Ben’s and then Eric's and now somebody else’s V8 CQ

[gabriel.b]

Going to get this thing dyno tuned down in C-bus before auto-x season (well, MY auto-x season) begins. A company down there is willing to work with VEMS, and they have an AWD dyno...

Who is that?
Gonna need them in the future

[Grillage]

I could never find anyone here local to tune it when I had it.
I tried Turnin Concepts and they looked at the car and never called me back.

Marc seemed to think I wasn't likely to be leaving much on the table performance-wise - my gripe was always the hard starting when cold and idle tuning and such.

[cuatrokoop]

Going to get this thing dyno tuned down in C-bus before auto-x season (well, MY auto-x season) begins. A company down there is willing to work with VEMS, and they have an AWD dyno...

Who is that?
Gonna need them in the future

Crucial, they are pretty active on FB. My buddy had his blown 4.6L 6spd Mustang tuned there, and is likely going to get his Coyote GT 6spd tuned there as well.

[cuatrokoop]

I could never find anyone here local to tune it when I had it.
I tried Turnin Concepts and they looked at the car and never called me back.

Marc seemed to think I wasn't likely to be leaving much on the table performance-wise - my gripe was always the hard starting when cold and idle tuning and such.

He's never tuned with VEMS before, but has used several other stand-alone systems and is willing to use VEMS. The whole point will be to make sure the car is making the most safe power possible, and potentially have two maps (warm/hot and cool/cold weather). It tends to be rich at any given time, based on what my nose can tell. He may be able to help with part throttle and transitions as well.

Plus, I'm curious to see what it is making...

[Grillage]

Me too! Post results before and after the tweaking if you can

It definitely needed a cleanup of the tune

[cuatrokoop]

So, I'm working in VEMS trying to get this thing to start easier. I've decreased the cranking, afterstart and W/U enrichment curves, but it still starts hard and has to idle for a bit before you can rev it w/out almost stalling.

Before, with a stone-cold engine (& therefore coolant temp) I'd have to give it probably close to 90% throttle, then it would rev up to ~5k almost as soon as it caught, and puffed a big stinky fuel cloud (NOT oil smoke, I know the difference). As I said above, you'd then have to let it sit and idle for a few minutes to get coolant temps up.

I have not messed with the Priming/Cranking/Afterstart setup. I've attached a screenshot of that window. I can attach the curves as well, if that would be of benefit.

[cuatrokoop]

More screen grabs

[cuatrokoop]

So...no one had any suggestions...

Anyway, I found a couple of Nesbitt's files for his ABZ'd B4-90q (one from January 2017), and those screens are all vastly different than mine. I'm going to try some of his settings this weekend.

[lorge1989]

When idling cold and you try to rev it up, do you stab the gas or very slowly bring up the revs?

[cuatrokoop]

You have to feed it throttle slowly, and even then it will try to stall when it is cold after you let off, it just can't compensate that fast. Once coolant temps come up to around 50C it gets dramatically better. I think the curves are just that far off. Nesbitt's are all hugely different for his ABZ, both in a 2016 file and the 2017 file I found. His maximum values are about half of mine, and continue on down. I'm hoping that his numbers help get me in the ballpark...

[Grillage]

It's very possible that Marc shipped the ECU with a better configuration for those things than I ended up with after screwing with them

Attached is the oldest config file I can find from him - from Feb 2015
Don't use the whole thing because there were most definitely tweaks for the better between then and now but maybe those couple maps have better setups

[cuatrokoop]

I got it to behave better, I didn't have to touch the throttle really at all when I left work today, but it still cranks for a while before it catches. I used some of Ben Nesbitt's numbers (namely those for the curves).

[Grillage]

Great!

[cuatrokoop]

Yes, I just need to understand what all of the different parameters are actually doing to affect the different phases of starting...This is all prep to getting it on the rollers, well, that and more shake-down miles.

[cuatrokoop]

So, other than a long crank time (which I've come across multiple times in searching for VEMS starting information), it starts pretty well now. Also, found a couple things that needed dealt with before they were a problem. Getting brakes figured out, because this thing needed tires about a year ago based on how much sidewall cracking there is. I need to get the suspension pulled from 000292 so I can fix it and put it in the 4.2. Then I can put on my 17's with 245's. With factory suspension, those tires will definitely rub.

[cuatrokoop]

Starts soooo much better. Just need to figure out the longer crank time, but I haven't had to touch the throttle when starting since making the changes to the curves. I may lower the cranking RPM set point, it is at 399 right now. I think minimum is like 199. Lower may shorten the crank time, not sure.

[lorge1989]

399 is very high. When logging my abz with vagcom I was seeing 200-300 rpm on cranking, iirc.

[cuatrokoop]

Yeah, I think that is one of the reasons why it cranks so long before it tries to start, I'm going to set it for 199 (I think I read somewhere that there is a bug in one version that causes 199 to be 299) and see how it goes.

[cuatrokoop]

Still takes a while to crank. I asked my son what vehicle we should take to karate tonight (both he and I are students), the gray Q7 or the red car. He at first acted like he didn't care, then said the red car. I had set the crank RPM to 199 earlier this evening, and it really made no affect. It started up very nicely when we left karate a little over an hour later.

The coolant smell finally got to me, I ordered two new B4-V6 heater core lines that have the bleed screws in them. Not really looking forward to dumping the much coolant, but hey, at least I'll have non-leaky bleeders. There are a couple (?) small leaks in the top radiator hose setup, originally I had found a loose clamp, but there is still a drip somewhere. Not much room, so I'll have to try and peak with one of my inspection mirrors to track it down. Also need to put a dowty seal on the one PS hose adapter, slight leak from there.

I messed with the brakes last weekend, and figured out in my haste I moved bolt hole centers the wrong direction on the new caliper carriers (further apart vs closer together, dur...), and I need to add just a slight bit more thickness to the adapter. If I have sufficient wall thickness, I may switch to aluminum as these have turned out to be pretty beefy.

[cuatrokoop]

Just bought a set of Depo B4/80 H4 e-codes and will be putting LED headlamp "bulbs" in them to do two things: A) get a better light pattern when I do drive this at night and B) lessen the load on the alternator when the fans and PS pump are running. I'm also going to switch all lighting over to LED, I have a few random 1156 and 1157 bulbs in my toolbox that I'll use up in less critical areas, then get good bright ones for the signal lights.

Also need to figure out how to get a working horn in this thing, the bird and yelling only gets you so far in traffic...

[cuatrokoop]

I just ordered about $200 worth of LED bulbs...Yikes. But, almost half of that is for the head and fog lamps.

[PRY4SNO]

I'll be interested to see how the LED swap goes on the headlights/fogs.

[cuatrokoop]

I'll be interested to see how the LED swap goes on the headlights/fogs.

Fogs are basically like lumens for like lumens (55W-ish equivalent, somewhere around 1200lm), so no driver needed. They are also yellow, which supposedly cuts through that stuff more easily. The headlamps are supposedly not only a whiter light, but slightly more lumens (1800 vs 1500 lumens). They do have a driver, it doesn't look like a huge box like some of them are, so it may fit inside the e-code housing itself. I may still have to leave the back cover off for cooling.

[PRY4SNO]

Good info. In for pics.

[cuatrokoop]

LED's and the new turn/hazard flasher supposedly start rolling in tomorrow. We'll see, USPS. Depo lights I think next week according to thEbay.