Stuff it … just ordered a Haltech Elite 550. Speeduino would be a fun project but there are far too many unknowns. Going to be breaking a lot of new ground for me as it is so doing it without support or warranty on the parts would just make it all too hard. Something I might still look at doing in the future given how cheap they are
4 Likes
Nice i wish my budget allowed for that lol atm I cnat even afford a speedy lol
will probably need a custom trigger wheel for the Haltech and the Speeduino, the only one that i have heard of that supports the Daihatsu 3+1 trigger wheel is Maxxecu. Speedy’s have a great online forum and facey page and a few have been running now as daily drivers for a couple of years and have a fairly decent following among the MX5/Miata boys
I know we are getting a little side tracked here, but while we are on the topic of cheap ECU options have you guys considered piggyback ECUs?
I have an ECUMaster DET3 piggyback at home that I bought for another project but might use on my next Dai.
The benefit with this would be that you would never need to worry about things like the trigger wheel…
I used a 2nd hand greddy emanage I got for $75 for my move I had. After working it all out it actually worked better than what I expected after all the horror stories I had heard.
1 Like
Im not sure a piggy back would solve my immobiliser issue. In any case the haltech is ordered now and I intend to get it working 
Does anyone know the trigger pattern of the engine?
2 Likes
yeh piggy back would not solve the issue unfortunately
trigger pattern is 3+1, the pic you have showing the timing belt shows your trigger wheel and cam sensor.
1 Like
Haltech installed and running… with no power. Just purchased the CAN o2 sensor and have spent around 10 hours watching youtube videos. Pretty much a tuner myself now joking obviously… will be interesting to see if i can get it to drive through the rev range doing road tunes first. If not trailer it to a tuner
5 Likes
you will get it mate not something you will get straight away but over time you will learn it and get it. I have faith! 
2 Likes
Big day today. Circumstances made it possible for my first drive with the big block! Wow much bottom end It was soo nice to feel a kick in the back in this car. It did nothing but make me smile with the 660cc, but the push in the back now is significantly better. Just more to love about this little car.
That said, the engine does not have a tune yet. I have ordered the haltech o2 sensor in the hope that I will be able to tune it good enough to drive around without paying a tuner for dyno time. At the same time i am trying to get access to a dyno in order to tune the ecu myself as thats desirable to paying a tuner to set it up on their own. I would love to be able to set it up myself if for no other reason to learn more about ecu tuning, My background has helped me figure out a lot very quickly but i need a dyno to really practice and test it out.
There is no vvt actuator. However I am certain that it was plated as EJ-VE and the intake matches the EJ-VE pictures. It seems to me that there must have been yet another variant which was delivered to Australia as an ej-ve in the l251 that lacked the vvt. I assume that the intake is the newer variant from the actual JDM EJ-VE in order to fit the newer body design. Although it’s not important right now Im curious about where im going to find top end out of this build and which intake design would actually be better considering I have the detuned non vvt ADM version of the ej-ve (assuming this conclusion is correct). [Edit] Forgot to add: Im considering whether or not the m100 intake would be adaptable and better suited, since it wouldnt foul on the bonnet like the current airbox does. And would custom intake be better than replacing the cams and installing vvt… [/Edit]
Now that I have all of this control and variability in tuning this engine I am searching for any information that can help build my baselines. Does anyone have any information on factory ignition timings, injector flow rates, or any other factory type specs for the ej-de? I’ve found some info around but it’s a very wide range… does anyone have any thoughts on which numbers and their values to aim towards for these engines ?
Either way I shall post my base results once I have them
2 Likes
I would not worry about a baseline esp for a EJ, rather know what values you are looking for across the rpm range for loads, temps and so on (watch timing for knock). If you can get access to a dyno just get a/the tuner to do it for you if you are renting the dyno as they will do it faster and prob better. Your wideband air fuel gauge is needed not just for tuning but it will be to let it run as a closed-loop system. The need for a dyno is to put the engine under load. I live on a 3km long really steep hill and do my own tuning on it or pay a dyno for important stuff.
My suggestion is to look into a custom manifold, or at least boring the throttle body oversize 2-3mm with a custom throttle plate (while I could make them, I just buy them from Kinsler - they used to be really helpful). Before looking at cams see if you can get a vernier adjust camgear. I recommend slotting the cam timing star amd keeping those timing cars in the original position when retarding the cam. I put mine back 5-7deg with no loss of low down power/torque, but gave it more top end. For custom cams, what are you going to do with the car? I’d call Tighe Cams and ask for their recommendation, they will ask what you are doing with the car. Before doing cams I’d do headers, ported head, tidy the combustion chamber, pistons (more compression) and them cams.
1 Like
I too have access to a hill nearby where I intend to create some load and find some more points to tune. The wideband arrived today and will likely be fitted tomorrow. In a workshop manual for the online I see 5-15 degrees Btdc listed for base ignition timing. That seems like a rather wide range. I’m trying to establish what the base value should be for the no load idle position. It’s currently set to 10 with a number of different things resulting in an actual reading of 15. It seems if I adjust overall and make the value 10 it improves things. I’m wondering if I should aim to get this to 5 as per the min spec or aim for as advanced as possible at idle. Also it would be very useful to know what the maximum advance that shouldn’t/wouldn’t be exceeded by the factory ecu at all load rpms to allow me to play in “safe areas” without needed to rely that my knock sensor is correctly calibrated and that the protections are correctly setup. Do you have insights in to those numbers?
The intake and exhaust probably need looking at first. The l251 in bolted in an we can close the bonnet with a spacer at the back. My guess is that an m100 intake wouldn’t have the same fitment issues but the l251 box is bigger and appears to have longer plastic runners than the m100 pictures I have seen. The cat was cut at angle so it could be repointed to miss the k frame. Both are less than ideal long term but will serve for now.
When you talk of retarding the valve timing do you mean with stock cams? At what stage of you build did you do that and what kind of improvements did you see?
5-15deg is only a 10deg sweep so not that wide really. Just set it for a smooth idle. It has no load at idle and whatever it ends up set at can’t hurt it. Timing depends on where the fuel mixture needs to be ignited so the flame travels within the combustion area expanding to make pressure that most effectively pushes down on the piston. The ejde has a good shape combustion area and uses far less advance than the efel. Carbon build up inside the chamber does reduce efficiency blocking the flame path and hence I would expect a theoretical increase in advance being needed. As revs increase things will need to be fired earlier. Perhaps not much help.
My M100 ejde did fit with no bonnet clearance issues. Latter I lowered the engine relative to the ground but also raised the K frame to solid mount it to the chassis. I notched the K frame to fit a 1 7/8" collector.
Yes, stock cams being retarded or opening earlier gives it more top end. I didn’t notice any loss down low.
2 Likes
Thanks @Mr_Gormsby there was very useful info in that last post that helped with my weekend of tuning.
We added a wideband o2 during the week and i spent a good couple of hours tuning a road testing the car this weekend. It all went very well. The car starts almost on the first crank (still tweaking cranking fuel levels), it revs up through a warm up cycle and then comes down to idle after temps rise. Some fuel corrections remain until operating temperature.
We spent a good amount of time through the warm up to measure the actual coolant temp with a infrared thermometer and with a screen setup to show which AV input that sensor was on and its current voltage. With a reading from the thermometer, it was easy to calibrate. Once it hit an arbitrary voltage I yelled out to Dad to give me a reading. Then you simple say for eg 2.45 volts = 30c and then again at 2 volts ect and so on. Once I had 10 or so data points and a reading around where I want the thermo to kick in it works fine. Although the road tests show the coolant temp is quite low, perhaps the thermostat isn’t closing., so that will get replaced. The air temp was already pretty close but since you cant simulate the temps as easily (And after looking at the sensor) i decided it was worth the $50 to get one that has a map in the haltech. It looks better in the sense that at least it’s metal instead of the stock once being completely covered by plastic. I assume that should read more accurately and perhaps faster but in any case at least I can be sure it’s accurate.
Once that was done I used some zero load points to see how far the base table was out. It was around 23% so i basically selected the whole table and bumped it up. I also did the same with the base ignition timing table. Since the base map was based on a ef-el and no load idle was around 10 i figured the new engine 10 should be about 5± and so i took all the cells down together until i saw that number at idle. This meant around 34 max timing at 4500 rpm. The idea of this setup was rich safe numbers. It worked very well on a flat road but I almost couldnt climb the hill to get back home. It also missed when you opened the throttle suddenly. Dad explained the mechanical process of how more fuel is added during those events which made me realised it was related to transient throttle correct in the haltech. Went home watch a video that explained the phenomena of fuel pooling, air gulp and sync and async corrections. This morning I added values for sync and async enrichment based on the TPS reading and that cleared up. Up and down the hill no worries in the world. This is a step hill. With the ef-el you needed full throttle in 3rd to maintain 60kmph. Now you cruise up in fourth at 5% throttle at 60. From low rpm it still had the guts to accelerate the car whilst in the middle of the hill without any issues whatsoever.
That said the whole car definitely isnt tuned perfectly. I have erred on the side of caution so that it can be driven to a tuner without any issues. It’s easily at that point now. If you didnt have a laptop plugged in and just drove it you would think it was factory and had zero issues. Obviously there is way more power to be had though.
I have found a reputable tuner who said he would tune my car price unknown at this stage (one that friends have used with great results) nearby AND I have managed to find a guy that would let me use the dyno for $200 per hour. Depending on the price, I am keen to pay the professional for a quick tune and use his experience to get it sorted without going crazy. That way I have a solid base which I can playing with making minor adjustments at track days or pay for the dyno myself in future. A huge part of this project is playing with the tune myself since thats really my thing as opposed to mechanical stuff or fabrication. Much more of a hobbiest engineer than a mechanic
5 Likes
I have been making some enquiries for wheels. I have landed on a 13"x5.5 et25 supalite (minilite copy) with the intention of running 185/60/R13 nankang ns2. Apparently the wheels are around 7kg which isnt that light but i assume lighter than the steel rim with oversized tyres currently fitted.
Would love to hear about the forums experience with rim sizes and tyre options. I am going for performance here looks are a distant second. That said I want to avoid flaring the guards (unless the performace improvement are worth it) or introducing too much scrub. They should sit around 20mm further out and about 5mm further in. Obviously more tyre is going to equate to more grip but whats the right balance to go for. Further, am I blocking common brake upgrades that might need a 14" rim to fit? The wheels will be ordered with 4x100 PCD and be fitted after using the l251 stuff to change the PCD so it matches
you have read up about 4x100 pcd change?
Plus 25 with 185 will rub. Are these off an old Mazda and 110pcd?
Those supalite are really heavy. My 17x7.5 Oz racing are under 7kg and my 17x9 that are on the way are 7.1kg.
Hubcentric will be a bit heavier than those that need plastic or alu rings. As Mr Evil has said look into the 100pcd change. Plus 34 in 5.5" wide will just fit with a 175/50/13 on a L200 with some rolling the inside edge. That is with about 70mm lowering and 4deg or more neg camber front and neg 0.5 rear.
1 Like
I’ve only read what I’ve come across since I haven’t started at that job. In the end I’ve used an l251 donor. I’m yet to compare the front uprights but I’ve read about the rear swap with the l251. I have l7 control arms and top mounts. I’ve not seen anything on adapting the front from the l251 but being from a heavier newer car if possible that seems like a worthwhile upgrade. I really would like adjustable coil overs but I can’t find them anywhere. I wonder if I could find someone to use my sprint and make some. Whichever way, the front end needs some additional strength already way before it’s gets bigger boots and that has to happen
1 Like