Cus' NA6

[gslender]

Unless... *Casts Summon Grant* Do you happen to know off the top of your head what sort of interpolation the MS uses internally to compute the values between cells? (Bilinear or Bicubic, or "something else"?)

Linear interpolation

[Cus]

Tunerstudios can do this for you can't it.

TS has a woeful map comparison - it just shows you both maps and leaves you to work out the differences yourself - and I wanted something to compare maps on the intertubes to my map (because curiosity)

Linear interpolation

Ta

I present: "msThingy" http://mail.fitt.net.au/msThingy/

After stuffing around with this for most of the weekend, I've decided I don't care enough to actually complete it

It does do a little bit though.

You can scale a 12x12 up to a 16x16, it will try and keep the min and max bins for RPM and kPa, and has a go at working out what should be in the middle.

You can compare (parts) of a 12x12 map to a 16x16 map, it's just the most convoluted workflow I've ever invented:

• Upload the 12x12 MSQ file as "My MSQ"
• Click "Target Map"
• Select "Blank 16x16" and double check the kPa / RPM bins are logical (ie, in sequence)
• Select "Resize Map"
• Press "Keep as Target"
• Go back to "My MSQ"
• Upload a new 16x16 MSQ.
• Click "Compare"
• Boom, done. In only 9 easy steps!

Comparing 16x16 (or 12x12) maps is way easier, as long as the RPM/kPa bins align. If you don't get a "distilled map" showing up in the compare page, the bins probably aren't aligned.

• Upload one map in "My MSQ"
• Upload a second map in "Target Map"
• Press Compare.

You can compare same size maps that don't have matching RPM/kPa bins too - use the top method, it should still work....

You cannot re-download the scaled maps, for a number of reasons:
1) XML is stupid, and stupid people use it to do stupid things.
2) MSQ files are XML.
3) Putting a 16x16 map into a 12x12 MSQ isn't going to do anything you want (TS won't load it, the MS won't know what to do with)

It all started as a curiosity project, escalated wildly, and now, is being ditched in favor of picking my nose and/or staring out the window - I didn't actually get it to the point of making it OCR an image file, but it turns out OCR is also hard. (well, doing OCR on a colour jpeg is hard)

[gslender]

Cool. Put the code on github for all geeks to share, digest and enjoy!

[Cus]

github smells funny! (and the copy-and-paste tutorial for setting a git mirror didn't work, then i gave up)

tar + scp work though! http://mail.fitt.net.au/msThingy/msThingy.tar.bz2

Try not to vomit when you see my code

[Cus]

Well, I lied.

I said I wasn't going to work on the msThingy any more..... Then I worked on it.

I wanted to know how much my VE had changed after bumping timing and doing some more VEAL'n. The answer is "a little bit".... curiosity satisfied!

I took myself off to the msextra forums to download random msq files to test with. People have bloody strange maps, one I downloaded has kPa bins at 0, 1.5, 3, 6, & 10, then stops at 95.... the thread was them complaining about their car not running right. Can't see why.....

It will read MS2 & MS3 MSQ files, but not MS1 files because they use different table names, and I'm lazy. But one can now compare Spark, VE and AFR tables!

It now fairly effectively compares two entirely different maps, it will interpolate "middle" bins fairly well - if one map has RPM at 2500 & 3000, and a second one has 2750 & 3250, it will work out what the values of the bins should be. If one table stops at 100kPa, but the other keeps going up to 200kPa, it will compare up to 100kPa, then just copy in the values of the 200kPa table. You can still resize/rescale maps, but the compare page does that in the background anyway.

You can play with it here: http://lucas.fitt.net.au/msThingy/
The source has moved to here: http://lucas.fitt.net.au/msThingy/msThingy.tar.gz
And if you're lucky enough to have IPv6 internet, you can access the most current version here (as long as my laptop is on and home): http://[2001:44b8:413f:29bb:227:10ff:fe ... /msThingy/

[Cus]

I got sick of looking at the new CAS o-ring next to the kettle, so I changed the o-ring on the CAS. I didn't let the car cool down enough, the CAS was not comfortable to hold. The oil that had been leaking out of the o-ring was not a nice temperature either.

The old o-ring was so hard it was brittle, and the P.O. had siliconed it in. I spent more time getting the old silicon stuff out of there than anything else. The car had cooled considerably for CAS re-installation.

I double-checked my timing after putting the CAS back in, I have a feeling it's been at 8 degrees since the ECU went in, what I thought was the "10" mark was actually the "8" mark.... Oops. Doing a quick test with the timing locked to 10 degrees shows the timing retards as the engine revs up, so that's another setting to fiddle with when I get around to it. Basically whatever timing I've been asking the car for it's been 3 - 4 degrees retarded from there, depending on RPM. This explains a lot of the laziness.

The car *will* start in flood-clear mode, and it will proceed to do what a car does when the throttle is held to the floor. Specifically; scare the sh*t out of you if you're not expecting it. I was not expecting it. The sh*t has been scared out of me.

My sister borrowed the car the other day (I had her car, her fiance and her kids - I think I got the raw end of that deal) - her report was "it didn't want to start at the supermarket, then it made a strange noise, then I tried it again and it started" which prompted me to fix the cranking table. "fixing" it basically consisted of doubling the cranking fuel percentage. Cold starts are still a bit iffy, but I've got hot starts down as low as 0.4s cranking time, sometimes 0.5s. I've noticed in the cold-start logs the injector PW sometimes won't ramp up from 0ms for half a second or so, so literally half the time it's cranking on cold starts there isn't any fuel being pushed in.... that will make it harder to start...

[Cus]

It's been a month since I've entertained you all with words!

Here goes.

Winter is cold.
Winter is dark.
Winter is wet.
Nothing has happened.


....Winter also turns me into the kind of poet people wish they didn't have to listen to, and I'm a bit over a week into quitting smoking for the second time. this basically means I swear a lot more, for apparently no reason. But most importantly, no homicides, and no smokes!

I'm now a master at removing my dash cluster. Turns out it's really easy, even when the plug for the speedo cable is facing down.

I've polished the front of the cluster, it has had marks on it since day dot, and it finally got to me (day 1 of quitting)
"While I was in there" I decided to run a wire from the speedo to the ECU so the ECU knows how fast the car is going, the internet informed me that even if my car didn't have cruise control or an OBD-II ECU, the sensor and wires would still be there.

The internet lied to me.

(Picture stolen from Droo)

Early NA6s have a cluster as picture on the left. Nearly everyone else on the planet has a cluster as pictured on the right.

What's missing is a reed switch, which can be purchased from jaycar for $2.00, or from china for $0.20 - difference in price is purely delivery time. I chose the jaycar $2 item, because now it's actually in the car, tested and working. The china item would be about a month away still.

The reed switch is a "normally open" 16mm switch, the jaycar model number is "SM1002" - but nearly any reed switch will probably do the job, you just need to mount it as close to the speedo shaft as possible to pick up the magnet that's in the speedo cluster.

I took zero photos of this process, except for this one of the completed happening:


One end goes to any point marked as (-) on the back of the cluster (ground) and the other side goes off to connect to the ECU via a bullet plug thingy so I can still remove the cluster in the future. In the ECU it's connected to DI2, which is internally pulled-up to 12V, so there's no "hacks" or resisters involved, one end goes to ground, the other to the ECU, tell the ECU what pin it's on, and you're done. The pulses/km I had to enter into TS is 2500, gear ratios I got off the FM website, and now it knows how fast I'm going, and what gear I'm in.

Huzzah.


The VSS line on the graph is a bit fuzzy, but that's probably because my speedo wobbles (ie: i need a new cable) - nothing actually gets done with this information in the ECU, it's just for logging at this stage. If the ECU ever needs to know exactly how fast the car is going, I'll replace the cable. The first "jump' in hears is actually slowing down with the clutch in (engine RPM drops quicker than the speed which looks like a gear change tot eh ECU) - maybe it will become more accurate if I wire the clutch in too?

After having an LED light bar in my possession for the better part of 6 months and being unable to bring myself to cut the bumper to mount it "correctly" I've mounted it in the mouth, under the number plate. It will probably have to come off when the hot weather comes back, or be mounted differently. Future-Cus' problem!



Not the best shot showing what's going on, but there's a train station and fog, so what it lacks in detail it makes up for in artistic fluff. The LED bar is not fully wired in yet, the rain needs to piss off and let me do my thing, or maybe I can be rid of this cold by nearly killing myself with hypothermia.... I might give that a go.

[smy0003]

Yes, excellent write up.
Was wondering how to get vss into my adaptronic without mounting a ball effect sensor on the wheel hub.
Where was that last pic taken?

Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk

[hks_kansei]

Yes, excellent write up.
Was wondering how to get vss into my adaptronic without mounting a ball effect sensor on the wheel hub.

I'd be more inclined to put a sensor on the tailshaft yoke rather than a hub.
less wiring, and no need to take into account suspension movement etc.

[Cus]

The Last pic was taken at the (Victorian) Maryborough Train Station. Maryborough is like an Australian Detroit, but at the start of it's demise. We used to have industry (farming actually), and as a result we have an awesome train station. It now has one passenger service a day to ballarat, and a freight train that rolls through without stopping at about 4AM.

I'd be more inclined to put a sensor on the tailshaft yoke rather than a hub.

That'll just give you the same value/speed you can get for "free" from the back of the dash from the RSW wire - or by installing a $2 reed switch - either way you're not getting under the car lol

For a second non-driven VSS (for traction control or whatever) you'd be better off sourcing a front wheel ABS hub + sensor.

[Cus]

I finally got the light bar wired up, twice!

The first time around I was off on a test drive, was changing gears and caught my foot on the wire that picks up the high beam signal (getting it from the light at the back of the dash, because lazy) and ripped the wires out. Drove home, zip tied the wires out of the way of my foot, put the wire back on the High Beam thingo, and we're golden!

Because I like to be mildly scientific all of these photos were taken in "Manual Mode" on the camera, ISO 100, f/4.0, 0.5 Second exposures and equate to "about as bright as looking at it with the eye" - I didn't spend ages calibrating this though.

Low Beam:


High Beam:


All of the Beams:


Bigger versions can be seen here: http://imgur.com/a/pfvF3

I don't actually know what kind of LED bar I have - My sister gave it to me after her car got written off (You can hit an awful lot of Kangaroos with a Kia Rio before it's terminal, but the roo's win eventually) - What I do know is it was "the cheap one from ebay", draws about 8A @ 12v, and has 42 individual LEDs in it.

I thought there would be more foreground shadow from hills on the road than there is. There's not "none" but it's not as bad as I'd imagined it would be. There is also a fair bit of side-light, and tree-vision. So there you go, LED bars in the mouth of an MX5 are better than expected.

Now I want to track down light bulbs that are the same colour temp as the LEDs. Damn can of worms!

[LiteIsRite]

Now I want to track down light bulbs that are the same colour temp as the LEDs. Damn can of worms!

I'm interested to see how you go with this, Cus, as I've been down the same path. All I can say so far is that Narva 'Arctic Blue' H4 bulbs aren't a match.

[Cus]

I'm guessing they're still too yellow?

I'm running Philips 'X-treme Vision' +100% bulbs which are 3700K - they didn't seem too bad until I put LEDs in the mix with them.

According to the SCA website the Artic Blue's are 4000K, so only a tiny bit whiter.

At a guess the LED bar I have is the "Cool White" variety, which will be somewhere between 6000K - 7000K - a quick bit of googling seems to indicate there are very few options for normal bulbs in this tempreature range short of installing HID bulbs + projector lenses. I do remember the Higher colour tempreatures lights being available at autobarn while I was looking at bulbs though, but I didn't go for them for whatever reason (probably because they didn't come in +100% variants like the lower colour temp ones do)

The Narva "Truck-Lite" 7" LED inserts would be exactly the right colour temperature, and I've seen trucks running these lights and can confirm they are indeed bright as &@$#, but they're also $400 each - Being LEDs we'll probably die of old age before the lights do, so you'd never need to buy headlights again - but $800 is a lot of money to process for 'just headlights'. You can import the same inserts from other locations for a lot less (50%), but there's no magical ADR stamp - which you won't have with a projector setup anyway.

I'd throw up "group buy" as an option, but I can almost guarantee nobody is going to be interested unless we were getting 75% off as a starting point

[LiteIsRite]

Yeah, sorry Cus, I should have been more specific - the 'Artic Blues' (sounds like an issue a penguin might develop, or would that be 'Antarctic Blues'?) are still too warm, colour temp wise.

Some owners on the big forum rave about those 'Truck-Lite' replacements but, as you say, for most of us $800 is about $600 too much to pay for headlights. Doubly so for me as mine isn't a DD, and rarely gets out after dark.

[Cus]

2 weeks ago I flew to WA to help a mate move to NSW - he had two cars, and so myself and his brother-in-law flew over to help Mr Mate and Mrs Mate move their family clear across the country. I got to drive, lots - there was 5 days of travel, covering just shy of 4000Km, it was fun, but I don't think I'll help anyone move that far ever again!

I got back last night, and I think little red is jealous I crossed the nullabor without him.

This morning he decided to continue cranking after letting go of the key - and continued putting in a second or so of "extra-crank" time until the car got heat soaked a bit. Once it warms up he starts like normal.

Once he did get heat soaked, whichever coil was dicky, shat itself entirely.

It was a nice day for a COPs install, so I did that. In an effort to be lazy and not pull the ECU I wired it up for wasted spark. Set the Dwell settings to 3.5ms cranking / 2.5ms normal, put the key in, started the car, and it worked.

Went for a squirt around the block, it's much happier having spark on all cylinders again - but there's no tacho, which means I need to pull the ECU to put in a pullup.... ...another day. I'll wire up sequential spark while I'm at it I guess...