ECUTEK just arrived (ND) Before & After Results

[DirtyHabit]

I’ve slipped on the ‘buy button’ again. bought my first ND Horses.
Got the ecutek from BBR (although, no instructions with it. no remap either. so will have to chase them for that this week…). but ive got myself through the install steps easy enough and ran my own logging, just for the fun of numbers!

one really cool feature, is the dashboard! As i use applecar play, my phone is always mounted to the dash. but with the dash i can now customse and add any gauge that the ECU has to offer!

couple of screenshots from some ive been making attached

I’m most interested in the KSR and Knock values, just to see how they kick in, and when. as well as the AFR and fuel trims.
The ‘Actual AFR’ is very interesting, been a couple of cars ago when i last had a similar ‘live’ obd2 reader in a car. but although the stoic afk is 14.7 i dont recall previous cars actually hitting it on a gentle throttle run. maybe its poor memory, or a good mazda? (thoughts?)

One cool little trick - ive set an RPM ‘alarm’. the ND redlines to about 6,800, but that last 1,000 its just flat and dead as the peak hp is reached. plus if you actually hold onto the pedal to redline its an odd soft buffer. you dont really know youve hit it. Its really bad for overtaking when you are looking ahead and waiting to ‘feel’ the redline approaching (either by power drop, or by engine sound). I dont think the ND1 engine gives that kind of feedback over 6k. so ive set an alarm for 6,200 whereby the phone screen flashes Red.
Shift Light! that will come in handy!

For those who have it, what are you favourite dashboard or information pulls?

[BlueAgave]

I use Ecutek Connect too, which I use on my mobile device and is a very useful tool. The data logging feature has been excellent in seeing how the ECU goes through the learning cycle after fitting the Bosch throttle body

[DirtyHabit]

Nice. similar data points there

do you have a build thread on yours? everything little bit and bob i have on my list you seem to have already done
im curious now about the new throttle body…

on these temps though, i noticed the ambient to intake wasnt too bad. but was ranging a 5-10deg delta while driving. which at the current temps, might suggest a larger delta come summer time. might need to get ready for some heat shielding or better cold air feed.

[stevegilkes]

@DirtyHabit

what are you favourite dashboard or information pulls?

I have a freebee OBD2 reader feeding my Atoto head unit. I like the acceleration and fuel consumption data

[BlueAgave]

Well I’ve had my 5 for over 8 years so I’ve had a head start in terms of mods. No build thread yet so maybe I should do one.

Inlet air temperatures is something I’ve been working on for the làst few years. The airbox suffers from a lot of heatsoak from primarily the radiator/ac condenser and the engine. Ive made a start by covering the airbox in a gold covered ceramic material which has helped but does need some additional work. At 70mph the iat is 3 C⁰ higher than ambient but the slower you go the more the temperature raises. Also there are 2 iat sensors, 1 in the maf and 1 in the inlet manifold. Could do with the inlet manifold being ceramic coated.

The throttle body is from Fab9 in the US. Throttle response is greatly improved and power has improved too. Taking it to Performance Link in Tewkesbury next year to see if the ecu needs some tweeking.

[DirtyHabit]

that looks like it took some effort! bet that was a pain to not scratch/rip on refitting.

theres 2 air intake sensors? is that what i saw on your dashboard above? your metric is in %age though? and not *C?
Which is Mani and which is Maf?

[BlueAgave]

I think you are looking at throttle pedal and throttle body position sensors, iat is the 2 underneath, maf on the left and manifold on the right. Interesting to note that the throttle body only opens to 91% even though the pedal is 100%.

[DirtyHabit]

just installed the BBR Super 175.

with absence of a dyno, i did some acceleration pulls with phone + app (private off-road. paved mind you!). i am not a fan of the typical 0-60 tests, so many driver variables. best to simply choose a gear and stick with it. 10mph increments help to show insight into areas of the powermap and/or map strong points.

So with the map all setup and ready to be uploaded, i first went out for some baselines.

• went to 1 end of the driveway
• setup the App ready to record
• crawled to 18mph to get into 3rd Gear
• flat floored from 18mph to redline
• app ‘‘CarTest’’ records in 10mph increments, so i just had to subtract the differences to get the totals. simple.
• repeated twice. then applid map.
• drove for about 5 miles to cooldown engine bay, then repeated steps.

these are the results:

The 1st run of the new map is showing errors in the app. limitations of a telephone. but, the total time looks on par with the 4th run so that value should be good.

What this is showing on the whole, is that in real-world application, nearly all of the time shaved off was seen exclusively from 70mph to 80mph. which someone please confirm… but i suspect thats about the 6,000rpm mark? The mid range as you can see is pretty much identical in performance.

However… the 6000 rpm + is a new car!
The car now redlines at what i think looked like 7,500rpm. (i was expecting about 7,100, was far more than that). and god does it pull pull pull! That 0.5 second shave that my numbers show from 70-80mph is about 6,000rpm(?) to 6,800 redline(correct). where on the stock map the car is just dying. on the new map its flying past that and the speed sensation is much more akin to a typical ‘good’ Natrually Aspirated car with the correct cams, that gives much more the higher you rev.

Its only my first day with the new map, done a handful of miles. so cant comment on any other drivability aspects yet. but i will say its just changed this car from a ‘realistic’ 6,000rpm redline, to a ‘usable and willing’ 7,500rpm redline!
It feels like adding new cams, quite literally.

i hope this data helps people in the future. its a bit more usable than dyno sheets (and, cant always get good before/after data.

appendix: this is BBRs official dyno sheet on the 175 map. I dont know if the map has had revisions over time, but the power fall to be felt nearer to the 7200 mark than this suggested 6950. plus this chart has definitely cut off some rpm to the right.

[DirtyHabit]

to add a little more…

So general feelings - theres an improved throttle response upon a snappy accelerator pedal application. apart from that, i dont notice any difference in general driving. all of the (noticeable) gains are at the top end rpm. take that as you will…Certainly for me, that means the wife wont notice this mod!

• exception being on downshifts, which i do at every opportunity these are certainly quicker to response to the pedal input. my muscle memory is now overmatching the revs. so thats a noticeable change. ties in with the above comment though really… just enforces it.

Some data snippets now that ive downloaded yesterdays logs.
so my OEM redline on dashboard looks like 6800 to me. ive marked it on the stock photo below the red marker it went to. but the data file says its 6,500. interestingly when around the 2-4k rpm marks when i was on cruise control the taco and the App were spot on. so not sure why it appears different at top end. maybe driver angle to the needle?
Likewise now post map, i have marked the needle redline i am seeing. looks to me like 7,500. however the map data shows 7150.
Likely a taco issue one way or another… best to use the ECU numbers i would say. so its approx a 650rpm redline bump.

Data for reference:

OEM Redine

Super 175 redine

and this one i thought was a good graph for some visuals. intake and exhaust cams changing their advance/(re)tardation during the ‘power pull’. (the missing data here is the RPM, but this 10 second snippet is 2000 rpm to 7150 rpm flat out).
At the bottom in red is the AFR (Actual), which is a steady 12.x the whole way across.

[AdamR28]

Tach reads ~300rpm high at the limiter, same on all NDs, so that’s normal.

Thanks for sharing all your data!

[DirtyHabit]

ah that will explain it

no problem. i like numbers…

[stevegilkes]

So the BBR tuning gives a small increase in torque across the range to the original “redline” and then allows the engine to rev out to over 7000. It seems that the main change is remove the protection of the engine at 6500 and move it up to 7000; I wonder if this can be done more cheaply?

[AdamR28]

Absolutely. And from the data I have, you’d gain more in the midrange too.

The cam timing changes from OEM, mostly exhaust, are quite strange - looks like it would lose power/torque mid range, which ties in with the acceleration times.

[stevegilkes]

@AdamR28

you’d gain more in the midrange too.

Do you mean that you could get more mid range torque more cheaply, e.g. a cheap way to adjust ECU constants?

Also, the ND Skyactiv engine is an Atkinson cycle so it will have some strange valve timings, but I thought that would just be on the inlet valve, i.e. late closing to reduce the actual compression ratio.

[AdamR28]

The OEM cam timing in the midrange on the 2L is optimal IME. Not sure why BBR adjust it. I’ve seen the same on their 1.5 maps. Reverse engineering that one actually lost power over OEM - but it did make the top end feel good in comparison…

[stevegilkes]

What does IME mean in this context?

[AdamR28]

In my experience (have mapped about 30 2L NDs recently).

BTW we are of course only talking about one squiggly line on a piece of paper here (a full throttle pull). There really is a lot of refinement missing from the factory on the ND1, so the rest of the map is where 95% of the work goes and its great to hear the OP is pleased

[stevegilkes]

@AdamR28

In my experience (have mapped about 30 2L NDs recently).

Whoops, showing my age.

[Bol]

I never knew that @AdamR28. Thanks. Good to know because my car looks (300rpm over read and angle of needle) like the limiter is at 8k, which means I’ve been short shifting to show some sympathy, thinking BBR were being a bit over ambitious.

[DirtyHabit]

interesting and thanks for your replies. i hadnt thought to see ow the cam tming had changed pre and post. ill grab the dongle later and see what comparisions i can pull