EcuFlash questions..

I have a few questions and any help would be appreciated. Car is a 2009 mitsubishi lancer Ralliart 2.0T with EVO X turbo, CBRD intake, full 3" exhaust. 3 port EBCS. Flashed with tephramod V3 and also flashed the SST with the evo MR file to enable S-sport and launch control.

1. My TPS reads 14 to 87% in evoscan log. is this normal ? if not, can it be adjusted to read 100%

2. Is there a way to tell if you tuning in PSI based or load based boost ? ( in tephra, when I use alternate tunes, the boost maps seem to have no effect)

3. I cant seem to get launch mode to work, could this be a result of question 1 ?

4. Stationary rev limit also seems to have no effect. I can put it at 2000 RPM and it revs right past it. does this limit only apply in launch mode ?

5. What are the MAP calcs and MAF calcs ? what do they do ?

Im doing the best I can, but there are so many holes in the information that ive found. lots of conflicting info on other forums. any help would be greatly appreciated. thank you.

You're going to have to help me out a little bit here because the 2009 Ralliart is a bit obscure. At one point the Ralliart was just an appearance package even, and then I know they put more performance in it later. Does the 2009 Ralliart have a 4B11T engine, or a 4G63, or something else? Is it electronic throttle or cable throttle? Your TPS value you are logging may be based on the absolute voltage. So normally you are going to get a voltage between 0-5V, but really the bottom is something like 0.5V and the top is something like 4.5V , so that the ECM can detect an open or short circuit if the voltage is too low or too high.

Can you post screenshots of your boost related tables? Can you link to where you are reading or attach the documents? Like I said, the Ralliart is weird. It's possible that some of the tables are mislabeled or some of the functions that work on a normal Evo don't work on a Ralliart.

the Ralliart is the 4B11T.. same as the evo X (but RA has a smaller stock turbo) so a lot of the EVO x tuning applies with minor differences such as the Evo X has 2 wastgate solenoids ( active and passive) and the RA has 1. The roms between the cars look nearly identical as far as the tables, just some of them are not used in the RA. Many people are just upgrading to the evo X turbo which is what I have done. In doing so I had to change my intake which is where I am at now, rescaling my MAF table. also my transmission in the RA ( TC-SST ) is identical to the EVO X MR trans which is why I loaded the MR files for the extra firmness of S-sport mode and launch control. RA stock only has normal and sport. So very similar to the X with some minor differences. and to answer the question Electronic throttle. its in the TB like the evo X

here are some pictures to show what I'm looking at. Keep in mind im still just starting this tune. first tune ever, just trying to wrap my head around it. so pardon any ignorance. all tips and suggestions welcome. As far as the boost goes, I changed to a 3 port EBCS, and where I am able to adjust the boost, it certainly doesnt follow the PSI based target. So I've managed to do something wrong. I'm 99% sure its plumbed correctly and it responds properly but not accurate. Its set to about 20PSI as you can see but it only reaches about 14. Before it was changed the load offset was much greater (100) as well as the whole boost target load table. boost target load is now much lower than before I think it was peaking around 160. So im a little confused about the PSI based vs load based. I was under the impression if you change one, the other changed relatively. It seems like some relativity got lost along the way or maybe its running off the load value only ?

EDIT.... I added another picture of the WGDC tables. It just dawned on me that maybe my values here are too low preventing the boost from getting to where it needs to be ? although I thought the error correction would at least attempt to help this.

Here's what I recommend, and you may not want to hear it, but I think it's best if you want to learn over the long term and not blow anything up. You're biting off more than you can chew right now for a beginner. Your car was simple from the factory: load based boost control with 1 solenoid. Here's what I would do if I were you.

Put the stock intake in and flash the stock ROM. You can keep the exhaust in. Try to tune with the stock load based boost control (use the factory boost limits to protect you in case of overboost) to account for the exhaust. After you've tuned to account for the exhaust, THEN put in the new intake and scale the MAF. Since the intake reduces restriction on your turbo, you will likely need to adjust boost control again. Then try tuning the cam phasing. Then flash Tephramods and worry about psi based boost, the shifting characteristics etc.

PSI based boost isn't automatically better. It might seem more straightforward but in your situation, you have to retune everything from scratch, and you could really screw something up. You gotta understand that load and airflow based boost control are used on a LOT of cars; for example, anything with model based control such as VW or GM or Ford turbo engine relies on the load calculations and airflow model to control boost and torque. You will learn a lot about tuning from being able to do load based boost control.

Again I'm taking the long view. What's going to make you a successful tuner? Learning step by step how changing each part of your hardware (exhaust, intake, later on cam phasing/MIVEC) affects the tune and how different kinds of control systems work. If you just want your car to get faster and hopefully not blow up, open your wallet and pay a reputable person to do an in person or eTune. If you want to learn you need to go step by step.

Also, to answer your question about the throttle angle:

On an electronic throttle powered engine, the airflow is controlled by the throttle angle (duh) but it is NOT controlled by some kind of separate idle air valve or adjuster screw like an older car. The throttle is controlled by the ECU, it is not controlled by your foot on the pedal. The throttle angle calculation is pretty complicated; you don't have much visibility to it. There are some factors involved:

1) Torque requests by the driver of course (accelerator pedal position) or cruise control

2) Minimum airflow requirements to prevent from stalling (a safety feature built into the ECU). The throttle will always be open some minimum amount so that Mitsubishi doesn't have some kind of safety issue they are liable for

3) Airflow requirements for accessory loads (electrical demands, air conditioner)

4) Torque limiting from Traction control, overboost protection, rev limiter, etc

5) Maybe some kind of gear shift related throttle adjustment depending on what the transmission is requesting from the ECU.

Also, please keep in mind that a throttle valve is actually a completely non linear device. See attached chart which shows the relationship between opening area and airflow. Once you get over 40% the throttle has very little effect on output, and over 80% opening it more pretty much does nothing.

The reason I paid money for this information was to be able to tune my self. So to tell me to pay a tuner is a cop out. If this academy does whats promised I should be able to tune my car in time, myself. Explaining the TPS completely missed my question. Is 87 a normal value for WOT? I often see it as a percent and now you say degrees. if its degrees 87 is very close to wide open. I also know that 12-15 is normal for idle for my car but there is a lot of discrepancy online about the WOT value for my car. Is there any way I could talk to Andre about my situation ? I know he knows my platform and ECUflash well. He would know this off the top of his head.

I didnt even ask for help with my MAF scale, my MAF is scaled now, and half of what you said is not possible. I cant install the stock intake on a larger turbo, doesnt fit. but regardless the MAF is done. Maybe I'm not your typical beginner I did my own calculations to get a base MAF scale and then adjusted using the trims according to my logs and its on now, not very hard. so I dont need to do all that. The cam phasing however, would I have to do that if im only raising boost 2-3 PSI ? If anyone had a stock evo table for this cam phasing i could compare. but in the classes so far it basically says you rarely change the tables on the variable cam motors unless doing major things. (if i'm wrong, please point me to the info I need) my stock turbo hit 19 psi and tapered off, I want to run 22psi peak and hopefully not taper off as fast as the small turbo. And again missing the point about my load VS PSI based boost.. i believe my car will do either and change the other table relative. for example I change my PSI target, my Load table automatically changes accordingly. while I do appreciate the help, my goal is to be able to do this my self. I don't care how long it takes or how hard it is or how much work is involved. I am going to learn this. I havent watched everything yet obviously, but working on it. To have anyone do any work for me completely misses the goal. I have a passion for both technology and cars, and this isnt just a phase for me. This is becoming something more than a hobby for me.

Also as far as the damaging my engine stuff ...... I maybe a beginner but I do know what AFR is dangerous, I have a wideband to watch my AFR and if anything its a bit on the rich side, obviously 14.7 in closed loop and i have it set to 11s in open loop being a tad richer 11.3 nearing redline. the Timing is conservative and have zero knock anywhere . I have all my knock retards setup as well as boost limits. Im leaving my car here at very low boost while i dial the rest in. I'm not blindly making changes that will harm my engine, nor am i beating on it. Im not in a rush by any means. I just want to learn how to do this properly from start to finish. To be a real help, how about send me some links to content that will teach me what you think I need to know to complete my task.

It sounds like I didn't choose the right words to get my point across. Sorry about that.

1) Is 87 a normal value for WOT? Yes. And if it said 80 it wouldn't matter, because 80 and 87 is effectively the same thing on a throttle. Throttles are non linear devices.

2) The point about paying a tuner was a rhetorical statement. I know you don't want to pay someone to do that.

3) If the MAF is scaled and you're 100% sure it's close enough (even at these high boosts you are trying to achieve where it's running open loop), well ok great. Keep in mind that it affects your load calculation, which affects boost control.

4) If you use the boost based control, there's a chance you're going to have to calibrate all your duty cycle tables mostly from scratch. It's a full retune of boost control. That's a lot for a beginner. If you really want to do that, go ahead, but most people are more comfortable starting out by adjusting a factory tune slightly to accommodate new hardware than try to retune a new boost control algorithm and new hardware at the same time. Also, TephraMods is designed for speed density, and if you're not careful you're going to enable something you didn't mean to, and it will lean out and possibly blow up. As for the cams, the stock maps tend to have some margin in them for emissions. You can increase overlap at low rpm and phase exhaust cam at high rpm to see if you can pick something up, but it needs a dyno. If you want to jump ahead and try to tune a bunch of things at once, go ahead.

Can you post your .XML and ROM so we can see all the tables you have available? I can't tell from those screenshots whether load based or boost based have enable bits (arming switches) or some other entry condition. But basically yeah if you are underboosting, you either have a feed forward issue (wastegate tables too low) or a feedback issue (not enough gain, or adjustment is clipped). For example, your Reactive Solenoid WGDC correction limit is set to 0 until throttle position is greater than 50%. So if you're driving around at part throttle and your WGDC table is too low and you're outside of the entry conditions for feedback to work, naturally you're going to underboost. But I don't have a datalog from you to see what it's actually doing, and I don't have your ROM or even XML file, just screenshots.

Thank you for the response and sorry that previous response rubbed me the wrong way.. I'm just trying to learn and Im not at all worried about the duty cycle tuning of the wastegate.. its very similar to tuning a PID controller of a drone for the stability control which I do all the time. PID are the same algorithms on the ones that use that, although mines a little different, just maybe a point in the right direction, what to check or look for. Let me rephrase my previous post.. where I am having trouble in the tephra maps with boost, its reacting in the main map as it should but were im seeking a higher target in the alternate maps its not quite getting there.( now that i think about it, i can probably check if i log WGDC error correction?) So i think theres some work to be done there and I may just set tephra aside for now until my main tune is dialed in to lessen the confusion. I'm not afraid of the huge bite I took, I just need to be shown what order to tackle the work.. boost is still low. I think I may raise the duty cycle a bit to see if thats whats holding the boost back. I think that could be it. ill baby step this process. and if this in fact does fix my issue, it will also answer my own question on the load vs PSI based targets.. Theres nothing "over my head" there's just things I dont know yet :)

let me get my tune simplified, ill do away with tephra and just put in my work so far on MAF scale, ignition, AFR etc. on my tune before I added the tephra mod. and ill attach it, unless you want to see the tephratune as it is.. and probably get a good laugh at all the wrong ive done, not to mention the XML associated with tephra looks like code for a version of windows its so long.

Just a follow up, the tephra does in fact use all MAP based load ( thanks for pointing that out ) where as the Stock it used a combination of MAP and MAF, so Before I venture back to the mod, I will learn all I can about MAP tuning here. I also found that my car is in fact running on Load based boost target, and now that I know that its responding accordingly.. but when I look at the PSI based the values are crazy, so it was very confusing. Now that im just using load, and ignoring the PSI values its working as it should. If this is abnormal, please chime in! BUT I should be all set to finish my tune now, I may look into the cam tuning once I learn more about that. I did bite off quite a bit and on top of that the evoX platform is pretty unique and being open source just adds another layer of difficulty. Hind sight, i picked one of the more difficult platforms, very difficult interface, and swapped about 12 things on my car to try and tune at the same time you're right, not the best idea, but I did all this work before i had decided to learn to tune. I was going to send it out. and then decided I wanted to learn for my self... BUT having done all this i learned a ton and the next job should be cake compared to this. I really appreciate all the info, even if its not exactly what I want to hear.. lol

The tough thing about a lot of Opensource kind of tuning is that you end up with not so great documentation. If you ever look at tuning say a Cobb AccessTuner, they include tuning guides and some kind of description of each table you can adjust. They also have tuning guides. The Tephra stuff isn't as well documented.

Sorry for the bit of a necro post, but I feel this attachment would be helpful to anyone else looking for Ralliart or Evo X or 4B11T tuning information. It's an extremely comprehensive tuning guide for the 4b11t that I dug up in some dark corner of the internet. I don't know how recent this version is, or where the originals are found, but it includes information on Tephramod V3, so can't be too out of date.

Thanks for your post there Lincoln!