Quest for economy and performance (A Street Tune story)

[Kinday]

So I'm trying to contribute to a productive thread. After looking at our forum I realize that a lot of us chat alot but sometimes most of the relevant information is withheld or shared in PM's/cliques. I've been on this forum for years talking boosheit and helping wherever I can, so now I decided to put some sentences together to seek my own help and share my focus in the community. This thread is for those who want to share their experiences or help the lesser folk, like me.

Based on the thread regarding mileage I decided to state my progress on the quest to make this car be ever pleasing. My goal is get my daily driver to make 600km on a tank of fuel (until gas light) even while surprising the piss out of unsuspecting street monsters (This mule is heavy, but we'll talk track when that time comes). Tuning will be done by me with additional assistance from my comrades who know. Feel free to share because it's a learning experience for us all who venture to this thread. As for me, I've been involved with auto projects for over 12 years with great teams/people. Generally making the correct build assumptions based on projected numbers or ET's is relatively facile but I've never ventured in the realm of heavy ROM tuning nor mpg numbers. My ever reliable, old "secret sauce" ecu blew up via injector ohm problems now I'm unto greener pastures.

My last vehicle was all about NA power with thoughts on fuel economy way out the door (hcp/h/e/c/pp/ DOHC non vtec on 45 DCOEs). Engine ran great, topping out at 242kph @ 7800...my current ride with vtec and more cc's, literally blows the doors off of those numbers but I'm choosing to get better mileage/ performance from this one before I upgrade.

Tuning software of choice is Crome....yeah I know there's better programs but this is what my budget recommends at the moment. I just walked away from the Emanage and trust me there's a BIG difference between piggybacks and ROM tuning when it comes to overall drivability outside WOT. The learning curve isn't that steep coming from the Greddy, but there's a whole lot more to comprehend. So here's a bit on where we are at the moment


Project: H22 Accord
Tank capacity: 55 liters
Fuel: Premium unleaded
Fuel System: Stock
Additional: Bosch Inline Pump
FPR: Megan Universal
Injectors: 345cc
Fuel Pressure: 50psi (disconnected)
Total Kilos per Liter average: 465 (50l)
Driving style: Mixed

Additional info (some): http://forums.trinituner.com/forums/gar ... le&CID=368

This is where it gets tricky to the tuning noob like me. I know the car could do with some dyno time but I thought I'd play with it a bit before the main garage projects are completed and we book out major dyno time. Now I understand the thresholds and the detrimental points so I'm not trying to go beyond a limit. I've been reading till I'm blue in the face. Unto the maps, particularly in the low cam tables I've significantly reduced from my original basemap between 1000-3000 rpm across the lighter load maps and I currently cruise at around 15.3:1 on the wideband (goal is 16 AFRs). The plugs look decent could be slightly better. Relatively similar burn across the cylinders. Rich idle (colder plugs) and rich midrange as expected (untouched), RBT @ WOT. Ground strap looks good. Timing is spot on (base and table). Noobies learn to read plugs if you don't know its the most precise way to know what's actually happening in your engine. I moved from a senseless, pocket bruising, 60km = $50 day fuel bill to a happier face. So now it's about getting it as close to best as possible before fine tuning on the dyno.

ISSUE: What I'm having problems with now is that intermittently the car goes lean all of a sudden, just at idle and part throttle...Especially in heavy traffic or at idle after hard deceleration. If I step on the gas the condition goes away and the car acts normally but as soon as I do very light cruising or come to a stop it goes to lean. I'm still trying to figure out what it could possibly be cause I have no CEL and the car never did it before the ECU swap. Occasionally my idle just slowly drifts from 14.7-15.1 to 18:0+ and stays there for a while. The idle slowly drops to 600rpm and the car vibrates slightly under the instability. WTF!! Beyond that the car drives fine...no bogging with an excellent WOT. I'm guessing it's the O2 telling me it's dying or my plugs are fouling. This issue has me stumped though. I assumed something was wrong with my remapped tables so I even tried running stock P72 and P13 low cam maps but the car sputtered, wouldn't idle or fell flat at part throttle when I did. Someone even told me that it's Crome's fault....lol. I noticed an oil leak on distributor and the plug seals so I'll be sorting that out asap, however the plugs are clean with no oil seeping into the chamber to create that situation. I made a detailed list of possible check points to shoot for in solving the problem. When I get that resolved I'll move on to the quest at hand. Any comments/suggestions guys?...I'm calling on your knowledge

(Forum lurker...I know you're watching....you're my boy, don't worry bout this thread too much...we'll get it done when that time comes k. lol)

[B20VTEK]

Did you tune your injector battery offset?
different voltages affect injectors pulse

[B20VTEK]

Try adjusting the First 2 Columns.
Also your tps tip in.

I would also disable the O2 Sensor if your trying to get the ecu to run the leaner afr's.

[hmph]

u can run leaner than 15.3 under cruise. unfortunately, i never heard of chrome. sounds interesting though...

if u disable the O2 wont the car idle like rubbish? or will it lock the car in open loop?

[red_dragon]

walks in throws hands up in the air

we talk bout this

2 demon carbs and we good to go

16 to lean bro

i set my idle at 13.9 - 14.8 since u have no IAC

any leaner and pressure when i switch on AC

[honda hoe]

Kinday, very nice

i hope this ched doesn't deteriorate into piggy measuring

and other tuners could share the project details as well

[B20VTEK]

u can run leaner than 15.3 under cruise. unfortunately, i never heard of chrome. sounds interesting though...

if u disable the O2 wont the car idle like rubbish? or will it lock the car in open loop?

its crome not Chrome.

The car will run in open loop.



BTW, check for exhaust leaks!
this WILL affect your AFR readings.

[Damien]

accord looking crisp

[Kinday]

^^ Thanks

No exhaust leaks....unless it too big...lol...it's not. I left the injector battery offset to the stock settings. I'm wondering if I should up a bit to cater for the change in flow rate due to increased fuel pressure, which is roughly 12% more cc. I'll give it a try tomorrow and see.

Didn't touch the tip in value cause the car goes like normal once you press the gas, the problem happens on idle or light cruising. I built the car for better throttle response too so if messing with the tip some can help me even further in that area then I definitely will do.

[X2]

So I'm trying to contribute to a productive thread. After looking at our forum I realize that a lot of us chat alot but sometimes most of the relevant information is withheld or shared in PM's/cliques.

It's like that because the Honda community on tuner and in general is full of crunts. Crunts for tapping, not helping.


But like all things these days... I go stick meh finger where I will likely regret it...

1) There are many variables to consider before asking for advice...particularly if you are running crome.
2) What wideband are you using ? Crome's voltage offsets can screw with your wideband readings into the crome datalog values.
3) Is your wideband properly scaled for crome to read ? This ensures you are getting accurate datalog readings
4) Disabling the O2 as mentioned is necessary if you are tuning, otherwise, the ecu will constantly try to adjust the O2 when not in WOT. 15.5 is good for light throttle crusing... running 13:1 there is a waste of fuel as you already realized. Your description of the roaming A/F indicates the ECU is trying to do it's own adjustment.
5) Battery offset for injectors... you read till you were blue in the face ? Take a breath and read again... injector offset will move your maps all over the place... you should have done this for the new injectors before you even started... now changing it will modify your entire tune
6) I won't touch IAC until you sort our any/all of the issues above
7) Running 345cc injectors on a P72 stock map will make the car sputter for sure... dont' even mention the fact that the cam and ignition timing between the B18c1 and other engine series are vastly different


You type paragraphs describing your gas mileage, previous engine versus current setup, AF ratios, talk about the setup itself.... but when you describe your plug readings... all you say is they 'good' ? Plugs are the acid test of what your engine is doing at any one time... you should have spent an entire paragraph describing what you are seeing !!

When are you pulling the plugs to check them anyway ? you should pull them for inspection IMMEDIATELY when you want to see what the engine is doing.... have you been doing this ?

After all the BS typed above... #4 is really the first thing you need to check in order to avoid the issue you are describing.

[Kinday]

Yeah X2....I did read til I'm blue and still reading...lol. There's actually a lot theory that I've learnt but I still want to be sure of the practical so I'm seeking the backing of other people experience, I'm also being the devil's advocate on this one too because it makes it simpler for alot of the others who don't know.

I know that the injector offset throws off the map I learned that early. It was the first thing I did. I set that to stock H22 injectors, tried something different then saw it change my AFRs change somewhat. Another pal from a diff forum told me that too months ago. Thanks for the pointer again though. I was going to play with it once more to see if it would solve the issue, then go from there or return to my current settings.

I did disable the O2 when I was setting my values. It's back up again now but I realize that I'll leave it off completely for my final target. I tried the P72 maps because alot of other guys in differnet forums mentoned using it and gaining some degree of success. Yes the maps are different to the P13, and the stock P72 runs the H lean but it does run it. Anyway, I added more fuel and got the car running but I chose a different route and was satisfied. That's one geared for the H22 and not the B18c as would be better preferred.

Regarding plugs...I'm not guessing at anything. Plugs have been checked at cruise rpm and WOT. Checked by me and by Jason. Different plugs too...the current ones run well but could be better where the AFR's at midrange and idle are concerned. Yes there is a technique to checking the plugs and that's shut off and check....we've done it since the old circuit racing days, the techniques are still remembered. I'll pop them out soon enough and post up a pic for our perusal.

I didn't know about the wideband / crome scalings too much so I'm runnning off the stock O2 to the ECU. I'm actually going to get a new O2 based on the advice of a popular tuner on the eCtune forum.

Thanks so far guys.

[X2]

Didn't realize you were using stock H22 injectors.... if you already set them to H22 oem, offset should be ok.... it's really for aftermarket injectors.

The stock O2 will not give accurate info beyond a very narrow range... 14.0-15.5 AFR.... resolution past those afrs will be completely off. Plus, if you are using the stocker as the input to crome, then the only way it will be even close to right at stoich afr (~14.7)... you would need to scale the input voltage to around 1 Volt.

Good news on reading of the plugs tho... at least you can have faith in that.

[wagonrunner]

Didn't realize you were using stock H22 injectors.... if you already set them to H22 oem, offset should be ok.... it's really for aftermarket injectors.

The stock O2 will not give accurate info beyond a very narrow range... 14.0-15.5 AFR.... resolution past those afrs will be completely off. Plus, if you are using the stocker as the input to crome, then the only way it will be even close to right at stoich afr (~14.7)... you would need to scale the input voltage to around 1 Volt.

Good news on reading of the plugs tho... at least you can have faith in that.

I read that, and the mention of the wideband, and was a bit puzzled how turning at WOT and idle could be done.

Unto the maps, particularly in the low cam tables I've significantly reduced from my original basemap between 1000-3000 rpm across the lighter load maps and I currently cruise at around 15.3:1 on the wideband (goal is 16 AFRs)

My brief expereince was a wideband O2 clamped into the muffler, with the datalog laptop monitoring it during some pulls.

[Kinday]

Fixed O2 sensor and re-gapped plugs to .040, the intermittent part throttle lean issue has been reduced. I think I want to try the stock plug gap setting which is .044 and see how the car performs but I'll wait til after carnival when I do the next tune up.

I also added a slight bit more fuel at idle and pulled out 1% between 1000 and 2500rpm in columns 2 - 5. Mileage to date with moderate/mixed driving is now 506km on 50 liters of premium.

Next goal is to tweak the low cam fuel tables some more since I get into the 10/11+ AFR range when I accelerate with over 60% throttle throughout the midrange.

Don't know what I was thinking of all the time......Crome is so frikking cool.

[Kinday]

And for those interested in knowledge on plug reading....take a look at this.
It's one of the better articles on the net

http://www.4secondsflat.com/Spark_plug_reading.html

[red_dragon]

......Crome is so frikking cool.

I tell u so ... and u wanted to use that other product

[Kinday]

^^ You shoulda just beat me over the head with the blue box...lol

Here's another gem to share...worked great for me diagnosing stuff in the past

[A172]

Didn't realize you were using stock H22 injectors.... if you already set them to H22 oem, offset should be ok.... it's really for aftermarket injectors.

The stock O2 will not give accurate info beyond a very narrow range... 14.0-15.5 AFR.... resolution past those afrs will be completely off. Plus, if you are using the stocker as the input to crome, then the only way it will be even close to right at stoich afr (~14.7)... you would need to scale the input voltage to around 1 Volt.

Good news on reading of the plugs tho... at least you can have faith in that.

I read that, and the mention of the wideband, and was a bit puzzled how turning at WOT and idle could be done.

Unto the maps, particularly in the low cam tables I've significantly reduced from my original basemap between 1000-3000 rpm across the lighter load maps and I currently cruise at around 15.3:1 on the wideband (goal is 16 AFRs)

My brief expereince was a wideband O2 clamped into the muffler, with the datalog laptop monitoring it during some pulls.

wha kinda afr's yuh get?

[wagonrunner]

wha kinda afr's yuh get?

dry will hadda tell yuh that.
someone else mentioned they believed my car was running lean, and i should add a relay to the fuel pump.
happened to be at the dyno, so we made some pulls on the stretch to check.
he said it looked good, fuel did not need to be upgraded.. that's as far as it got.

[Kinday]

Update: To all those who may be following, as of yesterday I hit a target of 608km on $200 premium. This is under normal driving conditions, 100kph highway cruise with some vtec engagement and AC use. I did make to back to back runs from Arima to La Brea so I'm assuming that the highway runs played a big part in the overall mileage as compared to sitting in the POS traffic Nonetheless I'm pleased with my little low end tweaking since I'm far from what can be considered a skilled tuner. I just got a weakness for the DIY. BTW, my cruising AFR is now 15.9 - 16.2, no audible pinging but I would double check when I get to the dyno.

Now it's onto some midrange tweaking. Based on some advice from my tuner bro, I'm assuming that I'll be looking for mid 14 AFRs at part throttle and mid 13 AFRs at WOT. Any other input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[red_dragon]

not bad at all bro 12km per liter ...

I getting 10 at best

but once i sort out the idle issues .. and RE does his thing ... all is all

[Kinday]

http://forums.trinituner.com/forums/vie ... 28#4271128

[Rooki3]

Ouch

[Pinky]

Was looking forward to see the progress on this thread
Sorry Bro

[No Fear at all!!!]

kinday do not sell the car !!! FIX IT INSTEAD!!!

[halfdef]

^^^ have all the parts and willing to lend you my car don't sell the car please.