The Rebirth

[BigMike]

Dec 6, 2014: Propeller Installed!!

The next day I got the Propeller installed!!! WOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO

Pic 1: Wiring up new 5vdc circuits (see pic 3 description), preparing to route signal wires to the cabin

Pic 2: Got a second MAP sensor installed near my intake which I'll use to read intake pressure (it's proper use ) to control my Water/Alcohol injection system, full programmability via the Propeller board.

Pic 3: Got a bit to explain here. According to what's printed on the Propeller itself, it requires 6 to 9 volts to operate. Knowing that I already had 6 volt clamps (previously robbed from my R/C Crawler) and that the MAP sensors run on 5vdc, I decided to pick up some 5 volt clamps, finding them on Amazon (product link), and move the 6 volt clamps to the cab for the Propeller. Done.

Note: Later I would find that this online product guide claims 4 to 16 volts is acceptable. This would have been much easier as I could just tie it into my car's main power system. But why then is the circuit board printed differently... Well probably best to be safe than sorry so I'm leaving it the way it is.

Pic 4: Whenever you see me whip out my old grocery bags of wires from engine conversions past you know it's gonna be a fun time up in here!

[BigMike]

Dec 6, 2014 (continued)

Pic 1: Pulled Intercooler, cleaned up some wiring and routed the two MAP sensor signal wires and the servo serial wire through engine bay.

Pic 2: Circuits making their way to the interior.

Pic 3: Connecting Propeller power to ACC power -- while the sensors and servo are configured to ON power.

Pic 4: First time in my life I've ever had a laptop plugged into and communicating with my MR2! Such a great moment in our near-16 year history together

[BigMike]

Dec 7, 2014: Exhaust Program Demo plus first revision

The keen eye will note from my previous post that I've got a fancy 4x20 blue LCD screen (using a LCD117) connected So here is live footage from the very next morning of operation!!

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/XLgYXALI0R0&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/XLgYXALI0R0&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1</a>

[BigMike]

Dec 7, 2014 and later, Holidays, New Year...: Exhaust Valve Revisions and Tuning

Been busy with holidays and needed time anyhow to get things all dialed in. For starters, those el-cheap-o eBay China special MAP sensors are A COMPLETE PILE OF CRAP. No wonder they were only half price and no wonder I was getting sporadic reading as reported back at reply #349, THEY ARE JUNK. Fortunately I had a real genuine GM sensor, the new type ACDelco P/N 12615136, that I had bought prior to the eBay sensors and hadn't returned to the dealer yet. So on it went.

Because I'm posting this now 2 months old, it's sort of foggy as to when I made the change, but I have to report that the exhaust back pressure monitoring is not the way to go and I plugged off the line at the exhaust and moved the MAP sensor to the intake.

Looking back I can't say for sure what the exact issue was, but between unknown factors of how hot the exhaust is (in real time) and loosing pressure through that dang TRD balljoint, I could never get a steady, reliable, and meaningful reading from the exhaust itself to base calculations off of. I decided to switch to the real MAP, the actual Manifold Pressure instead and man oh man has it been wonderful.

I've since done 12 revisions to my program and it is pretty much all dialed in now. The difference this has made has BEEN AWESOME! The car is much quieter while cruising on the freeway but also comes FULLY alive whenever you put your foot in it!

The biggest thing I've had to troubleshoot and work with is what happens between full and no throttle. As I'm now basing exhaust throttle adjustments on intake pressure, these things change quite rapidly with a mechanically driven Supercharger

Switching over to MAP readings actually hasn't been as shortcoming or as negative as anticipated. Because I'm not likely to run full throttle at lower RPMs (as I'd rather downshift than kill my engine), concern about low RPM backpressure is kept in check.

One last thing to note is that after some testing I've found that my peak boost is somewhere around 11.75 PSI. Earlier on reply #347 I claimed peak boost was "11.25 PSI" but it's certainly closer to 12 PSI now with proof from a digital MAP sensor. There is a bit more to discuss regarding peak boost and I'll mention it below...

Here is a list of revisions I've done so far:

v1.0
  Initial Release

v1.1 (Dec 6, 2014)
  Bug Fixes:
   Throttle % vaules were displaying outside of 0-100%
  New Features:
   High Boost mode using a less restrictive Line EQ to prevent throttle
          from slamming shut between shifts
   Display Boost in PSI
   Display Peak Boost and reset on each gear change
  Changes:
   Minimum throttle is now 10% at < 0.8 volts (observed warm idle vdd)
   Maximum throttle now occurs at > 4.5 volts (11.75 PSI)

v1.11 (Dec 7, 2014)
  New Feature:
   Now displaying Absolute Throttle Angle
   Now displaying Throttle Angle along with Peak Boost per shift

v1.12 (Dec 7, 2014)
  Changes:
   Main Line EQ reverted back to 720 baseline to have an Absolute Throttle Angle value
   Minimum throttle is now 20%
   High Boost Line EQ now comes in at 2.25v
   Rewrote psipeak section

v1.13 (Dec 7, 2014)
  Bug Fix:
   High Boost mode was not using it's conservative Line EQ under vacuum (the exact reason why it's needed!)
  Changes:
   Changed "highboost" to "boost": Highboost mode is now simply Boost mode
   Cleaned up some code
   Lowered Boost mode to 10 iterations

v1.14 (Dec 8, 2014)
  Changes:
   Drastically reworked and optimized LCD Display code
   Got rid of Text Refresh code since LCD code is improved
   New Integer Math to display numbers to two decimal points
   Moved Boost Mode up above servoabsolute to get accurate throttle angle reading
   Changed Boost mode from 2.55 to 2.5
   Added asterix to Throttle reading when in Boost Mode
   Changed Initial to count down rather than count up
   Added Initial checking to prevent Boost and Peak displays from activating during cranking
   Changed Initial vdd detection level from 2 to 1.25

v1.15 (Dec 10, 2014)
  Changes:
   Removed unused "angle" variable and related functions
   Returned to 0.5v|720 Line EQ
   Cleaned up more comments
   Raised Boost mode from 15 to 20 iterations
   Added code for a 25% minimum mode while not idling
      There are now three modes: Idle (20%), Cruise (25%), and 25%+

v1.155 (Dec 11, 2014)
  Bug Fixes:
   Corrected possible IF statement error concerning 25% throttle cruising mode
   Replaced all <= and >= with <,> and moved numbers up/down in an attempt to correct possible IF statement errors
   Boost Mode Asterix was set to come on at the old 15 rather than the new 20
   Added an extra space to the Peak display to prevent lingering '0' from appearing
  Changes:
   Reduced main loop pause from 150 to 100 to try to combat quick changes in vdd (55ms is about as fast as it can go)
   Also increased LCD pauses from 5ms to 10ms to be nice to LCD. Overall refresh is still improved
   Removed Terminal debugging code. Just pull from previous versions if needed
   Changed PSI conversion from 14.69 to 14.6959 due to accuracy concerns

v1.156 (Dec 14, 2014)
  Bug Fix:
   Added extra blank space to the end of MAP display
  Changes:
   Reduced refresh rate from 100 to 125ms
   Increased Idle to 25% and Cruise to 30% throttle

v1.157 (Dec 15, 2014)
  Bug Fix:
   Changed subsequent servo IF statements to ELSE IF since servo only needs to be set once
  Changes:
   Added ignition in ACC position triggering for Initial mode (when vdd=0)
   Attempting to widen the range of 30% by shifting the trigger for 25%|924 to be 1.1v|843
   Experimenting with 35% Cruise instead of 30%

v1.158 (Dec 24, 2014)
  Bug Fix:
   35% Cruise displayed 34.1 instead of 35%. Now it's gonna be 35.1% I think
  Changes:
   Idle circuit is now 27.5% instead of 25% and also now activates below 1.0v (instead of 1.1v)

v1.159 (Dec 28, 2014)
  Changes:
   Sending initial 100% Servo command before the 4sec LCD delay so I don't have to wait for it anymore
   servo float variable is now an integer before being sent to the servo
     Now we can do anything we like with servo, so adjusted to get just the right thr% display for idle/cruise modes
   Lowered idle mode activation to below 0.9v (instead of 1.0v)

Basically with all the driving I do I get a lot of time to test out and consider how to improve the code. I'll make notes on my cell phone and when I get back home I'll pull out the laptop and USB cable and update code.

Here is an explanation of the display:
Throttle -- This is the actual % open of the exhaust throttle.
MAP -- This is the actual voltage reading from the MAP sensor now installed to the intake system
PSI -- This is the voltage signal converted to pounds per square inch. Negative means it's operating under vacuum.
Peak -- This is the highest registered PSI in between boost and no-boost conditions (ie. a gear change).

And here come some shots of various displays throughout my progression:

Pic 1: One of the earliest pics I took. This is from code version 1.1 with alllll the digits showing and overall had a clunky and slow refresh rate.

Pic 2: This is after version 1.11 where I added the Throttle Angle that was occuring at the time of (that particular) peak boost. You can see that after a while I would get random characters on the first row overwritten by numbers. It took me a while to figure this one out

Pic 3: Same sort of text getting messed up on the first row of characters. Peak boost here is nearly what I have the throttle set for for 100%, or 11.75 PSI. So at 11.6 PSI the throttle is only opened 99.71% of the way.

Pic 4: This is at version 1.14 where I "Drastically reworked and optimized LCD Display code". This was the first milestone release, fixing multiple rendering bugs including the number overlay error mentioned in pics 2 & 3 allowing for a more responsive refresh rate.

[BigMike]

Here is video from the above pic of revision 1.14 in action. This is essentially how the display looks today:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/fNyyezkybc4&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/fNyyezkybc4&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1</a>

[BigMike]

And lastly, here is a collection of pictures I've taken from unusually high peak boost levels. They are very rare to find, only happening these 8 times over the past 3 months. I am convinced these spikes are occurring when the throttle is at 50% closed (from revision 1.14 and onwards under "Boost Mode" the throttle may only revert to a minimum of 50% closed until a certain number of readings from the MAP sensor are obtained) and the engine is told to go full power.

I believe that for a slight moment back pressure in the exhaust builds up enough to slow air exiting the chambers allowing the boost to spike.

And the only way to know this and to fully understand what is happening is to not take 1 single reading of peak, as we don't know when and for how long peak was observed, but rather to view the entire boost duration as a curve. And this my friends is what I intend to do tomorrow, the first day of March 2015, as I begin DATA LOGGING!! WOO HOO CAN'T WAIT but I am super tired and must get to sleep. I do have a few more updates such as reverting my more efficient and less polluting intake to the less efficient and more polluting intake and smogging my car but I'll have to post about that another time.

As always thanks for reading and catch ya later!

Regards,
BigMike

[BigMike]

Before I call it a day I'd like to share my latest Propeller version, v1.159, that has been serving my MR2 for two solid months!

// Exhaust Program v1.159 (Dec 28, 2014)

// Connect Yellow Servo lead to Servo connection P12
// Connect Black/Yellow MAP wire to A/D3
// Connect LCD to P2

#include "simpletools.h"
#include "adcDCpropab.h"
#include "servo.h"

const int ON  = 22;
const int CLR = 12;

int main()
{
  serial *lcd = serial_open(2, 2, 0, 9600);
  adc_init(21, 20, 19, 18);

  float vdd, servo, servoprev = 0, servoabsolute, psi, psipeak = 0;
  int initial = 30, boost = 0, i = 0, n, d, throttlepeak = 0;

  servo_angle(12, 1535);                           // Set servo to full throttle
  pause(2000);                                     // Four seconds for safe LCD start-up
  servo_angle(12, 1535);                           // Ensure Servo got the signal through the ignition cycling...
  pause(2000);
  servo_angle(12, 1535);
  dprint(lcd, "?y0?x00Thr:");
  pause(10);
  dprint(lcd, "?y1?x00MAP:");
  pause(10);
  dprint(lcd, "?y2?x00PSI:");
  pause(10);
  dprint(lcd, "?y3?x00Peak:");
  pause(10);
 
  while(1)
  {
    vdd = adc_volts(3);

    servo = (203.75 * vdd + 618);                  // Line EQ of 0.5v|720 to 4.5v|1535
    if (servo > 1535)
      servo = 1535;
    else if ((servo < 1005.3) && (servo > 802))
      servo = 1005.3;                              // Cruise: Fixed 35% open (for values between 27.5-35%)
    else if (servo < 803)
      servo = 944.5;                               // Idle: Fixed 27.5% open (for vdd values under 1.0)

    if (vdd == 0)                                  // Reset Initial mode if the Key goes to ACC
      initial = 30;
    if (initial > 0) {                             // Initial Controls before engine is running. Modify iterations at top of file.
      servo = 1535;                                // Wide open throttle for start-up.
      if (vdd < 1.25)                              // vdd only drops this low once the engine is running & idling
        initial = initial - 1;                     // Engine has just started up! Delay some iterations to hold the thorttle open
    }   

    psi = ((vdd - 2.5) * 14.6959) / (5 - 2.5);     // Convert MAP Voltage to PSI.

    // Boost Mode (limit min throttle between boosted gear shifts)
    if ((vdd > 2.5) && (initial == 0))
      boost = 20;                                  // Number of iterations to remain in "Boost Mode"
    if (boost > 0) {
      if (servo < 1128)
        servo = 1128;                              // Minimum 50% closed
      if (boost == 20) {
        dprint(lcd, "?y0?x05*");                   // Add asterix when Boost Mode is enabled
        pause(10);
      }
      boost = boost - 1;
      if (boost == 0) {
        dprint(lcd, "?y0?x05 ");                   // Remove asterix
        pause(10);
      }
    }
    servoabsolute = ((servo - 720) * 100) / (1535 - 720);

    // Throttle Display
    n = (int) servoabsolute;
    if (n > 99)
      dprint(lcd, "?y0?x06%d  ", n);
    else if ((n < 100) && (n > 9)) {
      d = (int) (servoabsolute * 10) - (n * 10);
      dprint(lcd, "?y0?x06%d.%d", n, d);
    }
    else {
      d = (int) ((servoabsolute + 0.05) * 10) - (n * 10);
      dprint(lcd, "?y0?x06%d.%d ", n, d);
    }
    pause(10);

    // MAP Display
    n = (int) vdd;
    d = (int) ((vdd + 0.005) * 100) - (n * 100);
    dprint(lcd, "?y1?x06%d.%d ", n, d);
    pause(10);

    // PSI Display
    n = (int) psi;
    if (psi < 0)
      d = abs((int) ((psi - 0.005) * 100) - (n * 100));
    else
      d = (int) ((psi + 0.005) * 100) - (n * 100);
    if (n > 9)
      dprint(lcd, "?y2?x06%d.%d ", n, d);
    else if ((n < 10) && (n > -1))
      dprint(lcd, "?y2?x05 %d.%d  ", n, d);
    else if ((n < 0) && (n > -10))
      dprint(lcd, "?y2?x05 %d.%d  ", n, d);
    else
      dprint(lcd, "?y2?x06%d.%d", n, d);
    pause(10);

    // Peak Display
    if ((psi > 0) && (psi > psipeak) && (initial == 0)) { // Using Initial from above prevents possible peak reading during cranking
      psipeak = psi;
      throttlepeak = (int) ((servo - 720) * (100))/(1535 - 720);
      n = (int) psi;
      d = (int) ((psi + 0.005) * 100) - (n * 100);
      if (n < 10)
        dprint(lcd, "?y3?x06%d.%d @ %d  ", n, d, throttlepeak);
      else
        dprint(lcd, "?y3?x06%d.%d @ %d", n, d, throttlepeak);
      pause(10);
    }
    if ((psi < 0) && (psipeak > 0))
      psipeak = 0;                                 // Reset Peak on gear change

    servo = (int) servo;                           // Convert to whole number before sending to servo
    if (servo != servoprev)
      servo_angle(12, servo);                      // Send angle to servo only if new
    servoprev = servo;

    pause(125);
  } 
}

[BigMike]

Hey guys, I'm still awake, figured I would share some recent shots of my MR2 since it's been a while. I've just been busying driving and enjoying this fine piece of machinery! Also been enjoying some really thick fog

[BigMike]

Alright guys here come some updates!

And this my friends is what I intend to do tomorrow, the first day of March 2015, as I begin DATA LOGGING!! WOO HOO CAN'T WAIT

Ok so before I continue with this I forgot I skipped some updates!

Dec 29, 2014: My baby turned 300,000!

On Friday Dec 26 I was driving to San Jose when my mileage was within 200 miles of turning over 300k, shown in the first pic below. Knowing that round trip is more than this, I prepared to capture this golden moment on video when my baby had her 300k birthday!

Here is a very short (7 sec) clip of my testing out my camera to see how well it would record during the trip to SJ:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/bekYn6YzMG4&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/bekYn6YzMG4&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1</a>

Skipping ahead to the following Monday, Dec 29, and I was on Highway 101 heading toward Gilroy when.... I...... ummm.... FORGOT ALL ABOUT IT!!!

The entire weekend had passed and I hadn't even so much as looked at my car -- I forgot all about the glorious moment.

Fortunately for some reason while approaching the Morgan Hill area I happened to look down and realize that the moment had past and in a panic I ripped open my computer bag, pulled out my camera case, pulled out the camera, and was able to capture a few good pics of the aftermath.

Thank you SO MUCH Toyota for this AMAZING car that has given me SO MUCH JOY over my last 16 years of life. I wish I could personally thank all the employees who made this possible. This truly is one awesome car! Many more thousands to come, thank you my dearly beloved 1987 AW11 MR2!

[BigMike]

Jan 17, 2015: Suspension almost fell apart!

Christmas, New Years was pretty busy, then we were working on hiring a few new employees and gearing up for the busy spring season and I generally didn't have anytime for the car. Was just driving to and from SJ each weekend. I can't say when but I started hearing some sort of clunk coming from the engine. I first thought it was a loose engine mount so I double checked them and they were all fine. Then the noise would go away for a while and then I'd hear it a few times and then nothing for a few days. Was it something rolling around in my trunk? Some hose slapping the firewall? Really strange...

Then I began noticing that my car was pulling to the right under acceleration and to the left while coasting. I wrote it off as low air pressure (which I checked visually) or just the road was crowned and for some reason I just hadn't noticed it before. Then it started getting pretty bad, so bad that I'd have to apply opposite steering in between full boosted shifts to maintain a straight line.

Something was clearly messed up.

So I returned to San Jose late Friday night Jan the 16th and went to bed. I waited for daylight the next morning and promptly went out to have a look at the suspension. I actually first propped open the hood to get more light shining down and when I leaned into the body to hold the hood up and prop it, my eye caught something moving from beneath the intake manifold and beneath the engine. I looked and didn't see anything moving, and then retraced my steps, leaned into the car and THERE IT WAS the FREAK'N AXLE SHAFT WAS MOVING FORWARD AND REARWARD about an inch.

I for a moment and was like.... WAIT A MINUTE... CONTROL ROD! Jumped down to my knees and IMMEDIATELY saw this. Whatcha guys think? Pretty sweet eh?

[BigMike]

L@@K AT THAT! I WAS LIKE TWO THREADS AWAY FROM THE TIRE GOING INTO THE FENDER, LOCKING UP, OR EATING ITSELF UP IN THE WHEEL WELL!!!!!!

Thank you my guardian Angel for watching over this one. Ohhh man one of the most scariest things that nearly happened to me with this car. That could have been a complete mess while totally stranding me out on highway 152 somewhere, or up in Pachaco pass, could have happened during a hard left corner, could have lost it, who knows. Very fortunate I caught this.

The only explanation is that 2 months prior on Oct 22 the guy who did my alignment did not properly torque the control rod nut. Wow.

Over the next few weeks this stupid nut would keep coming loose. I'd tighten it and a few days later I'd notice the car pulling to the right again under acceleration, and sure enough the nut was backing off. So I eventually just double nutted it (and the other side for good measure). I'm not even gonna play any games here.

[BigMike]

Feb 6, 2015: Preparing Exhaust for Smog

As ranted at reply #339 I explained my reasons for forgoing smog equipment. I am all for obeying the law but when the law cares more about controlling the populace rather than emissions causing my fuel mileage to drop 5 MPG where I drive more than 350 miles per week in a state with the most expensive gasoline in the country due to poor government and voter decisions I say they can all suck my balls.

Feb 14, 2015 is my next smog day so it's time to get crack'n.

As mentioned before, I designed my intake to be readily restored back to stock using only basic hand tools. Unfortunately however, TRD did not make their Toyota-approved exhaust header smog legal so by using it I've effectively made my bi-annual smog inspections much harder. It's an official Toyota MR2 part that I cannot legally use on my Toyota MR2. Thanks California voters.

So step one: Out with the efficient exhaust. I'll let the pics do most of the talking.

Pic 1: How my lovely 4A-GZE is doing

Pic 2: I noticed like a retad I installed one expansion spring backwards. Why did I do this? Was I experimenting when I was building the exhaust and just forgot to fix it?? So strange and it will get replaced correctly.

Pic 3: How my exhaust setup looks

Pic 4: Throttle Servo is doing GREAT! No discoloration, standing up to the heat and road grime just fine! It's even rained a few days and caused no issues.

Pic 5: TRD Header including it's lengthy downpipe arrangement weighs 14.8 lbs

Pic 6: Stock S/C manifold - only itself - weighs 16.8

I didn't get any pictures but I weighed both systems:
Entire stock exhaust system from cylinder head to tip: 55.9 lbs
Entire BigMike exhaust system from cylinder head to tip: 36.3 lbs

Aftermath:
Noise difference:
WHEW stock system is much quieter at full throttle But idling actually it's only slightly more quiet. Cruising it is certainly more quiet but not as much of a difference as I was expecting. Still though, it's nice being quiet. But to trade for the power? Ahhhh how about No.

Power difference:
DEFINITELY less power at the top end. It doesn't pull as hard above 6,500 rpm. Just feels a bit flat up there. It is still registering 11.75 psi boost on my gauge, but the very high top end is certainly dull.

[BigMike]

Feb 8, 2015: Preparing Intake for Smog

This was the much easier part of the job so I didn't take that many pics. I did take extra time going back to my old pics to make sure all stock parts were accounted for.

As designed, the process was super easy. I spent more time ensuring all vacuum lines were correct than the actual physical labor of switching out the parts.

Pic 1: IC removed, showing my straight shot intake through the 3S-GTE turbo throttle body.

Pic 2: The awesome 120-degree stainless pipe simply connected to the stock S/C inlet manifold.

Pic 3: One piece air filter assembly extraction.
Pic 4: Everything all back together and my car now 100% smog legal and inefficient

[BigMike]

RESULTS!!

So check this out guys!!

Going off my boost gauge, peak boost dropped from 11.75 PSI to just 9.5 PSI! I didn't change anything but the intake leading up to the stock S/C inlet manifold. Same crank and S/C pulley (don't need to change those for smog) and was making the same 11.75 PSI after reverting to stock exhaust two days prior.

Only non-stock mod here is my smaller 110mm S/C pulley (~10mm smaller than stock, more info at reply #330) and of course the ABV mod for > 8psi boost.

So there you have it. Toyota designed an uber restrictive intake system, which is precisely why I built my own. I do have a big advantage with the stock battery gone. But yeah, 2-1/4 PSI in boost gain purely from my own custom intake is just awesome

[BigMike]

Feb 11, 2015: Smogged and registered

And finally the moment you've been waiting for, my baby is good for yet another two more years



She passed with flying colors on the high speed but barely sneaked by on the low speed test. Hydrocarbons were pretty high. I'm betting that with both cams slightly retarded by the thinner MLS head gasket it's allowing more unburned fuel to get out than normal. Passing is passing and I'm freak'n glad that is over with.


After smogging the car I immediately left for San Jose. Upon returning back to Fresno, combined city+highway fuel mileage to and from the bay area? 23.3 MPG. With this sort of city+hwy use with my improved intake/exhaust I'm certain to make at least 28 MPG. Will be very interesting to see what happens after I put my parts back on and make another trip across state.