RomRaider

Just flashed my car to the Stage 1 map rev 8. Just want to make sure I am reading these logs correctly.
- EGT's are 755, that looks ok
- Max boost I am hitting is 13.3 psi. Since it is a 05 9-2x. I am assuming I might need a 1-2 turns on the wastegate arm.
- Advance Multiplier seems ok. Lowest it goes is 14. This is right after it registers knock upon going WOT. Still trying to understand what might be causing this.

Since I am very new at this. Any and all comments welcome. Thanks in advance.

Im no tuning expert, but from what I know your IAM shouldnt drop if the mapping was working perfectly...

That is kind of a limited log to really draw a conclusion as to what caused it to reduce the IAM. Perhaps try another run logging the load, and the good old knock sensor. It does seem to get to the max lamda reading very quickly, which leads me to think its somehow related to fuel mixture. Could be too rich or maybe crappy fuel. I'm pretty new at this, but thats my best guess from the limited logging elements...

It has been relatively hot here today. Mid 90's. Will try and do another 3rd gear run. Around where I live it is quite hilly even on the interstates making a clean 3rd gear pull somewhat hard and 4th gear pull to redline very very hard.

Will try and find the knock sensor and load values and log those as well and repost updated logs. Thank you both for you input.

Here a couple more logs. 3rd gear pull and then the regular drive back.
I am not seeing any know WOT on the 3rd gear pull but look like the ecu picked up knock at 869 RPM. I have included engine loads as well.

Logging the knock signal is usually worthless as the logger has to be sampling the signal at that exact moment to register. You can have heavy knock and it not show anything or much of anything.

IAM does not have be 16 all the time. If you tune your timing to be conservative enough for the IAM to be 16 all the time, then you will be leaving power on the table when it is cooler out. 14 is not bad at all.

I get knock all the time under no load 800 and minus, just idling.. I think its primarly engine noise so I do not take it seriously. Also Vik since you have allot of hills in your area its likely you engine load is more than average under the same running conditions which could account for more frequent knock

Merchgod, I guess thats an interesting perspective, I must have allot of room to go on my timing map! When you say "sampling the signal", what do you mean? I thought the logger would read the indicated signals non stop?

Still new at this but I believe ecuExplorer shows you the sampling rate. In my case in the last scenario it was sampling at a rate of 252ms if memory serves me right. Also the more fields we log the greater the time between samples.

Yes, the more you sample the slower the sample rate. Even if you monitored the knock sensor signal by itself it still wouldn't pick up every instance of knock as measured by the knock sensor.

That makes allot more sense, thanks. Is this the behavior of all tuning tools? If this is the case how can someone say that an engine was "tuned to perfection?" when they were not able to "see" all of the possible knocks that may have occured? I suppose the only true statement would be: is your IAM will stays above 16 until at least one knock event has occured.

Edit: @ 16, not above!

IAM will never go above 16. You can have an IAM of 16 and still have knock. There is a table stored in ram called fine correction that will reduce timing in certain rpm/load sites (as defined by the fine correction rows (rpm and load) tables). It will also raise timing at certain rpm/load sites, but only if the IAM is less than 16 (or less than 1.0 on 32bit cars) and as long as the value doesn't exceed that in your ignition correction map. When the fine correction reaches a certain threshold, it will go back to rough correction and drop or raise the IAM. Actually its more complicated that this (there's an additional feedback correction component) but this is the general idea.

It is important to remember that if your IAM is less than 16, this doesn't mean you are experiencing detonation after it drops and stablizes. The idea is that the ecu, in rough correction mode, will drop IAM to point where no detonation is heard over a particular interval. So, if your IAM is fairly consistent at 14, the reduction in ignition correction (correction x 14/16), is probably enough to eliminate the detonation with possibly some additional retard with the fine correction component. From there the fine correction continues until reaches a threshold of more knock (IAM will be dropped further) or no knock and positive fine values reaching a certain point, raising your IAM.

If your IAM gets too low, though, you will be leaving power on the table since a drop in IAM drops the correction across the board. So, if your heavy detonation is localized to a particular rpm/load range, by dropping the timing in that area, your IAM will be higher and thus the correction map values in the other sites will be higher as well.

Great stuff mechgod, sounds very complex, it would be interesting to see the algorithms the ecu is using and the rate of calculation to anticipate tuning for these types of conditions.

Has anyone ever extracted the "code" from the ecu and examined the data?

You can read the Subaru patents to get a better idea. Try patent#5,038,736:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-adv.htm

Basically there is a feedback correction component that operates all the time and will immediately drops timing by a certain increment when it detects knock. If knock continues, it will continue to drop timing. If it reaches a certain threshold, then the rough correction takes over, dropping the IAM until no knock is heard. If no knock is heard after hearing knock from feedback correction, then feedback will raise the timing by a smaller amount, gaining back some of the original timng. Then there's the fine correction which will operate at the same time as feedback correction but only when the feedback is zero (feedback never goes above zero). From what I understand, the negative fine correction results when the feedback correction pulls timing, but the stored fine correction (feedback is not stored) is a smaller negative value than the feedback correction was.

" You can have an IAM of 16 and still have knock. "

On a side note..

This seems likely since, I'm running pretty high timing, leaner than ave conditions and have yet to see my IAM fall. I almost would like to see it happen just so I get more of a feeling for when the engine is unhappy & to set a limit on my tune.

So what are the most important values to log? It wouldn't make sense to log everything in ecuExplorer as it would cause the lag to be enormus. I'm fairly new at this so I want to make sure I get the important things without the unimportant things.