is it worth doing some custom electronics?

[vnstu]

...An iPhone ECU would be unreal! and the ultimate anti theft device, don't have your iphone, can't steal your car...

there's already a megasquirt thingie which uses your iphone to monitor/tune the megasquirt. I dont know how far it goes. But the idea would be to have some limited electronics in the car who's job it is to convert the sensor data into a digital feed you can pump up into the iphone for processing. And yeah... pull your phone, and good luck getting the car started. Although it's a pain if your missus wants to borrow the car...

putting money into any of these cars is a waste cause youll never get it back if you ever sell

yeah dont I know it. I ran some numbers the other day, the car has cost me like $20k over the past 5 years or so, mostly petrol

but it's hard to tinker like this on the newer cars. The vn is pretty basic electronically, there's room for playing...

Digital MAP gauge, Digital temp.gauge, Tripmeter, datalogger, gear indicator...

not too hard, thought about it all for the digital dash. It's mostly just a case of using an appropriate a2d, then dealing with the rest in software on the micro.

Rather than full hybrid maybe start with alternator cut out...

I definitely wont be starting with full hybrid... ;-)

DBW

Thought about it, something to work towards, definitely.

Tripmeter, MPGuidino style

i've had a serious think about this one. If you're gonna tinker to try and improve fuel economy, it would be nice to actually know what your economy is... The trick is knowing how much fuel you have, and how much you're using. Maybe between fuel pressure and injector duty cycle you could figure out your fuel consumption.

A sequential injection add-on board for the Delco would be cool because then you could change the phasing of the injection wrt the inlet valve opening for best economy and/or power.

yeah and it wouldnt be hard to do, a 4-gas sensor or some such up the tail pipe and you could just manually tune the phase, then just store the settings...

my worry is that it might be kind of pointless with the vn manifold/injector/head set up. If the injectors are too far up the runners then it'll be harder to make a difference. Thing is, i've had it all in pieces on my bench, and never paid attention to exactly where the fuel ends up in the runner...thoughts anyone?

Also... the vt runs sequential I believe? What's the chances of the vt 5.0 manifold fitting on a vn?

I would like to do is when the injection shuts off on over-run, at low speeds have the torque converter lock so that you can go down to even lower speeds without the engine staling.

hell yeah. This is something that even my skeptical old mechanic of a father likes. I was thinking just manual override for now... a hold down button somewhere convenient...so many times when i'm rolling down a hill too fast and I downchange the auto to save a bit of fuel..

 

[vnstu]

I would like to do is when the injection shuts off on over-run, at low speeds have the torque converter lock so that you can go down to even lower speeds without the engine stalling.

good place to start I think. This is the simplest to make, and other stuff can be added over time.

So a little daughter board which has the injector driver and the torque converter lockout going through it. Might want the tacho pulse as well to stop it stalling...And i'll have the micro dump the duty cycle of the injectors at the same time to a datalogger so I can start playing with the fuel economy thing.

Potential issue I can see...

the drivers the delco are using... i'm guessing they aint small, might need to be careful not to fry electronics if i'm going to intercept that...

how the delco reacts when I shut down the injectors without it's permission...i may have to fake some signals back to it to keep it happy

finding out just when you can lock out the torque converter and get away with it...

anything else?

 

[savage1987]

Lean cruise can be enabled in the VN V8 memcals I'm pretty sure ... doesn't take much hardware or $$ outlay to tune yourself

or greenfoam enabled it in my old VR (wasn't present in the HSV 185i memcal), and I'm pretty sure in my VN 304 also... does make a difference fuel economy wise.

That's all I can be of assistance with
Sam

 

[Cheap6]

not too hard, thought about it all for the digital dash. It's mostly just a case of using an appropriate a2d, then dealing with the rest in software on the micro.

I have already done the MAP readout with just a voltage divider and an LCD. You wouldn't do it that way if you wanted to put it up in a bigger LCD screen with other readouts of course. I did need to consider that anything connected to the sensor voltages needs to high impedence to avoid altering the signal (> 10M Ohms). A=>D would be OK I think.

i've had a serious think about this one. If you're gonna tinker to try and improve fuel economy, it would be nice to actually know what your economy is... The trick is knowing how much fuel you have, and how much you're using. Maybe between fuel pressure and injector duty cycle you could figure out your fuel consumption.

Have you had a look at the code for the MPGuino? Because the pressure difference between manifold and fuel pressure (absolute pressures) is held constant by the reg., a simple integration of injector pulse width times flow rate is all that's required to calc. fuel consumption. That's how the OEM tripmeter does it also. I think that the MPGuino does use a correction to account for lower flow during injector opening and closing.

Also... the vt runs sequential I believe? What's the chances of the vt 5.0 manifold fitting on a vn?

It should just bolt on and may even be no different to VN. I can't help but think that simply wiring in a VT computer is going to be easier than modding the '808 (not as much fun of course). The VT sequential has an additional Hall sensor in the distributor to detect cam position which is required for the sequential operation so I think that you're going to need that anyway. Otherwise, you could have the sequential injector firing but it's 50:50 as to whether you're firing against an open or closed inlet valve.

hell yeah. This is something that even my skeptical old mechanic of a father likes. I was thinking just manual override for now... a hold down button somewhere convenient...so many times when i'm rolling down a hill too fast and I downchange the auto to save a bit of fuel..

If you want to see where you can use the TCC lock up outside the current parameters, you might want to try connecting a switch off the ALDL connnector before getting into the ECM or add on. There is a pin to that connecting directly to the TCC lock up solenoid earth connector, in parallel with the ECM, so you only need to switch that to earth. I don't know which one off the top off my head. You can't "unapply" the TCC but you can apply it regardless of ECM apply.

What you will find is that if you engage the TCC at too low a road speed, you will get a driveline shudder. I don't know if this does damage but I wasn't too keen to find out so didn't push it. I haven't tried (I can't) altering the fuel cut on decel. in conjunction with the TCC.

Hyundai Ecel tail light harness connectors plug straight onto the ALDL if you want to make it neat but for the purposes of testing individual pins would be OK I'm sure.

good place to start I think. This is the simplest to make, and other stuff can be added over time.

So a little daughter board which has the injector driver and the torque converter lockout going through it. Might want the tacho pulse as well to stop it stalling...And i'll have the micro dump the duty cycle of the injectors at the same time to a datalogger so I can start playing with the fuel economy thing.

Potential issue I can see...

the drivers the delco are using... i'm guessing they aint small, might need to be careful not to fry electronics if i'm going to intercept that...

how the delco reacts when I shut down the injectors without it's permission...i may have to fake some signals back to it to keep it happy

finding out just when you can lock out the torque converter and get away with it...

anything else?

The '808 has two injector drivers but they are wired in parallel in the car harness.

Yes, I think that you will need to dummy an O2 sensor signal as per your earlier post. Not sure what frequency - cross counts in GM speak - is required.

 

[328FTW]

time, plenty. money, none.

yeah it was the megasquirt i was thinking of porting over to arm9 so it would run on an iphone or andriod.

not so keen to do something off the shelf tbh...making new stuff and getting it to work is where i get my kicks.

turbos ftw... but looking in my engine bay, i sometimes think now neatly a centrifugal supercharger would sit where the alternator is currently and throw straight into the throttle body...

but no mechanical mods for the time being - sticking to electronics mods.

It's hardly off the shelf, even comes with a prototype area for making you own circuits onto the unit itself. People do custom nitrous control, boost control, datalogging, antilag. If you knew your stuff you could even do a cylinder shutoff but getting the ratios right and a smooth feel would be a bitch. Mine I messed around with launch control and other do dads. It is a really flexible system.

 

[vnstu]

on hol for the moment, the tailshaft cv shattered on the way to work yesterday...

 

[vnstu]

so i picked up a spare delco ecu while at the wreckers for $20 - should keep me busy for a while.

 

[Circlotron]

$20? That's good.
Do they charge different prices for 4/6/8 cyl 808s? I know it's quite easy to convert one to another, particularly ones without a knock sensor, but I imagine they would charge the earth for a V8 one and perhaps almost give away Camira and N13 Pulsar ones.

 

[Lost_Pete]

As a learning experience your ideas are a great way to understand modern electronics on cars. We built a number of add on modules over a 15 years period to do much of these things. One of the projects was a natural gas powered car V8 VP Commodore so we had to control the gas injectors as well as the petrol ones so that the transition was smooth. The good thing about working on our older cars is that the ECU is not as complex as new cars so they won't detect your module and throw trouble codes.

I suggest you think about the microprocessor you are comfortable with and have the tools to program. Then find a factory manual as they have all the signals and an explanation of the sensors. Build your board and initially piggy back it onto the Delco ECU. Your code should allow you to monitor the ECU and sensors signals. Then take over the signal and just replicate it. Finally modify the signal.

 

[Circlotron]

Of course it will all work just fine on the bench, but once you get it in the car with it's storm of electrical noise, all bets are off. Q.E.D.