Our ECU Flash-Tune Day With Merlin

[godzilla]

First of all, thank you Dave for making the trip up to the Gold Coast for a whirlwind tour! Was great to meet you and have you waive your magic over our ECU's.
Thanks to all that showed up today, was great to catch up and learn a bit about flashing (Even though most of it went over my head)
I am sure i can speak for all involved in saying it was a successful day.

My car definitely pulls harder, is more responsive off boost and makes boost quicker. Was just a shame that it would not make or hold steady, over 1bar. But that is now my next job - work out why
My car has also developed some sort of weird 'hesitation' or 'surging' at full load, around 4500-5500. It also drops 0.2bar in doing so. I am going to first, bypass the factory boost solenoid then try resetting boost to 1bar and see if it holds steady.

Biggest surprise for me was how well Chris's FL, completely stock bar boost, responded to 15 or so psi and a flash!

 

[unclepaulie]

wish i could hav made it, but i was booked into karting (won two races though )

y'all best post some results and reviews..bum dyno etc.


Josh; get your car dyno'd asap. i keeen to know if you cracked 200

 

[fieldy107]

Yes thanks for coming up Dave, you are truly a wealth of knowledge when it comes to cars. After seeing what you can do with our cars in a couple of hours, I would love to see the results if you spent a whole day on a single car.

Also thanks to Trevor for arranging this. Sorry my car was being a bastard and took Dave a while to figure out guys, I felt bad holding everyone up. Dave offered to find out how to turn the bonging noise off when you leave the keys in the car for me, but I told him the other guys would probably rather I didn't waste anymore of your time

Results? well my car was going like a rocket until I hit (what I hope is) boost cut on the way home. Damn cold weather...

 

[Kenneth]

My car has also developed some sort of weird 'hesitation' or 'surging' at full load, around 4500-5500. It also drops 0.2bar in doing so. I am going to first, bypass the factory boost solenoid then try resetting boost to 1bar and see if it holds steady.

If you haven't already, check your plugs (all of them, not just the fronts). Increased boost and high load makes life difficult for them and if they are not in good working order. (correct gap etc) you get the same symptoms that you describe.

 

[godzilla]

I see. I would have thought plugs if i had not replaced them with NGK platinums less than 10k ago, along with top gun leads. I used 6's from memory too.

I plan today to wind the boost back down and see what happens.

 

[fieldy107]

Turned my boost down a bit and the boost cut went away
I must of been running over 17 psi when I got into the colder weather

 

[naughtika]

like what Chris said, thanks to Dave for sharing his wisdom, to Trev for arranging this and to his parents for letting us use their garage..

I've done 420kms and still have more than 1/4 tank of petrol

 

[Fazzle]

Awsome news guys. Dyno figures and 1/4 mile runs are in order I believe

 

[legnum600]

Good work guys on the ECU Flash

 

[naughtika]

i'm gonna turn up my boost to 15psi.. see how that goes.. hopefully no boost cuts and stuff..

 

[godzilla]

Wound my boost down to 0.5-0.6bar and ran like an absolute dream! Felt so smooth and pulled so hard. Will wind up the boost until a level which doesn't cause my issues.

 

[fieldy107]

Might have to wind mine back further, but not so sure its the problem anymore. Car drove great when I tested it this morning and all day today up the Gold Coast until I headed home, went to accelerate up a steep hill (sextons hill) in 3rd gear WOT and it started fuel cutting again, so then I played around with it the rest of the way home and I couldn't rev past 5k on boost without it happening. Best way I could describe it is comparing it to an old carby motor with a dirty carby, go to put your foot down and your engine goes, stops, goes, stops. I think I heard a bit of a knock noise from it as well. Bit of a weird thing that is happening...

 

[bradc]

Spark plugs or coil packs I'd guess.

 

[fieldy107]

Spark plugs were done less then 10k ago, I haven't touched the coil packs since buying the car though...

The problem does not always happen and its only happened since being tuned. I would assume the problem is somehow related to the tune? Hmm.. I dunno.

 

[naughtika]

try and service your coilpacks first.. then diagnose it further..

 

[Skurfer]

When you start upping the power, things start to break down. I would be with brad and say coil packs. Seems similar to a problem i had in a starlet that I had turboed, which ran fine, and then subsequently got tuned, which then showed a few electrical things that I had to replace as they started to break down.

 

[Kitty's VR4]

Wouldn't pulling error codes first be a consideration, if the coil packs are breaking down, it should be throwing errors for offending coil pack/s !!!

Then service that coil pack and see if corrects the miss, if after servicing it is still creating miss / error codes, the the pack is stuffed.

Tracing problems like this should be a methodical process.

 

[unclepaulie]

you and be both feildy, you and me both....

bloody coilpacks!

i still havent pulled the codes working 7days a week sucks lol

 

[fieldy107]

Would coilpacks cause it to do it all the time or could it also cause it to happen intermittently like what is happening with mine? Is servicing coil packs a big job? Do I need to see a mitsi dealer to pull error codes?

 

[godzilla]

Chris, search for diagnostic code or something like that. There is a thread on here that shows you how to pull error codes at home, using a paperclip.

Servicing the coil pack is a simple job too. There is also a how to guide for that on here ( Dimi made that one )