Practical Standalone Tuning: Step 2: Trigger Setup
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Step 2: Trigger Setup
12.11
| 00:00 | - Our next step is to configure the trigger inputs to the Syvecs ECU so that the ECU can receive valid information for engine speed as well as engine position. |
| 00:10 | These are some of the most important inputs to the ECU. |
| 00:13 | If we don't have these right, we've got little hope of being able to get the engine up and running properly. |
| 00:18 | We've also got almost no chance of being able to tune it correctly. |
| 00:22 | Now in the case of the Syvecs ECU we're running here, this is a plug and play ECU for the Mach 6 Golf as we've already explained. |
| 00:29 | Hence it comes with all of the trigger input information already preconfigured. |
| 00:34 | So there's little for us to do here, however we will go through the process, just so you've got a better idea of exactly what's involved. |
| 00:42 | It's also important to note that this setup is usually done inside a base map for the ECU. |
| 00:48 | So often there is little work here for the tuner to do other than selecting the correct base map or the correct cam and crank sensor setup. |
| 00:57 | OK so let's start here with our engine configuration, we'll just move down our menu structure here. |
| 01:04 | We'll go into our engine configuration, we'll just move down a little bit so we've got a bit more room to start with. |
| 01:10 | We're going to begin here with our crank and cam type. |
| 01:14 | So this is the first function that we're going to be having a look at. |
| 01:18 | And this is where we can select from a range of preconfigured options for common engines. |
| 01:23 | So for example we've got an option here for the Nissan VK56. |
| 01:27 | We've got another one here for Nissan Skyline. |
| 01:30 | Now we're actually using a generic setup here which is our generic single gap, single cam. |
| 01:37 | So that's correctly configured, we can exit back out of there. |
| 01:41 | What we're going to do is move down to our generic crank and cam setup menu. |
| 01:46 | And there's a few functions in here, or parameters in here that we do need to understand and correctly set up. |
| 01:53 | We'll start with our number of crank teeth. |
| 01:56 | Now we can see over here on the right hand side, this is currently configured to 58. |
| 02:00 | Now the engine actually uses a multi tooth missing crank trigger with 60 equally spaced teeth with two missing. |
| 02:06 | In Syvecs speak we're only looking at the actual number of teeth so those two missing teeth are removed, hence the correct number there is 58. |
| 02:15 | Now we've also got our how many crank tooth gap definitions we're going to be using or defining very shortly. |
| 02:24 | So this essentially sets the number of break points for our crank tooth gap widths. |
| 02:29 | So in this case again we have 58 gaps that we're going to be defining the width in terms of crankshaft degrees. |
| 02:36 | So that's why you can see this is also set to 58. |
| 02:39 | We're going to move out of order for a moment and we'll come down to our crank tooth gap widths. |
| 02:45 | And we'll just enter into that table and have a look at it. |
| 02:48 | Here we've got the break points that we previously set up, so we've got 58 break points for this table and we're just defining the number of degrees of crankshaft rotation for each of the gaps on that crank trigger disk. |
| 03:00 | All of these numbers need to add up to 360 degrees. |
| 03:04 | So in this case if we divide, to start with, 360 by 60 we're going to end up finding that each of the gaps should be, if we had a equal number of teeth, should be six degrees so that's why you can see that the majority of the values in this table are set to six degrees. |
| 03:23 | However we have this one gap here which is our missing tooth so this is essentially the equivalent of three gaps so that's why that's set to three time six or 18. |
| 03:35 | Alright so once we've got that table set up, we also have another two tables here for our crank tooth gap minimum widths and then our crank tooth gap maximum widths. |
| 03:48 | So the advice here from Syvecs is to simply take our existing crank tooth gap width table, and for our minimum we want to multiply the crank tooth gap width values by 0.25 and enter that here. |
| 04:04 | And for our maximum widths we want to take the values and multiply them by 1.75 So this just gives the ECU some idea of the minimum and maximum expected widths of these gaps for some form of validation that the information that it is receiving is correct. |
| 04:24 | Once we've set up our crank we can move down and here we have our single gap, single cam setup. |
| 04:31 | So this is for our engine synchronisation input. |
| 04:35 | So in this case we have, to start with, our gap ratio. |
| 04:40 | So this is just the ratio of the gap width for validation of that gap. |
| 04:45 | And we have our gap validation is set to enabled. |
| 04:48 | If we move down we also have our cam A angle. |
| 04:52 | And this defines where the cam angle, the cam synchronisation input is received. |
| 05:00 | This can also be used to set the phasing of the engine operation so in other words if we've set this up, and the engine isn't running, we're firing on the wrong stroke, then we can simply add or subtract 360 degrees from this particular value here. |
| 05:17 | We can also find this value by looking at the cam raw input while we're cranking the engine. |
| 05:26 | Now that we've dealt with our crank tooth gaps, we're going to move back up and we can talk about our crank reference tooth angle. |
| 05:34 | And this simply defines whereabouts in the engine cycle the reference tooth on our crank trigger input is occurring. |
| 05:41 | Now in this case what we're doing is defining whereabouts that reference tooth occurs relative to TDC on number one cylinder in terms of degrees of crankshaft rotation. |
| 05:51 | And this is used to align the timing for the engine. |
| 05:56 | With our crank trigger input set up, we can move on and we'll talk about our cam input. |
| 06:01 | Our Volkswagen engine uses the single gap, single cam setup. |
| 06:05 | There's a few things we need to understand here. |
| 06:07 | We'll start with our gap ratio which you can see is currently set to 2.0 Now this just defines how much larger the gap must be compared to the previous gap that's just gone past in order for the gap to be considered the reference gap by the ECU. |
| 06:26 | Now the other option we have here is gap validation which you can see has been set to enabled. |
| 06:32 | If gap validation is enabled, one more aspect is looked at here, we've also got our gap validation ratio. |
| 06:39 | You can see that's also set to 2.0 So essentially what's happening here is the ECU is looking at the reference gap compared to the gap previous. |
| 06:48 | The reference gap must be double the gap previous. |
| 06:53 | And it's also looking at the gap following the reference gap and the reference gap also needs to be double the width of the following gap. |
| 07:02 | So this just allows another way of the ECU double checking and being very certain that it is in fact seeing the reference gap. |
| 07:09 | We'll move down here and our cam angle A which is what we're using, this defines where the synchronisation pulse is occurring in the engine cycle. |
| 07:19 | You can see that's set to 245 degrees. |
| 07:21 | Now this also has the effect of setting the phasing of the engine. |
| 07:25 | So if we have this incorrect, we will be firing on the exhaust stroke instead of the compression stroke. |
| 07:31 | So if the engine won't start, but everything's synchronising correctly, then we can adjust this by increasing or decreasing it by 360 degrees. |
| 07:40 | Now you don't have to come up with this parameter all by yourself. |
| 07:44 | You can add a gauge to the SCal software to monitor the parameter cam raw. |
| 07:50 | And this will help guide you on correctly setting that cam angle. |
| 07:54 | Just a reminder here as well that all of these parameters that we are looking at that are in blue do require a device program before those changes will take effect and will be locked in. |
| 08:05 | Now with our main trigger setup complete we are going to close down our engine configuration menu and we're going to move up and have a look at our sensors. |
| 08:14 | This is where we can define the actual sensors that are fitted for both crankshaft and camshaft position detection. |
| 08:20 | We'll start with our crankshaft position. |
| 08:23 | We'll open up our crankshaft position sensor settings. |
| 08:25 | In this case we're using crankshaft position sensor A. |
| 08:28 | We can start with the sensor type. |
| 08:30 | Now in this case we've got five volt bipolar selected. |
| 08:34 | And this is because we are using a magnetic or variable reluctant sensor in this case, which has a voltage that will move both above and below the zero volt threshold. |
| 08:45 | We've also got, in this case we're using our low trigger threshold, so this is where the ECU will actually arm and start looking for a valid trigger input. |
| 08:56 | If we open this up we can see we've got a two dimensional table here of values with our engine RPM on the horizontal axis. |
| 09:03 | This is simply because the magnitude or amplitude of the voltage from a VR sensor varies as the engine speed increases. |
| 09:14 | Now moving back we also need to look at our signal trigger edge. |
| 09:18 | So this is the edge that the ECU is going to trigger on. |
| 09:23 | Very important with a VR sensor to make sure this is correctly set, otherwise we're going to end up with timing drift. |
| 09:31 | We'll have a look in a second at exactly how we can decide which edge the ECU should be triggering on. |
| 09:38 | Let's close down our crankshaft position and we will move up to our camshaft position. |
| 09:43 | In this case we are using cam phase sensor A. |
| 09:46 | And we'll move down, our sensor type in this case, we've selected thermistor, this is because it is a digital sensor, it's s digital input and we need the internal pull up resistor enabled in order for the ECU to be able to actually detect a signal from that sensor. |
| 10:04 | Again we have our trigger thresholds here and we have our signal trigger edge. |
| 10:12 | Again this needs to be correctly set. |
| 10:13 | So a function in the Syvecs ECU that's very useful for helping set this functionality as well as just ensuring that we are seeing valid signals in the first place, is if we go to the device dropdown menu, and we can go to the view sync log. |
| 10:29 | This is essentially a built in oscilloscope and it'll show us the inputs that the ECU is receiving. |
| 10:36 | In particular because it is very much like an oscilloscope, we are able to see the voltages. |
| 10:42 | So this is useful to help us set those thresholds. |
| 10:46 | In particular here we can see our crank sensor, and this is the missing tooth here. |
| 10:51 | So we can see the shape of that wave form across that missing tooth, which again helps us define that this needs to be set up as a rising edge trigger. |
| 11:00 | OK once all of our configuration is set up, we can actually crank the engine and proove that we are getting valid signal to the ECU. |
| 11:09 | So what we're going to do here is first of all stop the engine from running. |
| 11:12 | So what we're going to do is come up to our calibration switches here. |
| 11:17 | I'll just close that down so we can see the whole menu. |
| 11:18 | So right up the top of our menu structure we have our calibration switches. |
| 11:22 | If we press enter here, what we want to do is come down to our engine enable and what we want to do is disable the engine. |
| 11:30 | So this will prevent the engine from actually starting and running when we try cranking it. |
| 11:35 | Now what we're going to be doing is looking at our sync state which is in the top right hand corner. |
| 11:41 | So what we should see, right now it's saying stop, what we should see is once we start cranking it, this should change to 360, then once it has a valid synchronisation pulse, it should change to 720. |
| 11:53 | So let's try cranking that now and we'll prove that that is in fact the case. |
| 11:58 | OK so we see that it changes to 360 then to 720 and it stays on 720, this means the ECU is synchronised. |
| 12:05 | It's got all of the trigger inputs it needs and we can now move on with the next step. |
