ESM Chips - Performance & discussion

[Nige]

Alan,<br><br>Your chip does upgrade performance, perhaps just less than you anticipated owing to the mixture issues.  I have no doubt the work you have already done on A/F ratios should take it a stage further.  As for £100 it is still very good value a little more development and it's exceptional value.  There are plenty out there offering a lot less for a lot more. This debate is working through a lot of issues and we are all gaining.  I'll look at when I could book some Dyno time and let you know so we can discuss what you might want to evaluate, I shrink back from active tuning on a Dyno because I don't know what I'm doing  :'(.<br><br>I still have V2 fitted and have hopefully sorted the inability to get 100% throttle by taking all of the slack out the cable, (new cable required as no more adjustment is left).  I will have elanscan hooked up for my journey home this evening.  Will fit V3 this weekend and do another elanscan run on the return on Sunday.  Will send you the logs either Sunday or Monday when I can transfer them to PC from Laptop and return V2 to you.  Must work out how to post graphs here.<br><br>Nige

[x332race]

Alan<br>Really appreciate the work you are putting in. Would be happy to take a chip in its current state for evaluation and subsequent upgrade if necessary (for additional cost). Alternativly, would be happy to wait until chip developed further.<br>In respect of cost, looking at the commercial alternatives (BBR, Superchip etc), this represents good value.

[ESM]

Nige,<br><br>The other test S2 also shows rather less than 4V at WOT. My blue car gives 4.3V at WOT! Doesn't make it any faster though  :(  BTW still some issues with the V3 chip - with cat in place anyway - should be ok without.<br><br>Alan

[John_W]

[quote author=ElanScanMan link=board=upgrades;num=1092641209;start=30#39 date=08/20/04 at 07:03:59]John I'd be delighted if you and/or others did baselining  dyno runs in order to evaluate the current chips. All that's required is a power curve for each chip of interest. If you have a ZIF socket you can leave the lid off the ECU and swap chips quickly and easily between runs. [/quote]<br>Alan,<br>is this what you mean?  <br><br><br>This came from here http://www.mutr.co.uk/prodDetail.aspx?prodID=878<br>and only costs £10.30. However it's 18-pin (I've no idea how many are needed) and it's obviously not connected to anything, which probably limits its use.<br><br>I called the dyno man (called Rod? - or did I call Dynorod?) and they're shut, so I'll call again tomorrow. I'll ask about doing say 3 runs to measure power curves with different chips, but as you say I need to be able to swap them quick. <br><br>Where can I buy the appropriate ZIF socket which will clip into the ECU? If one is available cheaply enough this will save you posting the thing all over the country to people who want to do dynorod runs. Also if/when I change the exhaust I'd want to do the dyno thing again. Of course if it costs a fortune, I'll forget it.<br><br>John  

[ESM]

John,<br><br>The PROM chip is 28 pin. ZIF sockets can be found here: http://www.rapidelectronics.co.uk/rkmain.asp?PAGEID=80010&CTL_CAT_CODE=&STK_PROD_CODE=M28960&XPAGENO=1<br>Listed at £8.60.<br><br>This one adds too much height to allow the lid to go back on with it in place. Craig Moates does a low profile one but I haven't found a UK source.<br><br><br>This looks ok as well:<br>http://www.rapidelectronics.co.uk/rkmain.asp?PAGEID=80010&CTL_CAT_CODE=30432&STK_PROD_CODE=M28959&XPAGENO=1<br><br>Its not a ZIF but it might do the job.<br><br>Alan

[Doug]

Don't forget when you switch the chip on the dyno, you should probably drive the car on the dyno for a few minutes to let the engine learning parameters normalize (any insight into this and what they are Alan?) before you let them throw the hammer down  [smiley=burnout.gif]

[ESM]

I'm not sure but with the non-cat car I believe the learning is pretty much limited to idle control. Cat cars, on the other hand, optimise their closed loop mixture control. <br>

[Doug]

[quote author=ElanScanMan link=board=upgrades;num=1092641209;start=45#46 date=08/20/04 at 13:34:28]I'm not sure but with the non-cat car I believe the learning is pretty much limited to idle control. Cat cars, on the other hand, optimise their closed loop mixture control. <br>[/quote]<br>cool -- if true then WOT will give you open loop control so should not have to worry about the 'learning' crap

[mark]

Alan, as part of  upgrading the car its fitted with a wideband O2 sensor and an air/fuel controller.  without the AF controller, at WOT, fuel maps were dropping to 10 and even lower and the car was very sluggish.  Adjusting the fuel map to keep around 11.5 produced significant performance gains.  Do you think going to 12.0 or 12.5 still provides plenty of cushion against running too lean?    Let me know if you want any ES files - would be happy to send them but not sure if they would be useful given the other mods I've made.

[rob]

With regard to the learning that the chip has to go through, can't you run all the chips in the car before you go onto the dyno so they have already done the learning,  ??? or is that too easy.<br><br>Also I already have a dyno run of my standard car 170bhp, and my MBC+FCD car 195bhp, I'm more than willing to pay for dyno time and do a few runs with other chips.<br><br>Alan, the work that you have done with Elanscan to get it working and now with th chip is remarkable and most of the people on this board would pay for both let alone only pay a small amount for the chip.<br><br>I have had my golf chiped, I took it to them, they plugged in the laptop and 10 mins latter it was done. £513 pounds, I did not get a free version of the VAGscan to go with it, but it does go like Sh1t off a shovel  ;D

[John_W]

[quote author=Rob link=board=upgrades;num=1092641209;start=45#49 date=08/20/04 at 23:47:32] I already have a dyno run of my standard car 170bhp, and my MBC+FCD car 195bhp, I'm more than willing to pay for dyno time and do a few runs with other chips.<br>[/quote]<br>Rob,<br>while you're here, mate, can you answer my exhaust & other mods question from page 1?<br>http://www.lotuselancentral.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=upgrades;action=display;num=1092641209;start=14#14<br><br>ta,<br>John  :)

[Nige]

Alan,<br><br>Having looked at the log file from my run home last night I can confirm that I can now reach 100% throttle (best before was 94%)  this gives a TPS output of 3.92V, it appears that S2s do differ from SEs in this respect (based on a sample of 2).  Traffic conditions weren't ideal but I managed a couple of WOT runs but had to back out of them earlier than I would I have liked.  The car felt quick, but I hit fuel cut (my problem) which also prevented me holding it at full chat, peak power reading from the log was 155 BHP (just a shade more than the best of 153BHP I logged with FCD/MBC before I fitted the new exhaust).   V3 will go in the car this morning followed by a short test run which I'll log and then the drive back to work tomorrow night. <br><br>Nige

[rob]

JohnW, sorry I missed your reply.<br><br>My set up is exactly as you say. The exhaust does have baffels as far as I know and no I don't have any other type of device which will make the car go faster  :(<br><br>The only thing I can see is that you are running at 12psi boost and I'm running at 15psi, or at least I was for the dyno run.<br><br>I'm still trying to get Elanscan working with my laptop, I only have USB's and the adapter I have will not work.<br><br>

[Ian_W]

After installation of my Everest chip found that the car would not start coughed and spluttered but would not start. So tried to adjust the CO potentimeter, which after doing so found the car would not even cough and splutter. Now I totally lost as I don't know the setting and the car won't start. HELP HELP!!!!!

[John_W]

[quote author=ElanScanMan link=board=upgrades;num=1092641209;start=30#39 date=08/20/04 at 07:03:59]John I'd be delighted if you and/or others did baselining  dyno runs in order to evaluate the current chips. All that's required is a power curve for each chip of interest. If you have a ZIF socket you can leave the lid off the ECU and swap chips quickly and easily between runs. [/quote]<br>Alan,<br>I've booked a dyno session for Tuesday 31st August. My plan is to baseline three chips: my standard SE, my Kilimanjaro, and if possible another Kilimanjaro with a different a/f ratio (if you could send me such a beastie for evaluation). I intend to ElanScan the proceedings.<br><br>Bob Duncan sounds very pleasant and knowledgeable and agreed that trying out the different setups would work OK so long as we allowed sufficient cooling off time between runs. He said he could stick an exhaust gas analyser up the tailpipe. He also said that once the favourite chip had been chosen he would play with the set-up a bit to optimise things (black magic). I warned him that in the Elan it was the ECU which controlled most things and my car has no cat, but he still seemed confident that there was room for optimising the setup.<br><br>Please let me know if you have the third chip, and give any comments and advice on how to change chips. If it's too complicated, you can email me, or if you'd prefer to talk on the 'phone give me a ring (there's not too many people with my name in Aberdeen).<br><br>John  :D

[davidjt]

On John W's question, I was talking chips & turbos this morning with someone with first hand experience (& the bills to prove it.) He mentioned a cowboy outfit 'chipping' various cars at 500 quid a throw.  Result: more boost but hardly any performance increase. His diagnosis: ALWAYS bin the production exhaust system before doing anything else; unless the exhaust gases are being extracted efficiently, you will only ever see a marginal improvement in combustion, no matter what you do.   <br>Made perfect sense to me.<br>Strange thing is, whenever he gives me advice, I always end up parting with money..... ???<br><br>Alan - your chips would be cheap at twice the price!<br><br>David

[Nige]

Alan,<br><br>I like V3!  Fitted this morning and taken for a short test.  Usual problem of boost creep causing me to hit fuel cut (peak boost level was a nadge over 1 bar).  Car felt significantly quicker without any doubt at all and peak power according to elanscan was 199 BHP.  Still running well rich at high boost and the popping and banging from the exhaust was quite impressive.  I'm at home at present on the end of a dial up connection but I'll send the log file to you tomorrow evening when I'm back on broadband.<br><br>Nige

[ESM]

Had a think about the 0-60 issue. Its really not suprising that little change is observed. <br><br>The Kilimanjaro chip delivers extra boost as the revs increase:<br><br>At 2000RPM boost is actually lower! (bit of an oversight that). The boost difference, and therfore the power difference, increases with RPM - over the 2000-6000RPM rev range the average pressure difference is around 5%. While 5% more boost means 5% more mixture in the cylinders it doesn't translate to 5% more power there will be losses due to backpressure from the extra volume of exhaust gas to flow through the exhaust, spark retardation to avoid pinking, pressure combustion effects... So in theory the 2nd gear 0-60mph gain will be of the order of 0.25s and assuming you get 80% of the potential power gain.<br><br>Looking at the power vs time graphs John produced:<br><br>it can be seen that the Kilimanjaro power overtakes the stock at around 3s/45mph, that's 4500RPM in 2nd which is point where the boost difference is becoming significant between stock and Kilimanjaro - which makes sense.<br><br>The chip shows the biggest benefits in the part of the curve where the boost difference is greatest so using the gears to keep the revs above 4000RPM should show a greater benefit. This is why overtaking seems a lot better with the chip but a 2nd gear 0-60mph shows no great improvement.<br><br>I've altered the maps a bit so that maximum boost arrives at an engine speed you can usefully use it, minimum boost isn't below stock (as that hurts power tests from low revs) and removed the plateauing effect because you can just put your foot down further if you're not getting enough power - on reflection I reckon I just did it because I could!<br><br><br><br>Regarding mixture - I'm not going so send anything out that 's as lean as 12.7 - that value came from a track modified Elan - however, I wanted to see how much effect changing it had and the graph I should above suggested around 150BHP from 4500RPM at the wheels from a Kili chip - which I thought was pretty good... didn't get any knock either. <br><br>I reckon the chips give more power than standard with the original fuel mapping - dyno results are just required to (dis)prove that. If they do show reasonable gains I'll probably leave fuelling as it is unless specifically requested otherwise.

[ESM]

I should add that the S2 with standard exhaust requires a slower pick-up of boost with RPM and won't hold 0.9bar to 6000RPM.<br><br>Also Ian's problem was a tripped inertia switch (not sure how  it came about - perhaps disconnecting or reconnecting the battery?)

[John_W]

Alan,<br>I can see that you've been thinking about this. Ultimately, however, any performance upgrade must show some sort of difference on 0-60. As you say, dyno results will be the most useful info we can get.<br><br>Sometime this week can you give consideration to which chips you'd like me to put on the dyno next Tuesday (31st Aug)?<br><br>I have my Kilimanjaro and my original chip, but if you'd like a third to join the party, can you send me it?<br><br>My plan is to get a new (2-1/4") exhaust after the initial datum runs and re-dyno the car using the same chips to quantify the differences. Timeframe for the second set of tests depends on budget and days off (nothing yet ordered).<br><br>John <br><br>PS: Your new maps of K2 & Everest look very similar to me.  ???