1stRX8

My car lost 10hp with the first try.

No whining, just called CZ and requested help. I received a newer program and had my ECU updated at the dealer. I have not taken it back to the dyno, but, it's a big improvement EXCEPT for a MAJOR drop between 6k and 7k.

I have the cable, software and a great starting point. A little tuning and it will be sweet. What Omi is saying is very valid. There will never be an off the shelf ECU upgrade that works perfectly on every car in every country, every time. Regardless of the price. Any high-end modified street car or ANY race car must be indvidually tuned after spending obsene amounts of money on engine management.

Please take note that NOBODY else has attempted to market any EM products except CZ. Bold and Brave as is the people who purchased them [like me] Keep it and fix it or send it back.

Welcome to the HP war, there are casualties on the way to success.

Magic8

well said 1stRX8

Omicron

Yes, well said oldragger and 1stRX8.

-8- , I agree that this mod clearly isn't for you. If you want plug and play horsepower, wait for forced induction. But be prepared to either TUNE your car yourself to make it work right, or hire a shop to do it.

dannobre

iTrader: (3)

I've been playing with mine for about a month and a half now....no dyno...so take that as it may. The CZ will cause variable results depending on the car. I have one of the problem cars too. It will not work on a stock map....very rough 3-4K...definite improvement on the top end. It seems to be more the timing map that affects the way it behaves on my car. I can leave the A/F map almost stock, but it doesn't like the timing advance much? I'm trying to get a map that will give me lower end runnability, with the same performance up top. Since the Cap mod, the idling problem seems to be pretty much gone. I am wondering if my coil packs are sub par, as it seems that that can cause problems at lower RPM's.

If you don't want to **** around with this mod......don't get it, or hope you fit into the 90+ percent that it works out of the box. Personally I like to play with the maps, and try to wrap my brain around what the hell the PCM is doing on this car. It sure is a lot more complicated than most others I have worked with in the past.

Good Luck...."go where no one has gone before"

PS: any custom maps are appreciated.....I am collecting them to compare what different people are doing.................

olddragger

iTrader: (3)

smrx8
Don't get me wrong. I can appreciate the difficulty you are having and it sure seems that you are trying to do the right thing by calling canzoomer etc. Dealing with a complex machine (rx-8) requires patience(and some beer would not be bad!) but its a great car. The CZ ecu mod is the only thing being offered that can increase the hp in a real way. This is just a sideline for CZ as he owns another company. I know this doesnt help you much and its hard waiting after you have spent money/time etc. Once working properly it does make a noticeable differance. Good luck man. The forum is hear for ya!
ps- if you do decide its too much hassle you can sell it easily! $600 dollors in my world is a good bit of money.
olddragger

SethMcMichael

I dont mean to sound stupid but when you say start tweaking i get lost. How are we going to know what is best for are car, do you need to guess and then go run it to feel which is faster. Can expand on this, im just a little confused. Maybe i should just go hook up everything and see what happens. You learn more when you figure it out on your own.

smrx8

iTrader: (1)

thats why i suggest you take it to a good performance shop and have them dyno tune it they know how much there picking up and theres no guessing.yeah it a little expensive but hey you get what you pay for.

Omicron

Sure. :D

When you download the maps from the Canzoomer unit, you wind up faced with 2 tables you can work with. I've attached examples to this post. Each table shows columns of 50% actual RPM and rows of either a/f setting or ignition advance, depending on the map you're in. The numbers in each cell represent a change from the factory setting on the ECU. So for instance, on the air/fuel table, at 3150 RPM (column) and 40 (row) the adjustment value is 5 (units) change from the factory ECU setting. Another example would be at 2500 RPM (column) and 40 (row), the adjustment value is 0 - meaning, NO change from the factory ECU setting. A map that changed nothing from the factory ECU settings would have all zeros populating it.

Tweaking the maps then is nothing more than changing these adjustment values. CanZoomer has spend months getting the maps where they are now - you can tell by looking at the tables that a/f and ignition changes are not simple linear changes.

So let's say you have a problem car that, like mine, pings at certain RPM points using CanZoomer's maps. The fix is to back ignition advance off at the appropriate point (6500 RPM in my case, or 3200 in the ignition advance table) until the car stops pinging, but not so much that you go all the way back to the factory settings. So I start with CanZoomer's ignition map, and back off everything in the 3200 RPM column by 2 points... then go drive the car. Still pinging? Go home, plug in, download map, back ignition advance off again by 2 points for each value in the 3200 RPM column. Drive car. Let's say pinging is now solved... but maybe I backed off the advance TOO much, so I go home, plug in, download map, and ADD 1 point of ignition advance back in for each value in the 3200 RPM column. Drive car.... etc. You get the idea.

Anyway, that's kind of an overview of what I mean by "tinkering" with the maps. Hope it helps.

smrx8

iTrader: (1)

well i got a call from the shop i got my car in it looks like my unit might be broken. he told me he called maurice and he has given him all the information he ask for i believe he also faxed him so diagrams.So from what i here he has ( been very helpful) .and for the bad note is i might be stuck with a 400 $ dollar bill for nothing because its not the shops falt that the unit is broken and they spend all this time trying to tune it. plus payed for dyno time.

SethMcMichael

Thankyou verymuch for you time. That was great, now all i have to do is go out and play around with it. Also, i thought that canzoomer was going to have a site where we could go and download diffrent maps? And if he does and i dont know about it how do i find it?

Thanks again Omicron

SethMcMichael

I just tried to connect the unit with the car and nothing worked. I tried all the com port setting also. The car dosent have to be on right, just the key turned to on. All the lights on the unit are on, i dont get it. I think im doing everything right. Why do they call the setting com when we are using a usb. Im starting to get frusterated.

Any ideas of that i might be doing wrong.

Omicron

Wow, major drag. At least you know you'll get a new unit from Canzoomer without problem!

Omicron

Happy to help.

As for the FTP site, I know the plan is in the works to set one up, but it's lower priority than getting units out the door to those who have ordered them. I can send you some maps if you give me your email via PM, or you can write to maurice@harddata.com or rachael@harddata.com to get them.

Omicron

So I gather the eManage software never shows you as "ONLINE" status? If not, then the problem most likely lies with Windows.

Right click on the My Computer icon on your desktop, go to properties, hardware tab, device manager, then look at com ports. You may well have a little red (!) showing on some other Com port besides Com 1, which is your mouse. (BTW, this assumes you have already plugged in the USB cable) So right click on the com port with the problem (or the one that's showing that's NOT com 1), go to properties, port settings tab, advanced button, and in the lower right hand corner make sure it shows the com port you want to use. I used com 2 myself.

Next open the eManage software and go to Options, Com Port, and make sure there is a check mark next to the com port you just setup in device manager. Close the eManage software.

Now turn your car's ignition to the "run" position (but don't start it), then open the eManage software again. This time you should see "ONLINE" in the lower right hand corner.

Hope this helps!

SethMcMichael

Thanks to everyone. Im cant wait to get home to try it.

Does anyone else think we should start a threat about tuning it yourself. Just all this info on one thread. Maybe even a sticky. Like a Tuning for dummys.

Omicron

LOL, probably. But I'll leave that up to CanZoomer to do. :D

bureau13

Isn't it kind of dangerous (at least to your motor) to go playing around with these values if you don't know what you're doing? Its probably OK for the case of pinging at a certain RPM...that change seems sort of obvious. However, for the people who are experiencing no performance benefits, that gets a bit trickier, doesn't it?

jds

Omicron

Not really, as long as you don't drop the values in the table to below zero. I don't even know if you CAN drop them below 0. But since 0 represents no modification the the factory ECU settings, the worst you can do is to reduce the a/f and ignition advance to the factory settings.

SethMcMichael

Cant you also change it in the other direction. If i understand right (which im probrably not) making it closer to the factory wouldnd make it any better, but worse. I mean less HP. It wouldnt make any sence to make anything closer to the factory setting, would it?

FS1

Perhaps I'm overlooking something, but in the eManage doc for the AF (Air Flow) adjustment it says 'Input a negative value to take away fuel'. From the CZ supplied maps, the settings most relative to getting more power (WOT above 4000 rpm) are approaching +40. Considering the quality of this doc and my conversations with Maurice, I'll trust Canzoomer first and foremost. The logic here is a bit confusing and my CANScan is on the way to shed some light. Can anyone add to this confusion. BTW, my AAV is set to 0 for the higher revs.

dannobre

iTrader: (3)

The numbers on the fuel maps are backwards from what you think a +40 is really taking away 40 % of the fuel......a -40 would be adding.........took a bit to get my head around that too. If you look at the AF map you will see added fuel at lower RPM's and a lot taken away at the top.....

Omicron

Exactly. Thanks for jumping in, Dannobre. :D

FS1

I agree and I trust Maurices' maps, in that positive values are resulting in a leaner mix. This, however, is contradictory to the eManage documentation (Quote from manual - 'Input a negative value to take away fuel'). This is why I'd like to bump this issue. So, the Greddy manual is erroneous in this regard? Could Maurice have made a change (software or more likely hardware) for the better operation of the unit? Also, are we controlling the A/F ratio directly or only maniputlating the air flow sensor output? My understanding is that the RX8 ECU is using this input as one of it's factors in determining how much fuel too dump in. 40% less fuel seems like it would be far too lean. Hence, running a rich 11:1, reducing fuel by 40% would give 11:.6, equivilant to 18.3:1. I'm about to begin my own tuning process and I am trying to gain a solid understanding of the unit, process, and concepts before I do something I can't undo. Thanks for the help and info.

Omicron

Hopefully Maurice, or one of his minions () will drop in here one of these days and explain this.

policyvote

News Flash: $600 is not going to shave .2 off your quarter-mile any other way. That would get you an intake and pulley set, or a cheap cat-back, or a lightened flywheel. None of those is going to get you .2 off your quarter-mile time--except MAYBE the flywheel, and I'm not even sure $600 would be enough to both buy and install a quality piece. The other big things you're missing here are A) A/F/S tuning abilty; not only can you customize the tuning to optimize gains, but B) you can RE-tune it after you add the other mods!

Secondly, dynos and RX-8s just plain do not mix. The ECU has too many tricks up its sleeve--just strapping the car down, doing a pull, flipping the switch, and doing another pull isn't going to get you anything CLOSE to valid, repeatable comparo results. With all the computers and quirks in this car, what happens on the dyno has practically zero correlation to what happens on the tarmac. Sorry, it's just the way this particular cookie crumbles.

And finally, when it comes down to it, the butt dyno is all that matters. The whole point of this excercise is to make the car FEEL like it's whoop-*** fast, no? If you're drag racing it, you bought the wrong car, and you should have known that from the get-go. If you're autocrossing, you likely don't need any more power to excel. If you're road racing, it's far more useful to measure the difference across the whole curve than raw peak HP. Making lots of subtle changes that result in a flatter torque curve and better throttle response will be more benficial than tuning for the biggest possible dyno number. But lke I said, if you're just attacking your local backroads, all that matters is how great it FEELS. If a properly tuned CZ unit can give you that little extra kick you've been looking for, who cares what your timeslips say?

Peace
policy