Newbee to MS, trying to stabilise idle

[LoganP]

Hi there

I purchased a pre-assembled V2.2 board about a year ago from a local supplier to delve into the world of ECU tuning and hopefully fix some of the problems I was having with the factory ECU. It was supposed to have a pre-defined tune on it for the specific engine. However this far down the line as I am learning about the process behind it all so I can do it myself, I have found that all the constants etc were not setup for the engine (seemed to have data for a 5.7l v8, engine is a v6, more info below), which explains why it was running so poorly...

So I am going through it all as per the documentation such as: http://www.megamanual.com/v22manual/mtune.htm, although at some points I am finding it a little difficult as it doesn't match up to my currently install TunerStudio version (v2.6.14). Is there any updated documentation on this?

To get into the nitty-gritty, the car is a Toyota MR2 running a 3VZ-FE engine. The engine is all fairly standard, the MS is controlling spark and fuel and the only sensors I have connected at this stage is coolant temp and a single Innovate MTX-L wideband on the front bank. One question is, given the engine is a V6, is one O2 sensor on one bank adequate for the application? Given the layout of the exhaust in the car it is not feasible to have the O2 gauge in the cabin and the sensor after the Y-pipe without splicing into the supplied wiring harness for it. (Innovate don't sell a wire harness long enough as far as I am aware)

The megasquirt appears to be wired up all correctly, all gauges on the interface with my laptop connected appear correct and match the outputs on the factory temp and rev gauges and the wideband gauge. Engine starts (with difficulty, lots of cranking, and a bit of throttle to get it to start, then have to hold my foot on the accelerator to prevent it from cutting out until it gets up to temperature). Idle is poor, doesn't sound like it is running on all 6.

In the Engine Constants page, all is fairly clear after a bit of reading, however the last time I was able to test the car it was set to 2 Squirts per Engine Cycle, and Simultaneous Injector Staging. Starting was difficult (Had to crank for a while) and idle was rough at best, as if it was not running on all 6 cylinders. Given the firing order is 1-2-3-4-5-6, and banks are 1-3-5, 2-4-6, I have now changed this to 6 squirts per cycle, Alternating staging. Does this sound like a correct configuration or should the previous have worked? Could this account for the poor startup and idle?

Following on from this I have set the EGO settings to use the wideband and believe this to be working ok. What is the next advisable step to continue tuning? Should I be looking at using the warmup enrichment autotune next, followed by the VE table autotune to gain a good baseline? I'm hoping if the above gets me in the right direction I can probably keep reading and trying to understand what happens next anyway.

For the setup, should what I have sensor wise be adequate? I also have the factory TPS and IAC Valve that I could wire in, however would this offer any improvement over what could already be achieved? The car does not have to meet any emissions standards, it will remain naturally aspirated for now. I would just like to be able to start it easily, not have to keep my foot on the pedal to keep it idling to temperature, and have it drive reliably (not stall or knock) at this stage.

Any help would be greatly appreciated . As I can only work on the car on weekends due to work and it being stored away from home, I would just like to make sure I'm headed in the right direction, apologies if these are simple questions!

[elutionsdesign]

I would suggest that if you don't think its running on all six then it probably isn't. Verify that all plugs are firing, verify that the timing commanded in MS matches that seen at the crank pulley by using the fixed timing settings.

[kaeman]

I would change the squirts to 1 simultaneous or 2 squirts alternating, 6 squirts is just going to give you a bunch of headaches, you are better off having a few larger pulses than a bunch of real small ones. CHeck that commanded timing is correct using a timing light and then make sure that your engine specifics match the info in the general settings menu, one o2 sensor is enough to have a good running engine.
in order for you to be successful you will need to make sure you have correct injector info, cc per min, and deadtime, then with the correct injector size and engine cc's you can have the correct required fuel calculated, etc.
then post your msq and a datalog. makes it much easier to help.

[LoganP]

Thanks for the responses and I can finally give an update..

I double checked injector values etc, all are correct and changed the number of squirts as mentioned. It seems to start a-lot easier after changing the number of squirts but still misfires when revved above idle. (And struggles to keep idling until warm)

I checked all spark plugs are firing, all injectors are firing also. The next point I stumbled on was trying to check the timing, it's rather difficult to see the timing mark on the pulley due to the engine location. I can see 10 degrees advanced and lower (10 degrees advanced is where it sits at on the factory setup). The worrying part is that when I moved the distributor about its full rotation, at no point did the timing go below 10 degrees advance. This matched what was shown on the gauge in tuner studio. Could this be due to the setup on the trigger wheel inside the distributor?
Then I also stumbled trying to following the following tutorial: http://www.diyautotune.com/tech_article ... how_to.htm
In step 3 I do not get all of these options under the 'basic setup' tab. (nothing to do with ignition on my one) Does this mean I need to do a firmware upgrade to get these options?

I've attached what I hope is the right files..

2015-05-17_14.43.33.msl

[LoganP]

And the tune...

2015-06-14_15.17.12.msq

[kjones6039]

(And struggles to keep idling until warm)

That will happen, when almost all of your warmup cells are set to 100!! You have essentially zero WUE unless it's about 30 below where you're at!

Just one thing I noticed during a very brief look at your msq.........

Ken

EDIT: I also noticed that you don't have number of cylinders and injectors, entered under Engine Constants.......

[LoganP]

Hi there

Thanks for the comments. I have certainly set and checked multiple times the engine constants. Sometimes the values don't seem to hold but the required fuel stays correct so I presume this is all that matters?

I've tried running the WUE wizard a few times on cold starts but it doesn't seem to change much. The car seems to constantly be running too rich according to the EGO gauge anyway so I figured something else is fundamentally wrong before I go changing this.

Cheers