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Thanks Rob haven't had any contact with them for years , it simply works. I have found MS3 to be a lot better than MS2, more stable.
Aftermarket ecu advice required. Pug 306 gti6 "running" an EFI Technologies Euro 1
- Thread starter Richard Allen
- Start date
That's a good spot Peter, I've finally spent some time under the bonnet this weekend and have begun getting familiar with the car. It's now running, but still a little rough for sure. The issue was a sketchy relay which I think is for injector power and 1 duff plug on #2. I found the pinouts for the Euro 1 ECU and it has no input at all for a cam sensor, so I guess they are not worrying about any variation due to belt stretch and such at different loads and startup? I've never thought about the use of both cam and crank sensors on a non-vvt motor before, but the stock XU10J4RS engine management does, so is this important for driveability and starting more than full noise? As is, this motor does not start easily, and is fairly rough at low rpm which could be cams I guess, but I am guessing a cam sensor would help here. This being the case, if I were to change ecus I will would want one that makes use of both.
The current setup has these items of note :
- The coils are wired in series pairs for and fire 1+4 and 2+3
- The injectors are wired to individual outputs and if I go by the example wiring diagram I found (not the pinout diagram which has different mappings) injector #1 is at the flywheel end, and #4 at the belt end which matches Peugeot's cylinder numbering order so I hope the ECU is configured/wired to match. I'm assuming this is fully seqeuential, but it could be semi? Would it be terrible if it has been backwards for 12 years? (!)
- The ECU does not seem to be wired to the can bus and is not accessible on the odb2 port for any kind of diagnostics.
- The ECU has an odd proprietary looking round connector for comms
- Using my scan tool, I can find the bosch ABS computer, but not the airbag one. Not sure what's up here, so will need to investigate. Maybe a bus termination issue with old ECU gone?
- Motor is be running a little rich - all plugs pretty black.
- removing #2 injector cable (or any other cable at #2) at idle does nothing to rpm regardless of swapping plugs or injectors, so perhaps not enough air on #2 at idle and butterfly needs balancing.
Regarding Richard's 505, is it the fancy V6 one I've seen at PCCV meets?
cheers!
Richard
I do like accessibility. For something straightforward like this you definitely should be able to do it yourself rather than having to book it in to a tuner as the previous owner of my car has had to do. Out of interest, where do you go to for your MS hardware Graham?
Thanks for the detailed reply Rob,
The car is up and running now, so I will be getting it running as well as I can and enjoying it for a while once it's all roadworthy and registered, but I definitely have been feeling the itch to make some changes primarily because it's not running the best and I feel a bit limited regarding accessibility of diagnostic data and tuning options (no self-tuning, limited tuners that work with it). I did see a new version of the microsquirt that allows for 4 spark outputs, but it only has 2 injector drivers for semi-sequential which is oddly a small step back I think from what I have with 4 injector outs. I'm curious if it would make use of cam and crank sensing in a fixed cam timing engine though, which the Euro 1 does not since it has no cam sensor input at all as Peter T spotted!
As much as I would be fine soldering up my own, I'm not sure I'd be happy passing the car on to someone else with a home made ecu. The connectors and cases aren't nearly so tidy and it might be a hard sell, so the microsquirt or a secondhand lower-tier Autronic/Haltech/Motec/Link would probably my choice if and when it comes to that.
cheers and thanks,
Richard
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- Messages
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DIY Autotune, was a few years ago now though.
Great, thx Graham. That's the place that I found a version of the Microsquirt with 4 Ignition outputs : https://www.diyautotune.com/product/ampd-microsquirt/ I don't think I'll be buying anything to replace my now functional setup for a little while, but I'm absorbing what info I can and hopefully helping others along the way.
Richard I suggest more reading about some older EFI systems, and if you believe in books the factory manuals for Holden and Ford and possibly others do have very detailed descriptions of how their systems work and how the inputs work and great diagrams etc. Great background information to the modern systems. There are libraries instead of the internet ! The Tech College had good stuff once. Surely some of those factory manuals would be cheap now a days.
The ECU only needs a crank sensor if it has individual timed injection and spark. That is so it knows what stroke the cylinders are on. The timing is done off the crankshaft but which cyl is doing what needs a cam position sensor. If you have wasted spark and non sequential injection you do not need that.
To run well may not need to be as complicated as the latest engines as they have strict pollution and fuel consumption hoops to get through before even getting on the road. A simpler system can run well for normal and club use if set up well, without going for the latest and most expensive system.
Jaahn
The ECU only needs a crank sensor if it has individual timed injection and spark. That is so it knows what stroke the cylinders are on. The timing is done off the crankshaft but which cyl is doing what needs a cam position sensor. If you have wasted spark and non sequential injection you do not need that.
To run well may not need to be as complicated as the latest engines as they have strict pollution and fuel consumption hoops to get through before even getting on the road. A simpler system can run well for normal and club use if set up well, without going for the latest and most expensive system.
Jaahn
The ECU only needs a
The Holden VR/VS workshop manuals are an excellent resource as they cover the batch fired V8 and sequential V6
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Thanks for the advice Jaahn,
So a stock XU10J4RS has full sequential injection (needing the cam sensor) and my aftermarket ECU must be semi-sequential injecting and firing twice every cycle because it has no idea where the cam is. Of course, I get it now.
If my engine has different cams with some amount of overlap (yet to be confirmed but likely) would full sequential have advantages beyond economy/emmissions I wonder?
Richard
The current setup has these items of note:
- The coils are wired in series pairs for and fire 1+4 and 2+3
with no cam sensor they have imitated a waste spark setup
- The injectors are wired to individual outputs and if I go by the example wiring diagram I found (not the pinout diagram which has different mappings) injector #1 is at the flywheel end, and #4 at the belt end which matches Peugeot's cylinder numbering order so I hope the ECU is configured/wired to match. I'm assuming this is fully seqeuential, but it could be semi? Would it be terrible if it has been backwards for 12 years? (!)
with no cam sensor the order will make no noticeable difference
- The ECU does not seem to be wired to the can bus and is not accessible on the odb2 port for any kind of diagnostics.
There’s no can bus on a 306
- The ECU has an odd proprietary looking round connector for comms
This will be for their proprietary CAN interface
- Using my scan tool, I can find the bosch ABS computer, but not the airbag one. Not sure what's up here, so will need to investigate. Maybe a bus termination issue with old ECU gone?
Can’t be CAN bus termination issue, the control units on the 306 use K/L line protocols on separate OBDII pins that generic scan tools don’t support.
- The ECU does not seem to be wired to the can bus and is not accessible on the odb2 port for any kind of diagnostics.
- The ECU has an odd proprietary looking round connector for comms
- Using my scan tool, I can find the bosch ABS computer, but not the airbag one. Not sure what's up here, so will need to investigate. Maybe a bus termination issue with old ECU gone?
- Motor is be running a little rich - all plugs pretty black.
- removing #2 injector cable (or any other cable at #2) at idle does nothing to rpm regardless of swapping plugs or injectors, so perhaps not enough air on #2 at idle and butterfly needs balancing.
Just my comment on the idle. From my experience with multiple carby throttles or throttle bodies they are often out of adjustment. It makes no difference to the power above idle but can make a road car a pig in traffic. It requires some time and patience and probably a couple of meters or manometers to set up. Assuming the throttle connections are properly made and the spark plugs and mechanicals are OK then once done it should not require constant fiddling etc. But observing other modified cars in the past it is often not done well, and some people think a rough loping idle sounds 'hot'.
Looking at plugs for mixture is not as simple as saying they look black so it is rich. The conditions just previously will determine what the plugs look like. Been idling for 10 minutes then not worth looking at. A proper plug check will be done at full throttle then the ign switched off and clutch in. Not something to do on a city street.
Having an aftermarket ECU linked to the can bus would be more than my expectations. But I see now that Alex says they do not have it !
Is the airbag light on ? It usually has its own controller that checks on startup and then switches the light off if all OK or if sees a fault sets the light and turns the ABS off.
There were several plugs to communicate with an ECU etc back before the OBD style became common. Often a recognisable electronic type from a catalogue. How many pins ?
Jaahn
- The ECU has an odd proprietary looking round connector for comms
- Using my scan tool, I can find the bosch ABS computer, but not the airbag one. Not sure what's up here, so will need to investigate. Maybe a bus termination issue with old ECU gone?
- Motor is be running a little rich - all plugs pretty black.
- removing #2 injector cable (or any other cable at #2) at idle does nothing to rpm regardless of swapping plugs or injectors, so perhaps not enough air on #2 at idle and butterfly needs balancing.
Just my comment on the idle. From my experience with multiple carby throttles or throttle bodies they are often out of adjustment. It makes no difference to the power above idle but can make a road car a pig in traffic. It requires some time and patience and probably a couple of meters or manometers to set up. Assuming the throttle connections are properly made and the spark plugs and mechanicals are OK then once done it should not require constant fiddling etc. But observing other modified cars in the past it is often not done well, and some people think a rough loping idle sounds 'hot'.
Looking at plugs for mixture is not as simple as saying they look black so it is rich. The conditions just previously will determine what the plugs look like. Been idling for 10 minutes then not worth looking at. A proper plug check will be done at full throttle then the ign switched off and clutch in. Not something to do on a city street.
Having an aftermarket ECU linked to the can bus would be more than my expectations. But I see now that Alex says they do not have it !
Is the airbag light on ? It usually has its own controller that checks on startup and then switches the light off if all OK or if sees a fault sets the light and turns the ABS off.
There were several plugs to communicate with an ECU etc back before the OBD style became common. Often a recognisable electronic type from a catalogue. How many pins ?
Jaahn
Thx for all your replies Alex, I am learning more as we go. That makes sense the 306 does not use canbus.
My scantool has 306 protocols and can see the airbag computer, abs and engine ecu on my wife's stock gti6, just not this one. I might try unplugging the ECU on the stock one and re-scanning to see if this makes the airbag computer inaccessible, but this is just guesswork, so will hold off on messing with the good car for now until I know more.
Richard
Ha ha, that's what my son thinks! I had an old school italian mechanic friend named Dominic about 30 years ago help me set up twin dellortos on an Alfa he sold me by listening to each throat at idle with a plastic tube in his ear and the other in the throat and comparing the pitch of each. We made friends over that car and he taught me a lot over the years. He was an awesome guy.
Point taken. It does smell pretty fuelly at the exhaust too, but 90% of the time I have been playing with the car it's been sitting in the drive chugging away while I figure out how to get it running, so will need to put in some more time here.
Airbag light is off. It might be working, but just not accessible at the odb2 port. I should take a loser look and see if the light turns on and then goes off for starters.
I found a cable online that looks like it might be a serial adapter for it. Have emailed Spoox to find out more : https://spoox.co.uk/efi-euro-2/9116-euro-efi-ecu-usb-can-communication-coiled-cable.html
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A correction that may help people searching this thread in the future :
My ECU is a Euro 1 made by EFI Technology srl, not EFI technologies which is a US company making different ECUS.
My ECU is a Euro 1 made by EFI Technology srl, not EFI technologies which is a US company making different ECUS.
My guess is that just connects the harness plug to their proprietary interface
https://spoox.co.uk/efi-euro-2/6407-euro-efi-ecu-usb-can-communication-interface.html
I saw the 'Ecu made by Efi Technologies Srl' in your first post and was curious about the Italian company suffix as in addition to the same name american company the first Haltech F2 ECU was made circa 1988 by EFI Technology in Sydney........
Don't get confused by the 9 pin D-Sub plug, a high proportion of CAN adapters on the market use pin2 for CAN-Low, pin7 for CAN-High and pin5 for cable shield terminated at one end only to reduce electrical noise.
Sequential injection improves midrange response/torque and thus emissions as well. At full noise, the injectors are open 85% of the time, regardless of whether they're configured as multipoint, batch or sequential. There is a reason why a cam sensor is mandatory on Motec, Autronic and Emtron. They, like the XU10J4RS tuners, obviously think it's important. Haltech does give you the option to configure it either way.
In regards to wasted spark, whilst it obviously works, it's also a compromise, as one spark plug of the two is firing in reverse polarity. Having direct fire ensures each plug is optimised, firing only once per engine cycle and in the right direction.
All the modern ECU's can do auto-tune, if a wide-band lambda sensor is fitted, connected via either 0-5V or CAN.
Yes, that's Richard's V6 505.
It does look just like a straight cable. Somewhat wishful thinking by me that there would be a solution as cheap as that. The other giveaway is the "customers also bought" link to the super expensive interface (UKP540). It's a shame it's so expensive. Perhaps a clue as to why there aren't many around? I think the only reason it's on my car is that UK based tuners like longman put together packages with it and Jenvey throttle bodies for Pugs in the 2000s. My understanding is that it was installed by Competition systems in Braeside as a tuned package via Auto Paris.
I believe the software (ECT Modular) uses some kind of additional server application to talk to the ECU rather than just a straight up can connection, hence the mystery box. Can't find anyone who has reverse engineered one.
I have found a spec on the data it sends out over can, but am more interested in having access to adjustments. https://www.aimtechnologies.com/support/racingecu/EFI_Euro1_103_eng.pdf
Richard
Thanks for the education Peter.