Ok, so I just got my unit back from Hydra. I had an issue with one of the connectors on the board, so they actually put a spankin' new board in my box (lol). So I got everything in, did the TPS cal, wb02 cal and fired it up. Kinda. It does not like to idle right away and requires me to lightly apply throttle before it will hold idle on its own. Then I noticed the AFRs staying at 21.5, even after the car was warmed up. I wanted to take the car for a spin, so I set the sensor to just the nb02 setting (I think). Drove only staying in vac. and it seemed ok for a short time, then it started to breakup and get jerky..sounding like it was misfiring/running on 2 cylinders. Luckily I didn't go far and got home quickly. When I did the wb02 cal, my setting for ZeroCal was 142 and my GradCal was 115...does this fall within a normal range for these settings?

On my 2.17, I had a nice custom tune done by Ed Senf and would love to have those fuel and timing settings back...as he no longer does tuning for the Common Man. So does anyone have a good tune for a 2560/rc550s/vvt that they can share with me? Is there any way I can plot them over to 2.7?

 

Anyone? I know someone here has upgraded to 2.7 and I would really LOVE to chat with you about what you went through when you got the unit back from upgrade...mostly looking for someone with a 01-05 w/VVT who has done this.

My current issues-

*WBO2 sensor trouble (grab a Snickers)
No AFR reading. Was using a WBO2 that was a Honda L1H1 (NTK sensor) on my 2.17 with no issues. With 2.7, I get no actual reading after doing the calibration, it just sita on 21.5. Got another sensor (Bosch 13025) and the same thing resulted. I've used Bosch 13246 in the past on 2.17 with NO issues and no real changes needed for calibration. The 13025 is supposed to be the same sensor, just with a shorter harness. Both Bosch numbers are NTK L2H2 sensors. I'm about to try the NTK 24300 sensor. The only reason I am trying these and not getting one from Flyin Miata/Hydra is because I am trying to get the car running by this Friday so I can go to MATG before I move...so I need to get my hands on sensor(s) in a matter of hours, not days. If I had more time, I'd just order the sensor from FM and take my time to get it. I know this would be a sure-fire way of knowing if it is a sensor issue or wiring issue. As far as wiring goes, I've checked the harness/pin locations/connector about 5,287 times...everything lines up. I feel it is VITAL to know AFRs so I can continue with sorting out the other problems..as it is important to know what AFRs are doing to troubleshoot them. I've located a NTK 24300 locally and will be trying that in a last-ditch effort to see live AFR readings.

* Cold start idle
The car will not idle upon cold start. It cranks and fires beautifully. When it fires, revvs go up as normal, but then suddenly drop and stall...as if I turned the key off at the peak of the RPM rise. It's not a matter of ECU power or anything, I'm sure it's a matter of ICV/timing/fuel that needs to be adjusted, but I am CLUELESS on where to look or adjust...especially without knowing what the AFRs are doing. If I apply light throttle for 15-20 seconds, the car will then idle on its own. Car will restart when warmed up without any throttle input...although RPMs sag upon startup and then reach the ~900rpm target.

*Idle
Idle is not smooth. There is a noticeable amount of airflow from the exhaust that tells me something is off. It idles as if the a/c is on...clearly under some load and louder than normal. Hopefully this description makes sense. On top of the increased load, the RPMs oscillate a small amount (maybe +/- 100 RPM) and I can clearly tell it is running rich by the soot and black smoke seen from the exhaust.

*VVT calibration
Following FM's VVT calibration I noticed something I have no knowledge about..I don't know if it is normal or another problem. The calibration states to pull the plug off the VVT controller to set the cam to full-retard, then check the actual vs. target and use the VCTi offset to get them to line up. With the car idling and the VVT solenoid unplugged, the display showing actual and target was showing the actual number fluctuating around. Even when I was able to get a "-22" from it, it still would fluctuate to -24,-22.5,-21.5,-23, -22, -24...etc... Is this normal? Why are the VCTs number moving around with the actuator unplugged? Is this having any bearing on why the idle is acting up?

*NBO2 reading
I've notice the 0-1v display for the OE NBO1 is just displaying "1" constantly. What does this value mean? Could this be any effect of the start/idle problems? With everything going on, I am pretty sure that I had set things up as to start the car from cold with the WBO1 off and just running open loop/NBO2 target only and there was no difference, but I will be trying this again when I get home.


My odd request, only because of time- Is there anyone with a 01-05 that has 2.17 who would like to trade with me for a short time and would like to play with 2.7 to see if you can figure anything out? Swap units back shortly? I am just desperate to have my car running before this weekend so I can go to MATG with my car :(

 

Your WeGo cal is over Hydra-specified settings, but that shouldn't cause a 21.5 all the time. Your wideband and Hydra simply aren't communicating correctly.

My guess is that Hydra did a better job of locking down the sensor market to be used with their ECU for 2.7, and you really need the correct sensor. :(

 

At this point, I'd be happy to just swap a 2.17 board back in there :(
Making me buy a new WBO2 when I had one working perfectly fine with the 2.17 is NOT a way to make for happy customers (given what you said is true).

But WB aside, the startup/idle shouldn't be affected by it as closed loop doesn't even come into play until temps reach 170*....the open loop map *should* be able to handle starting up and initial idle....an I honestly expected the system to fire up and idle just like my 2.17 was doing.

 

warm-up enrichments?

 

Regarding the wideband sensors, here is what Jeremey told me via email when I sent mine in for the upgrade

"Your old WBO2 will work with 2.7- unless it is one of the really old long-pigtail VW branded NTK sensors. These may or may not calibrate. If you do need a new WBO2, it will be $260 for the new WBO2 sensor & a new pigtail as they are using a new-style connector that’s better than the old one. If you have a problem with your WB heater circuit, Hydra says that the WB repair is usually $150 flat fee- if it’s repairable."

 

Yeah, I saw that too. But I've long since changed out that sensor. The first one I replaced it with was the Bosch 13246 (see the WBO2 Hydra sticky) which worked perfectly fine. About a month ago, I noticed my AFRs being a bit wonky and replaced that sensor with a NTK L1H1 I got for a steal and it worked on the 2.17 flawlessly. That L1H1 wasn't reading with the 2.7 and I figured it might happen to be of "older" design and bought a Bosch 13025 last night (same as 13246 but with a slightly shorter harness) and that one did not work either.

Marcus- Very possible, but without knowing AFRs, I can't blindly change any settings :(

 

The FM base map should idle the car just fine regardless of what the wbo2 is doing. Unless it's set up for the wrong injectors?

The heater circuit seems to be working.

Really here's the only options:

1) 2.7 doesn't tolerate the "wrong" sensor.
2) The onboard controller is toast right out of the gate.
3) Wiring is incorrect. Which... is somewhat easy to mess up considering you're truly working with two harnesses, which have been revised at least twice. Couple that with a worn Delphi pin or two, and you're having a bad time.

 

I figure the FM map should work fine..I was really hoping for a plug-and-go install.

The harness was sent to Jeremy for modification and to have it checked over per the ECU power loss/cut-out issue. He said the harness checked out and I'd imagine he gave everything a good look over :/

I'm on board with 1 and starting to think about 3 as well....I have no idea what my injectors are other than being older RC 550's.

 

I mean the wideband harness. I highly doubt the patch harness is to blame here.

Example: This is an old Hydra wideband harness. (Pins to go into main Hydra blue plug on the other end.)



This style isn't used anymore. (Thank god. Speaker wire? REALLY?) You really need to make sure that you're tracing from the sensor, not from the plug at the other end of the pins when determining where to pin into the main plugs. If you're using one of the old style harnesses or something you've modified/put together in the past, the most current "How To" that FM has on their site may be confusing and/or wrong.



As for injectors, might be worth taking a gander in there to make sure that the base map isn't for a car with ID1000s. Doubtful it would fix everything, but it's worth looking at.

 

Well, that will all be remedied tomorrow....ordered a new sensor/harness from FM just now...and am having it overnighted (from Japan! lol)

So once I get that and get it out of the way, I'll be able to focus in on what is going on inside of there. Talking to Jeremy, man, those guys are backed the heck up with work....props to them. I feel bad for taking up his time right now lol....but better to be busy than be slack. My job has died down in work and I HATE sitting around feeling like I should have work.

Will be verifying low imp or high imp injectors when I get home.

 

If they're the old RC550s from FM, they're high impedance.

 

It's alive!!!!!!

Cold start idle needs some work and I had a rather strange issue happen....twice on my initial drive. I stopped at the gas station to get gas and check a few things with the tune, after sitting still at idle for like 10 min, it's started running VERY rough, like on the verge of stalling, which it did after a couple of minutes of rough idle. AFRs looked ok (I think). Would not crank back up. Let sit for like 10 min and it started back up and idled fine. I let it idle more and about 5 min later it did the same thing. This time I was out of the car and poking aroun under the hood- no problems and nothing disconnected. But I did notice several bright flames from the exhaust as the idle pitched up and down. It even eventually stalled again. Again, I let it sit for like 10 min and it fired right up. I then drove around my neighborhood area for about 30 min and didn't have any problems. Got a little into boost and all seemed well. AFRs are pretty rich at idle and cruise, but I can see the autotune trying to adjust for the targe AFRs an actually watched the AFRs at idle go from 10 to high 12s in a matter of a few minutes. I will see if I can replicate the idle issue and data log for analysis. It almost seems like a coolant temp trim was going nuts.

I'm workin on plotting my old spark map over and see how it does...maybe even my fuel map just for fun to see if anything changes. Either way, I'm very relieved to have the car in a drivable state.

 

 

Why I no........what?

 

5 years from now, someone is going to buy a used 2.7 car and have the same problem, they are going to look at this thread and say:

Y U NO TELL US SOLUTION!?

...

But you, and you alone, have the power to change the future. You told us that you were getting another WBO2 sensor and you hoped that would solve the problem, then you separately told us that your was "Alive", but you haven't actually connected the lightning bolt to the frankenstein. Throw the newb of the future a bone here!!!

I originally thought that you had a lean map across the board, and that the startup enrichments were the key to the car running good immediately after start-up. It sounds like you're running way rich now (your WBO2 seems to confirm my suspicions). I hope that the auto-tune irons that out like we expect it to.

Maybe I was lucky; I unplugged my 2.5, plugged in my new 2.7, reset my spark dwell, and the car started right up. I have only moved it about the driveway though, because I am trying to sell the stock NB before playing with my Hydra car, and I haven't yet connected the WBO2 to the 2.7. I'm always interested in learning what the final solutions are to Hydra related problems.

 

Well... his wbo2 wasn't working prior... and now it is. 2+2=?

 

Sorry...look at the time I posted that up....I can't say I was completely conscious lol.


I ordered the replacement WBO2 from Flyin Miata to determine once and for all if the WB was the problem or a problem with the wiring/hardware/software. Given both previous WBO2s would have (and were) working on the 2.17, I was kinda doubtful that it was an incompatible sensor. After having fun pinning in the new harness and performing yet another calibration on it, I finally had values more on the lines of what I was told I should. The GRAD Cal is up to 190. Once the other calibrations were done (again) and everything checked, the car cranks and fired....and stalled. Start #2 worked much better- idle much smoother, AFRs reading correctly (though rich) and all data looked to be reading/working. After setting the VCTi calibration and ISC adjustment, it just ran nice and smooth for a few minutes. After that, it was just a matter of buttoning up the **** I had taken apart lol.

Unfortunately it seems Hydra might have the WBO2 on pretty heavy lock down with the 2.7. They claim that any parts store "off the shelf" NTK sensors may or may not work...they'll be hit or miss. Jeremy at FM has not tried using any sensor but the ones Hydra has provided, understandable. Hopefully this one will last for quite sometime lol.

Bottom line- If having AFR/WB problems with 2.7, just suck up and get the damn thing from FM lol.

 

Well, the rough idle/stall issue came back. On my way home for lunch (4 mi drive...but its 88* and humid), it stalled as I got into my neighborhood. I let it sit while I ate lunch and it fired right up when I got back to it. Got about 1.5mi from work and it cut out again. Same thing, let sit and it fired back up. I didn't have the computer with me, so no idea what it was doing...but seems like a map or setting...has to be...car was not doing this i nthe heat before the upgrade.

 

I think we have found the problem and the solution!!

I had a friend come over who knows a little more about tuning than I do and his insight/knowledge was very helpful. In discussing the issue, we agreed it is clearly temperature related. Then we thought about the symptoms and how they are related. It seems likely that the coil packs aren't liking the dwell settings.

I'd like some input opinion on how we came to this conclusion based on a couple of things-

The dwell is too high, causing the coils to get too hot, at some point, they fail and lose spark. When spark is lost, fuel is not burned and raw fuel goes through the exhaust. The WBO2 is looking for hot gas to read and cannot read the raw fuel as input. This causes the WBO2 to see "lean" and the ECU then tries to compensate by adding fuel. These things can be seen in my logs as AFRs shooting up, and injector pulsewidth increasing at the same time. This just throws everything out of whack and all power is lost, the engine eventually chokes and stalls. Letting the car sit allows the coils to cool to below their temperature threshold and allows me to start the car and drive about 10-15 minutes later....where they then get too hot and fail again. Rinse and repeat. To top this off, the added fuel in the running cylinders fouls out the plugs and further adds to the poor running...which causes a drop in vacuum (increased load), in which the ECU tries to compensate for....further aggravating the whole situation. All of this just compounds on top of itself until the engine simply chokes and stalls.

Seem like a sound theory?

Here are some screen shots. I wish I had taken screen shots of the trigger test results...on the one I did with the engine acting up, there was some odd about the ignition graph...I'll get screen shots of that later.

AFRs (pardon the numbers here, I'm still working on this) you can see where they suddenly jump to reading leaner.


Injector pulse...where the ECU is trying to restore AFRs



Engine load...where vacuum is lost




and RPMs going nuts...