TurboCarStaging Feature Video

[atomic6]

About a year ago I decided to see if I could be the first to get a Microsquirt to run a LSx engine, so we could have a cheap, simple standalone EMS for the LSx crowd.
It took a little bit of figuring out, but it worked, and now a bunch of other people are using it run their LS engines(ala Denmah). A big plus for getting more people aware of the Megasquirt, and it's capabilities.

This year, I am showing the use of a feature I have been bothering James with adding to the MS3 firmware. This feature allows you to pre-stage, engage the transbrake, bring up boost to where ever you want, and release the transbrake enough to move into the staged beams. I know,this is not new to drag racing, but it is new to the Megasquirt hardware.

And now it is in the MS3 Alpha 5 Firmware.(Experimental code, but available to anyone wanting to try it)

Hopefully this is as big of a hit for the Megasquirt platform, as the LSx microsquirt stuff.

This is a short video of it working on a Third gen Camaro I have a MS3pro running a L33 with twin turbos in.

This is how the standard settings in the Feature look in use. Except I increased the Mult-release to 3 as you will see in the video.
Megasquirt 3 Transbrake settings(Mine is a MS3pro but same applies to the MS3x)

Release time(s) = .050
ON time = .100
Main # moves = 3 (1 is the standard and I will have a video of what that looks like later)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg-jKgJhWdE

Let me know what you guys think,and if you have any questions, I will do my best to answer them.

The green tape marks on the ground are the distance between the pre-stage, and stage bulbs, and the black lines are an inch apart.

[slow_hemi6]

That's pretty cool.

[JAM]

VERY COOL!!

For a guy who is planning to put a turbo on my drag car I this is huge!

So here is what I am thinking this can also be used for, let me know if you think I am off base:

In the case that you are running a transbrake in your car (no delay box class ie NHRA PRO or equivilant) generally leaving on the flicker of the bottom amber. Generally you will change the front tire pressure, shock setup etc to get the car out of the beams quicker or slow it up depending on conditions or driver reaction. I (and most) try to stage shallow for consistency. Just this weekend I was thinking if I had a controlled way to give it a fixed bump (and not deep stage) I could tune my reaction time a bit. The problem is that if you do it on foot brake you really don’t know where you are for sure. So if you stage shallow and give it a predefined bump with this feature (vary parameters with conditions/situation) it may be the ticket..??? What do you think?

[atomic6]

I think you could fine tune it to work the way you want it to, and still be consistent.

But it will take some practice, plus a good amount of "trial and error"

[JAM]

I think you could fine tune it to work the way you want it to, and still be consistent.

But it will take some practice, plus a good amount of "trial and error"

Agreed, for sure it will take some trial and error and variable distance based on RPM etc i assume, i will be looking closer when i load current alpha tonight.

Thanks for posting and sharing this info, I will probably play with this feature some this weekend. Should be a fairly methodical process to chart time vs distance and then its a matter of seeing what it does on the tree....

[JAM]

One question; I assume you plan to creep into the pre-stage as shallow as possible, almost like you would have creeped into the staged with a non-turbo car?

[atomic6]

Yes we will foot brake into the first beam(pre-stage),
keep the foot brake on,(so the car doesn't rock so much on the transbrake release, and reapply)
apply the transbrake,
floor it,
build more boost to the desired amount,
then use the TurboCarStaging release to push into the second beam without any loss of boost,
and then take your foot off the Footbrake, and eventually let go of the transbrake button at your desired time, to get the quickest launch without worrying about the other guy(usually non-turbo) screwing you on the lights

All of that is for a Pro Tree light, there are different ways to do it on a sportsman tree(slower tree)

The nice thing about the code James wrote is that you can try all kinds of other different ways you may envision, if you want and are brave/confident enough.

[Scottie-GNZ]

This is cool! Does it require you to be using the boost controller feature in MS3 or is it independent of the boost controller? What wiring changes are needed to make this work?

...tks

[atomic6]

No, the MS3 doesn't need to control boost for this to work.

The car in the video, at the time, didn't have the squirt controlling the boost.

Wiring is pretty straight forward.

neg. trigger input for Transbrake button.
neg. trigger input for release button.
neg. output to one side of the brake Solenoid
fused 12v to other side of the brake Solenoid.(this is just the way I did it)

If you wanted you could do just like the normal transbrake setup.

12v positive to a "transbrake button"(a quick reacting, high current,sometimes adjustable button), then that will go to one side of the solenoid.
The other side of the solenoid goes to one of the high current outputs on the MS3.(with the MS3pro, I had to use a SolidState relay, because the High Current outputs would only sink 5 amps, and that is not enough to keep the brake engaged in gear)

Then permently ground an input, then select it for the transbrake input.

Still use a neg. triggered button for the quick release. A different input. And select it for the release button to be connected to.

So.

Two inputs, both neg. triggered(one for the activation of the output, and the other for the activation of the release)
And
One output, neg. output.(for the grounded side of the Transbrake)\\

Make sense??

[Scottie-GNZ]

Make sense??

Not fully. I am having trouble visualizing how I would install it in my existing t-brake setup. Here is a rough sketch of how I am currently wired. Maybe we can discuss it from this perspective. BTW, the t-brake switch is on the steering wheel.

[atomic6]

Make sense??

Not fully. I am having trouble visualizing how I would install it in my existing t-brake setup. Here is a rough sketch of how I am currently wired. Maybe we can discuss it from this perspective. BTW, the t-brake switch is on the steering wheel.

The ms3 needs to control the neg. side of the transbrake solenoid in all types of installs.

Simply, there are two inputs used in the control of the transbrake(we call them A and B), and one output(we will call X).

One input activates the Release feature.(we will call it A)

The other input(we will call B) is basically a switch for the output selected for the Transbrake control. (goes to the negative side of the Solenoid)
When that input(B) is grounded, the output(X) sends out a ground. When that switch is ungrounded there is not a ground on the output.

So we would permanently need to ground that input(B), that way the output(X) acts like a normal ground for the transbrake most of the time.

Then when the button(A) for the Staging in activated it can interrupt that grounding output(X) that is normally there for the negative side of the transbrake.

This way allows the wiring you have on the positive side of the transbrake to remain the way you have it already.

Any clearer now.

Maybe a video will help explain the two ways of hooking them up better?

Just wish I had more time to do one.

[atomic6]

The Test car made it's first run down the track today.

Very happy with how the Turbo Staging works.

I will post up one of the videos of the testing we did today.

http://youtu.be/6j2_DHIL1Xk

In the video you will see the single bump into the "staged" beam, we were trying out acouple of things, today.

The single bump was the standard .050 second release time.

Maybe next time we will try a multi bump, and that could make it less "jumpy"

In these runs the idea was to not get the track mad at us, because we don't have an NHRA lic. driver yet, so the goal was to stay under the 6.40 1/8th mile time.
But even hitting the brakes alittle after the 330 mark, we ran a 6.24@88 mph. Woops!! This was our last run on this day, anyway.

The tree was also set to Sportsman mode(.5 seconds between each of the three yellow lights, then .5 seconds to green light), so that is the reason that we were on the 2-step for so long. When the "real deal" is going on and we have a .400 Pro Tree(all three yellows at once, with only a .4 delay to the green), this feature is going to be invaluable.

[dark star]

Awesome job getting this all squared away! I cant wait to get it working on my car(perfect timing as I was about to buy a bump box). Could you draw up a diagram of how you wired it to the MS3?

[atomic6]

Here is another shot showing the prestage and staged lights.

http://youtu.be/tQja-1-nKrU

I will PM you a link to a video that I am not ready to post yet, it has a bunch of info on the different ways to wire it.

It wires just like the other transbrake controls out there.

The Megasquirt has control of the negative side of the transbrake Solenoid, with the positive side being the same as a normal T-brake setup.

[dark star]

Just got this working on my car and it works great!!!! Very excited to use it at the track in mid october. I wired mine a little different than the OP, but used his settings. Now a little fine tuning and its ready to go.

Thanks to Atomic6 and James for getting this implemented!!!

[atomic6]

Glad it helped, We are likely going to end up lowering the release time, next time out with the Camaro.

It seems the higher the boost at launch(relative power level) the less we use for the release time.

We also found that "riding" the brakes a tiny bit, during the release time can make it less violent looking, in the staging.

[JAM]

This is awesome. How is the tbrake and trans holding up ?

[atomic6]

This is awesome. How is the tbrake and trans holding up ?

Just fine so far, here is another outing we just did this weekend.

Low boost(15 lbs) and running out of gear, we ran a 9.06 @150.2 this should be pretty fast when we get some 3.90 gears in it.

http://youtu.be/PLvKabg2uDA

[Hpa]

What version of tunerstudio are you using, I don't have those setting in my beta version.
I'm excited to give this a try!

Thanks!
Dan

[jsmcortina]

What version of tunerstudio are you using, I don't have those setting in my beta version.
I'm excited to give this a try!

This is a firmware feature (not TunerStudio), so you need to correct firmware version to be able to use it.

And now it is in the MS3 Alpha 5 Firmware.(Experimental code, but available to anyone wanting to try it)

The current development firmware is discussed here: http://www.msextra.com/forums/viewtopic ... 25&t=51496

James