Practical Standalone Tuning: Step 2: Trigger Setup
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Step 2: Trigger Setup
05.04
| 00:00 | - The next step in our process is to define the trigger inputs to the ECU so that the ECU can decode engine RPM and engine position. |
| 00:11 | In the case of our VQ35, the ECU also needs to be able to accurately decode cam postions so that the variable cam control functionality will work correctly. |
| 00:22 | And you can see I've gone to the diagnostics tab here and we're going to use some of the information on this diagnostics tab to help us decide whether the trigger input is working correctly. |
| 00:36 | Let's go back into our setup wizard and if we click on the cam and crank setup, you can see we have the options here that we need to configure. |
| 00:47 | Again this is nice and easy for us because the ECU comes pre-configured for the VQ35 engine. |
| 00:55 | If we click on this tab here we have a list of all of the available trigger or cam and crank inputs. |
| 01:03 | So, what we want to be doing here is selecting the correct trigger mode for our particular engine. |
| 01:10 | In this case we're going to leave that set to Nissan Infiniti VQ35DE. |
| 01:16 | So that really, that pre-configures everything that the ECU is looking at from those trigger inputs so that everything should just work. |
| 01:24 | If we click on show details we have a couple of other options here which are more advanced, which includes some noise cancellation if we have a noisy trigger input. |
| 01:36 | I haven't found with the Infiniti on our VQ35 that we need to adjust these. |
| 01:42 | Now, it's enough that once we've got that configured, of course at this point in this system we still, in this point in the process we still can't necessarily start our engine. |
| 01:54 | But as long as we can crank the engine over on the starter motor, we can ensure that we are getting some sensible data from that trigger input and we're going to look at that now. |
| 02:05 | So what I'm going to do first of all is if we click on the coils/injectors on our outputs options here, you can see we can disable the injectors and the coils just temporarily. |
| 02:19 | So I'm just going through here and un-ticking all of these little tick boxes and that just turns both the fuel injectors and the coils off. |
| 02:29 | And the reason I'm doing that is because right now I don't want the engine to start. |
| 02:35 | So as we said before I'm on the diagnostics tab and what we're looking at here is a few aspects. |
| 02:44 | First of all we have this sync state. |
| 02:46 | Now, this is a really critical aspect that defines whether or not the ECU can make sense of the trigger inputs from the crankshaft and the camshaft position sensors. |
| 02:57 | You can see right now with the engine not running that's red and it's saying zero. |
| 03:02 | What we're expecting is once we start cranking the engine and everything reaches a normal cranking speed, this should go green and display the number one, if the ECU is able to retrieve sensible data from the cam and crank sensors. |
| 03:20 | At the same time we have our start probability here, this is red and displaying zero. |
| 03:26 | Once the ECU is synchronized and seeing those inputs we should see this turn green and say 100%. |
| 03:34 | The last thing we're going to be looking at here is our engine RPM over here in our text grid. |
| 03:40 | And the engine RPM should show us what would be a sensible cranking engine speed. |
| 03:48 | This is going to depend a little bit on how good your starter motor is, what your battery voltage is and the compression ratio of your engine. |
| 03:55 | But it'd be sensible to see a cranking speed somewhere between perhaps 150 and 300 RPM. |
| 04:02 | It's just as important as well to make sure that that cranking speed, that engine RPM trace while the ECU is being cranked, is relatively stable we don't want to see it jumping erratically. |
| 04:15 | So let's now crank the engine and we'll see exactly what happens. |
| 04:23 | OK, so while we were cranking there once the engine speed became stable we saw that our sync state went green and displayed one, we saw our start probability went green and became 100% and our engine speed was sitting at a relatively constant a speed of about 180 to 190 RPM. |
| 04:47 | So all of this checks out and means that the ECU is receiving the data it needs in order for the ECU to be able to control and run the engine. |
| 04:57 | So now we can move on to the next step in our process. |
