the powerband (4500-6000rpm).

I decided to determine which part of the power band has made the greatest improvement. I took another look at the third gear runs, and this time only compared 2500rpm-4500rpm.

 

With E85: Average 4.12s (3.9, 4.4, 4.1, 4.3, 3.9)

With 91 : Average 4.88s (5.0, 4.7, 5.0, 4.9, 4.8)

 

Again my worst E85 run was still better than my best 91oct. For the full powerband the gain was 1.04s and for 2500-4000rpm the gain was 0.76s.

 

So, 73% of the improvement of E85 comes from "early" in the powerband (2500rpm-4500rpm) and 27% comes from "late" in the powerband (4500-6000rpm).

Good stuff!

This is pretty much what I suspected on the stock turbo.

Yesterday was certainly a good test for any tune. I participated in the Flatirons Tuning track day in Golden, CO. For each 20-minute session I went out I burned nearly a quarter tank of E85. Constant WOT, alternating with threshold breaking, etc. Temps were very cool which caused some guys to overboost.

I took a Learning View as soon as I got home from the track. This confirms that the car is indeed very happy with my E85 tune!

http://beeez.com/lgt/track/learningview.jpg

My local VP Racing gas station is suppose to get a hold of some E85 at the pump very soon.

That would be great to have you on board with first hand experience (E85 in your tank). I think I've done a good job with my tune, but there is probably a tad more power to be had. For timing, I added 4-5 degrees from 2k-4krpm, but only added around 2 degrees up to redline. I honestly don't know whether more (or less even) would help, but I think I'm in the ballpark. As far as AFR, I'm primarily working off PDX's data, but I backed off (made a little richer) some.

The most remarkable thing is that motors are just so damn happy with E85. I honestly don't think any reasonably aggressive straight gas tune would have a completely zero'd FLKC table immediately after a full tank of gas on the track. Maybe a very conservative tune, but not one built for close to max power.

That's also what makes tuning interesting... AFR's can be crazy lean and timing can be very high and it's still tough to knock.

That would be great to have you, mickey, and LBGT on board with E85. I'm sure then the best parameters would be further defined. So far I'm real happy with just being in the ballpark.

Went to the dragstrip tonight wanting to see how my E85 stage 2 was running. Holy smokes, it's doing good! There were two other stage 2 LGT's there running low-mid 14's and my previous best was 14.09 @ 99.82mph. (5800' ELEVATION, subtract almost a second to compare to sea level).

Tonight all my runs were in the mid-high 13's! This car is so much fun to drive between the stock quick spooling turbo and the torque offered from E85 that I don't think I'll modify it from here (famous last words, right?).

For reference, I went up against a modded EVO X (intercooler, pipes, not sure what else) on one run for and he ran a 13.94. He claimed he missed 3rd but the timeslip says I had him before then anyways...

Anyhow, here is my best timeslip of the night (5800' ELEVATION, subtract almost a second...) That's me on the right. (The left is a gutted Neon SRT4 with slicks).

http://beeez.com/lgt/1354.jpg

Sweet.

Did you check out the new cold start tables in the latest romraider defs? Some people with TGV deletes have had good success. It might help with E85 cold start issues.

I smashed a tuned Evo X (320whp) the last time I was at the track by about 3 cars after giving him the jump.

Still patiently waiting for E85 to arrive...

Sweet.

 

Did you check out the new cold start tables in the latest romraider defs? Some people with TGV deletes have had good success. It might help with E85 cold start issues.

This table appears to be only available for the 16bit roms.