Custom Quadzilla Tuning R & D Thread

[Me78569]

I didnt want to mix up the threads by posting unrelated information so I figured I would start a new one.  This thread is for figuring out what works and what you find your truck likes.  

 

I did some more datalogging as of late and found that a more aggressive timing curve later in the rpm band, say 2500 + rpm, seems to pull harder up top.  Previous I was running tunes that maxed timing at 26*.  I took 2 tunes copied them and ran them back to back on the same stretch of road, same conditions.   I was not using wiretap for this so I will leave those details out

 

First Tune 29* max

Quote

Race 29*
Number of Power Levels	6
RPM Limit	3700
Valet Mode
Maximum Valet Mode Power	35
Timing Parameters
Fuel Load Timing	1
Low PSI Timing Reduct	5
Timing Reduct Scaling	80
LightThrottle Timing Adv	1
Light Throttle Limit	35
Timing Equilzer
1500RPM	16
2000RPM	19
2500RPM	24
3000RPM	27
MAX	29
Boost Level Fueling - CAN Bus
0 PSI	88
1 PSI	90
2 PSI	92
3 PSI	94
4 PSI	98
5 PSI	102
6 PSI	106
7 PSI	110
8 PSI	114
9 PSI	118
10 PSI	122
11 PSI	126
12 PSI	130
13 PSI	134
14 PSI	138
15 PSI	142
16 PSI	146
18 PSI	150
20 PSI	150
22 PSI	150
24 PSI	150
26 PSI	150
28 PSI	150
30+ PSI	150

 

Second Tune 26* max

Quote

race 26*
Number of Power Levels	6
RPM Limit	3700
Valet Mode
Maximum Valet Mode Power	35
Timing Parameters
Fuel Load Timing	1
Low PSI Timing Reduct	5
Timing Reduct Scaling	80
LightThrottle Timing Adv	1
Light Throttle Limit	35
Timing Equilzer
1500RPM	16
2000RPM	19
2500RPM	22
3000RPM	25
MAX	26
Boost Level Fueling - CAN Bus
0 PSI	88
1 PSI	90
2 PSI	92
3 PSI	94
4 PSI	98
5 PSI	102
6 PSI	106
7 PSI	110
8 PSI	114
9 PSI	118
10 PSI	122
11 PSI	126
12 PSI	130
13 PSI	134
14 PSI	138
15 PSI	142
16 PSI	146
18 PSI	150
20 PSI	150
22 PSI	150
24 PSI	150
26 PSI	150
28 PSI	150
30+ PSI	150

 

 

The interesting thing is the tunes are the same except for the timing above 2500 rpm.  If you look on the graph rpms hit that 2500 rpm mark at about line 20-21, each line is ~.3 seconds so 3 lines = 1 second.    You can see where timing jumps and also where boost jumps. 

 

Now keep in mind the graphs are not exact so take them with a grain of salt, but everything appears to show that the tune with higher timing up top gives faster time to 50 mph, and a faster ramp up of boost.  The higher timing tune appeared to reach 50 mph nearly 1 second faster.

 

as always studs are a good idea, but I am fairly sure anyone can run this timing above 2500 rpm.    If people are not blowing their heads off left and right with other tuners then there is no reason why this type of timing curve will hurt with the Quadzilla. 

 

 

Food for thought, open to other thoughts.

[Me78569]

This post is in regards to Timing reduction helping spool.  

 

@Carbur8tr and I had talked about this test.

 

I ran 2 tunes. Both being my daily tune with 1 change.  

 

Tune 1 has 5* timing reduction the other have 0* of timing reduction. 

 

I set my turbo to ~14cm to make it more difficult to spool.   I took the truck to 35 mph 1 psi boost, locked up the tc and went WOT.  This was the same stretch of road, going WOT at the same street sign, 2% uphill grade

 

I labeled the tune with 5* timing reduction "reduct" 

 

full chart

 

Boost vs timing

 

EGT vs Timing

 

Note the EGT's are higher on the run with Lower Timing,  This supports the theory that reducing timing puts more heat / energy into the exhaust.  Hence the theory why less timing  = faster spool.

 

RPM vs Boost

 

 

So what did we find?  

 

1. there was no noticeable difference in 0-5psi spool.  Both runs struggled to get boost off bottom.  

2. once Boost hit 5 psi there seems to be a noticeable diffence in how fast boost comes up.  Note line 40-50  Boost comes up much faster on the timing reduction tune.  the reduct tune had ~ 3* less timing at line 40.  

 

 

I might go ahead and change my tune some to pull less timing, maybe 2* rather than 5.

 

I am curious why there was no difference in the 0-5 psi range.  Any thoughts @AH64ID?   Maybe just not enough volume of exhaust to spin the turbo?

 

Attached is the log 

 

timereduct2.csv

 

 

Again these tests are not meant to be Gospel only some road testing of things I find curious.

Edited September 11, 2017 by Me78569

[kzimmer]

Just a thought. If you throw some extra fuel at the 0-5 psi area, enough to get some soot out the back, do you see a different between smoke between no reduction and 5° reduction?

 

I have noticed there seems to be a bit of a sweet spot where smoke is less with the same amount of WOT fuel. However it seems like too much reduction makes the smoke come back.

[Me78569]

Honestly my smoke output doesn't seem to change as a direct result of timing changes.  Seems like I have a 1%-2% happy spot between no smoke and smoke.

 

This is however very hard to test.  To much is up for opinion when it comes to smoke.

Edited September 12, 2017 by Me78569

[Mopar1973Man]

Fuel wise I've got that nailed down rather well and can create some pretty nice smokeless tunes or low smoke tunes. 

 

Now as for the timing. That is still a mystery that I'm still attempting to figure out what is optimal cruise timing then what is optimal performance timing. The only thing for sure I've got to play from is the Quadzilla factory default tune. To me, it seems rather mild for timing but not sure...  

 

 

Quadzilla tune page and the setting they called default...

 

[kzimmer]

If money was no object I would hop on a dyno and play for an entire day. I wish there was another way to get reliable steady state load. I don't care much about the horsepower/torque measurements. I just want steady load to take measurements and experiment.

[Me78569]

unless you have a way to hold conditions exactly stable there is not real good way to find optimal timing.

 

 

The way we deal with this is longer data samples.  create multiple tunes that are the same execpt for light htrottle timing.  Do long runs one tune per run and see if MPG increases or decrease.  

 

 

[Mopar1973Man]

56 minutes ago, Me78569 said:

Do long runs one tune per run and see if MPG increases or decrease.  

 

Not exactly an answer either. I'm doing long runs every other day. My MPG can change from tank to tank without changing the tune at all. I can vary as low as 16 MPG on the low side and 19-20 MPG on the high side without changing anything on the tunes. Weather, traffic, road construction, idle time, etc. all will alter your final number. 

 

I did do a change. I dropped the OBDLink App and switched over to Palmer Performance App. Much better app and the auto connect to Bluetooth works properly so data logging of MPG is a bit more accurate now. 

 

Do mind you this is uncalibrated just imported my previous settings from the other app.

Edited September 12, 2017 by Mopar1973Man

[Me78569]

7 minutes ago, Mopar1973Man said:

 

Not exactly an answer either. I'm doing long runs every other day. My MPG can change from tank to tank without changing the tune at all. I can vary as low as 16 MPG on the low side and 19-20 MPG on the high side without changing anything on the tunes. Weather, traffic, road construction, idle time, etc. all will alter your final number. 

 

 

Might not be the answer you are looking for but that's the best you can do outside of a dyno honestly.  Like I said before you can choose the same stretch of road to data log on, say 1 mile.  Make a tune change then drive it in the same manner over and over.  check the differences and see if you can notice lower EGTS less fuel etc.

[Me78569]

Alright,

 

@dieselautopower setup a set of 7 x .012's for me with a little twist.  I asked them to set them at 330 bar rather than the normal 305-310 bar.   Keep in mind that the VP can generate ~1600 bar at full tilt. 

 

So 

 

the issue I am trying to see if we can solve is the idle / offidle smoke issues that are nearly inevitable with big boy injectors.  My theory as to why this happens is that we vp44 guys have mechanical injectors. So we cannot dynamically raise pop pressure.   When the VP is near idle what we find is that it is impossible to fully atomize fuel at 310 bar of pop pressure through the larger injector hole sizes. 

 

So my thought was why don't we jackup the injector pop pressure to try and help atomize fuel near idle.   This increased pop pressure will make the injection event happen later so I may need to add a timing offset near idle to prevent lope etc.    I am really not sure what will happen, but I am excited to figure it out.  

 

I plan on sticking these bad boys in sometime this week so we will see what happens.  

 

 

I need to start a gofundme account for a new billet input shaft and a triple disc converter because my poor single disc is not gonna like the new found power. 

[kzimmer]

I've had this in the back of my mind, I'm happy you are doing this. I'm curious how far we can go with this, how much stress it will put on the pump, how it will affect final timing, and cold starts. And obviously how it will affect atomization and economy.

[Me78569]

I can't see how it would put more stress on the pump.  

 

End timing difference will be largest at idle and less as rpms increase.... I think  

 

Cold start shouldn't be an issue,  our trucks crank at 17* when hot and significantly more when cold.  it will be fnu to mess with.

[Mopar1973Man]

13 hours ago, Me78569 said:

Keep in mind that the VP can generate ~1600 bar at full tilt. 

 

 

1600 bar is 23,206.04 PSI which happens to be close to the same as a common rail engine. 

[kzimmer]

I am really considering ponying up the $125 CAD/HR on some steady state dyno tuning for timing. Here's what I had in mind.

 

Set dyno to 20% load. lock up 3rd gear and set the cruise at 1500rpm. Vary timing all over the place, log data. Repeat at 20% load steps until the truck can't handle it or the dyno can't handle it.

 

Repeat above steps at 2000, 2500, and 3000 rpm. Log everything and build a tune later that gets timing where it needs to be to produce lowest engine load at any given situation. In my mind this would be a timing curve that would be the best for daily driving, towing, racing, etc. The timing settings that make the engine do the least amount of work for any measured amount of physical demand is aces in my books. Unless of course the ideal timing ends up being so high it's dangerous.

 

Thoughts? Do you think I could accomplish this in 3 hours on the rollers? I think this data would really help understand where the sweet spots are on our trucks.

[Mopar1973Man]

I wish I had the money to do that. I'm sure every truck will be slightly different.

[kzimmer]

8 hours ago, Mopar1973Man said:

I wish I had the money to do that. I'm sure every truck will be slightly different.

 

You and me both... Might have to put it on the backup card so the wife doesn't see it... Maybe I can put dyno time on layaway... Lol.

 

I think every truck will have a different base, or starting point, due to injector sizes, pop pressure, etc. However I don't think the ideal curve of each truck will stray too far.

[Me78569]

Increasing injector Pop Pressure Theory

 

For awhile now I have been thinking about what would happen if we were to increase injector pop pressure.  In the Common rail work you can control rail pressure via tuning, we cannot with the vp44.  We get mechanical injectors with a pop pressure set in the 310bar area.    What this means is that there is a limitation to how well fuel will atomize through a given size hole.   It is my belief that this is why we have idle haze issues and smoke issues when you stepup to big boy injectors.    So I asked Jacob over at @dieselautopower to take a set of core injectors I had and set them up as 7 x .012's at 330 bar or roughly 300psi more than stock.

 

The idea is since we now have the ablity to control fueling and timing directly that maybe we can start running big injectors without issues with emissions / power / smoke / heat / mpg issues.  Manually offseting the injection event delay with timing means we might be able to make the truck run good. 

 

 

I got them installed today and started in on my tuning.   My trans can't handle more than ~450 hp so I am not using wiretap with these bad boys.  If you are feeling rich you are more than welcome to send me a triple disc and a billet input  

 

My Tune,  This tune is going to change a ton now that I have some seat time.  Less cruise timing more canbus in the 15+ psi range.

Quote

Daily
Number of Power Levels	6
RPM Limit	3700
Valet Mode
Maximum Valet Mode Power	35
Pump Tap Parameters List
Maximum Fuel Stretch	1200
TPS Pump Maximum	100
TPS Pump Minimum	0
Pump Tap Min PSI	0
Boost Scaling	40
Timing Parameters
Fuel Load Timing	2.5
Low PSI Timing Reduct	1
Timing Reduct Scaling	100
LightThrottle Timing Adv	2
Light Throttle Limit	25
Timing Equilzer
1500RPM	17
2000RPM	20
2500RPM	25
3000RPM	28
MAX	30
Boost Level Fueling - CAN Bus
0 PSI	70
1 PSI	65
2 PSI	66
3 PSI	67
4 PSI	68
5 PSI	70
6 PSI	72
7 PSI	74
8 PSI	76
9 PSI	78
10 PSI	80
11 PSI	82
12 PSI	84
13 PSI	86
14 PSI	88
15 PSI	90
16 PSI	94
18 PSI	96
20 PSI	98
22 PSI	100
24 PSI	102
26 PSI	104
28 PSI	106
30+ PSI	108

 

 

Note that my 0psi setting is %5 higher than my 1 psi setting.   I am not sure if I need this anymore, as I have redesigned how fueling is handed off between the Quad and the ecm, I will get into that later.   The increase pop pressure made offidle low throttle input situations hard to control.  That is why there is that %5 higher 0 psi setting

 

 

The Runs

 

I took the truck out and did my typical route, some mixed crusie accel state driving and a few cruise to WOT throttle changes.  

 

EGTs:  Highest EGT I encountered was 1253*f

Boost:  is down ~7 psi, but my tunes, as you can see in the logs are not maxing canbus up top.  I am hitting 30psi of boost in 1st / 2nd.  no chance to rev out 3rd.  the truck has as much power as my 7 x .009's with wiretap using canbus only.

Timing:  You can feel the truck needing a touch more timing before 1200 rpm, but after that point you would never know that the pop pressures were increased.

 

 

 

 

 

This was a low TPS to %100 tps showing offidle smoke.

 

 

 

 

 

Findings

 

I can't speak to the long term issues with running VP injectors at 330 bar, but at this point I am full confident that I am putting more power down across the board with a level of smoke output that is no different than the 7 x .009 injectors I had in it before.  The turbo lights faster, amazingly as it already lite fast.  I did not adjust idle timing at all, and hte truck idles smooth.  No idle haze.      

 

I honestly didn't think I would keep the 7 x .012's in my truck after testing, but man they are nice.  there is a ton of meat under the curve.    We will see how the next few weeks go.

 

The Datalogs

7x012datalog3.csv

7x012datalog2.csv

7x012datalog1.csv

[kzimmer]

How far do you think this can be pushed? I have considered building my own pop tester to play with different settings, but I don't have any experience with that.

 

Do you think the pop only effects low fuel conditions, like idling? Once they are fuelling heavy, high rpm, high load, do you think the pop pressure is kind of moot? Or the changes in timing carry on through the whole power band?

[Me78569]

uneducated guess follows this:

 

 

lol, after driving around for a few hours now I can say that I think we could go a good bit higher in pop pressure, say 350 bar, IF there isn't a risk of damage as of a result of increased pop pressure.  as far as I can tell once rpms are above ~1200 there is no difference in the 7 x .009s and the 7 x .012's in terms of feel.  I didn't even bother adjusting idle timing, and I frankly don't see a real need beyond being bored.

 

I think that pop pressure within reason is moot once you are moving.  max pressure for the vp is ~1800bar,  going from 310 to 350 is a 40 bar increase or  %3 increase.  

 

The offidle conditions and feel are SIGNIFICANTLY different, but I think I have the tuning figured out for the handoff.  OEM tuning is much much much more likely to stall when putting in gear.  I am going to mess with timing to see if I can offset that.  

[Me78569]

First time on the highway with the new injectors.  My cruising egts are down no less than 50*f pretty sure mileage is up as well, but that will take aome time to figure out.