So....that being said, who would you recommend in North America to 'tune' this ECM?
So....that being said, who would you recommend in North America to 'tune' this ECM?
loosecannon said:In reply to alfadriver :
When I first got the engine in the car and it wouldn't make boost, a fella from Germany contacted me and said he had the tune to get it running properly and it would be $1000. I agreed but then he decided that sending me the tune as a file was too risky because he thought I would just re-sell it to others. I assured him that I wouldn't but then he wanted me to send him my ECM and he would program it and send back. I agreed to that as well and said I was sending 2 ECM's so I would have a back up in case one got bricked. He demanded a bunch more money for the 2nd one and I finally backed out of the deal. He threatened lawsuit at some point, over what I don't even remember anymore but he seemed unstable or at the very least, paranoid.
hm. Interesting. I can see it being a tough thing to do.
Which is why there's so much security in what we sell (on top of the fact that tampering is, well, not good).
So what about the other developments in the car? If you find a design that you know is unique and works well, would you be willing to sell it? Of course, after getting the patent for it....
759NRNG said:So....that being said, who would you recommend in North America to 'tune' this ECM?
Given what I know about the base Buick calibration, it would be interesting to start over with that. Which is to say, let GM do most of the tune, you just make it work for your car.
Not sure if it would work, but it does let GM (or whatever OEM) do most of the hard work.
Tough to go back in time to intervene.
759NRNG said:So....that being said, who would you recommend in North America to 'tune' this ECM?
Well, Vince at Trifecta told me to buy an LHU so after I hunted one down and bought it, he told me to pound sand because he no longer supports that platform. Jerry at Bad News Racing was a huge help and got the engine up and running and spent some time remote tuning and making it better. However, at some point he stopped responding to messages so I really don't know what to say about that. He's very active with the Ecotec 1.4 so maybe he can't be bothered with my 2.0? alfadriver has been very helpful fine tuning the engine and I'm quite happy how it was running at the end of the season.
alfadriver said:loosecannon said:In reply to alfadriver :
When I first got the engine in the car and it wouldn't make boost, a fella from Germany contacted me and said he had the tune to get it running properly and it would be $1000. I agreed but then he decided that sending me the tune as a file was too risky because he thought I would just re-sell it to others. I assured him that I wouldn't but then he wanted me to send him my ECM and he would program it and send back. I agreed to that as well and said I was sending 2 ECM's so I would have a back up in case one got bricked. He demanded a bunch more money for the 2nd one and I finally backed out of the deal. He threatened lawsuit at some point, over what I don't even remember anymore but he seemed unstable or at the very least, paranoid.
hm. Interesting. I can see it being a tough thing to do.
Which is why there's so much security in what we sell (on top of the fact that tampering is, well, not good).
So what about the other developments in the car? If you find a design that you know is unique and works well, would you be willing to sell it? Of course, after getting the patent for it....
I've never thought about it but the whole suspension was designed by me in CAD and seems to be working well but after my experience with Ron Sutton Race Technology, I think it would be more cost beneficial to hire him to design a suspension package. If I were to do it all over again, I would contact him first, tell him the projected weight and wheelbase of the car and let him design the whole thing, then I would build. He took my design and the only major changes I had to do was spring rates and sway bar rates. I don't know what would be different if it were a clean sheet design. Speaking of patents, I designed an amazing kart frame for my kart rental track and looked into getting a patent. Unfortunately, the risk vs reward ratio was not good. I could spend a bunch of money getting a patent only to have an overseas company copy it and it could cost me millions to go after them and I may or may not win.
Loose, so I could in fact put the LHU in my '73 B/GT and contact you or AlfD for a 'mild' tune ?
In reply to 759NRNG :
I dunno, there is a lock on the E39A ECM and as far as I know, only Bad News Racing or Trifecta can unlock it. Once unlocked you can tune all you want but without that, the engine will not even start
Not what I wanted to hear with BNR and Tri saying tuff luck chuck....
In reply to 759NRNG :
Do not despair 2.0 Ecotec standalone harness and ECM
I was only able to work on the car one day last week because I had to build a new kart for Speedworld. Episode 227 Video
loosecannon said:In reply to 759NRNG :
Do not despair 2.0 Ecotec standalone harness and ECM
Merry Christmas to me, much thanks to you and the ever awesome Ms.B....and Merry Christmas to Y'all !!!
Another week of tinkering with the little things that take sooooo much time. I got the switches in the dash, have a working gas pedal and changed out the hood pins for dzus (technically 1/4 turn) fasteners. The company that incorrectly made my wiring harness still hasn't corrected the matter so I can't start the car yet. Episode 228 Here
This week I thank some people that really helped me this year, I pick up my new front radiator and get to use the dimple dies again Episode 229
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
And I’ll raise a glass when we hit the new year in the middle of the ocean for a great 2019 season!
Happy New Year!
Just watched your video supercut and I'm wondering when we'll see a hot lap around the kart track in the Redbull Mini?
Adam
In reply to adam525i :
We managed to get the MINI running but the transmission slips like crazy and the rear calipers were seized so it could be a while. I want to buy a wrecked Cooper S and swap everything over some day. Glad you liked my Supercut video, it contains a lot of clips from videos never seen on this forum.
I worked on wiring today and got it to the point where it "should" start, but it does not. It's turning over and there is spark but looks like injectors aren't firing. I don't like where this is going. This is what the engine did when I first got it in the car and it took cutting into the wiring harness to fix.
So, if you saw my other post on the Wiring harness then you already know why this has been a frustrating week. Others who have used a harness from Swap Specialties have reported that their car caught fire-ugh! Anyways, I did get some work done on the car and it looks fantastic, but doesn't run. Video Here
Watched the vid and here's my 2c..... with all the effort you have put forth on this with little or
no previous experience, a wiring harness, I would think as being the next line in your fabrication
resume. Not meaning to trivialize this 'mess' , but I've seen others in the forum sub a toe and
skin a knuckle on this E36M3.....and I have all the faith in you and your abilities that you could make
this right YOURSELF......yes you spent a E36M3pot full of cache on the bag of snakes currently lurking
in P, but it's still winter and what do you have to do besides be an INDOOR KART MOGOL?
Also, reach out to the knuckleheads here and see what happens......a lot cheaper than waiting on some
asshat to come correct.......psssst like the old nose look better 
In reply to 759NRNG :
Thanks for the encouragement. My plan is to keep bugging Swap Specialties to correct their mess but while that is going on, I am preparing my old harness for re-installment. Last month I purchased this Terminal release kit in case I needed to re-pin something, so that will be used for the first time and today I laid out the old harness and started organizing it. I took a picture.
Just awhile ago I reached out to V8Kid who has put an Atlas(GM) 4.2l in the nose of his '63 Studebaker
sporting a snail running with Megasquirt(no GM ecm), to view your thread......and offer any thoughts.....late
Based off of a short skim of what you are up against, here is my advice.
It sounds like you have a solution that is close to working. My advice is make it work. It sounds like you have a lot invested in it.
I can highly recommend Megasquirt, but it will probably take $1500 of investment to control an ecotec. The VVT is the tricky part here. In my case, I just left the VVT unplugged, because it was only on the exhaust cam, and is not useful for my particular application.
Also with Megasquirt, you need to be willing to learn, or find someone that will tune it for you. I might be able to get you started, but that is about all I am willing to do remotely
So what you have is close to working. Injectors are very simple devices. They need a good 12 volt supply on one pin, and the ECU will ground the other pin. It doesn't matter which is which. Get out your Multimeter, find your ECU pinout diagram, and start measuring pins. That's my advice.
In reply to TheV8Kid :
Thanks. I think there would also be problems with the direct injection needing a control for the manual fuel pump that pumps up to 2500 psi. I have considered other control systems for this engine but I have invested a ton of time and money in this one and it now works really well, except the wiring harness is bunk. I think if I put a fraction of the effort required to install a megasquirt into this wiring harness, I'll have a good system. I'm just angry that I trusted a company to build me a nice harness and they took my money and sent me crap. Well, it doesn't look like crap, it actually looks well done but it doesn't work and that is a problem.
In reply to TheV8Kid :
Yea, the DI is the reason MS won’t work. That is a very different ball of twine to deal with, requiring both some special pump control as well as some higher voltage injector control.
Let alone mapping the engine completely
the current solution works, other than the wiring
In reply to loosecannon :
I hadn't realized it was direct injection. That makes things much more difficult.. Maybe you could convert to Port injection.
Perhaps the Vehicle Anti theft has not been tuned out on the current solution. I'm sure you've gone through the basic trouble shooting. Good luck.
You'll need to log in to post.
