Street Build 1g build - The Real Life Trials and Tribulations of building a DSM

[Anfurnyy]

Took the car for a long drive yesterday. 77° was perfect outside.

Car only got up to like 204°, and tried to get some vacuum tuning done but the car kind of fought us the whole day. Pulled off in a parking lot for awhile drying to address why the car was surging at idle and dying when I came to a stop but never really did figure it out. Ended up switching the throttle back to open loop and now it seems to drive just fine.

On my way home I tried to do some pulls but the car broke up pretty bad so I got out of it and dropped my brother back off. After it broke up it won't even break vacuum without breaking up and leaning out bad. I think it's time for new plugs. Originally these plugs had to be gapped to like .36 maybe even higher. I regapped them down to .25. They now look like maybe theyve been lean.


It's got the BPR6ES in it right now and I'm gonna move to the BPR7ES. Just gotta go pick them up from AutoZone tomorrow after work.

While the plugs were out I took a look down at the pistons and I THOUGHT I could see detonation ping marks. The car hasn't seen any real detonation that I can think of, only false because the knock thresholds haven't been tuned yet. Could be just carbon build up from running rich. My plugs seemed to be carbon fouled too to hopefully that's the case. I might try to rent one of those little scoping cameras and take a look up in there and find out. Fingers crossed it's not detonation.

My power steering was working but pushing fluid right out the top of the reservoir. I read up on this and people say that the pump could be sucking up air from the shaft seals on the actual rack causing it to push fluid out the reservoir. I ordered a refurbished rack from rockauto and that gets here tomorrow. I pulled the belt off the pump but it still seems to be doing it so I'm honestly not sure what else could be causing it. Hopefully that rack fixes it.

My alternator might be bad because of the power steering leaking also or maybe it's because of the heat from the exhaust. When I drove for a bit my voltage drops down to like 13.4v from 14+ v at a cold idle.

Kind of feel like I'm getting beat up again by this car.

 

[92Turbski]

Took the car for a long drive yesterday. 77° was perfect outside.

Car only got up to like 204°, and tried to get some vacuum tuning done but the car kind of fought us the whole day. Pulled off in a parking lot for awhile drying to address why the car was surging at idle and dying when I came to a stop but never really did figure it out. Ended up switching the throttle back to open loop and now it seems to drive just fine.

On my way home I tried to do some pulls but the car broke up pretty bad so I got out of it and dropped my brother back off. After it broke up it won't even break vacuum without breaking up and leaning out bad. I think it's time for new plugs. Originally these plugs had to be gapped to like .36 maybe even higher. I regapped them down to .25. They now look like maybe theyve been lean.
View attachment 707614View attachment 707615

It's got the BPR6ES in it right now and I'm gonna move to the BPR7ES. Just gotta go pick them up from AutoZone tomorrow after work.

While the plugs were out I took a look down at the pistons and I THOUGHT I could see detonation ping marks. The car hasn't seen any real detonation that I can think of, only false because the knock thresholds haven't been tuned yet. Could be just carbon build up from running rich. My plugs seemed to be carbon fouled too to hopefully that's the case. I might try to rent one of those little scoping cameras and take a look up in there and find out. Fingers crossed it's not detonation.

My power steering was working but pushing fluid right out the top of the reservoir. I read up on this and people say that the pump could be sucking up air from the shaft seals on the actual rack causing it to push fluid out the reservoir. I ordered a refurbished rack from rockauto and that gets here tomorrow. I pulled the belt off the pump but it still seems to be doing it so I'm honestly not sure what else could be causing it. Hopefully that rack fixes it.

My alternator might be bad because of the power steering leaking also or maybe it's because of the heat from the exhaust. When I drove for a bit my voltage drops down to like 13.4v from 14+ v at a cold idle.

Kind of feel like I'm getting beat up again by this car.

Just take it 1 step at a time and you'll get it sorted. Even if you have to, take a break. It's seems overwhelming, but you've come super far and overcome very technical problems. You'll have it sorted in no time!
I found this article from Aaron Ruppert aka Dr. Turbo on here, extremely helpful. How to tune a 1G on SD. Search for it, it is awesome.
Check for boost leaks, then check for boost leaks again! Make sure all your basics are set, double check.
I'm in the same boat trying to get mine dialed as well.
Good luck.

Here's the link;
Thread 'How to Tune a 1G ECMLink V3 using Speed Density' https://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/how-to-tune-a-1g-ecmlink-v3-using-speed-density.395564/

Downloading the remote tuning checklist from Kevin Jewer has also been a big help in covering the basics

Remote Tuning | Six Sigma Tuning | Missouri

Remote tuning from Six Sigma Tuning available in any of the 50 states

www.sixsigmatuning.com

 

[Anfurnyy]

So replaced the plugs with the BPR7ES and took the car for a drive. I gapped them down to .020" per recommendations from a buddy of mine that runs a tuning shop on the other side of the state.

It actually seemed to feel worse. I could hardly get the car to move from a stop, and one time it started misfiring so I shut it off immediately and re-seated the plug wires and it stopped misfiring long enough to get me back home. When the breaking up starts, the AFR goes way lean and then it also throws my closed loop stuff off too based off my wideband reading. Keep in mind I'm not even giving it any beans, I'm literally touching vacuum while just trying to drive extremely casually.

Here's my new plugs after about 2 miles of driving and breaking up. To me, that definitely seams lean.


I did a leak down and my numbers were:
Cylinder 1: 8%
Cylinder 2: 6%
Cylinder 3: 14%
Cylinder 4: 13%

Now I know people will say 3 and 4 are high but I also have my rings gapped to .029" also. If they were in the 20s I'd definitely be worried. I didn't hear any pressure leaking out into the valves or from one cylinder to the next. Only into the Crankcase. I AM going to re-test all 4 cylinders for consistency sake. I know cams move the valve events so I might have been off a little on any one of the cylinders.

I did rent a camera from AutoZone to look inside the cylinders while doing a leakdown but the camera was so awful it's hard to see what what is down in there.



My new steering rack came and I worked on getting that installed last night. One of the hardlines that is on it was different than OEM so I had to swap one of the other ones off the rack I'm returning so the mount would fit. I told you guys this eBay rack was trashed. When I pulled off one of the boots, fluid just came gushing out.


I realized also that I haven't had my Injectors cleaned since I started tearing the engine down 2 years ago so I removed them and have them packaged up ready to go to FIC to have them cleaned. I'm not sure If this will help with the car running bad or not but even if it doesn't they probably still need cleaned.

I think my power steering pump might also be leaking. So it's leaking right onto my alternator and I'm sure between that and the heat from the o2 housing/ downpipe isn't helping. I'll look into a rebuild kit for the pump and might have to get another new alternator again..

If cleaning the injectors doesn't help then I might just end up replacing coil packs, spark plug wires and PTU just to be sure. I honestly can't tell if it's an injector flow issue, a spark issue or what. My brain is telling me I injectors because if it was spark, would it be really rich due to unburned fuel?

 

[Vegas Smith]

Your best bet is to post your log and settings to link forum and have them look at it. Or post here I can take a look.

 

[Anfurnyy]

Your best bet is to post your log and settings to link forum and have them look at it. Or post here I can take a look.

I'm fairly confident its at least partially a tuning issue.

ill throw up a log from when it was misfiring and what not and you can take a look. Just don't laugh too hard at my tooner skills.

 

[Vegas Smith]

I'm fairly confident its at least partially a tuning issue.

ill throw up a log from when it was misfiring and what not and you can take a look. Just don't laugh too hard at my tooner skills.

I'll look at it tonight when I get home.

 

[Anfurnyy]

I'll look at it tonight when I get home.

Appreciate it!

 

[1990TSIAWDTALON]

We will need an .elg file. That one won't open.

 

[Anfurnyy]

We will need an .elg file. That one won't open.

I run a link ECU, not ECMlink

 

[1990TSIAWDTALON]

AAAAAH, I am sorry. I tried to pull up the log and was confused on the extension. I can't help but maybe Vegas can!

 

[Anfurnyy]

AAAAAH, I am sorry. I tried to pull up the log and was confused on the extension. I can't help but maybe Vegas can!

No worries! Haha thanks for the attempt though.

 

[Anfurnyy]

AAAAAH, I am sorry. I tried to pull up the log and was confused on the extension. I can't help but maybe Vegas can!

The PC link software is a free software if you do get curious and wanna to take a look also

 

[1990TSIAWDTALON]

Well I might just see if this corporate computer will load it since I am at work.

 

[1990TSIAWDTALON]

Dang.....internet police stopped me. I don't have Admin privileges

 

[Anfurnyy]

Got a nice little badge/ sticker for the front bumper.

 

[Anfurnyy]

Injectors should be back today. I also looked into replacing my factory ignition with more maybe new factory ignition as maybe this COULD be part of my issues but buy used OEM coil packs and PTU just seems like its a gamble.

After talking with someone who is also looking and making suggestions and changes on my tune he told me that GTR COP would be a great way to go as the Standalone ECU is able to change coil dwell times as well as set up the ignition in a Direct Fire/Sequential setup.

I ended up snagging some Brand new OEM Hitachi GTR Coils, and the Brewed Motorsports COP plate and wiring harness.
Ill have to run 2 new wires to the ECU for the IGN 3 and 4 for the 2 other coils AND setup an 12v switched relay for the power for the ignition as well.

My issue is if the PTU Gets deleted, which is what generates the Tach signal for the dash how are people that go to a full COP kit getting tach signal to the Dash? ive read just about every Tach post on the site to try and figure it out but it seems that everyone still has the PTU and are using the stock ECU in wasted spark so.
From one of them I read the ECU gets the Engine RPM from the CAS black wire (pin 21) so is it correct in saying you might be able tap into that for the dash? Also from what i understand a few posts said that the tach output wire from the OEM PTU splits and one goes to the ECU and the other goes straight to the dash.

 

[Anfurnyy]

Made it out to a Cars N Coffee Event.


So honestly not a ton has changed. Ive been working on the car a lot but its all been troubleshooting the car not running right. Basically whats been happening is the car ends up getting so rich when hitting right around vacuum that it misfires and breaks up really bad.
Ive decided to not try to tune the car myself as with the standalone theres just too much that i dont know. Zach Reliford is who is tuning the car now, recommended by McKenzie Lange. Zach really knows his stuff!

I've gone through like 5 sets of spark plugs and switched to iridium's to fit the COP kit Stalks and boots. Last week i finally HOPEFULLY figured out what the problem was with the car not driving correctly.

Zachs base map he send me was on factory Coils and it was tuned using the MAP sensor as a injector reference like most setups. In i think the 2nd revision, we switched to Fuel pressure based Injector reference. What this means is it uses the Fuel pressure rising with boost to calculated the Injector pulse width. What i think was happening is i have a crappy amazon fuel pressure sensor, that is also uncalibrated. I didnt buy a good gauge as i was just trying to use it as a base reference to make sure i wasn't losing fuel pressure. Now since the gauge is bad and and it was uncalibrated, it was using some sort of Non-linear voltage output causing the car to just dump a stupid amount of fuel right around vacuum that the spark plug just simply couldn't ignite.

As a test i actually switched back to MAP sensor referenced and calibrated the map sensor (which i didnt know you had to to) by creating a calibration using the voltage/MAP scaling and then assign that calibration to the MAP sensor. After i did that the car drove great after a few fuel map changes.

i am waiting on a new fuel pressure sensor to arrive so i can get that installed and moved back to FPR based injector ref.
I also picked up some heat wrap to wrap the downpipe to help with the head around the alternator. Got that pulled off and one fairly quickly. Hopefully this helps a bit.


One of the other issues I've been fighting is with my Lambda sensor just randomly turning off. Its on its own circuit on its own fuse for the entire CAN setup. I ended up having to install a capacitor between the ground and power wires on the lambda harness to help with power issues and so far it has fixed it.



I was able to get the COP installed. I ended up making my own harness starting at the 6 pin Deutsch connector to the Ecu for the trigger wires, power and ground. As for the Tach issue i actually just used an output wired right to the wire to the harness that went to the dash and it works perfect.
I had to use another output for a new fuel pump relay trigger for the factory MPI harness and it works perfectly.


I picked up a stainless Resonator to install to get rid of the crazy drone and raspiness of the exhaust as well. The whole midpipe of the exhaust is off and at a fab shop to get that installed. Hopefully today ill pick it up for a test fit to make sure its good and then it should be good to go back and finish up. Im really excited to get the resonator installed, because i hate how loud and awful it sounds. Even if it doesnt completely fix it, it should help in the very least.


Car sounds great at idle!


Little baby pull action. Spool seems slow but wastegate duty is set to 0, and i didnt even full throttle it until about 5500rpm. Car is far from being dialed in, still fairly rich here IIRC.

 

[Vegas Smith]

That's a giant turbo. Not going to spool fast by any means.

 

[Anfurnyy]

That's a giant turbo. Not going to spool fast by any means.

Personally I don't feel like it's that big. Step up to a precision 76/75 and those, to me are huge.

Even the 6466 has a bigger compressor outlet and a fair size larger turbine wheel and it seemingly spools Faster.

I think it's too soon to really tell how this one actually performs while driving. Can't really judge it off Dyno/ power pulls because that's that a real world scenario in my eyes.

 

[1cleangsx]

The idle sounds nice! Reminds me of mine , and I installed a magnaflow muffler on my 3” straight pipe as I couldn’t stand the raspy fart sound around 3000 rpm, and your running a 3584rs right? Isn’t that like a 67mm compressor? That’s awesome if it’s fairly responsive, I think the lag from behind the wheel on the 6266 isn’t bad at all especially for the power it makes

 

[CrackedDSM]

You ever rebuild your PS pump? If you want to try an easy fix, replace both the o-rings at the top of the pump where the PS Line bolts onto the rod.


I've got both o-rings you need. If you're interested, throw me a PM with your address and I'll ship them out to you fo' free. I bought a sh*t ton online because I needed two and now I've got 15 sets of PS pump o-rings. Lol.

 

[Anfurnyy]

You ever rebuild your PS pump? If you want to try an easy fix, replace both the o-rings at the top of the pump where the PS Line bolts onto the rod.


I've got both o-rings you need. If you're interested, throw me a PM with your address and I'll ship them out to you fo' free. I bought a sh*t ton online because I needed two and now I've got 15 sets of PS pump o-rings. Lol.

I did actually! Bought a kit off rockauto. Ended up using only about 4 of the O rings and then had to snag an Oring kit from ace Hardware for another O ring since the kits was too small thickness.

I think I saw a post of yours about all those Orings on Facebook somewhere? Big ol bag of em? Lol

 

[Anfurnyy]

The idle sounds nice! Reminds me of mine , and I installed a magnaflow muffler on my 3” straight pipe as I couldn’t stand the raspy fart sound around 3000 rpm, and your running a 3584rs right? Isn’t that like a 67mm compressor? That’s awesome if it’s fairly responsive, I think the lag from behind the wheel on the 6266 isn’t bad at all especially for the power it makes

Yeah, this is just way to droney for me. That 3krpm mark is really brutal I actually feed bad and embarrassed when it's in that room range.

Just test fitted my exhaust with the Resonator installed before final welding today so it'll go back on tomorrow.

It is a 3584rs, and yeah 67 mm inducer. We'll see how well it responds to normal driving like downshifting and what not. Just stabbing throttle at 3k rpm in 3rd and waiting for boost to come in isn't realistic.

The 6266 was a heavy contender for me too! It supports quite a bit and it seems to spool pretty hard also.

 

[1cleangsx]

I hope you get all your issues sorted out, I know your car will be a ripper I keep thinking one day I’ll go Haltech or something but the car is still running great on ecmlink and there’s literally thousands more I wanna put into the drivetrain/body before I go stand-alone haha

 

[Anfurnyy]

So a little update. The fuel pressure sensor helped fix the issue but didn't fix it completely. Cylinder 1 actually stopped firing the injector at all.

Apparently the 40 micron stainless fuel filter is bad news. So it let stuff through the filter and clogged up my injectors. Sent the injectors out to get cleaned and replaced the filter with a 6 micron filter. Got the injectors back yesterday and the car drove great up until I did a small 2nd gear pull and watched the fuel pressure drop to like 6 psi and then barely limped home.

Either fuel pressure regulator died, or maybe one of the fuel lines inside the tank burst or popped off. I get to investigate that today after work.