2012 TTS Tuning with engine changes

[mayor]

I'm looking at the ScanDataTest1-059, I'm watching the few pings we had.

1. I'm seeing the rear SparkAdv dropping

2.  Map rising

and then right after that it pings, is my timing dropping off or is it the bike
pulling back the timing to protect the engine??

yes, generally as load increases the spark advance reduces. I say generally since the spark temp correction table does typically reduce the 80-90 kPa MAP ranges more than 95-100 kPa MAP ranges. 

The knock retard event is the reduction of timing based on the adaptive knock retard system.   The knock retard event you see may not be an actual ping, but rather a pre-ping (sensed ION change) that is a precursor to a ping.  The knock retard pulled the timing because the conditions were there, doesn't mean it occurred but just meant it could occur.  Yes, this is a safety feature, but there may not have been a risk to the engine if the knock retard hadn't occurred (meaning if it were turned off).  Many performance guys prefer not to run this feature, since it limits the aggressiveness of the timing slopes.  The thing we are trying to do is limit the times the ecm pulls timing, since each time that occurs you are loosing power and engine smoothness suffers as well. 

Looks like most of it was a high Map area in the open loop??

yea, most was just on the edge of closed/open.  Some were firmly in the open loop (mid-90's kPa) though. 

So do we adjust the timing for that area??

yes/no.  Most areas that were having the knock retard events were correlating with dips in the ve tables, so my guess is it's mostly ve related issues.  There were a couple events that looks like they were timing related (too rapid timing increase rate), but most looked to be VE related. I had these areas a little higher in cal -053, but the latest round of vtuning brought the dip back.  The dip is just on the outside edge of vtuning (~80 kPa type loads), which places it right at the closed loop/open loop area. 

If this is your weekend to get away don't worry about it, it's not that far out that
we can't ride it.

yea, I will have limited access to the internet from this Saturday to Wednesday. 

most of the knock retard events seemed to be around 2,400 and 80 kPa.  try this cal. 

[attachment removed after 60 days by system]

[Thumper Buttercup]

Thanks for the answer Mike,

   I was making the ping larger then doing it again and looking at the pattern, it looked
close each time what I was seeing.

   We'll give this a go, I'll look at the changes you made and see what it up.

You guys get out and have a good one, hope the bike runs good for you.


Mark & Kim

[FLTRI]

FWIW, it is my understanding that the Delphi ION sensing system is a reactive system not a preemptive system.

In other words the system sends some 400 volts to the secondary portion of the coil (spark) and reads what voltage is returned then identifies a poor combustion (detonation/ping) event and proceeds to reduce timing IIIRC 2 degs at a time until combustion normalizes or runs out of degs in the calibration's lookup table.

For the above reason I don't think the system can "see it coming" and preemptively pull timing to preclude the detonation event from happening.

That said, a disclaimer comes with knowledge that sometimes, due to variables the system does not know of or have any way to compensate for, it will cause false retards. Aftermarket spark plug wires, different sparkplugs, and various cylinder pressures, can affect the accuracy of the ION system and it is amazing to me that it works as well as it does with all the variables we throw at it.

Also I do not believe in disarming the knock sensing system unless the bike will be operated at the track and monitored for detonation.

IMO it's just not worth the chance of a really hot 100+ day, stuck in stop and go traffic ruining my day and my rings. Or 150 miles on "Potty mouth"ty gas that causes the engine to detonate/ping every time the throttle is advanced causing excessive combustion temperatures.
(ie: normal EGT is 1000degs. detonation/ping can raise the temps to over 1800degs, which usually, if left that high long enough, will cause the rings to anneal losing seal at the cylinder wall...until they are replaced.

Bob

Bob

[mayor]

FWIW, it is my understanding that the Delphi ION sensing system is a reactive system not a preemptive system.

In other words the system sends some 400 volts to the secondary portion of the coil (spark) and reads what voltage is returned then identifies a poor combustion (detonation/ping) event and proceeds to reduce timing IIIRC 2 degs at a time until combustion normalizes or runs out of degs in the calibration's lookup table.

For the above reason I don't think the system can "see it coming" and preemptively pull timing to preclude the detonation event from happening.

yes, reactive to ION feedback, but that ION feedback is indicating that a the conditions exist for the onset of knock (preemptive to the knock).  If the ION sensing only pulled timing after a knock occurred, what value would that bring.  I'm sure that there are knock retard events occurring where the ION sensing did not occur fast enough prior to the knock to limit the knock from occurring, but from what I understand the ION sensing knock retard is based on preventing the knock from occurring (or at least softening the knock event if the knock is inevitable).   

here's a great post from FBRR on this subject:

I hesitate to jump in here....but here goes.
First why do you calibrate to just below "ping" or knock? And not just tune for best torque?
The truth is it depends on cams and combustion chamber, BUT most engines are KNOCK LIMITED! That is at high speed and loads you reach the knock limit before you reach the MBT limit! If you can get to MBT before knock, there is no reason not to have MBT! But for those chamber /cam combinations you simply cannot "tune" MBT as the chamber will KNOCK before that happens.
The second question that has come up is why not just add SPARK and let the knock system take it out?
As many have noted from KNOCK discussions, you never really want to depend on the knock system to select best spark.
The system is made to keep the chamber from knocking!   As such when knock is detected the system OVER reacts then adds the spark back in! If you have even 1 or 2 degrees TOO much spark AT A GIVEN speed and load, when you "activate" the knock detection the system will PULL MORE than 2 degrees then slowly ( compared to fast attack) feed spark back in.
Can you imagine how that would feel going down the road at a detection point with say 5 or 6 degree too much spark! Being removed and then back in then out again! It can be felt if you start "running" on the detection limit.
Then there is the issue of long term retard, where if you have too much spark at a given speed and load and the system starts pulling spark over time, soon you are retarding spark EVEN at speed and loads not "over sparked" from long term GLOBAL retard! Not a good idea either. So you are left trying to keep the system "JUST BELOW" knock (or PING) simply because at many points in the Spark Map you are KNOCK LIMITED!!

so, it's not like the system is clairvoyant, and that was not what I was suggesting.  It simply looks at the conditions (reactive) and determines that the conditions exist that indicate that knock is likely to occur if it takes no action, so it takes action (preemptive). 

[mayor]

You guys get out and have a good one, hope the bike runs good for you.

no bike this time.     My wife wanted to see the big apple, and taking the bikes there was impractical.   

[Thumper Buttercup]

Hope you guys have a good one!!!!


Do I need to vtune and rework or work harder in the 80% WOT area??

Would this help or we just at a point now were we are tweaking?


Bob, thanks for your input again I'm making the knock area as big as I can and
I am seeing things happen (patterns) and a dim light bulb will flash and I go,
OK I see the same thing happening (a pattern?) before the knock and go OK now
what .

[mayor]

Do I need to vtune and rework or work harder in the 80% WOT area??

Would this help or we just at a point now were we are tweaking?

no, you do not need more vtuning.  The problem areas are the 80 kPa areas, not to be confused with 80% tps.  Accurate VE data with Vtuning is limited to only slightly greater than 80 kPa (~83 or so), so more vtuning is not going to help.  Furthermore, the vtuning appears to want to populate the ve's low (this is just my opinion, obviously we haven't sampled the area so we do not know), which could be due to reversion confusing the sensor. 

We are simply tweaking based on the info that we have, trying to make educated decisions of whether a knock retard occured due to timing or fuel needs. Pro tuners have the ability to sample afr in these condistions, so that eliminates the fuel side of the equation.  Since we have no ability to sample, we simply use the vtuned ve's as a guideline when dealing with open loop areas.     

[FLTRI]

Mike, sorry for hacking your message but it seems easier to make my point.

FWIW, it is my understanding that the Delphi ION sensing system is a reactive system not a preemptive system.

In other words the system sends some 400 volts to the secondary portion of the coil (spark) and reads what voltage is returned then identifies a poor combustion (detonation/ping) event and proceeds to reduce timing IIIRC 2 degs at a time until combustion normalizes or runs out of degs in the calibration's lookup table.

yes, reactive to ION feedback, but that ION feedback is indicating that a the conditions exist for the onset of knock (preemptive to the knock) a poor combustion event that has occurred.  If the ION sensing only pulled timing after a knock occurred, what value would that bring?

It is valuable because it has adaptive retard (long term) that AFTER identifying a poor combustion enough it will remember (long term) what it took to get rid of the poor combustion until the ignition has been recycled, as with refilling the tank. It was really designed for identifying poor fuel grade (detonation/ping) and pulling appropriate timing until the vehicle gets new fuel.
Short term retard (ie: high heat/load times) ignition timing will always return to mapped timing.

I'm sure that there are knock retard events occurring where the ION sensing did not occur fast enough prior to the knock...

This is the "brrring" (ping) that occurs when the throttle is quickly advanced...that goes away after about .1 sec. This is the ION system REACTING to poor combustion.
If there is a preemptive feature it is for FUTURE poor combustions the system tries to eliminate.

The system is made to keep the chamber from knocking!   As such when knock is detected the system OVER reacts then adds the spark back in!

It simply looks at the conditions (reactive) and determines that the conditions exist that indicate that knock is likely to occur has occurred...

Again, the only way the system can work is to react to a poor combustion in an attempt to preempt the "next" events by holding back timing either short term or long term.
It has no way to read ION for a combustion that has not occurred.
Bob
PS - Maybe we are saying the same thing?

[mayor]

ok, in reading your last comments and thinking about where it seems that we may be disagreeing, let's be clear on what we do agree with:

1. When the data recording shows a knock retard event, the trigger happened prior to the actual knock retard (reactive).  The event can be anywhere from the exact frame from the recording that the timing was reduced, or quite a few frames prior to the timing being reduced.  The trigger event may even not show up in the recording until after the frame with the first knock retard, since the speed of the recording may not show the trigger event real time. 

2. The adaptive knock retard uses data it collects during the combustion process to determine when it should make a timing adjustment.  It does not read ION's prior to combustion.  The system is constantly monitoring the combustion process looking for potential trouble.   

3.  The ION sensing is reacting to what it perceives as poor combustion potential when it triggers a timing retard. 


I think where we disagree is whether the trigger itself is because of an actual sensed knock, or the potential to a knock event.  You may very well be right that it can only be defined as a knock, but my understanding is it is monitoring conditions and when the conditions indicate that a knock could occur the timing retard is activated prior to the next spark fire.  The ION sensing is monitoring real time during the combustion process, so the indicator can occur prior to knock actually happening therefore the knock itself is avoided.  The ION sensing does indicate that poor combustion is occurring, but I think it tries to take action prior to a knock (preemptive).  What I mean by this is the ION sensing may notice that the ION readings indicate that a knock is likely, so it pulls timing prior to the next spark fire in order to try an avoid the knock from occuring.  Make sense?  am I still wrong? 

[Thumper Buttercup]

Hey Mike,

   We just got in the door but we ran the same route got 41.1 mpg.  But Bike is running rough
like it did that other tune a while back, front end shaking, you can fee the roughness in the engine
when downshifting with the clutch for breaking and there was roughness in the lower rpm areas.

   We did find our HPI breathers had blocked up, we had a failure of the o-rings and they sent us
an new improved setup with a different o-rng setup.  We checked them a few times and the
breathers are really working now.  We are wondering if we will need to V-tune to work this out??

You guys have a good time.  We'll bug you when you get back, I won't even tease you with the
data until you guys get back.


Dumb question, is there anything to the tunemyharley software, does it really work??  Would it
help us??

[mayor]

Since you had an engine breathing issue, maybe the ve's aren't right anymore.  Try cal 59 again, to see if that one is rough as well, just to make sure cal 60 wasn't messed up.  I didn't change much, but you never know.  If 59 is rough too, go ahead and vtune cal 60.  If 59 is not rough, then run it until i get back. 

I can't speak for tunemyharley software, never played with it.

[Thumper Buttercup]

Hey Mike,

   I was in a hurry but noticed that the idle is open loop again, I think I am
going to put her back in closed loop she had a better idle.  Yesterday we did
an initial run on the lift with the 60 cal ( and yes I did not take a close look at it until now )
I had burped the throttle and she died and was hard to start this was when she had gotten
good and hot.

We'll try it and have something by the time you get back.

You two take care.

[mayor]

I was in a hurry but noticed that the idle is open loop again, I think I am
going to put her back in closed loop she had a better idle. 

  what's your idle MAP?  the afr on that cal is closed loop down to 30 kPa, the whole way down to 750 rpm. 

[glens]

Mayor, I don't have access to the "private" engineering documentation but I'd have to suggest you're not entirely correct about the Ion Sense implementation.

The system itself cannot know anything about the state of combustion until current is passed through the already-ongoing combustion process via the plug's gap, and the information so obtained is analyzed.  I'm confident we both understand that correctly.

I'd be very surprised if the level of sophistication is present in our system to determine on the fly that detonation is almost but not quite present.  Delphi's publicly available generic description only shows waveforms for normal combustion, misfire, and "knock".

In a sense I think you're correct about the system aiding the ECM in preventing knock, but that's only when knock has already occurred and been detected on a regular basis under certain conditions and the ECM has had a chance to learn what those conditions are and what its response was.  In a very real "sense" the Ion Sense subsystem itself is no different than an O2 sensor in that it does nothing but report what it's already seeing take place.  Again, I'd be (pleasantly) surprised if the EFI system as a whole contained enough sophistication to determine when knock is just about to but didn't quite yet occur.

[mayor]

you and Bob may very well be correct, but I would expect think that the ION current flow doesn't just change during knock.  I'm making an assumption that the current flow has a signature that the system can recognize just prior to the knock, and that signature is what the system designed to be reactive to.   

[FLTRI]

...I'm making an assumption that the current flow has a signature that the system can recognize just prior to the knock, and that signature is what the system designed to be reactive to.   

If the above assumption is true...why is there always a short (.1-.2sec) "brrring" ring of detonation before the system reacts by reducing timing alleviating detonation?

The system, as designed, works very well for its intended purpose...to save the engine from occasional bad gas quality...not to save an engine from an overly aggressive timing map...though is has many times that I've seen.

Don't get me wrong. I would rather have a system that can distinguish between what will be a poor combustion and what will not.
Bob

[Thumper Buttercup]

I was in a hurry but noticed that the idle is open loop again, I think I am
going to put her back in closed loop she had a better idle. 

  what's your idle MAP?  the afr on that cal is closed loop down to 30 kPa, the whole way down to 750 rpm.

Mike I'm talking about the AFR map being 14.6 in the idle area and letting the bike work the idle
the bike idled really rough like it did back on June 30th this year with that cal.

Don't worry about it, I'll make two cals for tomorrow one based on cal 59 and one on cal 60 and
have them both ready and see how it goes for vtuning.

We will ride our loop on Tuesday and test our results, the rest of the week looks bad for riding until
Saturday.

Catch you later in the week, you guys have a great time.

[Thumper Buttercup]

We'll guys,

After all the drama the last two years I think we are down to a little tweaking for fuel mileage.

We started the day with this cal Vtune-061  https://www.box.com/s/b16f7e0330ddaddcbcbb

We did our first run VtuneData-061  https://www.box.com/s/88039f67be7064a4602a


There were a few changes there but no real dark ones, so we went with the new
Vtune-062  https://www.box.com/s/a4db9430a0115f85e9ff

I decided this was it, we were going to run it out and finish this with this run, it
looked good in the end, we made this a long run and worked it until all of it looked good.
VtuneData-062  https://www.box.com/s/f54a6d5768f5628d3ff2

The cal it generated looked good, so we created a new cal with this data and
named it Cal  Ready-064   https://www.box.com/s/0ee76cb1d5be020b66ca

We'll I'm sorry to report guys we ran this one for 72 miles running 65 mph to over 72 mph
on hills pulling and could not get the bike to ping.  The exhaust is quieter than the other day
and our idle is much smoother.  We only got 37 mpg running this and I was not overly hard
on the bike but we will see.

Here is the data from that last run.  ScanData-064  https://www.box.com/s/116edd593d473ff25862


We will run our loop tomorrow and do some more testing.

All these files are together in a new file folder "Wraping up Tuning"

https://www.box.com/s/a7e16cd43dd2a138d254


You guys have a great one


Mike I hope you guys are having a great time.


Mark & Kim

[Thumper Buttercup]

We'll we ran our loop today 152 miles of mixed 55 & 65 mph for 41.1 mpg

First run this afternoon no knocking.

ScanData1Test814-064   https://www.box.com/s/0977658dbe28b8e52eb2

Second run this one is mostly 55 mph with some hills that I try to load the throttle
up the hills in 5th to see if she will ping.  We did get two different pings one multiple
on the second hill.

ScanData2Test814-064   https://www.box.com/s/57b1298d034a36716eb6


So now that we are at the end of the tuning how do we adjust the bike to get a little
more MPG.

Looking Monday to run our normal loop and get her out on the interstate and see how
she does.

Bike is running good. 

[mayor]

I was in a hurry but noticed that the idle is open loop again, I think I am
going to put her back in closed loop she had a better idle. 

  what's your idle MAP?  the afr on that cal is closed loop down to 30 kPa, the whole way down to 750 rpm.

I'm talking about the AFR map being 14.6 in the idle area and letting the bike work the idle
the bike idled really rough like it did back on June 30th this year with that cal.

The idle was in closed loop, that was the point I was trying to make.  The issue you was having was directly related to running in closed loop.  I think your vtuning was adding too much fuel and cooling down the sensors, and the cooled sensors were telling the ecm that you were lean and needed more fuel. My guess is this new cal will be as bad if not worse as the one prior to vtuning, based on what the ve's look like. 

Here's your ve's from cal -062:

I do not believe that the ve's in the circled areas are correct, and I think that this will cause overly rich conditions that will make the bike stumble when these cells become active. 

try vtuning the attached file.  I reduced the ve's to see if they were too high and cooling the sensors.  The only thing you should be working on is from idle up to 2,500 rpm.  Do not worry about vtuning above 2,500 rpm.  I reduced the idle down to 800 rpm, so it may not like idling so much until you get the ve's dialed in.

[attachment removed after 60 days by system]

[Thumper Buttercup]

OK it is registering this time .   I guess it takes pictures to get through to me .

[mayor]

So now that we are at the end of the tuning how do we adjust the bike to get a little
more MPG.

good question, but that's one that I can't answer at this point.  The majority of your riding is already in closed lope (~14.54 afr), and your bike hasn't responded well to more advanced timing.  Short of tweaking the AE table (which isn't very active), I'm not sure what else to do to improve your mileage.  Hopefully Steve, Bob or one of the other pro tuners can help with that. 

[FLTRI]

Another v-tune to see where those Mike-modified/lowered VEs in the suspect EGR/rpm/load/tp area end up.
If the VEs return to high values, poor O2 signalling is the issue.
Bob

[Thumper Buttercup]

OK,

We rechecked our exhaust again and re-tightened the nuts on them all good.

We took the bike out, I'm having monitor issues on the handlebar monitor, but I got
this much before it died.  Hope it was enough.



Here is the vtunedata-065 file  https://www.box.com/s/196424f8ec389f18ecf4

Looking at the VE's and the change we may have had an exhaust issue

Going back to to the shop to troubleshoot the monitor.


Bob, Mike we really appreciate the time and the help

[mayor]

That looks like it should work, go ahead and accept that, and make another run when you get the monitor fixed.