ECU Master Black and 60-2 VR trigger issues

Hi

I’m helping my friend to wire in a ECU Master Black into his 4-cylinder Alfa Nord engine with a Turbo. I finished the loom and sensor configuration on the ECU Master software and I wanted to check the actual timing and trigger settings. Sensors and everything is working fine.

Below you see our setup and what I have entered into the software according what was explained on the help window. So I set the engine to 1 cyl. TDC (on compression stroke). The mark on the pulley and the indicator on the block align perfectly so I’m sure the 1st Cylinder is on TDC.

I then counted the tooths from the gap to the VR sensor and entered that into the software as first trigger tooth and then also the actual angle of the Sensor related to the TDC mark.

I then set the ignition angle lock to 0° and saved the values. With a timing gun I verified it is firing on TDC but it is not. It is way off. The engine is a 1,8l Alfa Turbo engine and has a Distributor. We therefore also checked if the Distributor is pointing to Cylinder Nr. 1 by removing the cap and checking the orientation of the finger. It is on Cylinder 1 when it is a top dead center. The VR Sensor is in between tooth 15 and 16 when starting counting with 0. So as it is a 60 tooth wheel and each tooth therefore is 6° which will lead to 90°+- of trigger angle, right? TDC and Gap are 180° so it looks with 90° and 16 or 15 teeth as first trigger it should be relatively close to the TDC mark when ignition is locked at 0°.

When I set the values way off like 120° Trigger angle and 27 trigger tooth it is almost perfect on TDC mark according to the timing light. It shows perfect RPM and the software says it is in sync. If I leave the values like this and start the engine it will fire and run but how can I be sure it will work with higher rpm as expected and not suddenly drift away. I let the engine idle at 10° and checked with the timing light and it is advanced according to the strobe light.

The whole setup was running before with an old Megasquirt and had good power and was running fine. Sensors are the same and no changes done on hardware. It just leaves a bad feeling on my gut to enter such wrong values to make it work. What are your ideas around that? I also contacted ECU Master in Poland but since a week I did not hear back from them. We even have two cars with the same setup and ECU to be finished.

Thanks a lot for your help

Here is a scope log:

The gap seems to be recognized fine so trigger edge is also correct and when it runs and idles at 900rpm everything is in sync according to the ECU. It runs 20mins without issues, Fans running and all. Just the values annoy me to much :-)

Perhaps the teeth count in the opposite direction.

Hi David

I also thought about that but then their manual will not make sense:

My engine is also rotating clockwise like in the manual. Just the position of the VR Sensorm, Gap and TDC are different. So looking at my trigger wheel and rotating it clockwise the gap travers the VR Sensor and the first trigger tooth would be around tooth 15 to 16. Which is in our example almost a perfect 90° from the gap and also from the TDC mark.

The ECU Master also limits the amount of angle you can enter. More than 120° is not possible but should be also not necessary if I do it according to the manual.

Did you figure this out? I'm soon to tackle this and understanding your fix will hopefully assist me too.