need some advice on tuning a 16 rocam

Good day everyone

new tuner here

im trying to help a friend fix her ford 1.6 Rocam (mk4 fiesta) and having trouble getting the ECU setup. its an old car and we have had more trouble than its worth but im not going to go into details on that

long story short im struggling to get the car started up. it uses millisecond setting on the ECU (Spitronics Orion ECU).

i know the car idles well at 3.3 to 4.3 ms (i set iit to 3.8ms @ 0.2bar). if i try the method of setting everything to 3.8 then doing the 2% adjustment around peak torque as in the ECU standalone practical course it doesnt start up at all. so clearly my method that i am using to set up the timing map is wrong.

i set the ignition timing to 15 deg BTDC. the car does not have a Lamba installed. idle set to 800rpm.

i know mechanically and electronically the car is 100% and its definitely something im doing. the more i work on it the worse i make it.

issues im encountering:

car will only start when i blip the throttle then idles well. if i come off it slowly it idles good. car needs to start from turn key without thortle pressing.

if i crank it the fueling at 0.6 to 0.8 bar is too rich to get it past that point but if i lean it out it created a dead spot after teh car idles

the main concern i have is the insane amount of pinging that im getting. the car only pings when hot. if i retard the timing to no ping when hot then the car wont cold start

if i start the car and step on the accelerator teh car dies when cold. this doesnt happen when car is hot and goes away after about 15 seconds of idle.

i believe the setup method im using is wrong as course material is based on VE and this ecu works on miliseconds. so essentially im just guessing in the dark.

i did look at the worked example but i stil couldnt get it to run right or at all in some cases.

its supposed to be an easy tune with a 1.6 NA common engine with 0 mods. i just need it to work like it should out the factory.

What am i doing wrong?

Thanks in advance

support site for this ecu seems to be https://support.spitronics.com/categories/ecu-tuning/ and has some docs about setting up and tuning from scratch

sounds like your trying to do everything in the fuel map and timing maps by themselves

you need to look at the cranking maps and the accelerator pump maps and air temp / water temp tables - it sounds to me from your description you havnt setup some of these compensation tables yet?

first of all thank you for your reply. i do appreciate it.

i figured since im new the supplier would already expect the user to know how to tune the software in the same way as a car salesman assumes the purchaser already knows how to drive.

i have been suspecting that it is an issue with the compensation. the HPA courses work with intake air temperature while the ECU i have works with water temperature as the measure for compensation.

the ECU can run air temperature compensation but it is not connected and the wired for the air temp on this car have been cut off and are all the same colour so the wire diagram does not help.

i understand that what i have here is a project that most people would scrap, i also do not gain anything from this except the knowledge. my friend has had a very bad time with this car and every mechanic scams her over and over.. i know because i had to fix their mistakes.

however this is a good car. mechanically everything works. it just needs someone to work through the issue and the car will be good as new.

anyway back to the tune.

my plan now is to set up the ECU as in the worked example in the HPA course. even though the information does not cover my issue its the concept that is what i need.

i will look into cranking maps and the accelerator pump as i have overlooked those. as you said i have only been looking at fuel and timing maps.

your words are helpful and have given me new areas to look at since i know the problem is me and not the car but if i persevere it will come right. just need to keep researching and trying

thank you

UPDATE: car is running perfect now.

turns out i never set my compensation graphs to 0.

So fuel mix was constantly changing all over the place while i was making adjustments.

driving like lightning now 0 pinging and idles smooth as can be.

just need to set start priming pulse and she will be good to go

congrats :) i hope your friend enjoys the nicer running car now :)

if those tables had bad data in them - you will want to go through every single other table in the ecu to make sure they have valid data in them as well tho....

have fun :)