Topic: Twincharged Solstice = Turbocharger + Supercharger

[MattM]

Having come up utilizing megasquirt I personally prefer speed density over MAF.  Could just be the fact that that's what I used for so long. 

One other thing I would recommend you look into is the J&S safeguard.  It monitors and will cut advance on a per cylinder basis instead of just monitoring and cutting spark across the whole engine.  Back when I had it a growing number of drag racing and (I think) NASCAR teams were using it.

[MattM]

Oh got a caveat..it looks like NASCAR has now banned the J&S safeguard from use.

On the speed density tuning with megasquirt I felt MUCH more comfortable tuning 1 VE and 1 advance table and that was with two modes more the engine since the supercharger had an electric clutch one mode was forced induction and one was n/a.  I dont know if your new ecu has just the two table but Id assume probably not (cuz you seem to like complicated things. Jk!).

Back on the J&S safeguard I am so surprised that folks that personally tune through hp tuners dont swear by it, but you never hear about it here.

For you though, with as much power as you are running and the fact that speed density is not directly measuring airflow (it still works well though) I really think if you took the time to read up on the J&S safeguard and used one you would DEFINITELY thank me after.  It makes tuning WAY easier too!

[Steelmesh]

Good to hear on the MAP tuning, 300 kpa max on the VE table sounds like a good time 

[MattM]

Does your new ecu just use one VE table and one Spark Table?

I still definitely recommend a J&S safeguard for tuning.  It will make tuning so much easier and quicker for you!

[Steelmesh]

Looks like it just has basic knock retardation for all cylinders.  With this ecumaster, Page 62 shows that it can trim fuel dose per cylinder when using individual cylinder EGTs.

https://www.ecumaster.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/emu_manual.pdf

[MattM]

Looks like it just has basic knock retardation for all cylinders.  With this ecumaster, Page 62 shows that it can trim fuel dose per cylinder when using individual cylinder EGTs.

https://www.ecumaster.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/emu_manual.pdf

No, you should read into it a little more the jands safeguard retards timing nad monitors knock on an INDIVIDUAL cylinder basis.  There will always be one or two cylinders that need less advance than the others the jands allows for the individual cylinder advance monitoring and knock prevention.
With what you are saying, your ecu will only add and take out fuel per cylinder not change the advance (kind of a big distinction).
I'm not telling you to replace your new ecu with the jands I'm telling you that adding the jands will allow you to run a much better tune more quickly and actively monitor eahc cylinder for detonation. 

[MattM]

No, you should read into it a little more the jands safeguard retards timing nad monitors knock on an INDIVIDUAL cylinder basis.  There will always be one or two cylinders that need less advance than the others the jands allows for the individual cylinder advance monitoring and knock prevention.
With what you are saying, your ecu will only add and take out fuel per cylinder not change the advance (kind of a big distinction).
I'm not telling you to replace your new ecu with the jands I'm telling you that adding the jands will allow you to run a much better tune more quickly and actively monitor eahc cylinder for detonation.

Sorry I was posting from my phone...I think that came off harsh even though I wasn't intending to..
So before I told you about my v6 ford probe gt that I dynoed at 245whp and 220ft lbs of torque at 8psi from an older generation clutched Eaton m62.  All I had was a homemade meth injection kit for cooling.  Without meth the IATs would routinely get to around 200 degrees and with meth around 100 degrees.  That meth kit was not optimized for a v6 and undoubtedly was getting more meth to some cylinders than others yet the car was tuned aggressively on a stock engine with 120k miles and 10k was boosted.  It never blew!

So one of your questions was how I got 245whp on 8psi with a supercharger that was clearly out of its efficiency range.  The answer was the jands safeguard.  It monitored each cylinder separately and would only cut advance for the cylinder that pinged which allowed me to run an incredibly aggressive tune and not blow the engine!  If you look at all of my racing vids on YouTube for supercharged probs gt you'll see tons at the track and a bunch of highway races all on the same stock engine, he'll I trapped a few times at 108 and a few at 106 at the track in that car with no weight reduction.  Problem is I could never figure out how to launch it.  My best time was a 13.8 with like a 2.1 60ft....God I wish I still had that car!!!

Anyway that was all done bc of the jands.

[Steelmesh]

I went to the website and checked it out when you brought it up.  I totally understand the theory with that unit and it is a great idea in theory.  I don't see it as a solution at this point, being my engines are wearing out and stock ECU is in over it's head (or I am with the ECU).  I don't think J&S is a solution however, it's seems like more of a really good band-aid.  As you mentioned, this device would be a perfect counter-measure for uneven distribution of high volume fogger type methanol injection.  I am going down the path of E85 and uneven distribution is a much lower risk, so not sure how bang for the buck beneficial the J&S would be yet.  Let's say the car is fully optimized and setup, then sometimes it will pull 4 degrees timing due to knock events, and that 4 degrees timing could be worth 30 hp for sure!  But at what cost?  $800 for the hardware, $1500 for dyno days, and 40 hours of setup, chasing electrical noise, sensor locations, swapping sensors, murphy's law.  For a cheap ass diy builder it is not appealing at all, for someone who wants to be competitive and win on race day, it seems like the greatest thing invented.

[MattM]

I get what you are saying, but it took me literally 3 hours to  swap the knock sensor, wire it between the megasquirt and distributor and mount it.  You can also hook it into the stock GM knock sensor if you don't want to use the Bosch sensor.  It would cost you around $650 total if you use your stock GM sensor. 
You initially set the sensitivity by tapping the block lightly with a hammer (to have it pick up).  Then I loaded a VERY conservative spark table and the jands has a headphones jack that you plug the headphones in and can listen to what the jands is hearing.  It then took me about an hour driving the car in multiple condition (full throttle boost, partial throttle boost etc) listening in and you adjust the jands sensitivity based on what you are hearing and it's set.  You don't need a $1500 for dyno (although with your new ecu you will prolly wanna dyno tune it anyway) or 40 hours of setup.  Also if there were electrical noise and you wanted to confirm simply using the headphones, but, that said, my car was a rats nest of wires and I never ran into electrical noise.

That said, it's your car and you don't want to use it I just wanted to make sure you had all the facts with it.

I'll be interested in seeing what your new ecu does for you!

[Steelmesh]

I get what you are saying, but it took me literally 3 hours to  swap the knock sensor, wire it between the megasquirt and distributor and mount it.  You can also hook it into the stock GM knock sensor if you don't want to use the Bosch sensor.  It would cost you around $650 total if you use your stock GM sensor. 
You initially set the sensitivity by tapping the block lightly with a hammer (to have it pick up).  Then I loaded a VERY conservative spark table and the jands has a headphones jack that you plug the headphones in and can listen to what the jands is hearing.  It then took me about an hour driving the car in multiple condition (full throttle boost, partial throttle boost etc) listening in and you adjust the jands sensitivity based on what you are hearing and it's set.  You don't need a $1500 for dyno (although with your new ecu you will prolly wanna dyno tune it anyway) or 40 hours of setup.  Also if there were electrical noise and you wanted to confirm simply using the headphones, but, that said, my car was a rats nest of wires and I never ran into electrical noise.

That said, it's your car and you don't want to use it I just wanted to make sure you had all the facts with it.

I'll be interested in seeing what your new ecu does for you!

The ecumaster has built in knock protection, so for now I'm glad I at least have that.  A friend of mine got the Tunernerd Pro kit and says it works pretty good, he got his old procharger mustang dialed in (he flashes the stock ECU like old times still), the benefit of Tunernerd is the analysis software and graphing display.

[MattM]

Sounds good!  Cant wait to see the beast tear up the tracks!

[Steelmesh]

You long await, so I give long update. Good news is I have a lot more time to work on the car, bad news is I am unemployed.  I was part of the decimation process along with many others while the company struggles with a dried up market for automotive testing and engineering services, being outside of the home base in Austria it is inevitable I suppose with this political circus directly impacting me personally in too many ways these days, I can only take so much. Short-term, I'd like to get the car finished for many reasons such as I already have 99% of the parts and tools, the car is broke and it should be fixed, maybe it can help me get a job [if it works haha], dead mustangs, burnouts and 12 sec 1/4 mile slips.

For a little bit I have had a secret engine build going on in the background, it's using hahn forged pistons and I re-sleeved a LE5 block saved it from the dead.  I need to acquire rods and rod bearings to build up a short block and then I will treat it better than my own and sell it to someone out there looking for an affordable sick built bottom end to help the engine builder pay their mortgage 

Looking at the Supurbo twincharger engine, I am backyard blueprinting this LEA 2 (the block with the leaking bed plate) because tri-metal rod bearings starting to show copper under the babbit and go through all the oiling system and go through the oil pump to rule out or correct any oil issues.  Also, the head is "wore out" check out the exhaust valves, all of them leaking substantially.  Looks like a common issue especially with running so rich and oil past the rings doesn't help keep those valve seats cleaned up. Also the exhaust valve seats were a bit black all around and seemed like carbon built up on the seat areas.



After soda blasting this same head, exhaust seats hand lapped well after this:



There are some radial circular marks in both cyl 4 intake valve seats, I am going to a buddies shop Thursday to look at it and try and clean it up.  I'd guess that may be dirt/debris entered cyl 4, all the other intake seats look good.

I pulled valves out of a LEA head, the intake valves were disgusting caked in carbon good ol' direct injected.  I chucked them in a drill and used a gasket scraper and just like a scraper on a wood lathe I literally turned carbon off the valves.  Some of them I could form a continuous "chip" of carbon holding it in one spot as it dug down.  The gasket scraper is much softer than the stainless valve, proof is the 8 valves I did not being gentle.  Followed up with a 3M nylon bristle disc, then a bit of green scotch bright and now they look great.  The issue with these is, they are 9-14% heavier than the LE5 valves.  Odd thing is, the Solstice LE5 intake valves are about 42g, the Junkyard LE5 valves are about 44g, and the LEA valves are a heavy duty 48g that you can visually see and why I started checking mass.  I don't know what RPM this would matter with my ZZP cams and springs, but an interesting observation. 

I have the bores touched up in LEA 2 with the ball hone again and checked the pistons to the bores again, looks like there is 0.0042" to 0.0046" bearing clearances, recommended is 0.0040".  Moving forward looks like I'm working on getting the head squared away and build up the bottom end, the car should be running in short time.  I'll probably fire it up with the stock ECU to get the initial break in ring seating started and double check the VVT stuff (position signal, park position, range) and hopefully dive into the standalone ECU.

[MattM]

Damn dude!  That really sucked man!  I really feel for you man!  I would say though..as talented as you are if you don't get hired back to your old job after the economy fully recovers you'll definitely find a job just as good if not better than the old one!
Keep up the good work on the car man!  Enough people will start to notice and it will speak for your talent man!

[Steelmesh]

Cleaned up the chambers, 80 grit and 120 grit taper rolls, and then scotch bright rolls.  It softened up a lot of edges/corners, and had to work a bit to get rid of small "holes" everywhere in the chamber casting surface of the chambers, so probably expect 3 rolls each of 80 grit and 120 grit for each chamber, you go through them fast because of the tighter shrouded areas around the valves so you lean on the tip to do most of the work.  After I get the valves seats and valves squared away the chambers/valves will all get 120 grit blasted followed by a fresh coat of cerakote V-136.


Looks like I can start on the bottom end build up.  Here is the backyard hot tank, mixture of purple power and dawn, and turned up the water heater temperature this morning and ran a hose from the basement faucet to get the hot water.  20 minutes that's all, purple power not recommended for aluminum but for any lingering dirt and grease, it will do the trick and worth the slight staining of machine aluminum surfaces.  Of course, power wash it 5 times from each angle then power wash it some more after this soak.

[Steelmesh]

The car is together and drove it around to help the rings seat and make sure it runs before going to the stand alone.

VIDEO LINK first fire, 2000 rpm idle on the stock ECU:
https://odysee.com/@steelmesh:c/Supurbo1:5

It was simply a lot of labor to get it wired in.  I had some trouble contacting ECUmaster USA, I think their support email changed so I waited 2 weeks for support and never heard anything back also after a 1 week inquiry.  I'm now working directly with home base in Poland after sending out a "WTF" email and CCing Poland tech support.  ECUmaster USA says do not contact Poland, that is why I didn't go to Poland first.

During my lack of communication with ECUmaster, I ditched the Supurbo project (having visions of ripping out the EMU black and selling it because of the lack of support) and went off dealing with other life challenges, cash jobs, and my poor dog having major health issues. 

Anyway, back to what I got accomplished before taking a break (I tried my bestest here to not contact ECUmaster and figure it all out myself), the first big hurdle was getting Drive By Wire setup.  I ended up on some shady looking all Polish website that had the link to the newest Beta version, but of course I spent hours before this not knowing why I can't use their universal DBW calibration tool (they have a lot of TBs pre-programmed, just not our LE5 TB).   

The second big hurdle after that was  setting up the crank trigger and offset angle, etc.  The crank trigger example they provided to determine the setup was not accurate to get the "First Trigger Tooth" and "Trigger Angle", the example was a 60-2, LE5 is 60-2, so I reverse engineered my spare LE5 crank and spare block (hall pick angle) following their example diagram, see below.  Again, the trigger tooth and angle determinations were waaaay off not even close.

Or maybe it's my mistake on comprehending the example, the ECU trigger setup input parameters needed are "First Trigger Tooth" and "Trigger Angle":


LE5 Crankshaft:

*Hey, the results are completely wrong for trigger tooth and angle; although, the sketch is mechanically accurate.

The timing light was a challenge in itself since I never used one on a coil-on-plug engine.  Clamping the power wires of the coil harness was all noise.  A solution I found to get a reliable timing light pick up:
1) Remove coil 1, leave plugged into electrical
2) Shove in spare spark plug
3) Strip 5 inches of wire and wrap that around the ground strap, ground this wire
4) Install the inductive pickup on this ground wire, arrow pointed at the spark plug

I cut to size and crimped every single wire you see.  If you have the means, get the pre-made harness to get to this point, might save you 8 hours:


Keep the new harness accessible if possible to easily make changes:


Cloth tape:


Shoved home after checking making sure it works:


Success, the car starts and idles on the EMU Black using wasted spark ignition since the VVT/camshaft position sensors need to be setup to get into sequential ignition, that is where I need to continue with ECUmaster support.

This pinout below represents several hours of work and I donate it to the Kappa/E67 ECU community, should be similar signals for all stand alones.  This is the first revision things seem to work for now should be 95% correct haha, like injector 5 says alternator turn on but I ended up putting a resistor to it and force 14.2 volts constant for now and the Clutch signal doesn't work but is in series with the starter relay (12v signal makes the EMU unhappy), since it covers accidental starting while in gear being in series I've removed that input for now.  The brake input on the Kappa car is actually an analog 0-5V signal, so I may end up adding my own brake switch to get the stuck throttle safety implemented for this aftermarket Drive By Wire setup.

[TomatoSoup]

Holy cr*p

[Critterman]

Holy cr*p

That is an understatement.

Steelmesh you have taken on a boatload.   My head would be spinning, it is spinning just trying to follow your work.  Good luck.

[DeepBlueGXP]

WOW, just WOW. Your knowledge continues to impress. Concur with TS and Critter

[MattM]

I'm with everyone else!  That is a ton of work/research!  Great job!!

[stevieturbo]

Very interesting thread, 2 years on, any updates ?

[DeepBlueGXP]

Thought he was selling it

[Steelmesh]

Hey my friends, trying to make some progress on the car again, the year is 2024 wow    I hope you've all been doing well and are keeping your kappas happy.

Not much to say except I'm ashamed with myself to some degree and now try to follow through, so I don't look back and regret not finding out the true capability of the twincharger system, as far as I can reasonably take as a one man show.  The standalone ECU may not be the answer, however it is an unfinished story at this point and this is where I'm at. I have got the VVT to work on both cams, which is going to be a challenging endeavor street tuning to optimize them, otherwise make a big investment to rent a dyno and get torque vs rpm vs vvt position, doing a backyard DOE. I did try to reverse engineer the stock mapping and consider rules of thumb, so probably do A-B-A testing with them parked vs. best guess VVT maps.

Before I ended up posting this, I had just noticed that no one makes Kappa sway bars anymore, kind of breaks my heart.  Although I do see several Z0K bars on car-part around the country, going to makes some calls tomorrow to get one shipped.  I have put several hours into suspension tuning research and testing mods at autox with my other car so suspension is in my mind now.

[stevieturbo]

Did you ever play around with pulley sizes on the twin setup ?

Would a larger pulley be more efficient given the turbo will be doing more work up top ? Or will larger still be more restrictive overall ?

I currently have a 2.2 Saab ( same as LSJ ) engine, I believe it has head work, it has cams. M62 with 2.8" makes about 14psi at present and feels nippy in the car it is in.

But it lacks real power, so I'll be fitting an EFR7163. This should spool well anyway.....but the blower setup is already there, so will be extremely easy to do both.
And the instant throttle response at present does feel good.

[Steelmesh]

Did you ever play around with pulley sizes on the twin setup ?

Would a larger pulley be more efficient given the turbo will be doing more work up top ? Or will larger still be more restrictive overall ?

I currently have a 2.2 Saab ( same as LSJ ) engine, I believe it has head work, it has cams. M62 with 2.8" makes about 14psi at present and feels nippy in the car it is in.

But it lacks real power, so I'll be fitting an EFR7163. This should spool well anyway.....but the blower setup is already there, so will be extremely easy to do both.
And the instant throttle response at present does feel good.

Right now I have a 3.0 ZZP pulley on it, I haven't played around with sizes, and the car is not squared away with a baseline yet.  The current challenge is getting the standalone (EMU black) tuned, I've put some hours into it over the past weeks, learn by doing, referring back to the hpacademy classes, redoing maps, test and tuning low load with my brake dyno in the form of the SSBC big brake kit.  The EMU black is working good, I just have had some DBW wiring issues (accel pedal replaced last week) and then there is VVT, the cams are parked right now to get a baseline. 

Timing is stupid retarded as I'm on old gas mixed with fresh 93 although I have no fuel gauge, however it's still a boost machine, wastegate opens right away on throttle, turbo about 10-11 psi, leading to ~25 psi manifold.

Working on draining the fuel tank completely (using an adapter off the fuel line and just run the fuel pumps), and then fill it with some fresh 260 GT 100 octane insurance since I have moved away from running water/meth at this time after some scares.  Portable fuel tanks (10-20 gal) are so expensive, I just bought 5x 5-gal cans for $18 /ea at tractor supply. 

If I had the proper fuel line material and size, I would have gone E85.  I'm just so far behind overall, need save some time right now and trade for money.

[stevieturbo]

Right now I have a 3.0 ZZP pulley on it, I haven't played around with sizes, and the car is not squared away with a baseline yet.  The current challenge is getting the standalone (EMU black) tuned, I've put some hours into it over the past weeks, learn by doing, referring back to the hpacademy classes, redoing maps, test and tuning low load with my brake dyno in the form of the SSBC big brake kit.  The EMU black is working good, I just have had some DBW wiring issues (accel pedal replaced last week) and then there is VVT, the cams are parked right now to get a baseline. 

Timing is stupid retarded as I'm on old gas mixed with fresh 93 although I have no fuel gauge, however it's still a boost machine, wastegate opens right away on throttle, turbo about 10-11 psi, leading to ~25 psi manifold.

Working on draining the fuel tank completely (using an adapter off the fuel line and just run the fuel pumps), and then fill it with some fresh 260 GT 100 octane insurance since I have moved away from running water/meth at this time after some scares.  Portable fuel tanks (10-20 gal) are so expensive, I just bought 5x 5-gal cans for $18 /ea at tractor supply. 

If I had the proper fuel line material and size, I would have gone E85.  I'm just so far behind overall, need save some time right now and trade for money.

I'll bump this myself.

I got my twin charged setup running, and will say that you will need to massively upsize the pulley.. I initially stepped up to a 3.1" pulley from the 2.8" I was running SC only and even with a 5psi gate, keeping boost below 25psi seemed impossible. It was a torque monster, with loads of boost even at 2000rpm, which will not be good for engine longevity.

I'm now running a 3.6" pulley and still 5psi gate and boost is more acceptable, but still around the 20-25psi range. Quite surprised how much boost is multiplied.
It's still a work in progress, but it does feel good on the road. I'm happy enough for now leaving this as a base to work from. It was suggested to use a 3.8" pulley, but I think the 3.6" is fine for me.