Practical Standalone Tuning: Step 10: Confirming the Tune on the Road/Track

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Step 10: Confirming the Tune on the Road/Track

19.10

00:00	Right, we've got the car off the dyno and we're out here at Highlands Motorsport Park just to put the car through its paces and essentially confirm that everything we saw on the dyno stacks up under real world conditions.
00:10	We're going to split this essentially into two sections.
00:14	First of all, I'm going to head out on track, we'll spend a bit of time just getting some airflow through the engine bay to get rid of any heat soak and then we're going to start datalogging.
00:23	And basically what I want to do is just drive the car as I expect it would be driven out under real world conditions on the open road.
00:30	We're going to be basically aiming here to check our part throttle mid range cruise areas of the map, we're not going to go through and transition to wide open throttle through this first section.
00:42	So, I want to essentially cover as much of the map as I can out to about that sort of 4, 4500 RPM that we covered during our steady state tuning on the dyno.
00:51	And what we're going to do here is datalog all of this while we're out on track, so we don't have to be actually watching our laptop screen.
00:58	It is convenient when we are on the road or the racetrack doing this section of our tuning if we have access to a wideband meter that we can actually view.
01:07	Sometimes I can use a portable wideband that can suction cup onto the windscreen.
01:12	And this way I can just view that out of my peripheral vision.
01:15	In this case I've got the lambda and our target obviously being displayed on the laptop screen, I've got that sitting here on the passenger seat, so I can glance at that occasionally just to make sure that we are in the ballpark.
01:26	Now, for the purposes of this demonstration I am actually going to use Link's mixture map function and what that does, we'll see it in action shortly, what that does is it looks at all of the data from a datalog and basically compares our measured air fuel ratio to our target and then tells us what the error is and we can then apply that to the map directly.
01:47	And we can also set this up, so that we need a certain number of samples in a cell, so that it's not going to be affected by a transient or something of that nature as we just flash through a cell.
01:57	It is important if we are going to use mixture map though to disable closed loop control because the mixture map functionality will not currently take into account the error plus any closed loop control that is being applied.
02:11	So, now that we know what we're doing, let's head out on the track, we'll get rid of our heat soak and we can start datalogging.
02:17	Alright, we're about maybe a third of the way through a lap here and we can see that our air temperature and our coolant temperature are already getting back into the normal range that we would expect to see on the dyno.
02:27	We're using the airflow through the engine bay just to get rid of that heat soak.
02:32	So, at this point I'm just going to enable my datalogging by pressing F8.
02:37	That will just start our logger.
02:39	It's important to also understand how we want to drive the car while we're doing this.
02:43	We want to be as smooth as we can on the throttle and we want to avoid gear changes as much as we can, but of course that is unavoidable sometimes, particularly if we are doing this out on the road.
02:55	So, here I'm just going to go through a lap or two and just gather as much data as I can, staying in the cells as long as I can, nice smooth entries on the throttle and using as much of the rev range as we can up to about that 4, 4500 RPM.
03:08	And we'll be transitioning up, so we are into positive boost as well.
03:12	Basically, just filling out as much of that map with data as we can.
03:15	So, let's jump ahead and we'll get that done now.
03:20	Alright, we've gathered our data there, I've just stopped the datalogger before we get back into the pits, we'll get ourselves stationary and have a look at the datalog and see what we can learn.
03:30	Alright, we're back in the pits and it's time to have a look at our data.
03:33	Before we do that though, I'll just mention that I was watching our lambda occasionally on the laptop screen while I was on track and for the most part, from part throttle through to some light boost, it looks like we were tracking our targets pretty closely.
03:47	And it's when we were off throttle or very very light throttle that I did start to see that we were quite rich or richer than our target.
03:56	And that behaviour isn't unexpected.
03:58	As we learned when we were doing our steady state tuning on the dyno, there's a limit to how far we can go down in manifold pressure.
04:04	Before we're simply not making enough torque to keep the dyno spinning.
04:08	So, then the dyno slows down, making it hard to get into those cells.
04:11	Of course, when we're on the road, when we close the throttle down, we've got the inertia of the car rolling.
04:15	So, that allows us to get into cells that we can't on the dyno.
04:18	Let's have a look into our data and see what we've got here.
04:21	So, we've got our RPM up the top here just, so we can see what we were actually doing.
04:26	We've got our throttle position as well, so we can see what I was doing on the throttle and how smooth I was.
04:31	We've got our manifold pressure and obviously manifold pressure and our RPM are essential because that lets us know whereabouts we were in the map.
04:38	And then of course we've got our lambda target in green and in yellow we've got our actual lambda value.
04:44	Below this, although it's not relevant, we can see we've got our closed loop just confirming that that was sitting at zero.
04:49	So, if we look through this first section as I first started the datalogger, we're pretty close to our target, pretty much bang on our target.
04:57	Here we can see that I drop the throttle down to only 3% so almost completely closed and we are quite rich there, we're 0.83.
05:05	So, around about 15-17% too rich in that area.
05:10	Get back onto the throttle and for the most part we're right on our target here.
05:14	Follows our target really nicely through here as I give it some more throttle and we actually come up to 30 kPa of positive boost here.
05:22	So, everything's looking pretty good there.
05:24	Again this part throttle here where I'm down to 12%, we can see again we're starting to drift quite rich, maybe 10-15% too rich through this area.
05:33	And then again here it's all this part throttle stuff, sort of 15% throttle at this particular point that I'm highlighting here.
05:41	And this is where we are too rich.
05:44	So, let's have a look at our mixture map and see what that's going to help us with.
05:48	So, what we can do here is any time we can update this with the current log file, I've already done that, so that's bringing up these boxes here, showing us where we accessed, there's obviously, a few areas that we haven't got into, so we can always go out and grab some more data and be a little bit more thorough.
06:06	But essentially anything where the boxes are green means that we are really close to our target.
06:11	And as we sort of move away from our target here we can see our error, sitting around about 16%, the colour coding just lets us know what that error is.
06:19	So, I mean for the most part we're looking at errors here as sort of 1-2%, there are a few outliers here, sort of 6% in this area.
06:27	And we've got, let's see, around about 5% here.
06:33	Now, in order to apply the changes from the mixture map we've got a couple of options, we can hover over the cell that we want to correct and we can click on correct fuel table one or we can also just double click on these cells.
06:47	So, just to see how this works I'm just going to double click on all of these cells, apply all of these changes and then we'll head back out on track and see if we've made an improvement.
06:57	Alright, back out on track, same process again, we'll just get rid of our heat soap which I've done and now we're just going to rinse and repeat basically what we've just done.
07:06	Again covering as many of those cells as we can, we'll try and also get into some of the cells that we didn't seem to pass through last time.
07:13	And already I'm seeing that at part throttle which is where that problem was, we're already much much closer to our target.
07:20	So, again we'll gather some data and we'll head back to the pits and have a look at the effect of that mixture map change.
07:27	Straight away looking at our log file we can see how much closer we are to the mark here.
07:31	We do have an occasional rich spot like these two here.
07:34	We've got this little section here where we are a little bit rich as well, but just looking at what I've done on the throttle here, that's quite a sharp tip out of the throttle, so that could be a transient and leanment condition that we need to address there as opposed to the actual main fuel map.
07:50	And that's important as well which is why I say to try and be very very smooth on the throttle because if our transient enrichment and leanment isn't dialed in correctly, then that's going to throw this map and then we're trying to chase a transient issue with our main fuel map.
08:05	But probably not 100% perfect with our first iteration of changes, but very very close and that mixture map has worked well.
08:12	So, what we can do is just go back into our mixture map, right click and we'll update our mixture map from that current log file.
08:18	Again everything looking really really close here to our ideal zero.
08:23	We do have a couple of areas that are sitting with slightly more error, particularly in here.
08:30	And obviously this is an iterative process, we can go through and continue to iterate and continue to improve based on our mixture map until we're happy.
08:40	Now, I won't repeat this here because I'm actually pretty happy with those numbers and we will be re enabling closed loop control.
08:46	So, generally if in open loop I'm within about plus or minus 1-2%, I'm gonna be pretty happy and that's going to leave the closed loop control strategy with very little work to do.
08:57	But of course you can just repeat the process you've seen as many times as necessary until you've got your air fuel ratio where you need it to be.
09:04	In this case what we're going to do now is head back to our tuning worksheet here and we will re enable our closed loop control.
09:12	And this is going to be enabled for our wide open throttle acceleration test here.
09:19	Personal preference whether you do this or not, we're still going to be using our datalog to make changes or address any errors in our wide open throttle tuning.
09:27	But I allow closed loop control here because if we do find out that we are a little bit lean during an acceleration run, then the closed loop control will be picking up the pieces and of course in our log file we'll be able to see the effect of that.
09:39	So, in this case I'm also not going to be using the mixture map functionality to tune the wide open throttle area, I'll be hand tuning that.
09:47	So, again we'll head back out onto the track, get rid of our heat soak and we're going to be doing this test, I'll try in third gear initially.
09:54	Obviously, the higher the gear, the higher the terminal speed and that really needs to be considered with the track configuration, I don't want to end up being in a situation where I have to brake really really hard to get round a corner.
10:05	So, I'll try third gear and see how that works and we'll log that, come back to the pits and analyse our data.
10:11	Alright, we're back out on track and as usual we're just going to get rid of that heat soak, get us around to the part of the track where we've got a nice long straight that we can replicate the acceleration runs we were doing on the dyno.
10:23	So, that's from 2000 through to about 7500 RPM.
10:26	And of course we're going to be logging this, so we don't need to be staring at the laptop.
10:30	Closed loop control here as I already mentioned is going to be helpful because it's going to be picking up the pieces if there is a bit of an error in our air fuel ratio.
10:38	Otherwise, though it is quite convenient here to have a suction cup wideband on the windscreen just, so you can keep an eye on that in your peripheral vision and abort your acceleration pull if something's not looking quite right.
10:50	So, we'll just get ourselves around to our straight section of track and get our run started.
10:56	Alright, so we're coming up to our straight here, just get ourselves into third gear, make sure that we're down at or around that 2000 RPM and we'll get ourselves nice and straight on the track before we accelerate, we've got our datalogger already running.
11:09	Just coming onto the straight now and let's go.
11:27	OK, so our full power acceleration run done there.
11:31	Looking at the length of the straight versus using third or fourth gear, I probably could have gotten away with fourth gear, but still third gear does apply a decent amount of load, it means obviously our terminal speed isn't too scary at the end of that.
11:42	We'll head back to the pits and look at our logging and see how close we are.
11:46	Alright, looking at our datalog here, we can see I went through to full throttle here at about 1900 RPM and we ended up getting all the way through to 7500 RPM, so just before our rev limit.
12:00	Looking at our boost pressure here in the middle, so peaked at 225 kPa and we ended up dropping down to about 195, so a little different to the dyno, but there or there abouts.
12:10	Looking at our fuelling, we can see that right at the start here we've got this lean spike but that will be transient enrichment.
12:17	Interestingly, despite being that lean, we're sort of 1.1 lambda, didn't actually feel any hesitation there, but this is not a fuel mapping issue, that is just simply as I'm rolling into the throttle, so we can fix this with our transient enrichment.
12:31	Looking at most of the area ramping up here, I mean we've got the odd little error here, but we are sitting at 0% closed loop control, it's really really close straight away.
12:41	We do have this area here though where we are a little bit too lean there, .83 on a .78 target and you can see at this stage our closed loop is only just starting to ramp in, it's only sitting at 0.8% so there's a genuine error there.
12:56	If I click through this, what we can see is that for the most part, 1.9% there, we are a little lean there with 2.2% trim already in.
13:05	Now, we're sitting at about 2% so it's pretty good, but you can see yes there are some errors compared to what we had on the dyno.
13:12	Now, most of this I'm not really too worried about, we're within sort of 1-2%.
13:15	We can see at this point here we are a little bit rich, obviously we always prefer to be rich than too lean so .765 on a .8 target so 3.5% too rich there.
13:29	And we can also see that we are quite rich right up here at 7500 RPM.
13:34	And this actually may be an aspect, if you remember back to the dyno, calibration of the dyno to engine RPM wasn't probably quite perfect.
13:41	We weren't actually getting all the way through to exactly 7500 RPM.
13:45	So, that could be the result of that.
13:47	So, what we're gonna do is just make some iterative changes from this.
13:50	So, generally we'll just start the left hand side of our graph at low RPM and work my way through.
13:56	So, this particular point here, we do wanna make some changes.
13:59	We are .83 on a .78 target, so we're about 5% too lean there.
14:06	We are already adding in .8% as we already discussed.
14:09	So, let's have a look and see whereabouts we were in our tuning table here.
14:13	And we're right here, sort of in the centre of a cell here.
14:15	So, what I'm going to do here, actually make this change before that as well, not that we're actually, getting to that point.
14:22	And we'll also extend this up to higher boost pressure.
14:26	So, we'll times by 1.05 to add 5%.
14:29	Now, I'm also going to, because we're transitioning through these cells, I'm just going to make a smaller change here, let's add 3 % to those.
14:36	Alright, let's move back to our logging and see what else we've got here.
14:40	So, that was at 3500 RPM essentially.
14:43	What I'll do is I'll come through to the next point on our table, 4000 RPM.
14:46	We are basically on our target here, we're 1% too lean, but you can see that is as a result of us already adding 2%.
14:55	So, let's come back here to our fuel table.
14:59	And again what we're gonna do is just highlight the cell we're running, we're bang in the centre of that 220 kPa cell here and we'll add 3% to that cell.
15:08	Let's come through to our next point which is going to be 5000 RPM.
15:13	Let's scroll through using our right arrow key.
15:15	And at this point 0.8, 0.799, 0.80 on a 0.78 target.
15:21	So, about 1.5% lean there.
15:25	And we can see though that we are also adding 2%.
15:30	So, I'll just underestimate this, let's add 3% here, looks like we're pretty consistently a little bit out.
15:37	Looks like we also missed our 4500 RPM, so I'll come back to that.
15:42	Got a little bit ahead of myself there, that's OK though.
15:46	Where are we, probably about here.
15:51	4500 RPM, right on our target or pretty damn close to our target there, 1% too rich, we're adding 1.8% so I'm actually going to leave that.
16:01	Let's come through to 5500 RPM now.
16:04	And we are here right on our target, but of course that's as a result of a 2% trim, so we'll come back and add 2% to our table here.
16:13	Now, we can see our boost is starting to drop, so I'm just adjusting where abouts I am making those changes to suit and we'll just keep going through here, we'll speed this up now, I'm just going to repeat this process.
16:57	Alright, we've made the required changes there, so we're going to head back out on track, grab some more data for another acceleration run and we'll come back to the pits and analyse the next round of changes.
17:19	Alright, our second test there under full power acceleration complete and looking at our lambda we can see everything is now looking much better.
17:28	Still got a slight lean spot here as we just come up onto peak boost.
17:32	And we're 0.81 on a 0.79 target, so another 2% could go into there for sure.
17:39	But we are transitioning through that very quickly.
17:41	Just sort of clicking through here in a couple of spots, you can see that our yellow measured lambda's always overlaying almost directly on top of our target.
17:50	And looking at our closed loop control, we're now generally less than 1% trim going in there.
17:56	I've got a slight rich spot here, but I mean essentially we are pretty damn close to our target, we've got a bit of oscillation in our lambda anyway, so depending exactly where I click, depends what I end up getting.
18:08	Looking at this area right at the top of the run though, we can see that probably we've overestimated with our 5% change there, we're now about 2.5% too lean.
18:20	So, I definitely want to go in and address that.
18:23	So, that's as simple as coming back into our fuel map.
18:27	And I made those changes at 7500 and 8000 RPM, so all I'm going to do is multiply 1.025, add 2.5% back in there, press F4 to store that.
18:38	I won't go back out and repeat that test though, everything's obviously looking very very close to the mark.
18:44	Now, this is of course an iterative process, it might take you two or three attempts to get everything dialed in, but by just following the approach that you've seen me use here, you should have your fuel map dialed in in no time.
18:57	So, that brings us to the end of our Link G5 worked example and if you've got any further questions, please ask and I'll be happy to answer those questions in the forum.
19:08	Thank you.