Only reason most folks went to the tune parties was to save the $$ of the remote tune tool......saved lots of time too, being able to do the dyno runs in a few minutes, rather than playing email tag with files , waiting on a dyno.....some did do a dyno less tunes with actual runs and data logging...but dyno runs are reproducible, so imo better for most . The software to do self tuning....it's been around....kinda...the fact the ecu is kinda locked down, with some encryption and a checksum when you upload new tunes is a complication...but one that was successfully overcome. One thing too keep in mind is the ecu is basically a 2002 year computer, and since it's in a car, a few years older....so it's limited...it basicly 20 year old technology.....
I really wish they had too, it would've made life a lot easier for me starting in on this project. Currently most of 1320's turbo conversion cars run ByteTronik and a fuel cut defender (map clamp) from what I've seen, with a few of the bigger ones jumping over to their stand alone system. My hardest part has been the inability to even get a chance to see the software first to see if it's even worthwhile to try. Watching through ByteTronik videos or searching through tons of threads for screen shots hasn't shown me much other than the typical "oh here's your base fuel table and here's your base timing table, tada!". Ok that's great, but what about the other important tables like throttle tip in enrichment, or temp scaling that controls fuel enrichment or timing advance/retard? Even from what I can tell the upstream MAP sensor is simply used as a standard baro correction to calculate base fueling, and I see the "adjustable" fuel table is an addition or subtraction from another base table, but what base table is it? None of that is ever spelled out. Maybe on the Mynes forum with other users, but then again the average person is locked out until they spend ~$800, and there's no guarantee it'll work the way you want it to. Even when a small group of us started recoding Evo 8's and 9's for speed density conversions to ditch the horrible stock MAF setups, people kept telling us not to bother because it'll never work. Even after we had the code rewritten and MAF to MAP lookup tables created, there were still bad issues we had to test out (one of which almost got me into a accident; when starting off my car would die right out unless you feathered the throttle lightly, turned out to be throttle tip in needed massive readjustment to compensate). It took 2 years of driving and logging every day as well as making small adjustments daily, but in the end it worked flawlessly (well enough for 532whp on my stock block 2 liter) and finally gave people another option for big power builds other than a complicated stand alone. Sure, stand alone's are easier; fuel, timing, TPS, IAT correction, knock if it's properly calculated, injector scaling, etc. But if the stock ecu is capable of controlling it just as well for the turbo guys with some major tweaking, I'm game for a challenge again. I just have to see all the tables and how they interpolate with each other (impossible without seeing the software unfortunately), and I honestly can't afford to blow that kind of money for something I might end up tossing out anyway. :frown2:
I finally got some answers from a few people that have used FA53 to tune turbo converted r53's. My biggest concern was whether or not I could make base fueling changes to any main VE maps (the answer is yes), since by changing the induction system the engine's VE is going to change as well. This is mostly where LTFT and STFT come into play, and the starting compensation value is set initially by the upstream MAP sensor (which acts like a baro sensor initially), and then constantly references back and forth against the TMAP for vacuum differences during operation. This is good news for me, now I finally am starting to have an idea how the overall system works together in a logical order. I was also able to get some answers about deleting sensors as well, and as was expected the answer was a resounding "no" to physically removing sensors without running into issues. CEL's can be disabled, but that doesn't mean they aren't showing up. In reality the only sensor I would look at disabling would be the rear o2 anyway, not because it affects performance but because I hate seeing the light on lol. I'm kind of curious too as to how picky the ecu is if I ended up using a wideband's 0-1v scaled down range for input for the front o2 (o2 heater is a non-issue, I have ways around that too). I think I'm finally seeing some light at the end of the tunnel! Step 1: Tune base VE fuel/timing to account for new engine VE dynamics with the turbo. Step 2: Start conservative boost tuning for fuel/timing compensation maps. Step 3: Tune the more aggressive levels (up to but not more than 18psi), but keep the motor safe through the rpm/boost or vacuum range. Reduce timing where knock starts to occur and smooth all tables as much as possible. Step 4: Enjoy! At least that's the plan anyway haha!