Post by Mattjin on Jan 27, 2016 20:20:24 GMT 10
Hi guys,
Those who may remember my old Z1000 build a number of years ago may remember the build. Well it never stopped.
I thought with the latest mod some of you may be interested to see where technology is at these days. I recently swapped out the factory ECU for a full standalone system giving me complete control over every aspect of controlling the engine. Now this is not directly related to the Storm, but I hope some people just find it a good read of what can be done. For those who don't know me, I have worked as a dyno tuner for over 25 years, travelling the world and working on just about anything you can think of. For the last few years I have been working for an ECU manufacturer where I work in tech support and R&D, with many an hour spent training other workshops and TAFEs around Australia. I use this bike as a development mule for new ECU features.
The bike (and basic tech specs):
Kawasaki Z1000 MY2004
Factory EFI
953cc inline 4 cylinder
Reluctor magnetic crank sensor with 24 teeth with one missing. Known as a 24-1. Reluctor magnetic cam sensor with 1 tooth. More on this later.
4x ignition coils. Ignitor is built into the OEM ECU.
4x 38mm throttle bodies with one 220cc/min injector per throttle, with sub throttles controlled by stepper motor
In tank returnless fuel pump with integrated regulator
Sensors: 1x Coolant Temp, 1x Air Temp, 1x Manifold Absolute Pressure (MAP), 1x Throttle Position (TPS), 1x Barometric, 1x Sub-Throttle Position (Sub-TPS), 1x Vehicle Speed (VSS). 1x Knock Sensor added by me.
Aftermarket ECU: Haltech Elite 2500 ECU, HPI4 Ignitor module, CAN Wideband O2.
To do the ECU swap, I acquired another factory ECU so that I could use the main connectors from it to fabricate an adaptor harness to allow the new ECU to be simply plugged in. This means that when I am done playing around the bike can be returned to stock when it is sold. If the bike was originally carby then this would all need to be wired in from scratch, which will take around 6 hours or so.
Starting from scratch here, so it might get a little boring but at least you can follow the process....
Why was this ECU used? This is the technical part. It was used because it has the following capabilities:
1. Engine Position and ignition timing is calculated from the nearest tooth to the firing event. This means the timing is super accurate even with a fast revving engine.
2. Fuel and Ignition mapping is done in true 4D. In my case the ignition timing is mapped over RPM and TPS, and there is a full new 3D table for each Gear including Neutral. Fuel is mapped over RPM, TPS, and Sub-TPS.
3. Full wideband O2 closed-loop control with per-cell long term learning. This means that the full 4D fuel table can be self learned just by riding the bike. The more it is ridden the better the fuelling gets.
4. Knock Control with per-cell long term learning. If I go a little too far with the timing or I get a bad batch of fuel, the ECU will learn this is the case and retard only the areas that knocking occurs in.
5. OBD2 data is broadcast over Wi-Fi to my phone mounted on the handlebars, so I can view live data and watch the learning process.
6. Fuel tuning is done via Volumetric Efficiency, so the fuelling can be guessed quite well and the bike can be ridden with no previous tuning work.
7. There is an Engine Protection feature which allows me to set a safer fuel or ignition tune if a condition is considered dangerous to the engine, or even drop the RPM limit if need be.
First up is to let the ECU know what you are connecting it to. So, it is a 4-cylinder of 953cc displacement, it has the 24-1 + 1 trigger system with reluctor sensors, it will use sequential fuel injection and it will use direct fire ignition.
The 24-1 trigger system means the ECU can sync the engine once every crank revolution. i.e. it knows roughly what cylinder is firing. Those of you who know how a 4-stroke engine works will say, "hey, the engine fires once every 2 crank revolutions". You would be right, so the system looks for a cam sensor to let it know which phase the crank is on. The ECU I am using allows the engine to start off the crank sensor only in what is known as semi sequential fuel and waste spark ignition. This means that just off the crank sensor alone the fuel is paired up and the ignition it paired up. When I exceed a certain RPM I tell the ECU to look for the cam sensor and then switch over to full sequential operation. The benefit is that the engine does not need to wait for the cam sensor to come around and will start a little faster.
Next is to tell the system what sensors are connected, so without getting too much into it all of the sensors listed above are enabled and calibrated. Getting the calibration for the temp sensors was made easy by the fact that the dash digitally displays the temp and shares the signal with the ECU so it can be seen the exact temp and the calibration mapped to match it. The MAP and BARO sensor calibrations were listed in the factory manual. TPS and Sub-TPS are calibrated by simply telling the ECU when it is closed throttle and when it is wide open.
Now we tell the ECU what the injectors flow and what type of injector it is which is typically the resistance across the two pins. In my case the injectors were measured at 220cc and they are high impedance types.
On to the ignition system. The factory ECU had the ignitors built into it, whereas I will be running external ignitors. Dwell time estimated for now but later measured. Just to note for everyone, most motorbikes DO NOT use CDI. They use common inductive type coils and ignitors. CDI was more common many years ago, but with the move to EFI this creates high levels of interference to deal with, and a spark duration that is far too short.
For the tuning of the engine we need to tell the ECU what sensors are to be used for engine load. For almost all individual throttle engines it is best to use the TPS as the primary source with a MAP sensor as the secondary input. The TPS is used because throttle position directly affects the amount of air entering the engine. The airflow is also affected by the manifold pressure which helps cover also for changes in weather and altitude, as well as other loading of the engine not related to the throttle. eg, headlights on will load the engine up but at idle the throttle has not moved. The MAP sensor will see this load change and allow fuelling and ignition timing to be corrected. The tables were "guessed" which is good enough for now to get it riding.
Now it is time to fire up the engine. When this is done for the first time we need to calibrate the ignition system. This means that we need to line up the ignition timing between what the ECU is asking for and what we are seeing at the crank. This is done with a timing light and using the factory TDC marks on the crank. I will use the software to lock the timing fixed at 0 degrees TDC and adjust a number in the ECU called the TDC Offset until the spark fires exactly on the marks. I estimated this offset by looking at where the missing tooth on the crank sensor was located relative to the sensor when the engine is positioned at TDC. I guessed 100 degrees. The actual number when tested was 102 so I was only 2 degrees off. This engine fired up and idled immediately. While idling I connected a current clamp and USB scope so I could measure the peak current used to charge the coils. This only takes a few seconds, and was measured at 1.5ms @ 14V
Finally, it was time for a ride. At first there were a few rich and lean spots but the bike was quite rideable. After wound half an hour the mapping was starting to learn where it needed to be and the bike just got better and betterer. A little time was later spent getting the response better, and now it is just waiting for more ride time to fine tune the last of it when all of this rain pisses off. it makes a little more power, it rides smoother with better transition from closed to open throttle, and the RPM limiter is so soft it feels hitting a pillow.
So there we go, all under control and riding well. I still have some more advanced features to set up like flat shift, traction control and launch control, so I should be able to pin the throttle and dump the clutch and have it not wheelie or spin the tyre just instead take off like a rocket.
Any questions? Feel free to comment.
Those who may remember my old Z1000 build a number of years ago may remember the build. Well it never stopped.
I thought with the latest mod some of you may be interested to see where technology is at these days. I recently swapped out the factory ECU for a full standalone system giving me complete control over every aspect of controlling the engine. Now this is not directly related to the Storm, but I hope some people just find it a good read of what can be done. For those who don't know me, I have worked as a dyno tuner for over 25 years, travelling the world and working on just about anything you can think of. For the last few years I have been working for an ECU manufacturer where I work in tech support and R&D, with many an hour spent training other workshops and TAFEs around Australia. I use this bike as a development mule for new ECU features.
The bike (and basic tech specs):
Kawasaki Z1000 MY2004
Factory EFI
953cc inline 4 cylinder
Reluctor magnetic crank sensor with 24 teeth with one missing. Known as a 24-1. Reluctor magnetic cam sensor with 1 tooth. More on this later.
4x ignition coils. Ignitor is built into the OEM ECU.
4x 38mm throttle bodies with one 220cc/min injector per throttle, with sub throttles controlled by stepper motor
In tank returnless fuel pump with integrated regulator
Sensors: 1x Coolant Temp, 1x Air Temp, 1x Manifold Absolute Pressure (MAP), 1x Throttle Position (TPS), 1x Barometric, 1x Sub-Throttle Position (Sub-TPS), 1x Vehicle Speed (VSS). 1x Knock Sensor added by me.
Aftermarket ECU: Haltech Elite 2500 ECU, HPI4 Ignitor module, CAN Wideband O2.
To do the ECU swap, I acquired another factory ECU so that I could use the main connectors from it to fabricate an adaptor harness to allow the new ECU to be simply plugged in. This means that when I am done playing around the bike can be returned to stock when it is sold. If the bike was originally carby then this would all need to be wired in from scratch, which will take around 6 hours or so.
Starting from scratch here, so it might get a little boring but at least you can follow the process....
Why was this ECU used? This is the technical part. It was used because it has the following capabilities:
1. Engine Position and ignition timing is calculated from the nearest tooth to the firing event. This means the timing is super accurate even with a fast revving engine.
2. Fuel and Ignition mapping is done in true 4D. In my case the ignition timing is mapped over RPM and TPS, and there is a full new 3D table for each Gear including Neutral. Fuel is mapped over RPM, TPS, and Sub-TPS.
3. Full wideband O2 closed-loop control with per-cell long term learning. This means that the full 4D fuel table can be self learned just by riding the bike. The more it is ridden the better the fuelling gets.
4. Knock Control with per-cell long term learning. If I go a little too far with the timing or I get a bad batch of fuel, the ECU will learn this is the case and retard only the areas that knocking occurs in.
5. OBD2 data is broadcast over Wi-Fi to my phone mounted on the handlebars, so I can view live data and watch the learning process.
6. Fuel tuning is done via Volumetric Efficiency, so the fuelling can be guessed quite well and the bike can be ridden with no previous tuning work.
7. There is an Engine Protection feature which allows me to set a safer fuel or ignition tune if a condition is considered dangerous to the engine, or even drop the RPM limit if need be.
First up is to let the ECU know what you are connecting it to. So, it is a 4-cylinder of 953cc displacement, it has the 24-1 + 1 trigger system with reluctor sensors, it will use sequential fuel injection and it will use direct fire ignition.
The 24-1 trigger system means the ECU can sync the engine once every crank revolution. i.e. it knows roughly what cylinder is firing. Those of you who know how a 4-stroke engine works will say, "hey, the engine fires once every 2 crank revolutions". You would be right, so the system looks for a cam sensor to let it know which phase the crank is on. The ECU I am using allows the engine to start off the crank sensor only in what is known as semi sequential fuel and waste spark ignition. This means that just off the crank sensor alone the fuel is paired up and the ignition it paired up. When I exceed a certain RPM I tell the ECU to look for the cam sensor and then switch over to full sequential operation. The benefit is that the engine does not need to wait for the cam sensor to come around and will start a little faster.
Next is to tell the system what sensors are connected, so without getting too much into it all of the sensors listed above are enabled and calibrated. Getting the calibration for the temp sensors was made easy by the fact that the dash digitally displays the temp and shares the signal with the ECU so it can be seen the exact temp and the calibration mapped to match it. The MAP and BARO sensor calibrations were listed in the factory manual. TPS and Sub-TPS are calibrated by simply telling the ECU when it is closed throttle and when it is wide open.
Now we tell the ECU what the injectors flow and what type of injector it is which is typically the resistance across the two pins. In my case the injectors were measured at 220cc and they are high impedance types.
On to the ignition system. The factory ECU had the ignitors built into it, whereas I will be running external ignitors. Dwell time estimated for now but later measured. Just to note for everyone, most motorbikes DO NOT use CDI. They use common inductive type coils and ignitors. CDI was more common many years ago, but with the move to EFI this creates high levels of interference to deal with, and a spark duration that is far too short.
For the tuning of the engine we need to tell the ECU what sensors are to be used for engine load. For almost all individual throttle engines it is best to use the TPS as the primary source with a MAP sensor as the secondary input. The TPS is used because throttle position directly affects the amount of air entering the engine. The airflow is also affected by the manifold pressure which helps cover also for changes in weather and altitude, as well as other loading of the engine not related to the throttle. eg, headlights on will load the engine up but at idle the throttle has not moved. The MAP sensor will see this load change and allow fuelling and ignition timing to be corrected. The tables were "guessed" which is good enough for now to get it riding.
Now it is time to fire up the engine. When this is done for the first time we need to calibrate the ignition system. This means that we need to line up the ignition timing between what the ECU is asking for and what we are seeing at the crank. This is done with a timing light and using the factory TDC marks on the crank. I will use the software to lock the timing fixed at 0 degrees TDC and adjust a number in the ECU called the TDC Offset until the spark fires exactly on the marks. I estimated this offset by looking at where the missing tooth on the crank sensor was located relative to the sensor when the engine is positioned at TDC. I guessed 100 degrees. The actual number when tested was 102 so I was only 2 degrees off. This engine fired up and idled immediately. While idling I connected a current clamp and USB scope so I could measure the peak current used to charge the coils. This only takes a few seconds, and was measured at 1.5ms @ 14V
Finally, it was time for a ride. At first there were a few rich and lean spots but the bike was quite rideable. After wound half an hour the mapping was starting to learn where it needed to be and the bike just got better and betterer. A little time was later spent getting the response better, and now it is just waiting for more ride time to fine tune the last of it when all of this rain pisses off. it makes a little more power, it rides smoother with better transition from closed to open throttle, and the RPM limiter is so soft it feels hitting a pillow.
So there we go, all under control and riding well. I still have some more advanced features to set up like flat shift, traction control and launch control, so I should be able to pin the throttle and dump the clutch and have it not wheelie or spin the tyre just instead take off like a rocket.
Any questions? Feel free to comment.