G13B Aftermarket ECU

[Cucod9]

Hello fellow swift lovers,

i tried searching the forum for any information on custom ECU's and how to's but i fail to find any. I also tried searching some other forums around the web but none have all the information in one place.

What i want to do is get a custom ECU to run my Swift GTi Mk2. Any of the aftermarket ECU's are an option (Haltech, Adaptronics, Megasquirt... etc). For starters i just want to make the car run on that ECU, with the next step after that being bigger upgrades like ITB's or Maybe a Turbo, camshafts etc...

I dug up some information and found that the biggest problem when applying an aftermarket ECU to a G13B is its distributor. Or should i say most ECU's require the information about the position of the engine. The stock G13B does this through a reluctor wheel inside the distributor. Apparently most ECU's will be able to make the car run using the stock distributor signal for the position of the camshaft but it will run only in batch injection mode. Some say that you can keep the stock distributor and not make any changes, whilst other say that you need to remove the smaller teeth and leave the 4 bigger ones on the magnetic wheel. Also that there can be some issues when revving over 5000 revs.

If i would like to make the car run in sequential injection mode there would also have to be another sensor that would be somewhere on the crankshaft (crankshaft angle sensor). So far i found that it is possible to use a G16B oil pump and oil sump that bolt on directly to a G13B block and that they already have a hole for the sensor, but the G13B does not have a trigger wheel on the timing belt pulley. So i assume somehow it would be required to weld a trigger wheel to that timing belt pulley to make the sensor read it.

Im wondering if this information so far is correct?
Also if someone knows about any kind of kits or can alteast point me to the parts that would have to be changed or bought to make fitting an aftermarket ECU possible?

Thanks in advance for any kind of replys guys :grin:

 

[macuserman]

Sounds like you've done some homework already. I'm not an expert on this at all, I'll dig around on the archive and see what I can find. You were just talking to me about this [usermention=142]@92GT[/usermention] any words of wisdom to share?

 

[t3ragtop]

The subcode for the Suzuki g13b twincam ignition decoder has been around for many years, ever since Carrrlo built his MS first gen system. It has been fully integrated into the Megasquirt firmware and is tunable using Tuner Studio software.

Also, DIYauto.com sells fully assembled micro squirt units for the GT. Kyle over at GeoMetroForum is running that in his race car project.

 

[Cucod9]

Thank you for the reply's guys.

I will do some looking into Microsquirt. Im not sure if it offers the possibility of sequential injection given that it is just a 1/3 th of the price for the MS3?

I did some more searching around and it would appear that it is possible to use a J18 or J20 engine (Suzuki Baleno 1.8 or Suzuki Vitara 2.0 ?) cam shaft sensor and grind down the seating a bit to make it fit. I will try to find one of these off the wreckers to see if it would be able to fit to the G13B.

My tuner friend that already runs a MS2 in his Miata send me this screenshot:

Would that be the ignition decoder you are talking about?

 

[t3ragtop]

Yep, that's the g13b dohc ignition decoder.

Personally, my opinion is that the MS3 is way overkill for the job. The best fit for a GT is the MS2 ver 3.0 controller with a 4 channel driver board (I used the one from JBPerf) for ignition and injection which removes all the high current components from the heat sink on the main board.

To get sequential injection you need a trigger wheel on the crankshaft and a cam position sensor to identify cam phase. The old boy in Texas used the cam angle sensor from a g13bb 16 valve sohc Mk5 Metro on his Mk5/ twincam hybrid which is pretty much a drop in deal.

You set up the MS2 ver. 3 controller as instructed in the MSextra handbook and load it with the latest MSextra firmare for sequential operation and 4 coils for discrete ignition.

 

[t3ragtop]

I spent a considerable amount of time playing with crank trigger wheels to get things down to what worked elegantly.

At the end of my research and development I had settled on a 5" 36-1 trigger wheel borrowed from a Ford Aerostar 6 cylinder engine concentrically mounted to a 4" aluminum under drive pulley from 3 tech performance.

The crank sensor of the era was a variable reluctance pick up, a typical automotive type sensor. What I ran into was that it wanted to turn into a speed sensitive generator and it would crank out its square wave signal while it generated an AC envelope of up to 70 volts at around 6000 rpm. That would cause the Megasquirt controller's signal conditioning circuit to overload, its counter to reset, and fart a mis-timed ignition event at the worst possible time.

I re-thought the whole damned thing and ditched the V/R sensor for a Hall Effect Device type gear tooth reader and a little HED signal conditioner which produced a rock solid 4.39 vdc square wave. I built a test rig and ran the Hall sensor on my bench polisher up to 10,200 rpm with zero signal defects. This is what I'd recommend using for reliability and signal integrity.

My turbo3 Megasquirt work was considerably more complicated than a 4 cylinder conversion due to the fact that in batch fire I had to emulate/ spoof 6 cylinder operation to get things to work at all. After I revamped the controller and timing stuff for sequential fuel and 3 channel discrete ignition I had way better control of the monster 450cc injectors and could even get a decent idle at around 1000 rpm. Also, sequential operation opens up grayed out tuning applets in Tuner Studio like individual cylinder fuel trim and finer injector controls that can be slaved to valve opening or valve closing events.

The turbo3 project was entirely distributorless. The MS controls I put together for twincam use ran a distributor I had Fainya custom build from a g13ba which was super trick. He removed the advance canisters and made a little thumb wheel adjuster that controlled the position of the breaker plate which allowed for fine static timing adjustments down to a gnat's ass.

Anyway, I used the MS2 ver 3 controller kits and had enough extra tuning circuits to do PWM idle control utilizing the factory Hitachi solenoids and a couple of fan controllers for slaving the cooling fan speed and air to water recirc pump speed to hold intake air temp perfectly. There's plenty of utility in the MS2 running the MSextra firmware and at less than half the cost of an MS3 controller.

 

[theincride]

Rich how did you setup that trigger wheel? I noticed there is one tooth missing, does that represent TDC on a certain cylinder?

I have been considering going ALL IN on my GT next summer... It has been relegated to winter duties only the last few years since I picked up an RC-F but would like something better (AWD) for winter duties. I installed a set of Mikes 210/340 cams this year that I've had laying around for a very long time, and still have a set of ITBs still to install, plus have been floating the idea of finally turbo'ing (have all that stuff sitting in the garage too).. Either way the stock ECM is a bit out of it's realm with all that and a MS would be ideal.

 

[Swift12]

I use a LINK extreme. Great support. E throttle on a bosch electronic throttle..trigger wheel set on three tech under drive pulley..36/1.....took all the teeth off in the Dizzy except 1 as a cam sync and made a metal cover for it.

I used a hall effect...it didn't work with this trigger wheel. I ditched it in favour of a reluctor...no issues with any missed signals on dyno....139.6 HP and 101.6 FTLB torque.

Sequential ignition and injection. Throttle blip on down shift.

They sell the Link in the USA too...online support is awesome. great product.

 

[Swift12]

by the way...no requirement to do anything tricky with this setup to get it to work...getting away from the standard dizzy arrangement is great...the trigger wheel means no belt or valve train timing scatter by using the distributor. using the distributor as a sync only does nothing except tell the ecu when you are on the no.1 firing cycle.

my reluctor sits .65mm away from the wheel. The tuner did many runs and did not log one error....you will note the rather overbuilt reluctor mount....this is important!...you don't want any movement at all....Link says most issues noted are due to sensor mounts. (or an incompatible trigger/sensor setup). There is another bolt holding the mount into the oil pump.

our engine was ran to 8600 on the dyno....max power is at 7837 rpm so we shift at 8000...

other important points when mounting your trigger wheel.
1. ours is balanced.
2. concentric
3. sensor 90 degrees away from TDC...(so the pistons are halfway down the bores away from max compression which on a high compression engine can cause a tooth to be missed on cranking with a low battery...so hard starting)
4. cam sync 30 to 45 degrees away from TDC for the same reason.

I can tell you i'm glad I went this route...you can online chat to Link support no matter where you live...they answer all your questions....and boy did I hammer them as this was the first time I have ever done anything like this!) :?

it would truly suck if you had to work it all out yourself...

 

[t3ragtop]

Rich how did you setup that trigger wheel? I noticed there is one tooth missing, does that represent TDC on a certain cylinder?

That's one way of looking at things but closer to practice the missing tooth is just a reference point for the electronics to recognize. The Megasquirt controller setup procedure requires that the missing tooth reference point to be ahead of the fully applied advance by a known number of degrees which gives the brain time to make ignition mapping changes prior to the actual spark event. The count from the crank sensor also sets the injection event timing, the cam angle sensor tells the brain what phase the valve timing is in, or while running sequential injection, what piston is going up and which injector should squirt.

As 12 was illustrating, the timing from reading the missing tooth to the actual event is electronically tied to applied offsets provided from the micro controller. My spark timing advance is fully in at +38 degrees so the missing tooth position is actually statically positioned at +80 degrees BTDC on the #1 cylinder (represented by 8 teeth.)

The physical positioning of the cam angle detector signal can't be set at exactly the zero point of the cam gear, either, so that is set at about 18 cam degrees after the cam zero/ TDC mark. It's all about using the adjustments provided in the tuning application to make injection and ignition events occur at the times you want them to occur.

Also mentioned by 12 was his modification of the lobes on the twincam distributor to turn it into a cam angle detector. I couldn't bring myself to ruining a dohc distributor when I did my twincam Megasquirt project build so I had Fainya tweak up a g13a distributor by removing the advance canisters and using a Vernier wheel to actuate the breaker plate which made it super easy to dial in a static zero degree point, adjustable to a gnat's ass.

The other things mentioned above, while not exactly referenced to a MS build, are valid. You need the trigger wheel to be concentric with the rotation of the crankshaft and the sensor used to read the wheel has to be sturdy enough that it doesn't move from its set point.

There are many different trigger wheel variations, too. Porsche used 60 teeth, the g13bb had different numbers and spacing of teeth on a single wheel. The actual translation of the crank signal is done by digital firmware. There is actually a conversion program that has been written for the MS to translate the points on a twincam distributor. You only need to select it in the tuning applet menu in Tuner Studio and it automatically lets the controller read and translate the signal from a DOHC distributor.

 

[macuserman]

I use a LINK extreme. Great support. E throttle on a bosch electronic throttle..trigger wheel set on three tech under drive pulley..36/1.....took all the teeth off in the Dizzy except 1 as a cam sync and made a metal cover for it.

They sell the Link in the USA too...online support is awesome. great product.

[usermention=165]@Swift12[/usermention] Can you provide more specifics for the Link product you used? I don't see a plugin option on their site, what model did you choose specifically? Did you have to make your own harness/adapter for it?