EM: Engine management

[WormGod]

I recall some time ago, a member was also an employee with GM or such and was looking into an engine access module. This never appeared to have went through. I am about to take my WRX to a local tuner and have an EM done (after exhaust and some other things are done). I am very interested in finding out if something can be done for the VX. I am gonna ask these guys about the VX and show them the S/C (not installed YET STILL, hahaha) and see what they think about installation and possibly coming up with any EM ideas.

If anyone already knows something more, share the info. :)

[Ldub]

That was looooong ago...
I believe it was "Featherfoot" who was the one looking into that.

[Anita]

John Finnell "Featherfoot" retired from the business a while ago. I havent talked to him for over two years now so I dont know how he is doing - I know there were some health issues. John also was the creator of Power Vault Mufflers.

[Tone]

Alpine says they have a Uni Chip that will work but too much more power will trash the tranny and there are NO performance parts for it.

[Tobert]

There's always megasquirt ;)

megasquirt.info

[Joe_Black]

Yup, Megasquirt is the way to go.

[MoonRaker]

Ive been working with the greaddy E manage ultimate for some time on my Mazda, I was thinking of trying one on the VX to see if it will work. Acording to the manual it says isuzu. Since my warrentys done im thinking a S/C settup, why not I have one on my RX-8, RXP [jetski] and work at a high performance shop. I havent read around much on the sight, whats been done and whats been broken because of it. How are the alpine kits, i dont like the fact that there none intercooled.

[MZ-N10]

Ive been working with the greaddy E manage ultimate for some time on my Mazda, I was thinking of trying one on the VX to see if it will work. Acording to the manual it says isuzu. Since my warrentys done im thinking a S/C settup, why not I have one on my RX-8, RXP [jetski] and work at a high performance shop. I havent read around much on the sight, whats been done and whats been broken because of it. How are the alpine kits, i dont like the fact that there none intercooled.


if u want intercooled u could wait for Morgan-tec for his sc kit.

[WormGod]

It CAN be done, as the MoonCraft VX did it, but wow was that pipe routing a rat nest. A front bumper clip also had to be created to extend the front end for the FMIC. I would LOVE to throw a turbo into the VX, but I am skeptical about an automatic tranny with use of a turbo. It just takes the FUN out of the whole driving experience without manual shifting with that boost, heh. I have been in serious internal debate about adding a FMIC to my WRX but from my research, nothing is gonna beat a solid TMIC with the factory scoop design. Owing a WRX that is made to be modded only creates a larger void for me when it comes to the VX. So much can be done to one, but I want to incorporate it all into the other as well. *sigh*

[Joe_Black]

What we've been planning on the rally VX is smaller dual turbos feeding an intercooler mounted on top of the engine and fed by a low-profile hood scoop. The intercooler would be about 6 square feet and of a dual-inlet single outlet design, which are common in a variety of sizes. This keeps plumbing short, simple and efficient. Planned engine management is Megasquirt since it's supported, open source and uses no exotic components.

[Tobert]

Planned engine management is Megasquirt since it's supported, open source and uses no exotic components.

Are you going to piggyback it to keep TOD or come up with a separate TOD controller? I've read that you can run a second megasquirt with different firmware to do automatic transmission control, so it's possible that it could run TOD. Since they ported the firmware back to C, any reasonably competent C programmer (with some embedded experience) should be able to make it fly.

Most people just piggyback though.

[Joe_Black]

The 5-speed manual won't require any input, but the TOD control will use a manual override as on other rally VX's with pre-set torque splits.

For those wanting more power but are concerned with the durability of the 4L30E, take a look at the '04 TOD Axiom and Rodeo which use an Aisin tranny to handle the additional power of the direct injection engines. It's quite beefier than the 4L30E.

[MoonRaker]

It CAN be done, as the MoonCraft VX did it, but wow was that pipe routing a rat nest. A front bumper clip also had to be created to extend the front end for the FMIC. I would LOVE to throw a turbo into the VX, but I am skeptical about an automatic tranny with use of a turbo. It just takes the FUN out of the whole driving experience without manual shifting with that boost, heh. I have been in serious internal debate about adding a FMIC to my WRX but from my research, nothing is gonna beat a solid TMIC with the factory scoop design. Owing a WRX that is made to be modded only creates a larger void for me when it comes to the VX. So much can be done to one, but I want to incorporate it all into the other as well. *sigh*


I havent seen it, if you could post a place for me to check it out. Ive been working with autorotor twin screw superchargers for 2 almost 3 years now, The problem we ran into with air to air I/Cs is a anoying harmonic sound. Im thinking a ford style water to air setup. That hood scoop idea might help with space.

[MZ-N10]

i dont think ur gonna get much out of 2 small twins, other then complexity. thats why most rx7/supra owners ditch the stock twins and go with a large turbo or parellel instead of sequential. if you have an open enough exhaust, turbo lag shouldnt really be an issue with a 3.5.

TMIC r nice but there always the problem of heatsoaking. on a hot day after a few runs the area ontop of the engine might be extremely hot, thats the problem wiht TMIC. the best place to mount the ic is acutally in a V or H mount with the rad and oil coolers, if space allows. V and H mounts allows teh rad/oil/ic to receive maximum cooling without the blockage of a FMIC.

[Joe_Black]

RX7 and Supra owners have to deal with an inline configuration to plumb and place dual turbos, whereas with a V6 arrangement you have one on either side of the engine. This provides for simpler placement, better heat shielding and simplified plumbing. "Heat soak" isn't an issue either as any latent temperature is eliminated as soon as you're flowing a volume of air through the intercooler. With the smaller turbos we're looking for quick, consistent levels of boost less than 10 psi across all RPM ranges. There just isn't any need for larger units, it's overkill and over spending.

We're not following the canon of street racers or the like, but proven motorsports design and fabrication.

[MoonRaker]

Yeh, 2 small turbos would work very good power wise. Id like to go for a ride. Im thinking of 8 or so psi. I like turbo cars alot Ive owned a few but I like driveing and not having to worrie about heat and I tend to break turboed viehicals easyier. The VX takes a good beating, im just worried about if I start, or when I start cutting loss on the project how delicate the VX is going to be in the long run cause I tend to go overkill. Ive had great progress on my RX-8. I still beat the hell out of it and it dosnt beat back or break down. I heard some talk about the tranny, what breaks first, is it only miner band slippage, does it require a teardown and beefup. Or just better cooling. As for management for the tranny, that E-manage Ultimate has an automatic peformance adjustment. It may take some hair pulling to wire up but Im thinking it can be done.

[MoonRaker]

[QUOTE=Joe_Black]
We're not following the canon of street racers or the like, but proven motorsports design and fabrication.


Thats kinda the attitude we have were I work,
pettitracing.com

[MZ-N10]

RX7 and Supra owners have to deal with an inline configuration to plumb and place dual turbos, whereas with a V6 arrangement you have one on either side of the engine. This provides for simpler placement, better heat shielding and simplified plumbing. "Heat soak" isn't an issue either as any latent temperature is eliminated as soon as you're flowing a volume of air through the intercooler. With the smaller turbos we're looking for quick, consistent levels of boost less than 10 psi across all RPM ranges. There just isn't any need for larger units, it's overkill and over spending.

We're not following the canon of street racers or the like, but proven motorsports design and fabrication.

now now...just cause i brought up street cars doesnt mean that wat i said isnt valid. i see ur point on the twins and my mistake, thought u were planning to go sequential. but u should seriously rethink tmic, if u top mount it theres no real advantages other then keeping it out of the dirt/mud, and a shorter ic piping. but its still more prone to heatsoaking, since the car will stand still at one point or another. plus our car isnt built to hold a tmic, after the air passes through the ic its gotta go somewhere. sorry if it seems like im beating a dead horse again and again. i just wanna know why go tmic, rite now i have a t2 rx7 and deciding if i wanna keep the stock tmic or go fmic.

ps. wat size turbos r u planning?

[MoonRaker]

I was looking under the hood doing some fitting in my head, id keep the turbos as high up as possible also go nuts on the temp wrap. I say this because of any water that you hit riskes cracking your exaust houseing on the turbos. As for the I/C have you thought about water to air that way you can mount your heatexchangers any were you want and make the plumming take up less space, even routing your a/c to cool would be worth a try. Who was it that played with that, I think Ford. Just some thoughts. If you want I can look into some of the different water to air I/Cs, do some figuring on size, I think the size were going with would be a good start, there 2 3/4 inches thick by 9" by 6". Were just getting the cores and welding on water and air tanks. The air tank design is important so you dont get hot spots.

[Joe_Black]

now now...just cause i brought up street cars doesnt mean that wat i said isnt valid. i see ur point on the twins and my mistake, thought u were planning to go sequential. but u should seriously rethink tmic, if u top mount it theres no real advantages other then keeping it out of the dirt/mud, and a shorter ic piping. but its still more prone to heatsoaking, since the car will stand still at one point or another. plus our car isnt built to hold a tmic, after the air passes through the ic its gotta go somewhere. sorry if it seems like im beating a dead horse again and again. i just wanna know why go tmic, rite now i have a t2 rx7 and deciding if i wanna keep the stock tmic or go fmic.

ps. wat size turbos r u planning?
No worries, not picking on street cars just noting we're working from a completely different league: Rally. Isuzus have a lot of background with TMIC and if you look at the overseas IC turbo-diesel models they all have TMIC. You get much more surface area, simpler mounting options and greater plumbing flexibility. Heatsoak just isn't even an issue, let alone a concern. With proper radiant shielding on the exhaust components why would you?

As for turbo size we've been eyeing the T20, T22 and T25 range.

MoonRaker: I've been through the ringer with water/air IC's with my XR4Ti/Cosworth hobby. Too heavy, too complex, too inefficient. In some applications they work fine, but the general tradeoffs just aren't anywhere near worth it. In a rally application a water/air IC would likely self-destruct. :p

[MoonRaker]

Have you talked to anyone about getting a diesel from over sees. How much power does it have Hmmm. O, I used to own a XR4ti, that thing was fun but nothing but problems.

[Joe_Black]

The diesels are available from a variety of importers and I had an order lined up for three 4JG2TC units with transmissions and intercoolers, but made the choice instead to enroll our daughter in a private prep school. If only she appreciated the sacrifice more! LOL!

As for power, IIRC it's around 125HP or so and is tunable.

Never had any trouble with the XR4Ti (I now have 5) but had to learn to ask for compatible parts like from the SVO and Thunderbird TC. A lot like a VX! ;)

[MoonRaker]

Yeh, I was in the service when I had mine and couldnt afford to update my XR4ti. It was stock and I didnt have the time and knowlage I have now on fabrication, engine management, and tunning.