1ZZ with Alpha N and crazy timing (Syvecs S6) from my friend's Elise - am I missing something?

After years of use and many track days, a friend of mine just blew the 1ZZ engine on his Lotus Elise. We are either going to rebuild the engine with forged parts or swap in a 2ZZ but before we decide on what to do, I wanted to take a look at his ECU and the existing tune first to determine whether I have enough knowledge on the ECU/tuning side of things to help him with his new build. It's already running a Syvecs S6 ECU so swapping to a 2ZZ shouldn't be too much of a problem on the ECU side as long as I could configure it properly and he does not have to find a 2ZZ ECU.

I have only had experience with Link so it is my first time working with a Syvecs ECU which has a VERY different software interface compared to Link. Luckily, the Practical Standalone Tuning Course had a working example with a Syvecs ECU which had helped a great deal.

Anyway, after downloading the existing map from from the Elise, I was pretty shocked at what I see. Upon the first look there are two things which really caught my attention:

1. TPS was selected as the Primary Load while the engine is still running a stock throttle body and intake manifold. Shouldn't Alpha N only be used on engines with ITBs or VERY agressive cams with little vacuum?

2. The ignition advance seemed scaringly high at WOT reaching up to 50 degrees at certain spots. I am used to tuning my own turbo engines where much lower igniton advanced is used so I might be over reacting here but I've looked up other's igniton maps online for the 1ZZ and the ignition advance barely hits 40 degrees even on light loads. Also on the map, there is a rising trend in igniton advance as the throttle opens up from 30~50% to WOT. Shouldn't ignition advance usually decrease on higher loads?

If my observation above is true, I highly doubt the engine would be able to survive the number of track days it had been driven for. Am I missing something here? Maybe I did not download the map correctly from the ECU? I do see a ton of exclamation marks on many of the parameters.

We have not yet dropped the engine to take a look inside but that should be done pretty soon. The engine itself is practically stock but might have cams installed by the previous owner which we cannot confirm.

Somehow the forum does not allow me to upload .se files so the MAP is attached here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PvweP45gHjxNRr6mU2sbmqM0o4aOONEq

It's hard to see why the ignition table would have been setup like that. From extensive experience on our (admittedly stock) 1ZZ, I can assure you that you won't find MBT with the timing numbers in that table! I would however be confirming that the timing values in the table are what you're seeing with a timing light.

While you'd usually save alpha-n for itb's or large cams that produce little vacuum, there's nothing to stop you using it for a conventional plenum/single throttle. If you were to remap the ecu to suit the new engine then I'd personally use MAP as the load input.

Thank you Andre! Just checked the base timing before dropping the engine and noted the actual timing retarded by 10 degrees so I guess the actual timing being run isn't that crazy after all but still, 40 degrees at WOT still looks pretty high to me and the shape of the map is still in contrary to what I have learned where timing is supposed to drop as load increase. With the 10 degrees retard on the actual ignition in mind, does the ignition table make any sense to you or is it still completely out of whack?

Given the insane costs of renting a dyno here in Hong Kong (close to $2000 USD per hour) and the limited budget we have, I am trying to avoid doing a full remap if we can keep the 1ZZ (just a road tune for fueling and make sure there is no knock). But if the timing is truly out of whack, we will have no choice but to hit the dyno and start everything from the ground up.

Thank you, wishing you a merry Christmas and happy new year!

If it helps, on our local 98 octane pump gas we reach MBT at about 30 deg BTDC at high rpm and WOT. The engine isn't knock limited on this fuel and just doesn't make more power/torque with any more timing.