TRUTH/MYTH OF LOTUS ECU

[SweetDaddyD]

People showing impressive gains on dyno charts with things like Cold Air Intakes, usually have one to sell you.

Say if someone had tested them and showed otherwise, yet they ran a forum where particular vendors paid for advertising, maybe it wouldn't make a lot of sense for him to discredit them. And there is no need to. The information is out there and a consumer should inform themselves with it rather than just looking at one chart from someone trying to sell it to them.

[Randy Chase]

I sort of think I should just quit replying to these threads, but the power of sanity compels me.

GTS.... you created your own red herring by demanding the metric was now to prove that an intake showed power loss across the entire rpm band on a dyno. I am on record MANY times claiming that some aftermarket CAIs created a power loss situation. Some not right away as leaner is more power, but the ECU would remap the AF and things would get wonky.

But the basic premise here from you is flawed and reflects a certain perspective I can't agree with. The willingness to give up power/torque along the band in return for a small gain at the top end, or even worse, in return for not much power loss at the top end. To me, this makes no sense if your goal is go fast. Just consider the typical track scenario. Hell, even on the street. You row through the gears spending a lot of your time between 4700-7500rpm. How much time time is spent at the very upper band?

And now... consider that corner exit speed is king when dealing with real world performance numbers, and you can't get perfect gearing opportunities at every corner. A faster corner exit speed (which is why handling trumps power) means your starting point of acceleration down the straight is magnified by the entire straight. In other words, the power available to you down lower is more often more important than the power available to you at the top end.

So even if you don't find this mythical dyno showing a power loss across the entire band, so what? I tested a number of intakes. If one gave me more power, I would be running it. They ended up sitting on a shelf while I competed. Note this is not relevant to forced induction cars by the way, just NA.

By the way, you point to vendor's dynos and wonder why they claim a hp gain. Really?

[Randy Chase]

Originally Posted by SweetDaddyD

People showing impressive gains on dyno charts with things like Cold Air Intakes, usually have one to sell you.

Say if someone had tested them and showed otherwise, yet they ran a forum where particular vendors paid for advertising, maybe it wouldn't make a lot of sense for him to discredit them. And there is no need to. The information is out there and a consumer should inform themselves with it rather than just looking at one chart from someone trying to sell it to them.

lol, you typed this while I was typing my response. I am on record as saying I will not name the intakes or headers or whatever because I support ALL the vendors that support our community. You are spot on.

But even then, anyone with a brain can figure out most of what I am talking about.

Even one of those vendors did some testing on my car on a dyno and removed their intake and header.

[xtn]

There is nothing at all wrong with GTsRasta using slang all over his myspace page. He clearly has the ability to speak and type properly as well as most any of the rest of us. The only thing that would be "sad" is if the slang were his only method of communication. That is not the case, so give him a friggin break on that.

Another thing: he clearly is more mature than SOME people around here. He doesn't seem to bash others on a childish personal level even when he disagrees about something. Other people do that to him, but so far I've seen him be pretty restrained in this regard.

His posts irritate me sometimes. So do those of some other people. I'm sure my posts irritate plenty of people sometimes. But we're all like family in a way. So stop slamming people for whatever you can find on their myspace page or whatever simply as an ineffective arguement on whatever topic is being discussed.

You can say, "I don't like that idea," or, "It doesn't look like you're thinking clearly on this subject," or even, "I think you've got some hidden agenda," or anything you like. But it's stooping pretty friggin low to go look up somebody's myspace page to look for something you can sling dirt about that isn't even related to the topic.

xtn

[GTsRasta]

Originally Posted by Randy Chase

But the basic premise here from you is flawed and reflects a certain perspective I can't agree with. The willingness to give up power/torque along the band in return for a small gain at the top end, or even worse, in return for not much power loss at the top end. To me, this makes no sense if your goal is go fast.

As far as buying a top end oriented intake (Injen CAI for Celicas) that takes away from the low-mid...it makes sense to me once you get a standalone ECU to tune out the low-midrange losses for more linearity:

http://www.newcelica.org/forums/showthread.php?t=264941

Originally Posted by Redliner9k

Just wanted to share some recent #'s I've come up with tuning local cars. Not so long ago me and FrauGTS made harness to make the PFC work in Corolla/Matrix XRS's in order to add a new option to standalone tuning. This is one of the results we came up with tonight at the dyno.

Went back to the dyno today for some fine tuning. Last time we left with 181whp, but this time I was able to squeeze few more ponies out this car.

Mods:
-Injen CAI
-2.5" Exhaust, Decat, and Cutout
-Hondata IMG
-Head shaved 0.40
-Apex-i Power FC

Tuned by Redliner9k



Enjoy

http://www.newcelica.org/forums/showthread.php?t=250476

Originally Posted by Redliner9k

Went back to the dyno with a couple of changes made to the car (changed over to an Injen CAI and re-did the exhaust) and came up with some great gains. The mods of the Celica are as followed:

- Injen CAI
- TRD Shorty Header
- Custom 2.5" Exhaust (No Cat) with Magnaflow resonator and muffler
- Apex-i Power FC



Lift is not at 5600rpm and pulls like a mad man to it;s peak power at 8000rpm. We will soon do another slight change to the intake and hope to hit 190whp+. After that is cams (already bought and waiting to be put in), springs and oil pump gear and HELLO 200whp and 9000rpm redline
Hope you guys like the results.

Tuned by RED Tuning :wiggle:

As redliner9k says...these guys are a head and cams upgrade away from having just as much power as a stock Exige S with cooler (temperature wise) NA reliability. THIS is the advantage of having top end oriented mods, and it's this top end oriented NA route sleepless decided to take upon getting a Apexi Power FC tune on top of that. Although I might turn into an old man by the time his build ends... ... he's going to end up with the most powerful NA TOP END ORIENTED 2zz powered Lotus at the end of the day...meant for TRACK USE.

Did he make a mistake by not asking to get more power in the low-midrange on his (naturally) high sprung 1.8 Liter engine? I know those 20 valve Toyota motors didn't for the old Corolla and first gen MR2...look where 200+ hp at 9,000+ rpm landed them on the track over history...the 2zz is definetally the successor to that motor.

Boosted2.0 and I seem to be in agreement that it's weird that we're being told that this ECU really is that special over all other ECUs that make power with intakes, and that there's bearly any dyno proof to substantiate CAIs losing power through the WHOLE rpm band. Why is it so hard to find such a dyno? A couple people I posted showed INDEPENDANT DYNOS, and claimed that the gains weren't unlearned. Some of the dynos I showed were NOT affiliated with vendors. If CAI's do make you lose power through the whole RPM range...especially the 2nd cam that loves more VE...why is it so hard to find such a dyno that has power loss through the WHOLE 2nd cam???

[Randy Chase]

Did you understand my point about the red herring and your request for a dyno?

edit to add-
I think I am going to quit replying. Try to understand my take. My car has been on the dyno more in the last three years than just about anyone's..except maybe Frank. And even then, I am not sure. My path has been a lot more difficult because of the SCCA rules so I just can't do everything I would want to do. THOUSANDS of dollars have been spent. MANY. I think even over $10,000 on dyno time and tuning. We have tried all kinds of combinations. We have tested and retested. We have had discussions with Lotus engineers. We have talked with racing tuners. Rinse and repeat. And we take this car and compete with it.

On the other hand, as I say this and don't mean any offense, you don't have a Lotus. You have zero time spent on this car trying to tune it. All you have are anecdotes and copied and pasted things from other people. Sort of a armchair tuning I guess. We see dynos with funny power curves, missing AF mixtures, dynos from vendors trying to sell stuff. And we see sort of a disregard when others try to point out the differences in the cars with the Lotus ECU (even Lotus engineers acknowledged that this ECU is a bit "different.").

So from my point of view, it is a little frustrating trying to engage in this mental exercise. As I said at the first in this thread, I applaud your intent. I think questioning the "well everyone knows" mentality is good! But I can only throw real world experience to you WITH THIS CAR. After a while, it becomes bit circular.

[xtn]

Originally Posted by scottyb

I'm a little confused, can anyone tell me why people are putting rear wings on front wheel drive cars like Celicas & Civics? You would think that it would take traction away from the front tires. Is there any advantage or is it just Bling?

An attempt to answer your question:

Why would anybody put a splitter or winglets on the front of a rear drive car? The fact is that the rear end might not have as much mechanical grip as the front end even on a front driver. So the fact that the rear end slides around will limit the speed the car is capable of in the turns. Adding a rear wing is one way to increase the grip where desired.

xtn

[GTsRasta]

I sorta understand Randy...are you saying that top end mods that take away from the low-mid are the culprits that will make a Lotus lose on a track...and low-midrange mods are the mods that will make you win on the track?

[Randy Chase]

Originally Posted by xtn

An attempt to answer your question:

Why would anybody put a splitter or winglets on the front of a rear drive car? The fact is that the rear end might not have as much mechanical grip as the front end even on a front driver. So the fact that the rear end slides around will limit the speed the car is capable of in the turns. Adding a rear wing is one way to increase the grip where desired.

xtn

As I think you are inferring, it is not just the drive wheels that require downforce. Rear grip is rear grip. Fundamentals of oversteer and understeer apply to RWD and FWD and AWD cars.

[Randy Chase]

Originally Posted by GTsRasta

I sorta understand Randy...are you saying that top end mods that take away from the low-mid are the culprits that will make a Lotus lose on a track...and low-midrange mods are the mods that will make you win on the track?

I think I am starting to grasp part of the disconnect. It is not that black and white.

The point I was trying to make is YOU created the test that a dyno had to show losses along the entire band to prove your point. Nobody else ever said that. To follow your metric, if a dyno had huge losses from 4500-7500 but showed a 5hp gain from 8000-8500, it would seem to be a good solution. But it really would not.

One has to take the power curve and plot it over where you will be. Even disregarding track, corner exit speed, etc. Accelerate straight ahead and plot the time/rpm band. This is a really important point if you really want to go fast. The power earlier is more important. If you take a graph and plot the car's speed, at 25% of the track's distance, the car with more low end power will be 10% faster (just throwing out some theoretical numbers... the actuals do not matter for this exercise). Let's say at 1/16th mile the car that has been tuned for low end and midrange is doing 40mph. The other car with more top end power is doing 36mph. Both cars are in second gear. The time the high power car was in 1st is very minimal, so the gains are insignificant.

As the cars accelerate away from the 1/16th mile position, the midrange car is nearing 5000rpm and still has more power. The other car is a bit farther down on the rpms and will take longer to reach cam switchover. Even if at this point the power bands were exactly the same, the midrange car already was 4mph faster and acceleration is applied to that point. It is a delta to the existing speed. So by the time both cars reach 8000rpm, the midrange car is now 10mph faster. And here the midrange car is a lot farther down the track.

Now at this point, we are nearing the upper band. Yay... so the upper band car can catch up right? But he is a bit farther behind. Again, we have to plot how long he is on that better power band. 1 second? 2 seconds? Not too long before he have to shift and we start the process all over.

Often having a higher peak number at the expense of midrange can be tuned and will be done for dyno queens and bragging rights and people trying to sell something.

Now keep in mind this is not black and white and simple. If the higher tuned power band car can get more power, for a longer duration, then it can make sense. Depends on gearing, track and more and requires more thought that is not brought out from a dyno chart.

Now I have to stop typing. I am short on time because I need to get my car back on the dyno this week for some more development and testing before this weekend.

[GTsRasta]

I definetally understand your points. Sorry if I wasted your time, and thank you for your reply. I guess we just have a difference of opinion, whether they encororate standalone ECU tunes or not.

The way I see it is that nobody buys the 1.6 Liter 20 valve motor for low-midrange domination. They want 200+ hp at 10,000+ rpm bliss. Bumping power in the midrange can only do so much for power, IMO. In the long run, builds like sleepless's which will see 230-250 whp NA in the top end will make more power and may be further down the track than a low-midrange focused NA 2zz that peaks at 200 whp, and who don't have the airflow characteristics to make power up top, assuming we're doing all out low-midrange versus all-out top end NA setups with standalone ECU tunes. I guess only time will tell if sleepless made a mistake to have a 9,500 rpm top end oriented build over a low-midranged one...

Anyway...if your word and Charlie's word is the reason why the stock 2zz powered Toyota Matrix XRS intake that comes on your cars is better than aftermarket intakes for the Lotus ECU...then fine. As much as Boosted2.0 and I disagree (especially once you throw in a standalone ECU tune), you guys are in a better position to comment on this anomaly.

[charliex]

Neither randy or i said that all CAI's are worse than the stock one.

[MaineLotus]

"will see 230-250 whp" is a strong statement considering that (correct me if I'm wrong) his engine is not assembled yet. Let alone, installed and tuned. Some of Sleepless's build is a bit of an experiment, but an interesting one at that. So 250whp, that would be around 280bhp - wow that's more than most FI 2zzs are realizing. BTW, I think you missed the concepts Randy was trying to explain.

[GTsRasta]

Originally Posted by charliex

Neither randy or i said that all CAI's are worse than the stock one.

Argh...ok, now this is starting to get confusing. CAI's being worse than the stock airbox is the "truth" accepted here by many Lotus owners...

By logic then, are you then saying that certain CAIs like the Fujita CAI sold on sector111.com are worth the purchase over staying with the stock airbox, even if it only shows top end gains on just the stock Lotus ECU?

Originally Posted by MaineLotus

"will see 230-250 whp" is a strong statement considering that (correct me if I'm wrong) his engine is not assembled yet. Let alone, installed and tuned. Some of Sleepless's build is a bit of an experiment, but an interesting one at that. So 250whp, that would be around 280bhp - wow that's more than most FI 2zzs are realizing. BTW, I think you missed the concepts Randy was trying to explain.

230 whp is the acceptable goal, and 250 whp is the ultimate goal, as outlined by sleepless as to what he wants. If Boosted2.0 and littlerocket didn't think they could pull if off, I don't think they would have done the project. The last time I checked, it's getting somebody to develop a new 2zz custom intake manifold that's holding up the show for sleepless's build, and a turbo'd 2zz swapped MR2-Spyder build they're doing:

http://www.newcelica.org/forums/show...3&page=1&pp=50

Originally Posted by Boosted2.0

Nope. LR is handling the flange and until he sources a place that will build them for us we're stalled out. We have 2 projects that are getting to where they NEED the manifold done though so it should start moving forward again soon. We have a guy lined up for production but his facilities are overseas so hes not practical for use in prototyping.

And BTW, this intake manifold plans on RAISING peak hp/torque a good 1,000 rpms UP in order to compliment his built block's 9,500 rpm limit, or even a 10,000 rpm limit if the increased hp/torque gets moved up enough rpms to have that bit of extra rpm usage over peak:

Originally Posted by Boosted2.0

We're ditching this C&C guy in Houston and going to try a new guy in Dallas. I don't understand why he is throwing our business away, but I guess we're too small potatoes for him.

As for the torque curve - we can tune it with runner length. We could easily make a version that moved the torque curve to the left, but that would be silly in this motor. Movign flow and power to the higher revs are what the 2ZZ needs.

High rpm's is where all there power is at for high NA Honda motors and the Toyota 1.6 Liter 20 valve motor that resides in the Corolla and first gen MR2. With all the custom goodies that ANYBODY'S free to buy and put together (except for the intake manifold), I wonder if sleepless's track car will lose to a low-midrange rpm NA 2zz build...

[apk919]

OK, can't resist; I've got to jump in. First a few things.

HP is a measure of power.
Torque is a measure of (rotational) force.
Since power is a measure of work per unit time, and work is a measure of force times distance, HP and torque are related by engine RPM (rotations per unit time). OK?

So if we're trying to minimize lap times (you're on the wrong forum if you're trying to minimize quarter mile times, but it's the same concept), then what's important is acceleration from corner exit (approx) to braking entry.

What determines the acceleration of a car? It's the amount of excess force (torque) available from the engine after aero and frictional drag have been met. At low speeds, almost all the engine's torque is available for acceleration. At higher speeds, some power is required to meet aero and friction drag, the remaining power is available to accelerate (convert remaining power to torque to figure actual acceleration). At top speed, all the engine's power is required to meet aero and friction drag, and no torque is available for acceleration (hence top speed).

So Randy's point is this: given max RPM of 8500, and the gear ratios available in the Lotus, you will actually spend more time in the mid-range (since HP/torque is lower here, you accelerate more slowly through the range) than at the high end of the power/torque band. Even if there's an equal increase at the top end to the decrease in the mid band you will suffer.

If you're building an engine that revs safely to 9500, then the lowest RPM that you care about would move higher. You might no longer care about what happens at 5000 RPM, since other than first gear you'd never be there. But you'd care what happens at 6000 RPM.

Again, on a race track there's no way to avoid the mid-range RPMs; it's just simple gear ratio math. You have to compromise between mid and top end.

[charliex]

A CAI may improve performance over the stock airbox if its correctly designed, tested properly, a clear set(set meaning a list of rules) of 'better' is given, which may or may not include a custom tune for said CAI by a competent tuner.

However in my experience a lot of them are just thrown together and rely on the marketing principles of that it worked on some other car 10 years ago so therefore it'll work on yours too and that there is a sucker born every minute.

Hows that?

Its just marketing drivel, if you see words like 'upto', 'unlimited', 'mega/awesome', 'not approved by the FDA', we've been in business for 10 years selling this stuff, results may vary, results aren't typical, or any such other claims it usually means the real world results haven't been proven, because if they had, they'd give you clear concrete answers, there is no law against giving you hope it might work.

If the things poorly designed, even the best tuner isn't going to be able to make it perfom as well as something properly designed, toyota/yahama didn't just stick a couple of janitors with crayons in a room and get them to design something, they design, test in simulation, build, rebuild, test in the real world, redesign and improve too, i recall boosted saying he was around for some of the airbox or such testing by toyota at the test track.

Toyotas design rules and set is different though to the aftermarket, they'll looking for noise/performance and longevity so they'll create the best they can for that, you can maybe improve on that if technology or ideas have advanced since it was last reengineered, or something was flawed, but beyond that you're just altering the mix percentage between what you call better, and what they do.

Large auto companies spend millions of dollars a day in RnD with simulation systems/supercomputers that cost as much as most aftermarket companies would ever see in profit over their lifetime, they're not screwing around.

Yes there are a lot of substandard designs in the auto industry that can be improved no end, but thats going to go away, and you'll see more marketing leverage based on how it used to be, not how it currently is. Its the substandard designs that everyone uses to base off the sales tactics. As well as changing the set requirements, not caring about the engine lasting 100,000 miles or being emissions compliant lets you do stuff they just can't do.


I used to do Flight Simulators with PC's many years ago, and we'd go along to the various military flight shows and sell out simulators next to the SGI guys, theirs cost millions, ours thousands, or marketing guys lied through their teeth about what they could and couldn't do, the SGI guys used to clench their teeth listening to it all, but at the end of the day ours was way cheaper and the people buying them rationalised the marketing, many years later i worked at SGI and met those guys again, they went off at me for about two hours about it, but it never matters, people just don't really care about technical arguments or prowess, they live on spin doctoring, cost, advertising and hope, SGI have pretty much gone under, their technology has been taken by NVIDIA, microsoft and google, and pretty much everyone has forgotten where it came from and all the credit goes to the latter, because they had a cooler logo, cheaper because someone else funded the RnD, came out at the right time or had a better marketing dept.

Thats why people are buying silly little fans from ebay they put in the air intake of the engines or investing in perputual motion machines.

[Chili Red]

Originally Posted by GTsRasta

Argh...ok, now this is starting to get confusing. CAI's being worse than the stock airbox is the "truth" accepted here by many Lotus owners...

By logic then, are you then saying that certain CAIs like the Fujita CAI sold on sector111.com are worth the purchase over staying with the stock airbox, even if it only shows top end gains on just the stock Lotus ECU?

I think your putting words in Charlie's mouth that he never said.

[GTsRasta]

I feel that all to well when taking turns in my 6 speed GTS too .

The point that I'm trying to make is that mods that that bolster the top end (intake, 4-1 race header) will give you extra power up until redline, and allow you to tune out the losses or power missed from a low-midrange power adder when you move onto a standalone ECU tune. So far, it has been VERY HARD to tune back top end gains for mods that only cater airflow to the low-midrange on the 2zz...

Assuming more people buy programmable ECU's here...this site will either follow Celicas and complain that low-midrange power adders will have their untunable top ends taper off compared to top end oriented power adders...or pursue top end power adders that can still allow you to tune back some low-midrange power. Celica guys are choosing the later, I guess you guys prefer the previous. To each his own.

[charliex]

Yep there is truth to that, its horses for courses, some people prefer peak HP, some prefer powerband. I prefer powerband because if you measure the TPS of a car over its lifetime, its reckoned you spend about 3% or so of its life there, WOT or Peak HP is rarely reached.

What MPH are you at when you're in this tapered off top end ?

Most lotus people are interested in handling first, power and 1/4 mile rarely at all.

[ace10]

Originally Posted by Chili Red

I think your putting words in Charlie's mouth that he never said.

by quoting him, you continue to subject me (and i suspect others) to his redundant, circular, illogical and questionable posts. in the future, would you please refrain from doing so? TIA