There are right angle USB b cables you could use. Not sure the interference protection is any better... It might not be an issue. Will still probably disconnect while driving.

 

I edited a link to an option I'll likely try in my post above. Once it's tuned I still want to be able to monitor coolant temps, oil pressures, etc from my laptop, it's how I did it all with my Adaptronic.

My concern with yours is that maybe something is not 100% right with your ECU. Overheating just because the PC is plugged in seems strange and tuners should be freaking out on the forums if the laptop is disconnecting on them regularly, especially for any one getting remote tuning done. I haven't seen any posts about either of these two issues (not that I've searched hard either).

 

There isn't an issue with the ECU. It's being in the engine bay in a plastic box, it simply gets hot from the engine bay, specifically once the car is turned off. If the ECU was in the main cabin it wouldn't be a conversation. Most people install their ECUs behind the dash. There is also a few folks on the Haltech FB page with the same issue.

The disconnecting is because of driving the car on the road and the USB connection not being solid, not because of over heating. Perhaps if the pins were a bit tighter then it wouldn't disconnect.

 

imo you need to consider a CAN setup for monitoring instead to eliminate a flaky cable plugged directly into the ECU
.

 

My thoughts are here for the future as well, would be simple enough to daisy chain a CAN gauge off of my WB1 controller and route it to the cab..... Ideally if I can get this car FINALLY running the way it is supposed to.... I could stop spending money and time on diagnosis and start spending it on fun things; an IC-7 or UC-10 dash would be an achievable dream of mine but it's not something I can even consider until I'm happy with the the way the car runs. So far I've had many lessons on not holding my breath, but I feel like I now know the issue that has been plaguing me undetected for years, and that was an ignition issue (hopefully due to the ECU, I'm not sure what else it could even be).

 

FYI for others. Ordered these 90deg Male to Female USB B adapters on amazon and the "right" orientation works perfectly and clears the factory ECU box lid.


Haven't powered the ECU yet but I have my harness fully connected minus the WB1 controller now which is as simple as figuring out where I'm going to mount it and pinning the CAN power and CAN ground wires from my TBS harness to the WB1 cable deutsch connector.

 

Well my updates haven't been all that exciting lately but harness, ECU, and WB1 are all installed (WB1 is not permanently mounted yet but enough to test things out and hopefully fire the car up soon).

I was able to get the ECU box closed with the Amazon right angle adapter for the PC cable and a bit of Dremel work at the back of the box for better fitment of the sensor pig tails exiting it (these are for Fuel P, Oil P, IAT, Ignition sub-harness, PC cable, and WB1 CAN cable).

Should be set up to restore 12V power to the car next garage session I get and test the ECU/Sensors out. I'll be building a generic "first-start" map to try and get the engine idling, and if all goes well hoping to get a tuning session in before the end of Sept to get a few more drives and shake things down/diagnose before winter sneaks up on me.

 

Another update, I've powered up the ECU and configured a basemap for it in NSP. All my sensors are giving me expected readings at ambient/non-started engine, my TPS/APP and DBW have all be set up and calibrated, I've confirmed my hall effect CAS signal via the NSP built-in oscilloscope, and I've offset my base timing during cranking to accommodate my FFE 36-2-2-2 trigger wheel.

Screen shot of the oscilloscope function:




In doing all of this I think I've found, but have yet to confirm, the issue that has be plaguing me all along. And no, it wasn't the Adaptronic ECU.

While testing spark with a timing light while cranking I was still seeing the leading coils only, sporadically not firing. Trailing coils were perfectly consistent sparking every 360 degrees. I swapped the leading and trailing coils around for each rotor just to confirm if this followed the coils or not (I've done this in the past and already knew the issue has been only with the leading coils; but wanted make sure I was being dilligent) and viola! After swapping the coils all 4 were sparking 100% perfectly.

So what does this tell me. It's not the coils. It's not the ECU. It's not the trigger system. I have continuity from ECU pins all the way to the coil connector pins. I see 12V power to the coils through my relays with ignition switched on. Spark plug wires were all swapped out last year to brand new custom length Magnecor wires. These are brand new never fired spark plugs installed in the block. This really only leaves one semi-unchecked area... my Rywire ignition sub-harness; specifically the coil connectors/pin crimps. Now this is of course still a "theory" but the only thing I can think of that would have changed while I was swapping coils around is that I unplugged all the coils, then started moving and bending each branch of the harness around while I was continuity testing all of the wiring. I've continuity tested these wires plenty before but keep in mind this has been a very intermittent issue, so I've never failed to register continuity to all the correct wires in my harness. Typically I have a carbon fiber "plate" that I bolt through the brake line bracket to act as a cover for the ignition coils since they are mounted to the subframe in my driver-side wheel well. This plate actually makes a bit of contact with the back of 3 of the 4 ignition coil connectors right where the wires make a 90degree bend. My theory at the moment is that I either have a bad pin (or crimp) on the two leading coil connectors and in combination with the cover plate adding just a bit of pressure on the harness is likely causing an intermittent connection issue to one or more of the connector pins/crimps.

My next step will be to see if I can replicate this while someone cranks the engine and I maneuver my coil harness wires around; but regardless, I'll likely be getting some new coil connectors and pins and re-doing these. I also seem to have been reading a lot lately of Rywire harnesses having bad crimps, or even wires pinned to the wrong locations, so at the moment it seems I could possibly be a victim of this as well, TBD.

Just to round things out full circle, with 20/20 hindsight; anyone who has been following this build may remember I had a coil fry itself the very first time the car was powered on tafter swapping. We switched to a new coils and conceded that to an internal short of the AEM IGN-1A. Roughly a year later I had the exact same thing happen to a second coil. Again swapped this out and the coil has been intact since. Which two coils were these?? Of course my two leading coils that are currently experiencing the intermittent firing issue!

Pics of my coil location with and without the cover over them:

 

Well I had a friend come over last night and tried to replicate the ignition issue by moving the harness and apply pressure in all sorts of ways to the coil connectors while he was cranking the engine. No such luck replicating, ignition was firing perfectly

So decided to slap together a rudimentary basemap to see if we could get then engine to fire. Well to our pleasant surprise it fired up after a few cranks, idled for about 15 seconds then died. I fired it up again with no changes to the map and it ended up idling very well (video below). I let it go for about 2 mins then shut it down. Immediately my first observation is that the front leading coil was firing perfectly while idling and in general, the idle note just sounds a lot stronger. I am seeing an immediate ~2inhg improvement on idle vacuum which also indicates I'm getting much better combustion. I'm sure this engine is full of carbon so as it runs more with a properly functioning ignition system I expect to see improvements on vacuum and compression as the carbon burns itself out. I'll be keeping a very close eye on ignition going forward as I'm not silly enough to believe it somehow self-healed, but for now I'm going to roll with it and start the tuning process to try and get things into shape prior to Canadian winter; which is creeping up. With no enrichment or any other cold start correction tables configured, I just slapped 50% VE into the fuel map for the idle areas and 15deg of timing (with 10 deg of split) and this was the result. AFR's were sitting pretty close to target at around 14.2 and ~1400rpm. Looking back at my log of this, the only item I saw that was quite off was voltage. NSP was displaying this on my laptop at only 11.9 volts; this should just be a matter of adjusting the Duty and PID's for the Haltech alternator control.

 

I've had the car out a couple times to shake down the new ECU settings. Everything major seems to be operating exceptionally well. The only item I've noticed so far is that my AC compressor will not engage. The light on the AC button illuminates but the compressor does not engage; This is either a setup issue (I currently have the AC output Active State set to "Low" in NSP, this may just need to be changed to High) or; the TBS jumper harness does not have an ECU connection to factory Pin 5W (AC Amplifier); and this needs some sort of signal from the ECU to engage the compressor. Minor, and it's something I'll sort out at a later time.

Other than that the car is running exceptionally well minus the fact that I am still going deep rich during deceleration (unless fuel cut is activated).

Walk Around of the Haltech 1500 controlled idle:



Back to the fuel issue. I've tried a handful of things, the latest being to cut my VE table way back under deep vacuum. This did improve decel AFR's but I cut out 50%, then 20%, then 20% more again and that improved AFRs from 6.7 to 9.7 lol. The VE table is not the issue, it seems the engine is getting fuel from somewhere unexpected under deep vacuum. Now I've questioned the FPR in the past, but with my previous Adaptronic logs everything seemed to be in order. Now logging via the Haltech NSP I'm seeing a bit of a different story when I look at differential fuel pressure. I'm not sure if this is just due to a higher logging frequency but with the Haltech I am seeing spikes and valleys in my differential pressure of near 10psi as the throttle is opening and closing. Planning to pull my FPR apart and inspect the diaphram with hopes there is something obvious showing that it could be passing fuel under deep vacuum. Currently also adding this sweet new Radium product to my Christmas wish list which is an FPR and Pulsation Damper combined into one (https://www.radiumauto.com/FPRD-RA-F...UKHiPwtq_fYV_g).

Here's a quick screen shot of my differential fuel pressure logged via Haltech. This first screen shot is zoomed out so you can see all the spikes in diff fuel pressure (light blue) as my throttle closes:





The second is a zoomed in view where you can see the diff fuel pressure spike with TPS let-off, AFR dips with the pressure spike, over corrects itself as the spike drops, then dips to full pig rich just after and hangs out there until my fuel cut kicks on:

 

This build looks awesome! Thank you for posting your progress as I am looking to do something similar maybe! Glad to know I have a bunch of reference builds if I have any future issues!

 

Got around to installing my Christmas present from the family, the new Radium FPR with built in pulsation damper. Just need to give it a quick pressure test (I had to build some new AN lines to accommodate it), then come spring I’ll be ready to fire it up and set the base pressure.

 

I might be too late but if you can build the fuel system in parallel that should help with any fuel pressure deviation. Also what is your fuel pump situation? Also your motor looks like it is really low. How is your oil pan clearance? I have about an half inch clearance from the lowest point. But if I hit a rock from the front I'm screwed.

 

The rails are plumbed in series, primary rail followed by secondary then the FPR. There’s lots of debate over parallel vs series, but the difference seems negligible. Believe me I understand difference but for the relatively low boost I’ll be running on pump fuel (sub 20psi) I chose series to reduce the amount of plumbing.

I won’t get crazy with detail as it’s buried earlier in the thread, but I have a Walbro 450 in a modified Delphi S1 basket. Other than the spikes I’m seeing with TB opening and closing mentioned in the post above differential fuel pressure has been rock solid up to16psi so far.

In regards to engine position is the Banzai crossmember/engine mounts with the Banzai low profile oil pan, this all sits perfectly above my subframe. The engine mounts are the lowest point but I haven’t had an issue to date. Pic of the underside below:

 

A couple weeks ago I removed my washer bottle and started piecing together materials to mount my Vibrant catch can that I got back in 2020 and my WB1 controller as this has just been sitting loosely up by my washer bottle since I swapped the ECU. In the process of doing this I also stripped off the remaining firewall insulation and took the heat wrap off my AC/Heater lines. Wrapping these in heat wrap to begin with was a poor choice, it was starting to get dried out and was essentially shedding fiber glass on top of my UIM; engine bay looks soooooo much brighter now!

Before:



After:





Will be running a second vent line from the passenger side of the engine to the catch can too. Just need to remove my rear turbo oil drain block off plate and drill and tap it for an AN to NPT fitting then fab another hose.

 

Can't remember who was all asking and in what threads, but here is the Rx8 AC wiring setup that works like stock in NSP:

 

Initial tune on wastegate spring, hitting 9psi boost:

 

I've had a session or two more of tuning with Ryan now. We have the car running absolutely fantastic, running the way I had always hoped it would, but of course always improvements that can and will be made. I'm hitting a peak boost of 13.5psi which is tapering off to 11psi by my 8500rpm redline due to a likely combo of restrictive (factory) exhaust flanges in my 3" exhaust and an old school Greddy EBC which cannot increase duty with RPM; things I will eventually address and improve. It's nice to be working on some of the more minor quirks that arise now due to heat soak and actually putting miles on the engine rather than pulling my hair out because it's not running properly. In this case, perseverance has paid off!! There was plenty of ups and downs, and I felt like giving up on this many times. I learned new skills and got into things I didn't think I ever would... in the end I'm very proud of myself for sticking with it and enjoying the fruits of my labour has seemed that much sweeter!

This will likely be my last update on this thread as I now consider this swap completed and am just going to spend time driving and enjoying the car for the rest of the summer. Cheers to everyone who has commented and contributed on this thread, if anyone is interested in continued updates I keep my Instagram updated fairly regularly (link in signature below).

Last videos of some tunnel pulls to close this chapter out!

 

 

I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say your thread has been a great addition to the forum. I appreciate all your help in so many other ways as well. I'm so happy for you, enjoy that car. The journey sure had it ups and downs and I'm impressed you stuck with it. Great job. Looking forward to keeping up and who knows maybe some day we can meet each other in person.
Let us know if you are ever in the states for Seven Stock or DGRR.