Yandards' 16VG60 - Running Report 23 Jul 15

[mrbeige 0]

[...]I will be ordering the E1280s Adaptronic ECU shortly as I have had the quote back from the UK distributor, I will report back on how that progresses over time.

What the hell is an Adaptronic ECU? Never even heard of that..

[Yandards 0]

[...]I will be ordering the E1280s Adaptronic ECU shortly as I have had the quote back from the UK distributor, I will report back on how that progresses over time.

What the hell is an Adaptronic ECU? Never even heard of that..

 

Linky is here

 

Aussie company but this is there flagship ECU and gives me all I want from an aftermarket set-up. The E420 would do the job but I love the extras on the E1280, socket for headphones to detect knock, oscillascope output for all engine functions, retention of knock detection etc. Yeah squirt can do all of that but this way I get a more polished product to work with.

[Slimg60 0]

Nice one Yan,

The new ECU plan sounds pretty cool, like to hear how you get on with it.

[Yandards 0]

Right then, spent some time over the weekend banging some miles on the car, I also cleaned up all of the major earth/live contacts on the car and carried out the basic setting procedure again. It all feels ok, no major problems along the way and with just under 300 miles now done I have had something close to WOT and run it around to 4.5krpm.

 

Now the bad stuff, it's slow.

 

Not just slow but slower than my G60 according to my bum dyno.

 

Now I know the 16vG60 is going to feel different and I also know that the engine is running really rich through the warm up phase (which would also mean over-fuelling on open loop, of lambda during WOT). But, I was expecting the generic chip that is coded for a 16vG60 to be a little closer to the mark and the car to just be quicker than my very stock (aside from BBM boost pipework, an exhaust and a chargecooler) G60.

 

I am lucky enough to have been in a very well sorted and mature 16vG60 in a Corrado with a not too far away spec from my own and it was a hell of a lot quicker than a stock G60 or even a VR. I think this is where a lot of folks run into a wall, a lot of time, effort and usually money has been expended so far and the initial impression is that it's slower than they would like. I also know that 225bhp should be easily achievable with my engine package so that only leaves one thing - the ECU map.

 

I could spend the money getting a proper custom Digi map for the car or I could decide to go aftermarket, given my dislike of the consistancy of Digifant on my daily G60 I have decided to go aftermarket management. This gives me the flex to add and adjust the ECU map as well as run a more modern form of engine management.

 

So, yes I am a little hacked off but I am comforted by the fact that I know there is a lot more to come with a bit more work.

[Jim 1]

As you say mate, you know the engine is good and WILL be able to produce the sort of power you want. Surely it is just down to the fuelling / mapping on it at the moment and with a proper sorting out, it should be a fire breather..?

[mimjed 0]

bit random and im sure i could find it if i looked hard enough, but so much easier to ask you.

 

what gearboxes are you running in each?

 

mine is on a 16v box at the mo and im fed up of changing gear constantly. tops out around 130 too :(

 

had a diesel box on the golf which was loads better in terms of length of gears and top end but it died after a small trip of motorway ragging.

[Yandards 0]

bit random and im sure i could find it if i looked hard enough, but so much easier to ask you.

 

what gearboxes are you running in each?

 

mine is on a 16v box at the mo and im fed up of changing gear constantly. tops out around 130 too :(

 

had a diesel box on the golf which was loads better in terms of length of gears and top end but it died after a small trip of motorway ragging.

 

Standard 1.8 16v AGC box with a CTN (Passat diesel) 5th gear on this car and a standard G60 box on that car.

[mimjed 0]

do you not find the same problem too then? im running the 1.8 16v box.

 

i think mine is around;

 

2nd - 43 3rd - 70 4th - 100 5th - 130

 

it flies through the revs, so seems to waste so much time/actual speed from changing gear.

 

needs one like the mk2 driver had on it 2nd - 60, 3rd - 90, im thinking. seems like such a waste of torque

[junkie 0]

Not sure what you have rebuilt but if your only running to 4.5k then the engine needs to loosen up still and surely the best will come from higher up the revs which you have not used yet. Don't bum your self down about it. Let be what is and then get the improvements from the mapping.

[Alex_G60_Fanatic 0]

whens the new ECU going on then buddy?

[corradophil 3]

Not sure what you have rebuilt but if your only running to 4.5k then the engine needs to loosen up still and surely the best will come from higher up the revs which you have not used yet. Don't bum your self down about it. Let be what is and then get the improvements from the mapping.

 

I agree. I rebuilt my 9A 16v over the winter, it is now 2008cc due to re-bore and new pistons/rings, with slightly raised compression from block and head skim, and now a "man in the shed head". At 1000 miles it was slower than before, now at around 1500 miles i'd say it is almost as fast as before the rebuild. More miles and gradual increase in how hard you drive it are required.

[Henny 0]

yup, my 1940cc G60 was crap compared to before I rebuilt it for the first 1500 or so miles... then I got it mapped properly and could give it some beans and, whoooaaaaa momma, it was better, ooooohhhhh so much better!

 

Keep at it Yan, it's sound engineering you've done there and it should give you some very good power once it's bedded in and set up fully.... 8)

[Yandards 0]

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

 

I know it will get better with more miles and I have only had the revs to just over 50% of max so there is more to come for sure.

 

I think it comes down to the amount of work put into it and the time to get what initially feels like a very disappointing result. This just highlights how vital a good ECU map is when it comes to serious modification.

[Andy665 0]

Having been in John Mitchells 16VG60 it was like comparing night with day against my non-standard G60's so I'm sure it will come good with the new ECU and a rolling road session

[Henny 0]

eye, John's 16VG60 was mental... I seem to remember that he'd not had it tuned to it's maximum potential either and it still had more to come when he took me out in it.... I'd have loved to do a head to head with his and my G60 when they were both on the road to do a comparison... 8)

 

Yan? yours has as much, if not more, potential as John's did... keep going, it'll be a beast and be worth it... I ended up doing late night laps of the M60 (got some weird looks from the police and got questioned about it too!) to get the mileage on my car to get it bedded in... :cuckoo:

[Yandards 0]

eye, John's 16VG60 was mental... I seem to remember that he'd not had it tuned to it's maximum potential either and it still had more to come when he took me out in it.... I'd have loved to do a head to head with his and my G60 when they were both on the road to do a comparison... 8)

 

Yan? yours has as much, if not more, potential as John's did... keep going, it'll be a beast and be worth it... I ended up doing late night laps of the M60 (got some weird looks from the police and got questioned about it too!) to get the mileage on my car to get it bedded in... :cuckoo:

 

Indeedy it was/is.

 

Having been lucky enough to go out in both yours and John's I have a rough idea of what it should be feel like; mental.

 

I am waiting on the ECU from Australia and given no furthur volcanic ash it should be with me early next month. The plan is to fit the ECU, complete the run-in and tune from there. I can use all the existing sensor inputs and I only need to replace the throttle body for an auto one (which I am attempting to source) and buy a MAP sensor. I don't need to use a wideband to start with but intend to fit one from the off as it will help with the fuelling. I can then get the engine up and running on managment that I can adjust and tweak myself with the longer term plan being to fit both a cam and crank position sensor set-up over the winter to refine the setup furthur.

 

So I hope it will be basically be a Digi sensor setup with a throttle pot and wideband, I also intend to just unpin the various parts of the ECU loom plug as required and feed them straight into my new ECU loom plug.

 

That's the plan anyway....... :D

[Alex_G60_Fanatic 0]

eye, John's 16VG60 was mental... I seem to remember that he'd not had it tuned to it's maximum potential either and it still had more to come when he took me out in it.... I'd have loved to do a head to head with his and my G60 when they were both on the road to do a comparison... 8)

 

Yan? yours has as much, if not more, potential as John's did... keep going, it'll be a beast and be worth it... I ended up doing late night laps of the M60 (got some weird looks from the police and got questioned about it too!) to get the mileage on my car to get it bedded in... :cuckoo:

 

Indeedy it was/is.

 

Having been lucky enough to go out in both yours and John's I have a rough idea of what it should be feel like; mental.

 

I am waiting on the ECU from Australia and given no furthur volcanic ash it should be with me early next month. The plan is to fit the ECU, complete the run-in and tune from there. I can use all the existing sensor inputs and I only need to replace the throttle body for an auto one (which I am attempting to source) and buy a MAP sensor. I don't need to use a wideband to start with but intend to fit one from the off as it will help with the fuelling. I can then get the engine up and running on managment that I can adjust and tweak myself with the longer term plan being to fit both a cam and crank position sensor set-up over the winter to refine the setup furthur.

 

So I hope it will be basically be a Digi sensor setup with a throttle pot and wideband, I also intend to just unpin the various parts of the ECU loom plug as required and feed them straight into my new ECU loom plug.

 

That's the plan anyway....... :D

I'm lost in Technical heaven... sounds the business thou! :grin:

[Yandards 0]

Right, using my new £8 camera I took the car out again today to get some test footage and to give it a run around.

 

Mounted the camera on the underside of the offside (drivers) towing eye cover using a combination of both blue tac and cable ties. If you loop a cable tie through each of the plastic cut-outs (with the towing eye cover lowered), click the towing eye cover back into place and then use a 3rd looped cable tie between the 2 you can rig up a nice tight mounting for the camera. I added the blue tac to prevent the camera sliding around but with the cable tie solution nice and tight it forces the camera up into the underside of the towing eye cover leaving it very firmly mounted.

 

Video is about 35 mins long and varies from around town driving to back roads, should give you a good idea of what the camera is capable of. The image had to be flipped as I needed to mount it upside down so I could get to the buttons. The roads are pretty bumpy and I think the camera does an excellent job,, especially for the money. The microphone appears to have 2 levels, you can hear it switching when the wind noise is too high.

 

I plan to stick some foam over the microphone to reduce the wind noise and I suspect a small hole (2 mm max) drilled in the towing eye cover would allow you to mount the camera inside the towing eye, should be a very tidy install and keep it pretty dry in there. Also on the hit list is trying to get some footage of the suspension in action, front end from the engine looking out should look pretty cool.

 

As you utoobe only lets me have 10 mins of video a time this is in 4 parts..

 

[youtube:2hgmd4wd]PlEy6NZJQYw[/youtube:2hgmd4wd]

 

[youtube:2hgmd4wd]cu_ITJyiK-I[/youtube:2hgmd4wd]

 

[youtube:2hgmd4wd]IlBAgAHOR2I[/youtube:2hgmd4wd]

 

[youtube:2hgmd4wd]V30X3dxaFaw[/youtube:2hgmd4wd]

[Rob_B 0]

the quality of those videos is awesome!

[Alex_G60_Fanatic 0]

Well Done dude! :salute:

have you thought of mounting the camera outside the car on a support?

or in the car looking out like this? http://www.instructables.com/id/Head-Rest-Camera-Mount/

 

Its something ive always wonted to try once ive got my car bk on the rd :)

[Dr Forinor 0]

Thats some really good footage, the only thing I would be looking to do would be to try and make it possible to be able shield the mic from the windnoise but at the same time try and capture the engine noise if at all possible.

 

Any ideas?

 

EDIT: Just noticed you live in Duffus, me and a friend were around your ends a couple of weeks ago. We started from Fort William, onto Mallaig and up along the west coast, right the way to John O'Groats, down to Inverness, across to Lossiemouth and then back down past Loch Ness & Loch Lomond onto Dundee, was a wicked trip!!! :D

[neuon2003 0]

There is an interesting site about these cameras here: http://www.chucklohr.com/808/. It includes information on how to post-process the videos to remove the date stamp and the news that the lead content of the plastic clam case contains 1500+ ppm of lead (exceeding US Consumer Product requirements for children under 12) - so don't eat the case :). Also suggests that with a battery life of 1 hour and a FAT32 file size limitation of 4GB, a 4GB microSD card is good enough.

 

Charged mine using a cable from a PC USB port, but the camera yellow LED did not go out, even after over 3 hours charging. Anyone else had this?

[Jon_vr6 1]

There is an interesting site about these cameras here: http://www.chucklohr.com/808/. It includes information on how to post-process the videos to remove the date stamp and the news that the lead content of the plastic clam case contains 1500+ ppm of lead (exceeding US Consumer Product requirements for children under 12) - so don't eat the case :). Also suggests that with a battery life of 1 hour and a FAT32 file size limitation of 4GB, a 4GB microSD card is good enough.

 

Charged mine using a cable from a PC USB port, but the camera yellow LED did not go out, even after over 3 hours charging. Anyone else had this?

 

Yeah didnt go out on mine either pal

[neuon2003 0]

Yeah didnt go out on mine either pal

 

Thanks.

[Alex_G60_Fanatic 0]

Thats some really good footage, the only thing I would be looking to do would be to try and make it possible to be able shield the mic from the windnoise but at the same time try and capture the engine noise if at all possible.

 

Just need to sort out a mic in the engine bay at the back somewhere and disable the sound from the camera no?