4.2 auto with ms2

[mik711]

So, finally got back to the landy today after the roads were iced up last week.  The garage owner had it fired up and moving round the yard to check the gearbox was A-OK. All good. However.... it struggles to fire up  and hold a steady idle. It revs to 1200 then drops to 400 ish then picks up again. The table on ms2 is tps % up the side and revs on the horizontal axis. Everything I read on here is ms1 based and I have nothing to compare to. The map Nigel gave me has approx. 14 degrees advance at idle plus there's an extra 3 degrees auto idle advance that disappears when you touch the throttle and then it follows the map. It doesn't seem to matter if it's the first start or when the engine is up to temp and the fan running. It's running rich at the moment but I'm fine with that for now because until I can get it MOT'ed I can't do any real time tuning and I've got the lambda sensor switched off. What's the first thing I should be looking at to sort the idle out??

[Bowie69]

Watch the map, find where idle is,  and set the fuel table to a fixed value around it, that should stop the hunting. 

Then tweak the new idle cells to a value that is not stinking rich, no missing etc. 

Confused why you say it is tps vs RPM, normally it is map up the left unless you want to run a race car..... Are you really running a provided map? 

MS2 fundamentals are the same as MS1, especially when talking fuel and spark, an engine is an engine after all, and only so many ways you can make it run well. 

[mik711]

OK, I can look at the fuel map and tweak that and see what happens. As for MAP on the vertical axis, I have nothing recording the pressure. The instructions from Nigel with the kit has no mention of them. I know that ms1 uses a tee piece in the  FPR line but there's no mention of that in the ms2 instructions, hence that's why TPS instead of MAP.

[Bowie69]

All MS can be used as tps or map, bit confused, the instructions must say something about this. 

[mik711]

The ms2 instructions are fairly vague.  They tell you how to set up the wiring harness, trigger wheel etc but you are given a short piece of pipe to replace the old one on the fuel pressure regulator but no mention of teeing off like in the ms1 instructions unless there's another way that the controller can know map that I don't know about. Had far too many cans now to carry on talking sensibly(ish) so going to hit the sack and will get back on here in the morning before I go back to the garage. Once again, thanks for the advice and help on this forum, I'd be completely lost without everyone here.

[Bowie69]

If you have map, use it. 

[mik711]

So ,on first start it fires up quite nicely and settles at about 850/900rpm. ase and wue eventually drop out as it gets up to temp.If I switch off and then back on it struggles to catch but when it does it the revs go from 1200 and drop to 400 where it cranks again back up to 1200 and so ad infinitum. If I alter sequential injection from untimed to sequential/semi sequential it will fire up beautifully and tick over steadily at 850/900rpm, but any touch of the throttle will stall it. I have dropped req. fuel from 14.1 to 11 and in the ve table i've dropped the bottom left 4 cells from 28,28,26,22 to24,24,24,22 and the row above from 38,37,36,32 to 34,33,32,32. Can someone tell me if I should be using untimed injection or semi/sequential.

[mad_pete]

Is there an idle control valve in the mix? I had trouble with mine on its response settings I think. 

[mik711]

Yep the stepper on the back of the plenum. I'm figuring its working as wue seems to be working but the garage man has one hanging about somewhere that he's going to swap out to see if theres any difference.

[Bowie69]

Sequential or not depends on your wiring, though I suspect untimed, or banked injection is what you want. 

If you don't have a camshaft trigger, then it is banked. 

And yes, disable the closed loop idle, it will only serve to mess things up at this point, one for much later down the road. 

Your fueling seems very lean, what pump, regulator, injectors are you using?

Have you changed the ecu mode to Map or still on tps? 

[mik711]

With the closed loop idle I can set the controller to none in idle valve type in the startup/idle settings unless theres another way to disable it. the pump is a range rover efi pump,  standard  regulator and injectors. certainly running rich at tickover(not quite eye stinging now but still rich) I tried turning map off in map settings as I don't have anything connected but ms2 puts a warning up on screen that it must be on. Even with it on I still get tps up the side of the graph.

[FridgeFreezer]

Pretty sure MS2 can't do sequential injection and very much doubt yours is wired up for it even if it could.

Does your MS2 have an ID sticker / configuration sticker or serial number anywhere on it? I feel like we've come into this story half way through and don't know the history... has it ever worked properly in this car / with this setup or is this a fresh install? The fact this has been set to TPS makes me think someone's futzed around with this without really knowing what they're doing so all the settings are suspect as far as we know. As has been said, the way MS1 and MS2 work is the same, so maps & base settings from MS1 are pretty transferable to MS2, TunerStudio might even do it for you.

The idle hunting is either the idle stepper or just improper settings for closed-loop idle, as Bowie says turn all that off until the thing can start & run & idle pretty much on its own and only then start fiddling with the "nice to have" stuff.

Put the base settings to whatever Nige gave you and don't change more than 1 thing at a time, also remember MS can't fix electrical wiring, mechanical problems, or faulty sensors so check everything looks sensible before altering the tuning to compensate for some issue or other.

[mik711]

The full ms2 kit including harness, IAT sensor, trigger wheel, brackets and ECU  were bought brand new from Nigels emporium and after fitting the 4.2 and auto box in the 1985 90 pick up they were all fitted according to Nige's instruction manual. the kit included a short length of silicone hose to replace the old one on the FPR to plenum(by the idle stepper). There is no mention in the fitting instructions of a MAP pipe to the ECU nor was anything supplied in the kit. The only things changed in the ECU mapping is REQ fuel dropped from 14.1 to 11 and the cells in the bottom left corner as mentioned above. There is a NB lambda fitted but disabled in EGO control. All the graphs in tuner studio seem to have TPS on the vertical axis and as there is no mention of MAP in instructions i assumed this was correct. I can get back to the garage on monday and try with the idle control switched to none.

[Bowie69]

Go back to Nige, suspect you are just missing the map hose. 

I've never mucked with tps fuel/ignition maps, because they are primarily designed for race, not road cars. 

 

[mik711]

Ok. Will give Nige a bell in the morning. I take it you get a tee piece and take it from the pipe on the FPR to the ECU? Is it still worth switching the idle stepper off or should I wait for the MAP to be connected before I do anything else.

[mik711]

P.S. It definitely isn't a race car!!

[Bowie69]

Just turn off the closed loop control of idle, that'll sort the idle valve out, though most bouncing is due to fuel or ignition.

[mik711]

There doesn't appear to be anywhere to turn off closed loop control, I can just choose closed loop or open loop or in idle control set the idle valve type to none.

[Bowie69]

Open loop. 

[FridgeFreezer]

Pretty sure there should've been a tiiiny little tee-piece for the silicone hose but very easy to miss or fall out of the bag.

[mik711]

Cheers Bowie69, will set it to open loop then. FF. I've looked through everything and no hose or tee piece. As I said earlier, because it wasn't mentioned in the instructions I figured that ms2 didn't need MAP for its calculations. It's only from looking on here at ms1 stuff and my graphs having TPS instead that I realised I may be missing something (Been said about me before). Will get to the garage again tomorrow and update the owner about whats going on. He's sorting out an engineers report for me as DVLA weren't happy with me sending off the logbook for changes of engine capacity and fuel without one. Wish I'd known that five weeks ago! On a side note I'd just like to say that before I took this project on I scoured the internet and various forums for info and this site and others gave me the confidence (hopefully not misplaced) to take the plunge not just with megasquirt but the engine swap as well. Engine positioning, what exhaust what rad etc Without you people I'd be lost. Thanks.

[mik711]

just been on Niges Megasquirt website and due to an operation he's closed until Jan 4th. Could someone on here be able to supply me with the information for tee piece size and hose bore needed for the MAP setup.

[FridgeFreezer]

It's literally a standard little plastic or brass tee piece that fits into the fuel pressure reg pipe, from memory it's about 4mm bore - halfords screenwash plumbing department might even have something, just make sure it's not got a one-way valve in it as many do.

Failing that I may have one I can post you, I'll invoice Nige for it later

[mik711]

I figured about about 4mm I/D as well. Can get a brass tee piece from eblag for about £2.00, add some silicone vacuum hose and it comes to about a tenner. I'll get it ordered right now. cheers.

[mik711]

So, a quick update on the progress made so far. MAP all connected up and the ecu running off that rather than TPS. The car fires up on the second turn of the key and the ASE and WUE have it idling at 1150/1200rpm and dropping to a steady 850rpm once warm. Had a go at the WUE autotune this morning so will see if its any better on the next cold start. It deviated slightly higher than the original curve on the graph so I'll see what happens. MAP is reading about 39/40kpa on tickover and I've been round the hoses, plenum etc. with easy start to check for any leaks and all seems good. Had a drive round the garage yard and it was rough! Switched autotune on and did a couple of laps, bit of reversing etc. and compared the new ve table with the old and burned the results to the ecu. Noticeable difference. Far smoother but running rich still. The trouble is I'm only hitting the top left corner of the graph and can't do anything about that until I can get it on the road on the way to the mot station. If I run analyze live whilst on the way there it will update the ecu as i drive and I could burn to the ecu once there. I could then fiddle with the ve table at the revs where they will be testing the emissions to get it a little leaner and hopefully pass, or i could drop the req fuel a little to achieve the same result but across the table. The garage its in at the moment has a gas analyzer so I may be able to get it somewhere near before I get out on the road. Should I be touching the req fuel setting at all or not . Seems to be differing views on this across the forum, some say yes others don't touch. Opinions welcome and thanks for them all in advance.