I did some tuning on the knock sensor calibration in AEM. I figure I would share the info. But, I wouldn't use this knock calibration for your car as it will really depend on the base noise in your engine, supercharger/turbo (and boost/pulley), VTEC engagement, etc.

Here's the details on my car:
Vortech S/C w/9 PSI Pulley (4.5")
Toda Header
Proflow Throttle Body
685cc Injectors
Vortech FMU removed
5,500 VTEC Engagement

I ran this in the following environment:
AEM 1.03i
100 Octane
3 degrees timing pulled above 0 PSI
Internal Datalogging at 250 samples/second (although I seemed to have gotten better resolution than that...)

With this, there should be no possibility of knock, and it should all be engine noise. I did 6 datalogs which is about 19 minutes worth of time and had about 400,000 data points. Here's the resultant scatter plot showing the AEM filter and my new filter. (Ignore the mixup of the Y and X axis labels... )



First, the engine definately gets noisy in the 5,500 range when my VTEC engagement occurs. In fact, I wish AEM allowed to move the RPM breakpoints to give a tight increase around that, but it doesn't... I may drop the filter a little lower in the 7200+ range as it seems consistent and very predictable. I'm also debating whether to drop the 4800 and 5600 value, and let it once in a while trigger a knock condition.

I thought it was quite interesting that the AEM knock filter was extremely conservative. I now see why knock was being triggered so often.

 

Thanks for sharing. Are you using a stock knock sensor? Is the Output voltage in millivolts?

 

That's the stock sensor. The output is on a 5 volt scale.

 

I ran mine on 91 octane and took readings then ran it on 100 octane and took readings. No change in noise was noted with detailed analysis so we felt the registered noise was not knock related. We then backed the timing up a few degrees to be extra careful and thats where it's at now.

 

Yah, I think when I'm done tuning (if that's even possible...) I'll probably pull a few runs like this again to make sure that the knock is having the same characteristics on 91 with normal timing.

 

thanks for sharing gary

I put my vote for a sticky thread on AEM tuning. What do you guys think? Gary I vote for you as the first person to host that thread ;

 

Hehe, well, I'm just learning, and there may be more qualified persons. I've been trying to share the experience with others. I'll keep posting the info.

Once I get a more stable I plan on making my calibration available too. But I still don't have the accel tables working to my satisfaction.

 

I am picking up my AEM today
Lots of learning and reading this weekend

Gotta go and pay for the GST and import fee soon
Damn OZ government....tax on everything!!!

 

I think AEM does allow the movement of RPM breakpoints, but it may be the case that you have to pick one set for all parameters. I'm pretty sure that Sean did this for my setup when we tuned high and low cam (using the nitrous maps to provide great tunability at high cam).

In any case, I'd strongly recommend if you're trying to do this yourself that you spend a bit of money to hire Sean -- sean@torquefreaks.com -- to at least serve as a tuning consultant for you. You may have more developed skills than I, but when Giles and I started to tune our EMS's ourselves, we quickly found ourselves in deeper water than we could handle. Hiring Sean was the best thing I've done since I bought the car, and (having seen him in action) I'd never even consider trying to do my own tuning with the EMS. Too many ways to muck things up and experience counts for a lot.

CB

_________________
C. Bender
2001 Silver/Black
AEM EMS, Fuel Pressure Regulator, and Wideband O2 Sensor; RC Engineering 550 Injectors; Turbonetics TO4B 60:1 Ball Bearing Turbo; Tial 46mm Wastegate and 50mm Blowoff Valve; GReddy EGT and Boost Warning Gauges; Auto Meter Oil Temperature Sensor; Holly 250 Forced Induction Fuel Pump; CM 6" Remote Canister Oil Filter with Stainless Steel Lines; C&R Custom Radiator with Integrated Oil Cooler; Mugen Radiator Cap, Thermostat, and Fan Switch; Speedcraft Front Mounted Intercooler, Mandrel Bent Tubing, 3" Down Pipe, and 3" Stainless Exhaust; A'PEXi N1 Mufflers; Clutchmaster Stage 3 Clutch; Toda Lightweight Flywheel; Upgraded Oil Bolts; Elda Engineering Rollbar; Recaro SPG Competition Seat; Sparco 3" Six Point Harness; Spoon X-Brace; HeCash Brake Ducting; Competch Stainless Steel Brake Lines; WorkMeister S2R 18" Wheels; Lucid's Front and Rear Speakers; 2002 Stereo Head Unit; Rick's Front Badge; JDM Clear Side Markers and Shaved Badges; Muz Shift Knob; Uber Cool Nurburgring Decal

 

Unfortunately, the RPM breakpoints can be moved for the timing and fuel maps, but they can't be moved for the knock sensor cal... Would have been nice if it did. Although, I would want it independent of the timing and fuel maps.

I do recommend that even using Sean you get familiar with the EMS. There's still a lot of things that need to be adjusted as things settle. At the minimum make sure you can pull internal logs and such to send to him.