E30 Zone

As from previous posts we know i embarked on a 2.8 build last year with the following spec:

M20 2 ltr block bored to 84.0mm
Single vanos M50B28 crank (thanks march109)
M20 2 ltr conrods
M20 2.5 facelift (low comp) pistons (cheers theo)
Catcam 285/285 degree camshaft (thanks Ant)
885 headcasting
BBTB (Thanks Ian)
Hottuning 6 branch and scorpian system (yes its just as good)
2.8 Motronic chip (thanks Ant)




After assembly, fitting and running in i was very impressed with what i'll call the basic improvement over the 2.5, indeed, a few zoners who have driven this car were suitably impressed with the manner in wich it picked up around 3500rpm.



on or just after 5000 miles of very enjoyable driving i went onto Clive Atthowe's dastec rolling road in Norwich and put down the following:



A fairly respectable result which i was happy with but obviously i was looking for more.



So a few weeks ago i gave the car to Ant for some development with a MAF and some techno-trickery.

First impression on getting back into the car from the turn of the key all the way to 3000rpm was 'fu*k me -theres torque...' as before power below this point, as you can see on the graph, was not abundent.

Also, part throttle with varying loads was very impressive, in fact i was using far less WOT for acceleration in favour of the new found torque. In short it became a plesantly complient 'grunty bastard'.

Initially the WOT maps proved to be a bit problematic but with a bit of trial and a bit more trial we had the first WOT pull to 6800rpm.

Compaired to before its savage even having dropped the diff ratio to 3.7 from 4.1, these is less of a 'coming on cam' sensation at 3500ish with the low end improvement.



The improved drivability of this conversion is but one bonus.

Installed with the MAF are larger injectors that dont have to work at max output, also that damn clicking is gone lol!

Whilst cruising the mpg swingometer is planted firmly toward the 50 point and for a 55 ltr tank 355 miles from full to reserve light is respectable, especially as i was pasting it everywhere with a massive grin on my face.

In short, very worthwhile conversion, the end RR dyno will be the proof but for far better economey, drivability, and power -the Motronic MAF conversion is real bang for buck.

In my opinion Ant has done all of us a serious favour in putting the R&D time into making this a viable alternative to 'other' products and that fu*king restrictive AFM.

Anyone building a stroker, or in fact any m20 owner wanting a bit more instead of settling for a AFM -call Ant

Many thanks from me dude,

Its definatly not 'Miller-time'

Please feel free to comment/discuss,

Brgds

How is it done ???

1stly the MAF is soo much bigger the M30 injectors were a must have( thanks to Haken for pointing out the soloution when I was blindsided lol ! ) as the engine with no load would not pull past the 3k mark without going 19:1 lean and the code was maxed to 100% (255) on the part throttle map !

hurdle hurdled, we move onwards...

obv the yellows flow too much fuel in some areas even with the MAF so theses areas were mapped using the road, Chris's foot and my trusty wb02, live with an emulator, process was repeated for the high load maps to achieve the desired stock ( as measured with afm fitted, so the target for the exercise if you like )

come the full throttle stuff an issue arises, @ 5K |WOT resulted in 10:1 or richer AFR, obv no good so the WOT maps were located and logged to see what was what and where.......

end soloution was a simple find, having failed to witness the ECU use any of the known WOT maps I plotted a workaround, out the WOT and make those maps part of the high load MAF driven maps ( following me here ? ) we had the resolotion on the maf output to run to max rpm and load so the theory was sound.

then it hit me....... the bloody WOT switch was fubarred !, quick swap out and off we go, Wot maps in use and we tweak to again the stock AFR logged on the stock AFM, good pull up top and stable afr everywhere under all loads/rpms.

time invested .... huuuuge TBH but its always annoyed me that the accepted way to MAF is piggyback a fully mappable system with another, easy and quick yes, but I like a hard life lol !

Chris had the need, i had the tools and no e30 of my own so the match was spot on, massive thanks to Goosie again for his trust in this above all else, risky ? disagree , if I broke it \i fixed it FOC Never gonna happen.

obv I've simplified a little in the hope of more peeps getting the idea of how we did this.

final remap to max hp and tq ( with biggest area under.. ) will come v soon.

Discuss

Just to add, nothing taken away from the Miller product here, nothing plagurised either !

there is some stuff on youtube on a similar vein and a few threads on e30tech iirc for anyone wishing to go the diy route.

hey Ant, how are you coming on the supercharger (rotrex?) setup? Sounds like it might be one of those lesser common builds, but still good results? Maybe a stroker/SC?

You should have left the WOT switch out and just tuned that whole thing using the part time maps.
That way metering is always being done and no randomness can occur.

I´m looking to do a MAP conversion on a M20 if anybody is up for it, I´d post up detailed explanations afterwards to better the community as a whole.

defo Gunni but time was becoming an issue.

its true to its roots as is, which was the goal.

forgot to add, we used the IAT from the AFM, have since found an alternate M12x1.5 mm open caged bosch NTC.

Hardware used was a Moates Ostritch 2 USB Emulator, TunerproRT , a Dataman S4, Laptop and winOLS( hateful thing lol ! ) with a Innovate LM-1 wideband

Dave Walker will abhoor the road mapping, but its pretty close, there will be high load low rpm areas to revisit I have no doubt

People tell me I'm wasting time with M20, but I love the old things good to see some fresh ideas on this of late.

I did log my M42 once and the TPS, MAP and AFM signal where all chasing eachother so a MAP sensor conversion on a AFM system is not going to be that hard. It will be different with a map sensor designed for higher load of course.

Dont spose this is any good to someone in Australia is it.... ?

Just as well as anything else. but you should be able to find somebody locally that can help you do the same.

Mike, that would be no issue

drop me an Email if you wish dude.

There is very few people that are good with these cars over here Gunni... Thats why I built my own engine I could not find anyone I trusted.

@ Mike, that's where A-Tech came from, I knew what I wanted could be done, but no-one was interested so I quit being a wage slave and started the road to ruin lol !

5 years later and I may break even this year !

Tuning and machining in the UK seems to have become a bit of a boys club, not interested in that or back slapping , just the end results.

@ant so how much is the motronic maf conversion?
how long does it take?

help me out here ant as i'm leaning towards the miller maf/war chip set up lol.

Very interesting, although with my limited knowledge of this sort of stuff you lost me with your (simplified) explanation Ant!

When I finally get round to building my 2.8 I'll have to look into this.

blinding write up Ant alot of hard work put in but well worth it in the end
this car goes like the clappers according to the arse dyno !!!!

Focus ST served, Few type R's, and a 328 e36...


Much fun

Ant wrote:@ Mike, that's where A-Tech came from, I knew what I wanted could be done, but no-one was interested so I quit being a wage slave and started the road to ruin . !

5 years later and I may break even this year !

Tuning and machining in the UK seems to have become a bit of a boys club, not interested in that or back slapping , just the end results.

I hear you Ant... This is why I built my own engine as I could not find anyone I trusted.. They all talk Shiiit. And when I asked them what do they suggest 731 or 885 head they looked dumbfounded... BMW specialist after specialist. Far easier to learn how to do it myself. I would love to open my own shop but I cant do everything I will stick to dent repairs for now.

Mike

Chris, the car looks good, its always been nicely modified. Nothing stupid, just more grunt making a very pleasent drive I suspect.

Ant, I did post on another thread a month or so back about using a MAF instead of a AFM and asked if you have any links.

My brother has the Ostrich emulator, TunerproRT, we have a wideband and I have a rolling road with zetronics and all the other gubbins. Is there anything I can read up / pass the links to my brother rather than ask a billion questions.

This is for our mi16, which uses the same AFM I believe as an m20.

Jon do you have a .dxf written and the OEM map as a .bin ???

locating the AFM tables within the code is key, not the calculated tables, the measured side.

you'll need hit tracing to find them dude, something tunerpro cant do for you. Dataman S4 will identify the code blocks in use by the ECU, so can help find the maps to a large extent, then its working out what map does what, some are obv, some are a PITA

certainly have all the required tools Jon keep me posted via email ok !

Yes I am pretty sure they are BIN files. Without tunerproRT(before it was released), my brother managed to find the rev limit and WOT maps, so i'll get him searching again. Slightly different looking for the measured side, but he like electronics, software and a challenge!

Need to get a new alternator and battery then crack on with it in a month or so.

Thanks for the advice. I'll keep you updated via email if we make strides forwards*.

*or get stuck

Independant testing this weekend,

Translates to:

We're going to kosh it up a runway a several times

...still awesome!

goosiegander wrote:Independant testing this weekend,

Translates to:

We're going to kosh it up a runway a several times

...still awesome!

pics??

vid??

MAF conversions are where its at

i converted my 2.5 to MAF and running the same map (allbeit adjusted and leaned out some to work with the MAF) the car pulls much stronger across the revs and MPG has improved.

i used a volvo MAF for the 2.5-T5 and retrofitted the stock air temp sensor into it and made a harness adaptor for it. also had to modify a spare 173 ECU to supply 12v to the MAF.

i hear MAP sensor conversions are about the same difficulty level but possibly easier to set up mapping wise than MAF?

MAP sensor conversion should be easier in all respect and of course provide the better throttle response and ultimately power gains if there are any to be had.

the independant testing has been done, and....... i was impressed!! a m20 that pulls properly all the way to the red line "sorry chris" and sounds the nuts while doing it!!! there is no doubt in my mind that this car will show most m50/m30 engined cars a clean pair of heals on the 1/4 mile. its a credit to you mate!! and if this one is anything to go by, the next project will be the tits

penton08 wrote:the independant testing has been done, and....... i was impressed!! a m20 that pulls properly all the way to the red line "sorry chris" and sounds the nuts while doing it!!! there is no doubt in my mind that this car will show most m50/m30 engined cars a clean pair of heals on the 1/4 mile. its a credit to you mate!! and if this one is anything to go by, the next project will be the tits

Thanks dude! guess i'll spill the beans soonish,

Today was the first time i have heard the engine at full chat and not been in the car, sounded epic!

Wheres Jhonno?

Interesting 'spirited' driving with an e46 m3 a few mintues ago,

Private dual carrageway over 2 miles with a roundabout in the center,

Of course it was faster... but not so much as to shame my moordoor owning council self.

In fact i'm very happy with how well the 2.8 kept up, in fact if the turn in and rear end grip were better it would have been even closer.

More good press!

Chris, any chance you could pull the emulator off this week ?

desperately need it dude I'm afraid

anyone local blow an eprom for you ?

can certainly sort something tomorrow or tuesday dude,

Be far easier just to pop down and sort at your i think...

Any excuse to drive it lol!

That I leave to you mate, your time afterall.

I'm only in Mon-Thurs this week, away for 3 days after that.

if you have a local guy, all he needs do is pull the Eprom header from the ECU socket , fit to the chip burner and read as per eprom, then blow another.

Sorry dude, I have another on order but she'll not arrive in time and Mr Miniblob needs his weapon back.

No worries,

Will call tomorrow am to advise

Scooby scalped

Should be down tomorrow afternoon dude!

This sounds very interesting.

So which MAF was used, the one from an M52B28?

if u were stuck u could send the file to me and i could burn a chip and post it over? prob easier to call in to ant tho lol

First results are in from the dyno:




Did achive 203.5 bhp at best run but the final adjustments after quite a few runs left us with the above, from 1st dyno run the conversion has yeided a 16.5bhp increase at the wheels, and an excellent increased area under graph.

The driveability and economy are also sublime.

Again the car has been driven by impartial testers in current form and all were rightfully impressed,

Ant = Legend

Discuss!