May 2003: Emerald ECU Results

Emerald Results

Today was a very important day for the Tiger. It was taken to Emerald for the ECU to be mapped and hence the car should run a little better. On the way down the car was spitting back through the exhaust and occassionally through the carbs as well. This was partly due to a leak on the collector, and mostly due to incorrect map settings!

Once we had arrived (my dad being a sceptic on the Tigers ability to go more than 50 miles without breaking down, had followed me in the SAAB) there was already a car being tuned on the rollers. As it was noon we decided to nip down the road to the Chequers in Thompson and enjoy a good meal - I can recommend the gammon steak if only because after eating that you don't feel hungary for the next 6 hours!

When we returned at 1:30 the other car was still on the rollers and we had some more waiting to do and eventually my car got onto the rollers at 3:15. Once the nosecone and bonnet had been removed it was possible to start.

The mapping seemed to go fairly well, but Dave Walker wasn't happy with the figures he was having to put into the car to make it run, as they were in the wrong range. This was eventually tracked down to a problem when setting up the TDC position on the crankshaft, once that had been corrected, then problem moved because the electrical pickup on the dizzy was rubbing on the cambelt!

This is probably a useful tip for anyone else looking at a tuned engine. The camshaft and crankshaft pulley positions are critical in relation to each other, however the distributor/oil pump drive isn't. So we slackened the cambelt and moved the distributor drive to give us some clearance, once this had been done the timing had to be reset (again) and we could continue.

By this point it was about 5pm and once the mapping had been completed a power run could be attempted. The car was run up to full speed and when the engine hit 5500rpm all the power vanished. Help! This meant we had a worried looking Dave wondering what had happened.

At first we thought it was a plug failed (no).

Then tried a compression test (all fine).

Tried using Easystart (no change).

Had the cam cover off in case a rocker had come loose (all valves OK).

Finally I noticed that the bolt blocking the vacuum takeoff had vibrated loose, once this had been replaced everything went fine.

Once this had been rectified a power run was done 146bhp at 6500rpm, 133 ft/lb torque at 4300rpm

Here are the results from the Emerald Tuning.

	Standard Pinto Ignition Map as supplied with Emerald ECU
	Modified Pinto Ignition Map after rolling road session
	Download map by right-clicking and choosing Save target as
	Reproduction of power graph from rolling road session