Adaptronic owners thread

[hks_kansei]

I should add, I wasnt sh*t canning Adaptronic by any means.

More just letting people know that the Select NB8A isn't "plug in, turn the key and it's good to go" like how some suggest.

No ECU is by any means, but it was more a note that when you first plug it in the start map isn't just "oh it starts kind of bad, but just needs a tidy up"

[track_addict]

All the problems that you listed are the exact same I’ve had with my select in my SE. The car was tuned nearly 2 years ago now so I’m a little vague as to what the fixes for each problem were but for the idle they had to turn the gain down to the minimum to slow the ecu’s response time. Basically the car would end up chasing its tail. I also had a high idle problem. Where I would drive the car, stop for 20mins or so, restart the car and it wouldn’t idle below 1500rpm. I was told the ecu has some lock out function where if idle doesn’t settle to within 400rpm of its target it would go into this mode where it would idle high. The tuner said these two issues are only because the ecu is somewhat hamstrung in its design. It runs fine now with his tweaks but it’s kind of a step backwards in the way that he had to slow things down.


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[hks_kansei]

All the problems that you listed are the exact same I’ve had with my select in my SE. The car was tuned nearly 2 years ago now so I’m a little vague as to what the fixes for each problem were but for the idle they had to turn the gain down to the minimum to slow the ecu’s response time. Basically the car would end up chasing its tail. I also had a high idle problem. Where I would drive the car, stop for 20mins or so, restart the car and it wouldn’t idle below 1500rpm. I was told the ecu has some lock out function where if idle doesn’t settle to within 400rpm of its target it would go into this mode where it would idle high. The tuner said these two issues are only because the ecu is somewhat hamstrung in its design. It runs fine now with his tweaks but it’s kind of a step backwards in the way that he had to slow things down.


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Cheers for that,

I'll print this post out and bring it with me when I go back to the tuner.
He probably knows them already, but hey i'll mention it anyway in case he doesnt.

He did mention that due to the design it wont ever get to be 100% in transient throttle etc, but he was confident he can get it pretty good still.
(which makes sense, I mean it's somewhat expected that a $1500 ecu may be missing a few options compared to a $2000 Haltech, or a $5000 Motec)

Also helps that Adaptronic did quite a good discount for me since I traded in an ancient 440 Universal ECU.


Much like the MX5, they're not the best, but they're bloody good value for what you get.

[track_addict]

Ah yes transient throttle. The tuner was able to set it up perfectly in the garage whilst stationary. But when he went it on he road it was rat sh*t, so he got it perfect driving around but then it was sh*t house whilst stationary. So he had to find a medium. It’s not perfect at all but is “acceptable” now. I may have an email outlining everything which I can post in here later today.


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[hks_kansei]

if you find it that would be great.
feel free to PM me the text from it if you prefer.



the transient on mine is actually really good once it's got more than say 1200rpm on board, smooth etc.
Yeah, there's a split second of lean, but it feels smooth which is what matters more (plus, the OEM ecu had the same split second lean spike)

It's just that initial throttle from idle that it drops revs and occationally stalls.
And yeah, at higher revs if you have only a tiny bit of throttle on it will kind of stutter for a second (like say coming into a corner hardish in 2nd, when you go to apply throttle again mid corner there's a second where it will stutter before then accelerating nicely.

I suspect that's just part of the same transient throttle issue though.


and yeah, the idle thing which is probably unrelated.

[track_addict]

So, here's the info from my tuner. Apologies for not doing it when I said I would, I've been busy with being lazy. I changed the colour for his fix/response to the issues. I've chucked in another piece of info regarding the 3D boost control. Nothing you have asked for but seems like good info to me?

- Hot idle is high and erratic. This is a big one which is somewhat inconsistent in the particulars. If I go somewhere and let the car sit for 20 mins to an hour or so, then get back in it, the car will idle anywhere from 1100-1800. Sometimes its a stable RPM, sometimes it will initially idle at 1100 but rise to 1800. If I turn on the air con when its doing this it will idle up 200 RPM and stay there, even once the air con is turned off. The car has to sit and cool completely to not do this. Also, when this is happening, the RPM drop very slowly between gear changes. This is somewhat apparent when the car is "hot started," and dríven. But it is especially apparent when the idle is very high. Is the ECU going into open loop or not correcting something temperature related? Initially I thought a sensor or something was heat soaking but thats only a guess.

This is tricky. The idle control on the mx5, particularly with the Adaptronic is super painful. Basically it’s idle duty hovers around 60% at all times. Below about 58% the car will stall. Above about 64% it’ll rev it’s head off. The Adaptronic outputs in 1% steps so it’s very erratic. I’ve got the gains turned down as far as they go to try and calm it down but it’s still not brilliant. I think I’ve got a/c on off a bit better now but it’s one thing to be in the shed and another to drive it every day.

The closed loop control gets locked out when the idle is 400rpm above target. This setting is maxed out. It’s problematic because of how sensitive it is. Most ecu’s will let you adjust this setting way up over 2000.

Basically, I wish it had 0.1% resolution!



- Can you smooth out the power delivery and possibly do some kind of 3D control? I think this ECU has that capability?

Normally, with other ecu’s I’d do this from the start. Problem is, with this ecu once you activate the 3D boost by TPS table, it removes the base duty table and gives you a single value to set. This engine requires about 30% duty to achieve target boost at 3000rpm but about 54% at 5000rpm so it really needs a 3D base duty table. I didn’t think it would work too well without also having a 3D base duty table with target as the y axis. It simply uses a “multiply by tps” tick box.

I activated tps mode and did what I could to set it up. It seems to hit about 8 or 9 psi below about 70% throttle then goes up to about 15 at full throttle. I tried doing a couple of dyno runs where I varied the throttle and it seems to behave fine so hopefully it does what you want.


Hope this helps.

[hks_kansei]

Thanks for those, should be helpful.


The idle one especially, the boost one less so since I'm non-turbo, but it should be useful for others in future.

[NitroDann]

I agree with those criticisms.

Dann

[hks_kansei]

Upate.

Tuner had another look today, turns out the predictive map setting had for some reason changed itself and had some ridiculous settings (like sudden throttle adding -30 fuel.....)

he turned predictive map off all together and tuned off millisecond fuelling instead.
result, throttle stabs are HUGELY improved, only the very slightest lag from idle, but i;m fine with that.

part throttle at revs now fine as well, only flaw i can spot is that when blipping throttle at 4000rpm it bogs rather than revving.
But tbh, as he said, the adaptronic select is fairly limited in how it can do this stuff, so it may be just an ECU limitation.

he did say the Modular ecu (their current model) is a massive improvement, so my recommendation to anybidy buying an ECU, grab the Modular unless you get the Select cheaply.

[rascal]

Just out of interest , who is your tuner.

[hks_kansei]

- Edit Okibi 6 July 2018 8:35pm -

[rascal]

- Edit Okibi 6 July 2018 8:35pm -

Hmm, figures.....
He does mine too, and quite often booked out when you want him, (cos he’s good!) so was thinking if you used someone else I might have had a backup for Trent.. No biggie..

[mx589]

hks_kansei check your pm i can prob help you with your idle problems mate

[hks_kansei]

hks_kansei check your pm i can prob help you with your idle problems mate

Per the PM, cheers for the offer, but they're sorted now.

[hks_kansei]

Ok, update.

Still working on this.

When the cold weather hit it started flooding on crank, so it went back to have that looked at.

Good news, now starts in cold weather.
And also no longer has a bog on throttle blips, or a buck during high rpm shifts.

Bad news, transient throttle is rubbish at low rpm and load. Lean points, bucking, etc.

Tuner has sent me an updated tune file to try, but if that doesnt work he's basically said that the Adaptronic Select isn't able to do transients well at all.


I just want to ask, those who are running an Adaptronic Select, on an NB. (esp non-turbo)
truthfully, how bad are they?
I know i cant expect 100% OEM feeling, but is it too much to expect at least 90%?

Or is every NB with an adaptronic just driving around with awful transient throttle tuning?