Fan comes on at 205 on the stock ECU, so 205-210 is definitely ok. BUT it also shows that your cooling system is close to the limit (especially if the fan is blowing all the time). Wiring up both fans is definitely a good idea and I bet it will make a big difference.

I had similar cooling problems. I got a half-core rad but the fan I was using was too small.. I got a huge slim fan (14" from JEGS) and that fixed it, even in the hot summer weather. Once the temps got to 205 and the fan comes on, they go back down fairly quickly until the fan stops at around 190.

A lower t-stat is a good idea but won't help with your problem (which is that the rad and fans are not removing heat fast enough)... the stock t-stat is already open at 190+ and you're well above that temp so you basically have it open all the time..

EGT: I have my EGT before the turbo (it's a treadstone log manifold, so easy to get it there). I see 800F at idle, 1000-1200F cruising, I never saw more than like 1400F even at ~10psi. But I never tracked or dynoed it either

 

Thanks for dropping by Damon! I guess you got my email?

The information you posted was very helpful. I already purchased and installed the reman starter and problem solved, although I think the battery could be an issue as it doesn't seem to want to hold a charge properly. I will confirm this tomorrow as I have the trickle charger on it now. I will unhook it in the morning and check the voltage every few hours. If it drops below 12.5v by the end of the day I am going back to walmart with my warranty reciept as I just got the battery about 8 months ago and it has a 3 year warranty. Not to mention its an everstart MAXX with 770 CCA which should be plenty!

I have actually already advanced my timing 2 degrees across the entire RPM range between 12 and 16 PSI and all I can say is WOW! The car must have picked up at least 15-20 hp as it spins into third now and never did before. Also my FAL fan doesn't run all the time anymore as my engine is running about 10 degrees cooler. My manifold doesn't glow quite as much either after a hard run... My AFR dips to full rich at around 6500 to redline now and I didn't change the fuel map. I'm guessing advancing the timing more has changed that??? It seems like exactly what the car needed and helped every problem as well as giving me more power! My knocklite doesn't ever illuminate even with the increase in timing and the car is very strong so I'm not too worried about detonating as long as the ambeint air temps remain cold. I will probably take a degree of timing off it just to be safe, but I think right now at 15 PSI and 7000 rpm I am at 18-19 degrees advanced? Does that sound too high to you? Keep in mind my AFR is around 10:1 at that rpm and boost level.

At what value should I be worried about my oil and coolant temperatures? 260 oil and 220 coolant? In Farenheight of course.

How can I adjust the Haltech to turn on the A/C fan only instead of engaging the compressor? The relay for the A/C fan gets voltage all the time which means it is closed when it recieves ground. I was going to run a jumper from the rad-fan relay to power the A/C relay when power goes to the rad-fan, but the way it works has foiled my plan. I'm guessing it is linked into the compressor clutch and gets ground through that. So I figure I can cut the constant power wire from the a/c relay terminal and run a jumper from the rad-fan relay for the power and just run the ground for the a/c relay to a constant frame ground? There isn't much current running from the power wires on a relay so I figure that would be ok? It's gotta be better than running both fans off the same circuit by splicing the fan wiring together right?

Thanks for the help and rejuvinating the thread! smile.gif

Good info. Radu and I'm with you on the pointlessness of getting a lower temp. thermostat considering mine is already open all the way at the temps I am running. Seems like if I'm going to replace the rad I might as well get the full sized koyo... I'm not going to lie, the back of my radiator (engine side) most of the fins are bent from the constant work I am doing on the car, I must have taken the turbo and mani off 15-20 times since it's been boosted, not to mention all the times I've removed the N/A mani I had.. So that could be a major contributor.. Although I think that relay idea I have will really help once I have both fans running.

 

EDIT: Tyler posted while I was responding to Radu RD2.

Radu RD2:
I'm not entirely sure I agree with the thermostat being fully open at nominal temps, but I might be misunderstanding what you say. Doesn't matter, it seems to me you are onto something with the fan duty cycle comment. If your fans are constantly on during lightly-loaded situations, then that's more or less stock amounts of power and you have something injecting far too much heat. That doesn't suggest a need to improve your radiator, rather a need to improve your insulation of modified parts. However, if they are on a lot under heavier loads, then that suggests improving the performance of your cooling system. This is a great (and free!) way to test things out when using stock cooling components and using stock power demands as a baseline.

As far as the lower tstat, I can see why you thought I was advocating it to fix an elevated coolant temp problem. I wasn't saying that at all. I was recommending it as Tyler obviously wants a lot of power above what the stock system was designed to handle.

Tyler:
I NEVER tune on a bad battery or alternator! That will be endless headaches! If you don't have a huge source of current draw and your alternator can't output more than 12 volts, then don't blame your battery.

As far as your spark advance, if it yields more detonation-free power, that's generally what you are looking for. If you are THAT much cooler, all else equal (ambient temps, flogging, etc.), that suggests you truly are on the edge of your cooling system's capabilities.

As far as AFR, YES, it will generally richen up a little as you advance the timing if you aren't near MBT. Don't treat that as a hard-and-fast rule, though. wink1.gif The reason is you give more time to complete combustion under high compression circumstances (near TDC), thus changing the chemistry of the exhaust.

With stock cams and a moderate turbo, 18 degrees at 15 psi near redline does not seem excessive. Please note this is VERY general, and each heavily-modified engine is unique! Have you used a timing light to verify the timing the EMS is outputting is what the engine is seeing?

Tommy's engine started getting VERY detonation-prone as we aggressively climbed large mountains and spiked to around 115 *F coolant temps. I would treat that as an upper limit and stay away from it. As far as oil, that actually varies slightly. I usually use manufacturer recommendations on that. I have aviation oil temps in my head right now, I can't honestly remember what the much-higher-quality car oils use as a max temp. *laughs at self*

I probably wired your harness' condensor fan relay and compressor relays together onto the same Haltech output. This means you will have to electrically separate them, because as far as the Haltech is concerned, it's one circuit. Haltech outputs are pull-low outputs, so constantly grounding the relay will turn it constantly on. Realize I'm talking about the COIL side of the relay.

If you want both fans to come on with the Haltech thermofan output, then wire them to the same relay in parallel. It's probably a 30 amp relay with a healthy flyback arc protection, so you don't have to worry. If you do notice the fans don't come on as powerfully in the future, you might have arced the contacts in the relay. Replace it with a 50-amp automotive relay and put a 1N4006 diode up to the 12 volt rail to kill the inductive flyback. I can help if you want. Only do this if you notice your fans get weaker in the future and your alternator and battery are still healthy.

As always, if you need help with any of this, I'm but a phone call / email / whatever away!

 

Enthalpy - we're on the same page, I didn't mean to imply that you said a lower t-stat would fix his problem, and yeah it's nevertheless a good idea to have one. By the way, did you meant 115 *C above (= 239 *F)? That's about the highest I went too. I think the red zone on the stock needle starts at around 245-250 or close to that.

Power for the radiator fan goes through a 30A fusible link and a relay (I just doublechecked the schematics). I think 30A should be enough for both fans. Check their rating, if it's in Watts just divide by 12 to get the amps. The fans I got my hands on were about 80-100W, which would mean 6-8 amps for a fan. They might draw more current at startup though so if the fusible link keeps popping perhaps you can get a bigger one (40A should still be ok on the same wiring).

Edit: sorry, disregard if your fans are not ran through the stock wiring (although the amp ratings for what you have might still be enough to run both fans)

 

WOW. I can't believe I did that. I just had my first child, so I'm a little sleep-deprived.

Okay....YES. 110 *C is getting high. I was thinking 210 *F. Wow. Tyler, don't let it go above 110 *C.

In DC, it's watts / volts = amps, yes. Electric motors always draw the most at 0 RPM and make the highest torque at the same shaft speed. I can't remember if the rated current on a fan is startup or nominal operating current. Assuming the worst (operating current), startup could be double the rating. It's very quick, so it might not pop any fuse.

 

Congrats on your first child Damon! I've yet to break through that frontier.

Just my 2 pennies. When I was running a perfect power standalone I was running 22-24 degrees advance under full load on a turbo'd stock engine and never encountered any detonation. Tdonnell, I think I told you years back the Beta engine LOVES timing advance, but I do give you props for taking it easy to begin with. Now your seeing what a little timing does to wake the Beta engine up though. smile.gif

Oh, and unless you calibrate the Knocklite correctly chances are it won't pick up detonation when you need it to. Does the Haltech read knock count? Do you have it reading an air intake temp sensor? What about any proactive safe guards like pulling timing when coolant and air temps get beyond a set limit?

 

Thanks for the congrats. It's quite the huge thing. A co-worker described it well:
"Having a kid is like having a GIANT 3rd eye on your forehead. There are definitely some benefits, but you had better make DAMNED sure you want it!"

Tyler has an old E6X, which didn't pay attention to knock. It does have an intake air temp sensor which is hopefully placed at least downstream of the intercooler.

The exact advance the engine wants is dependant a ton of things! Here are just a few:
-boost pressure (spark timing drops QUICKLY with increased boost)
-engine speed (advance at peak torque RPM will be as much as 6 degrees less than spark advance at redline especially if your torque drops quickly at redline)
-engine VE (bigger turbo and cams means less spark timing at the same boost pressure and engine speed)
-temps (colder air temp = higher density = less required spark advance, by a degree or two. warm temps require less spark advance to keep the motor out of knock)
-fuel composition

Even more, the exact advance is dependant on how you setup the triggers. So if your map says "10" and your timing light reads 5, then your are actually giving the engine 5 degrees. No harm no foul, you still tune the same way, you just wind up with bigger numbers in your spark map.

I would HIGHLY recommend pulling timing and adding fuel as things get hot! I pretty much always write that into any base map I send out for a car to encourage the owner to do the same thing.

 

Wow Damon, much congradulations and best of luck in the future for your whole family!! smile.gif

Thanks for all this excellent info guys! I think this thread probably has the most valuable and pertinant information of any other on the forum when it comes to boosting. I really do, and it's thanks to you guys for posting it up!!!

dmdicks, were you boosting @15 PSI with an equivilantly sized turbo? (I'm running a GT3071R w/.50 a/r compressor and .63 turbine). And you still had THAT much timing in it! Holy crap, if I could advance my timing that much I should have the horsepower output I should theoretically have for that much boost and size of turbo/setup etc. I mean, I didn't even break 270 whp on 15 PSI with that turbo, a nice IM, headwork, oversized valves and cams! I was like wtf hondas run 10 psi on 1.8L's and break 300. I always figured it was worn rings not sealing but I bet I just need a better tune. Only problem is I don't want to fork out 700 bucks for one until I build the bottom end and get crazy with the boost level. So far my tune hasen't caused any engine failures so keeping my fingers crossed lol.

I was going to wire the fans together into the same electrical connector but was worried a bit about the wiring. Thanks for the re-assurance, we shall see how it goes.

And yes I have it setup to pull timing and add even MORE fuel when intake/coolant temps get hot. What those values are I'm not really sure, I need to check. And my intake air temperature sensor is located about 3 inches from the throttle body so I think that is about as accurate as its going to get as far as comparing it to what the engine is really seeing.

Found out something that may have been causing my hunting idle or at least contributing to it! When I measured my IM vacuum at idle to pick my BOV spring rate, I had the SR 268 cams in the head, and it was only pulling 17 in/hg at idle. Now that the factory low overlap cams are back in her she pulls up to 21 in/hg. Which causes the BOV to partially open off and on as the idle speed moves around! I'm not entirely sure but this could cause a pressure variation in the IM briefly, which would in turn continually cause the fuel map to cycle to different cells. It also causes my engine to very lightly stumble, drops maybe 50 rpm every time it does it. Which in turn causes by fuel correction for battery level map to come into play. I'm hoping when I put the 18-21 in/hg tial spring in the BOV it will help me to get a smoother idle without having to run 11:1 AFR!!! Thats been a major problem for me. If I try and get it to run 14.8:1 at idle as it should, the idle hunts like CRAZY and it will eventually stall out. Not to mention when it is setup like that and I come off the throttle, pull it out of gear and go to neutral say to stop at a light, it would ALWAYS stall if I have the stioch mixture at idle. It only likes it when the idle AFR is 11-12:1. Of course that is washing down my cylinder walls and getting in the oil, which prompts me to change the full synthetic Mobil 1 15w50 oil once about every 1000 miles or less.

Sorry for that big jumble of information but I don't think that problem is something I have posted up in the past and figured I would let you guys chew at it and throw some possible resolutions my way.. Or at least confirm that my BOV constantly opening at idle is an issue. Oh and the BOV likely is still open at light loads cruising as well, which means I am sucking in unfiltered air!!! I have been doing that for much too long! Lucky I haven't (or hopefully haven't) hurt anything!

Thanks in advance,

Tyler.

 

One of the zillions of benefits of tuning on a dyno is I can purposely heat soak things and make sure they will be safe. I do this on cars that expect to do a lot of mountain driving.

Recognize the required fueling as air temp goes up actually DECREASES. This is because air density goes down as air temp goes up. So if you make that air temp fueling curve flat, that will enrich the AFR.

Actually, the absolute best place for the temp sensor is as close as possible to the valve, preferably in the manifold. Where you have it is acceptable, but if someone is reading this and deciding where to put their sensor, it should ideally be placed in the manifold in a spot that get a lot of airflow. Don't place it in a dark corner somewhere that doesn't get much airflow.

As far as the BOV is concerned, I actually doubt that's the issue. The BOV shouldn't cause the MAP reading to move. It's a good idea to tighten the spring a little anyway, but I doubt that's the issue. Many BOVs have an adjuster screw.

What I do on my car is leave the BOV VERY loose, just enough to stay shut under boost. I then recirc the valve's outlet back to the pre-turbo intake plumbing downstream of the filter so I don't have to worry about ingesting unfiltered air.

A perfect idle and idle transitions is one of the trickier parts of tuning. Make no mistake about it. There are a ton of things that impact it:
-idle air control valve opening
-AFR (including closed-loop)
-Spark timing
-AFR

These things inter-relate, as well! So if your engine lean misfires, the idle dips a little, causing your EMS to open up the idle air valve. This moves the MAP reading into a cell with more fuel, and the engine races, which causes the EMS to close the idle air valve.

Another thing that can happen is your exhaust gasses take longer to get to the oxygen sensor at idle. This delay means the EMS can overshoot the oscillations in narrowband closed-loop causing your car to hunt.

RECOMMENDATION:
-I think you should remove all but one of the above influences and make sure it is good. First, you MUST have a fuel map that fuels the motor as it moves around in the cells.
-Make sure the spark timing is going to be consistent in the expected idle RPM range.
-Turn off closed-loop. If this fixes the issue, then do one of two things:
*Some EMSes allow slower closed-loop correction at low revs.
*If the above isn't available, then you can always simply turn off closed-loop below say 1500 RPM
*Closed-loop is preferable to have at idle, so you might just make the closed-loop system universally slower to respond.
-If it isn't closed-loop that's causing the issue, turn off your idle air valve and introduce enough vacuum leaks to maintain your idle. If the hunting goes away, then drop the INTEGRAL and PROPORTIONAL control coefficient in your EMS' idle air control system.

Tuning this stuff to absolute OEM-like perfection can be a bit more complicated than above, but entirely possible! If the above doesn't work, feel free to call me and we will walk through specific scenarios!

 

Cool sounds like a plan. I work all weekend so won't be back on here till tuesday.

Although the BOV spring did help so far, I've got the afr in the 13's now with no hunting. Just need to farther tweak it to get it perfect.

What should my timing at idle be? I think right now all the cells around the idle area are at 20 degrees advanced. Is that too much or too little?

And I have closed loop turned completely off. It never worked right. It would correct up to the maximum level then default back to no correction after 10 or so seconds. Then start pulling fuel increasingly until it reaches the max pull level. It holds that for around 10 seconds or so, and defaults back to no correction. This of course causes my afr to cycle from stoich to rich constantly and is very annoying. I have to set it to the ntk sensor not the bosch even though I have a bosch sensor. It only works at all under the ntk sensor setting and I have never understood why.

Thanks again for the info brother, ttyl.