Practical Standalone Tuning: Step 4: Base Ignition Timing/Fuel Pressure
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Step 4: Base Ignition Timing/Fuel Pressure
05.37
| 00:00 | The next step of our process is to set our base ignition timing and our base fuel pressure. |
| 00:06 | In our case here, there's really not a lot that we're able to do. |
| 00:10 | I've already mentioned the fact that this is a fixed trigger input for our particular trigger mode, so we don't actually have any adjustability of the timing. |
| 00:18 | That being said, we can still take the time to check this and confirm it is correct. |
| 00:23 | So, we'll go through that process now. |
| 00:25 | When we are online with the ECU, if we come up to our sync with ECU icon here, we can see that we have enable static timing check. |
| 00:36 | So, with this little pop up box here, we can set the timing to a value that we can see with our timing light, let's say that might be 10°, and we can click set. |
| 00:45 | So, that then sets the static timing to that value, it will not change, no compensations are going to affect it, and we're always going to be outputting 10°. |
| 00:54 | As always, I recommend doing this in two steps. |
| 00:58 | If we're dealing with an unknown engine and we're not too sure where the timing's likely to be, I'd start by doing this with someone helping and just doing it at cranking speed, so we'd disable the fuel and ignition, make sure the engine isn't going to actually physically try and start, and at cranking speed, just physically make sure that the timing is there or thereabouts what we're seeing, in this case of course, 10°. |
| 01:21 | Now, at cranking speed, because the RPM is low and the trigger input might be a little bit less stable than at RPM, we will find likely that the timing may move around a little bit, so this isn't about setting it at its final value, it is about simply just getting it into the ballpark, so we know that we're pretty close and we should have the engine start up. |
| 01:42 | Then once we get to our next step where we've got the engine started for the first time, we'll come back and revisit this and set our timing and our inductive delay at a higher RPM. |
| 01:52 | That inductive delay is designed to ensure that as the RPM increases, our timing remains fixed, so we can increase or decrease the inductive delay in order to get that correct. |
| 02:05 | However, again all of this is fixed in this particular trigger system, our base map, so, we don't have the luxury of that ability. |
| 02:13 | Again, always still good to just check this. |
| 02:16 | Once we've got our timing set like this, our static timing set, we can close that down and our timing will remain fixed at that 10 degrees. |
| 02:25 | Now, if we come back into our system's parameters, actually we will have to go offline here, I'll just show you again, if we go into our ignition parameters, and if we set this just momentarily to custom, and click configure, let's take this to something like our 36 minus two which we looked at before, and now we have our timing offset here. |
| 02:48 | So, we can adjust our timing offset here, so that at cranking speed, we're getting that 10 degrees that we are showing, we've had our static timing set to, and we'll adjust that until we're right on the target and then we know that our timing should be correct. |
| 03:05 | Once we've done that, we can then go back in, I'm offline now, so I can't do it, but if we go into enable static timing check, let's just go back online, we will read from the ECU this time, so I don't actually send that change that is made to our ignition parameters, and once that closes down, we need to come back into here and we'll go to enable timing, static timing and clear that and now we'll be back to our timing actually, following our table values. |
| 03:34 | OK, fuel pressure is the other parameter that we do need to set here and again we have no adjustability, we have the factory fuel system here with a fixed fuel pressure, should be 58 psi give or take. |
| 03:46 | But we do want to make sure that we are actually getting that and because we have a fuel pressure sensor, we have the ability to monitor that and we can see that our fuel pressure sitting down here, sitting at 56 psi, obviously when the pump originally primes, that will jump up and then it will drop away. |
| 04:03 | I would suggest here that even with our fuel pressure, we want to check this before we start the car for the first time and get it in the ballpark, but of course when we've just got the key on and the engine isn't running, our battery voltage may be quite significantly lower than at operating. |
| 04:19 | So, we can see here 11.7 volts where we should have around about 13.8 to 14.2 volts once the engine is operating and the alternator is charging. |
| 04:28 | And what this means is that the fuel pump will provide more fuel output, so the fuel pressure can vary when we've actually got the engine running, so we always want to actually, revisit this and check what our fuel pressure is once we've got the engine up and running. |
| 04:43 | So, there's our two base parameters, our base ignition timing, want to make sure that that's in the ballpark at cranking and then again readdress this and get it nice and accurate once we've got the engine actually operating and also our fuel pressure. |
| 04:57 | One tip with the base ignition timing, we can get into a situation with some trigger systems where looking at it with a timing light in the engine bay, timing looks perfect but when we come to start the engine for the first time, it still won't actually run. |
| 05:11 | And that can come down to the fact that our timing is 360° out, so instead of firing on the compression stroke, we're actually firing on the exhaust stroke. |
| 05:21 | In that case by offsetting our timing 360°, that should get us onto the correct stroke. |
| 05:26 | And our engine should run. |
| 05:29 | So, with our timing and our fuel pressure dealt with, we can move onto the next step of our process. |
