Holy Frijoles, Michael!! That's a lot of (excellent) data!
I hereby nominate you for the Gordon Nichols Tome Typing Award. 
I applaud Mike's efforts! This info will be helping me out VERY soon, and as such the accolades should flow freely from this group.
I have purchased the pay version of both Tunerstudio and MLV, Mike. Thank you.
Like I said in my thread, spark first, then fuel. It's almost time, the garage heat will be on soon. Garage heat=too cold for top down driving.
@DannyP posted:There are several pickup points on my "aftermarket" non-VW throttle pedal. I attached the cable at the closest one to the hinge point, which seems to work with the comparatively longer attachment at the throttle arm on the hexbar.
But what I'm telling Mike about, and you, Gordon, is rotating the throttle arm by one or two flats on the hexbar, but probably only one flat. This will give you a "cam" action, less movement initially around the "just open" part but as the throttle opens the arm will be more perpendicular to the hexbar. Then it will get to full quickly.
I believe a lot of pan cars are sensitive to throttle because they need a bow in the throttle cable housing, just like the clutch "Bowden tube" needs.
Beetles originally had a throttle cable guide tube between the cable's exit point on the frame horn and the front engine breast plate. You are right, Danny, it was a tad longer and did hang just a little bit just like the Bowden tube. Unfortunately it frequently got forgotten during an engine install after a clutch replacement or rebuild so a lot of cars are missing them now. I don't know it it is still made. Al
Mike Maps The Rabbit Hole.
Wow.
Suddenly, my old school Dellorto Carburetors and their ancient Liquid atomization technology are looking pretty damn simple.
Jaysus! I thought it was complicated just re-learning how to use a friggin Oscilloscope (it wasn’t, really). I’m so glad that the car makers use standardized stuff that works out of the box (or show room). This is light years beyond the average driver on the road, today, even though I unnerstan what’cha doin’. As my old Aunt Gertrude would say; “I don’t need to know all that. I just turn the key.”
Most of the Speeduino goodness is available just using the default tables and Auto tuning. Some of us have to make it "just a little bit better..."
@Gordon Nichols posted:Wow.
Suddenly, my old school Dellorto Carburetors and their ancient Liquid atomization technology are looking pretty damn simple.
Jaysus! I thought it was complicated just re-learning how to use a friggin Oscilloscope (it wasn’t, really). I’m so glad that the car makers use standardized stuff that works out of the box (or show room). This is light years beyond the average driver on the road, today, even though I unnerstan what’cha doin’. As my old Aunt Gertrude would say; “I don’t need to know all that. I just turn the key.”
Did you really have an aunt Gertrude? 
My Gertrude was my mother
Actually, yes, but it was Gertruda. She really hated that "a" at the end but she was a force unto herself.
We were out of state with her (Baltimore, actually) trying to find a funeral home for the wake of a relative in the days way before GPS. Gertrude was with us in the shotgun seat as she was 85 years old back then but incredibly spry. As we were driving aimlessly around looking for the building we stopped at a stoplight and there was a rather unkempt young man standing at the light.
Gertrude pointed to the young man and calmly asked,
"Should I ask this creature for directions? I believe I can speak 'inner city'"
That's some serious eyeliner on that duck.
The duck was trying out as a Target stores mascot, but she lost out to the dog named “Bullseye”.
@Michael Pickett posted:Most of the Speeduino goodness is available just using the default tables and Auto tuning. Some of us have to make it "just a little bit better..."
I realized in my quest to make this thread useful to EFI beginners I needed to point out from whence the default tables come. When you're setting up your Speeduino for your engine, you use the downloaded SpeedyLoader tool to get the most recent stable release of the hardware configuration file (e.g. 202008.ini). You'll also get some sample configuration files. After you fire up TunerStudio, create a project and point it towards your hardware configuration file, you load the Speeduino base tune.msg configuration file. It will preload all of the default tables.
It's OK, Mike, you're doing alright. And you're right, I did exactly what you described. There are some good tutorials on Youtube. And there is a good manual:
Yeah, I thought you did a terrific job, Mike. Not may of us are going to attempt what you have, but all of the info is there to try to successfully duplicate your efforts.
You don't often get that level of detail or completeness on car sites!
@Gordon Nichols posted:Yeah, I thought you did a terrific job, Mike. Not may of us are going to attempt what you have, but all of the info is there to try to successfully duplicate your efforts.
You don't often get that level of detail or completeness on car sites!
Thanks, Gordon. I'm just focusing on the things that aren't covered well in the online manual or the Speeduino forum (yet). I figure after doing aftermarket ECUs for 20 years, if it gave me pause, then it probably would be a good idea to share what worked for me.
That's how I felt about re-learning timer and pulse generator logic. Then I found it's easier than I first thought, once I got reliable schematics and could probe things out to see what's going on. I'll tell ya, though, dealing with Chinese and Indian so-called "DIY" circuits, beyond the challenges of language, the people out there doing stuff like this and creating auto ECU systems are living in a "Wild West" environment that's traveling at light speed or above. It's tough for an Auld Phart to keep up!
@Gordon Nichols posted:Yeah, I thought you did a terrific job, Mike. Not may of us are going to attempt what you have, but all of the info is there to try to successfully duplicate your efforts.
You don't often get that level of detail or completeness on car sites!
Isn't that the truth.
@Michael Pickett posted:Thanks, Gordon. I'm just focusing on the things that aren't covered well in the online manual or the Speeduino forum (yet). I figure after doing aftermarket ECUs for 20 years, if it gave me pause, then it probably would be a good idea to share what worked for me.
Wait you did what for 20 years?
My first forced induction project was consulting with a now defunct company in SC that was developing a supercharger kit for miatas. I was the guinea pig and testing unit in exchange for free hardware and electronics. Otherwise, it was strictly unpaid, but lots of fun.
That was 20 years ago and over that time have installed and tuned 7 aftermarket ECUs. The riskiest one was a Megasquirt II install on the 425 hp Porsche turbo. It was very similar in complexity to the Speeduino (used the same software). The biggest trouble I had was acceleration enrichment (for a year it liked to bog on top of the turbo lag) and when we moved to RI realizing that I really needed to get the warm-up enrichment right.
I posted all of my turbo EFI tuning adventures up on the Pelican Parts forum. It's all part of my lifelong ambition to convince others that what I'm fiddling with isn't totally bonkers and to get them to try it out, too. Come on in, the AFRs are fine :-)
Yeah.
That's pretty much my story as well... except for the blown Miata, the 7 aftermarket ECUs, the Carrera turbo, and the Pelican expert parts. That and the 20 years of doing this.
Mike's been slumming with us here and sandbagging us with his "aw shucks" hakuna-matata shtick. Dude's an EFI luminary, masquerading as a simple guy with a tarped garage.
Pretty much like all the rest of us, only way, way different.
@Stan Galat posted:Mike's been slumming with us here and sandbagging us with his "aw shucks" hakuna-matata shtick. Dude's an EFI luminary, masquerading as a simple guy with a tarped garage.
Pretty much like all the rest of us, only way, way different.
Genius Stan, pure literary genius.
I was just wondering where he could go in Rhode Island to try out his EFI at high altitude. Almost the entire state is a big tidal plain. Where Mike lived, in Barrington, is about 6' above sea level while Foster, in the northwest corner, is the highest place in the state at about 450'.
It's been said that when climate change melts both polar ice caps and floods the planet, the only place left exposed in Rhode Island will be the town of Foster.
It wasn't the height changes Gordon, it was the temperature/warmup thing that helped turn the light on in his head.
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You know, I thought this was starting to sound more complicated than pulling the silver spring out of a distributor and swapping in the blue one.
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Wait. You thought?
@Stan Galat postedMike's been slumming with us here and sandbagging us with his "aw shucks" hakuna-matata shtick. Dude's an EFI luminary, masquerading as a simple guy with a tarped garage.
Pretty much like all the rest of us, only way, way different.
Hey, you're blowing my cover. The real reason I hang out with you EFI peasants is the witty repartee and the cowed respect given to true experts on this forum...
Yep, I've avoided trashing several motors with my playing around with EFI/spark, but that's really simple, keep the AFR in the zone, keep the advance reasonable and keep the engine heat lower than the surface of the sun.
You all might recall me begging for help when my engine needed rebuilding, and when my fan blew up, and last week when I PMed Danny to get a copy of his spark advance table.
Plus, I can't seem to remember what I went into the other room to get and have to write my home address on the wrist band on my arm so I can find my way back home. Whatever head start I have on Speeduino is fleeting at best.
However, my tarp garage will be the standard against which all rebuilding housing is measured...
The fact that you used tarps on a windy island and pulled it off still amazes me.
Did you have to alter the table much for your engine, Mike? You know beyond the table being 16 x 16 instead of 10 x 10?
@DannyP posted:Did you have to alter the table much for your engine, Mike? You know beyond the table being 16 x 16 instead of 10 x 10?
Not much, I just spread it across the rpm/map settings I use. I'd be glad to send my interpretation back to you if it would save you any time.
" I have to write my home address on the wrist band on my arm so I can find my way back home."
You're not alone there Buckeroo. But a "Road ID" band works better (I have the same info on the lock screen of my phone in case I get hit again while on my bike). EMTs are trained to look for these and it can help them lead you back home if necessary. Jus' sayin'......
"There's an APP for that!"
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@Michael Pickett posted:Not much, I just spread it across the rpm/map settings I use. I'd be glad to send my interpretation back to you if it would save you any time.
Thanks, that would be great. No hurry, I haven't started yet.
@Sacto Mitch posted:.
You know, I thought this was starting to sound more complicated than pulling the silver spring out of a distributor and swapping in the blue one.
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And never, ever cut the red wire, or was it the blue wire?
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But seriously folks, given Mike's background, this approach to tuning makes a lot of sense.
He does have the great advantage of already speaking the language.
Most of us have spent all our lives learning Carburetor. We know how to conjugate the jets. We don't have to think about what the future tense of idle stop is. We can call up any parts place and order right off the menu, without using a phrase book or any hand gestures.
But doing the simplest things in EFI, for most of us, is like trying to say, "Please, pass the butter", in Swedish. Mike, on the other hand, has spent his summer vacations, if not in Stockholm, then in a comfortable waterfront cottage on the outskirts of Malmö.
If you've ever looked at a cutaway drawing of a carburetor and tried to figure out how it all works, you quickly realize that it is a mostly Rube Goldberg contraption. They started out as straightforward devices, but as one limitation after another became apparent, more and more kludgy fixes were added to compensate and correct for shortcomings in the basic design. If everything is brought into a tenuous balance, if it's all kept surgically clean, if nothing is allowed to wear or to leak, it sort of works. It was the best we could do with purely mechanical solutions.
In an age of modern technology, though, it's a quaint, little joke. And oh, you want to hook up TWO of them and have them both do everything in synch with each other? And all of the time? When it's hot? When it's cold? When you're on the top of a mountain? You must be quite the romantic.
If you've got the experience, if you've got the chops, if you've got the time, if you speak the language, this probably does make a lot more sense than the usual dance that the rest of us go through.
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@Michael Pickett posted:And never, ever cut the red wire, or was it the blue wire?
Now that's FUNNY
@Stan Galat posted:Yeah.
That's pretty much my story as well... except for the blown Miata, the 7 aftermarket ECUs, the Carrera turbo, and the Pelican expert parts. That and the 20 years of doing this.
Mike's been slumming with us here and sandbagging us with his "aw shucks" hakuna-matata shtick. Dude's an EFI luminary, masquerading as a simple guy with a tarped garage.
Pretty much like all the rest of us, only way, way different.
Stan beat me to it. I was planning to go copy Mike's very humble very understated intro to the group and reveal him for who he really is but Stan said it quite well.
However, I did copy his intro so we could all see if we missed something:
Background of the Plan: I've built and raced several scary fast cars and sold them all when we retired to Maui (our son and his family live here). Maui has WONDERFUL roads for driving, but also lots of distracted visitors in rental cars and on bicycles. I didn't want a car that tempted me to do something stupid, but I needed something for top-down fun. The last big build I did was a franken-911 cabriolet based on a 1982 911SC chassis rebuilt with the body panels from a 1995 911 Turbo. The engine was originally a 1979 930 (blown up). I bought a disassembled 1982 3.3 930 engine and took the best parts from each. It took me nearly 2 years to complete and put out 425 hp at the crank (de-tuned). So, it was a tribute car to the Porsche 993 Turbo Cabriolet that Porsche never sold to the public (they reportedly made 13 for friends of the family). It was rough, raw, competent and loads of fun. My wife drove it often, but complained about the pedal placement and lack of power steering etc. She had a 1996 911 cabrio that she thought was just the ticket (sold, too). So, my goal was to find a fun, sporty, but not dangerously fast car that we could use on our adventures around Maui. The IM Speedster ad showed up on Craigslist and I was sunk.
Oh, and he paired it with an unassuming photo of himself and he knew we would notice that he was barefoot while wearing shorts and his t-shirt. When no one questioned him he knew he had us fooled.
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Busted again...
Sacto-Sage Mitch wrote:
"If you've ever looked at a cutaway drawing of a carburetor and tried to figure out how it all works, you quickly realize that it is a mostly Rube Goldberg contraption. They started out as straightforward devices, but as one limitation after another became apparent, more and more kludgy fixes were added to compensate and correct for shortcomings in the basic design. If everything is brought into a tenuous balance, if it's all kept surgically clean, if nothing is allowed to wear or to leak, it sort of works. It was the best we could do with purely mechanical solutions."
If that ain't the perfect description of a Quadrajet, I don't know what the heck is......
No wonder people hate them.
Rochester was, in retrospect, the better carb. Holley had the better marketing.
'Course, back then, all us red-blooded murkan boys thought Webers were voodoo.
@Gordon Nichols posted:Sacto-Sage Mitch wrote:
"If you've ever looked at a cutaway drawing of a carburetor and tried to figure out how it all works, you quickly realize that it is a mostly Rube Goldberg contraption. They started out as straightforward devices, but as one limitation after another became apparent, more and more kludgy fixes were added to compensate and correct for shortcomings in the basic design. If everything is brought into a tenuous balance, if it's all kept surgically clean, if nothing is allowed to wear or to leak, it sort of works. It was the best we could do with purely mechanical solutions."
If that ain't the perfect description of a Quadrajet, I don't know what the heck is......
No wonder people hate them.
Carbs were always voodoo to me until I bought a MotoGuzzi V-50 Monza. The original owner had taken off the air cleaners and replaced them with K&N pods and it had a flat spot between 3500-4,000 rpm. I bought a Dellorto book and about the third time through it, it dawned on me:
"Carburetors suck, fuel injection blows."
By the time I got that rejetted and pulling strong from idle to redline, I had a pretty good grasp on how a carburetor works. TBH, it's Rube Goldburg Voodoo, but it works.
Imo, the most fascinating thing about a carburetor is how specific gravity of the gasoline you're running, air pressure, the Bernoulli effect related to float bowl height all relate to the volume of gasoline that hits the airstream. And without that float bowl height being nearly perfect, you'll never get the rest of it dialed.
You know, I used to do carbs back in the 60s and 70s, and I tried to polish up my Kadron skills enough to be happy, but the altitude changes on this island just didn't let me stick with it. EFI/spark is a superb alternative to carbs if you're forced into it. Otherwise it's more fiddling than most folks will want.