ME221
04-23-2019, 05:11 PM
#1
Registered User
Thread Starter
ME221
Hi guys
Recently bought an ME221. Had it tuned but I'm disappointed with the result (not the ECU's fault). Awful low load, high idle, no closed loop fuelling. General responsiveness of the engine is poor.
WOT is fine and was clearly where the mapping time was invested but, as this is my daily driver, that isn't all I'm interested in.
I'll be using this thread to document my optimisations and what the results were. I will also be posting the map for you to use as a base map for your car - which will be much better than the one supplied by ME (which is far too lean). Note that this will only work with an ME221 PnP for the UK S2000 (pre-DBW).
I'm awaiting delivery of a PLX wideband which I'm going to feed into the ME221 for AFR targeting and LTFT - then use LTFT to trim the VE table.
Improvements thus far:
Improving idle
Idle was bumpy and too high (990 RPM target). I've lowered this to stock 850 RPM, lowered min PWM duty cycle to 26.5% and utilised the spark scatter table.
Spark scatter is a faster way of controlling target idle versus PWM - spark can change in a few ms whereas PWM changes take a few hundred ms. Use the spark scatter table to maintain and strengthen the idle - retard ignition timing if it goes too high and advance ignition timing if it goes too low. Having fine tuned this, my idle speeds ranges from 830-860 RPM and is rather solid. This is also a good way of compensating electrical load without using the fan and PWM settings - but use a combination of both for the best results.
As a sidenote: the ME221 utilises the primary ignition table around 35/40 kPa for idle ignition timing. Entering minus values in the spark scatter table is a sneaky workaround to run advanced timing under low load but retarded timing (6° or so) when idle. This has worked really well for me.
Hint: use closed loop narrowband 14.7 AFR targeting to get your idle VE value as clean as possible. Once you're in the +/- ~2% mark - let the lambda control do the rest.
Improving startup
This is a combination of a few different settings, but increasing the idle startup PWM to 30% gave the quickest, smoothest starting.
Overrun
Set overrun to engage after 0.5s, add 10% fuel over 0.5s to eliminate stuttering once returning from overrun. If extra fuel is not eliminating stutter, your low load ignition is likely too retarded.
CLT out
This was more about preference. I modified the CLT out values to display normal operating temperatures at the centre of the temp gauge. That's always bugged me - it bugs me no more.
I'll be adding more to this as I can take the screenshots of the map and demonstrate the changes. That's all for now!
Recently bought an ME221. Had it tuned but I'm disappointed with the result (not the ECU's fault). Awful low load, high idle, no closed loop fuelling. General responsiveness of the engine is poor.
WOT is fine and was clearly where the mapping time was invested but, as this is my daily driver, that isn't all I'm interested in.
I'll be using this thread to document my optimisations and what the results were. I will also be posting the map for you to use as a base map for your car - which will be much better than the one supplied by ME (which is far too lean). Note that this will only work with an ME221 PnP for the UK S2000 (pre-DBW).
I'm awaiting delivery of a PLX wideband which I'm going to feed into the ME221 for AFR targeting and LTFT - then use LTFT to trim the VE table.
Improvements thus far:
Improving idle
Idle was bumpy and too high (990 RPM target). I've lowered this to stock 850 RPM, lowered min PWM duty cycle to 26.5% and utilised the spark scatter table.
Spark scatter is a faster way of controlling target idle versus PWM - spark can change in a few ms whereas PWM changes take a few hundred ms. Use the spark scatter table to maintain and strengthen the idle - retard ignition timing if it goes too high and advance ignition timing if it goes too low. Having fine tuned this, my idle speeds ranges from 830-860 RPM and is rather solid. This is also a good way of compensating electrical load without using the fan and PWM settings - but use a combination of both for the best results.
As a sidenote: the ME221 utilises the primary ignition table around 35/40 kPa for idle ignition timing. Entering minus values in the spark scatter table is a sneaky workaround to run advanced timing under low load but retarded timing (6° or so) when idle. This has worked really well for me.
Hint: use closed loop narrowband 14.7 AFR targeting to get your idle VE value as clean as possible. Once you're in the +/- ~2% mark - let the lambda control do the rest.
Improving startup
This is a combination of a few different settings, but increasing the idle startup PWM to 30% gave the quickest, smoothest starting.
Overrun
Set overrun to engage after 0.5s, add 10% fuel over 0.5s to eliminate stuttering once returning from overrun. If extra fuel is not eliminating stutter, your low load ignition is likely too retarded.
CLT out
This was more about preference. I modified the CLT out values to display normal operating temperatures at the centre of the temp gauge. That's always bugged me - it bugs me no more.
I'll be adding more to this as I can take the screenshots of the map and demonstrate the changes. That's all for now!
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SpyderGS (04-24-2019)
04-25-2019, 03:35 PM
#3
Registered User
Thread Starter
It's manufactured by a company called Motorsport Electronics. They're quite popular with the MX-5 (Miata) in the UK. I think my car has been one of the few S2000s that has been setup on this ECU PnP. For the cost of an AEM EMS in comparison, I'm unsure why anyone would pick the AEM over the ME221. You can buy an ME221 and mapping for less than the cost of an EMS on its own!
The ECU itself is great - as you said it fits in the OEM case and it's impossible to tell the car is running a standalone ECU excluding the RS232 serial cable that's hidden behind the trim then under my nearside carpet.
I'm ready to edit the post with screenshots and a link to the map but I can't edit my post... that sucks. I'll just add in the extra bits here - could a mod merge them into the post/give me edit permissions for the post?
Overrun settings
Acceleration enrichment
Original ignition table
New ignition table
Idle settings
The overrun fuel add duration needs a little more fine tuning - I think the duration needs to be even shorter than 100ms but this is working a tonne better than when the car was first mapped; progress is progress.
Ignition table was built by me on the road with det cans for low load. The top end of the rev range was done by a mapper on a dyno. It seems a little too advanced from my understanding but trust in the professional as they say. It would be good to get the car on a dyno after the wideband LTFT and dial in the low load ignition to MBT but I've spent enough money at this point, in my opinion.
I really need to trim the VE tables as I'm currently throwing loads of fuel away. I was getting 190 miles per tank on the original map; now around 240 with the ignition changes. My goal is that the wideband and LTFT will get me back to/better than stock mileage per fill-up (270-280). The wideband will be reverted back to the stock narrowband after sufficient trimming has been done. I'm planning to do 1000-2000 miles to generate the trims over.
Yesterday, I spent a little more time on the idle spark scatter table and now have the car idling between 845-857 RPM. That's about as rock solid as it's going to get. The idle also doesn't bog when electrical load is placed on the car - I added headlights, blower and AC at the same time and it churned along happily.
As a side note: my car is bone stock minus the 2.5" exhaust and decat. I might add ITBs at a later stage but this may never come to fruition. I'll see how the car is on the track this summer.
The ECU itself is great - as you said it fits in the OEM case and it's impossible to tell the car is running a standalone ECU excluding the RS232 serial cable that's hidden behind the trim then under my nearside carpet.
I'm ready to edit the post with screenshots and a link to the map but I can't edit my post... that sucks. I'll just add in the extra bits here - could a mod merge them into the post/give me edit permissions for the post?
Overrun settings
Acceleration enrichment
Original ignition table
New ignition table
Idle settings
The overrun fuel add duration needs a little more fine tuning - I think the duration needs to be even shorter than 100ms but this is working a tonne better than when the car was first mapped; progress is progress.
Ignition table was built by me on the road with det cans for low load. The top end of the rev range was done by a mapper on a dyno. It seems a little too advanced from my understanding but trust in the professional as they say. It would be good to get the car on a dyno after the wideband LTFT and dial in the low load ignition to MBT but I've spent enough money at this point, in my opinion.
I really need to trim the VE tables as I'm currently throwing loads of fuel away. I was getting 190 miles per tank on the original map; now around 240 with the ignition changes. My goal is that the wideband and LTFT will get me back to/better than stock mileage per fill-up (270-280). The wideband will be reverted back to the stock narrowband after sufficient trimming has been done. I'm planning to do 1000-2000 miles to generate the trims over.
Yesterday, I spent a little more time on the idle spark scatter table and now have the car idling between 845-857 RPM. That's about as rock solid as it's going to get. The idle also doesn't bog when electrical load is placed on the car - I added headlights, blower and AC at the same time and it churned along happily.
As a side note: my car is bone stock minus the 2.5" exhaust and decat. I might add ITBs at a later stage but this may never come to fruition. I'll see how the car is on the track this summer.
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SpyderGS (04-26-2019)
05-03-2019, 02:17 PM
#4
Registered User
Thread Starter
I've been working at the map a little more, fine tuning compensating for electrical load. I also abandoned the fixed IAT trims and have moved to IAT being included in the VE calculations. This has resulted in me having to redo the VE tables after an increase across the board by ~9%.
The plan for this weekend is to wire in the wideband controller, and get the Bosch sensor in place of the narrowband sensor. Then I can start trimming. You can buy a separate plug and pins from Mouser Electronics that plug directly into the spare port on the ECU. ME have configured a spare analogue input, 12V supply and signal ground (amongst others) on those spare pins. I'm going to connect the wideband directly to these spare pins - no hacking up the factory harness. Just a case of configuring the spare analogue input as the oxygen sensor and disabling the factory pin; really easy to do this in the software.
More to come as I make progress... I'll post the map once I feel that it's nailed.
The plan for this weekend is to wire in the wideband controller, and get the Bosch sensor in place of the narrowband sensor. Then I can start trimming. You can buy a separate plug and pins from Mouser Electronics that plug directly into the spare port on the ECU. ME have configured a spare analogue input, 12V supply and signal ground (amongst others) on those spare pins. I'm going to connect the wideband directly to these spare pins - no hacking up the factory harness. Just a case of configuring the spare analogue input as the oxygen sensor and disabling the factory pin; really easy to do this in the software.
More to come as I make progress... I'll post the map once I feel that it's nailed.
05-05-2019, 04:18 AM
#5
Registered User
Thread Starter
PLX wideband install is done. I ran the 12V switched ignition from the spare spade connectors to the PLX wideband controller. Obtained ground from the ECU and output the analogue from the wideband controller there.
Ran cable from the relay/fuse box under the steering wheel and behind the radio:
Ran that to an inline fuse, then crimped it onto the supplied power lead with the PLX:
Ground from the ECU to the PLX power lead:
Wideband output to the ECU connector that I made:
The wiring was pretty easy. D10 (ground) and D14 (analogue) on the "D" connector for the ECU to get the ground and spare analogue input. 12V from the spade connectors and you're done.
Getting the narrowband oxygen sensor out proved quite difficult - it must have been the original and it was really caked in there... I had to use a breaker bar on an offset socket with quite a lot of force to remove it. I then ran the Bosch wideband cable alongside the harness for the narrowband, pierced through the grommet for the ECU harness and put the wideband cable through there. I zip tied a small plastic bag over the original narrowband harness to keep it free of dirt for when I revert back to it.
Let the trimming commence...
Ran cable from the relay/fuse box under the steering wheel and behind the radio:
Ran that to an inline fuse, then crimped it onto the supplied power lead with the PLX:
Ground from the ECU to the PLX power lead:
Wideband output to the ECU connector that I made:
The wiring was pretty easy. D10 (ground) and D14 (analogue) on the "D" connector for the ECU to get the ground and spare analogue input. 12V from the spade connectors and you're done.
Getting the narrowband oxygen sensor out proved quite difficult - it must have been the original and it was really caked in there... I had to use a breaker bar on an offset socket with quite a lot of force to remove it. I then ran the Bosch wideband cable alongside the harness for the narrowband, pierced through the grommet for the ECU harness and put the wideband cable through there. I zip tied a small plastic bag over the original narrowband harness to keep it free of dirt for when I revert back to it.
Let the trimming commence...
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SpyderGS (05-20-2019)
05-06-2019, 04:50 PM
#6
Registered User
Thread Starter
Today has been quite the learning experience!
I've learnt that acceleration enrichment and overrun fuel add are not required when your VE tables are much more accurate (thanks to the LTFT). You need to run with AE disabled for LTFT to work correctly, but it's really opened my eyes to how important the VE tables being accurate are; one can obtain a whole new level of smoothness. I have avoided stomping the throttle due to the lack of AE but I have tested a few stomps and, whilst not perfect, it worked better than the original map with AE configured.
Another note: make sure the "max MAP" setting is below 90/100 kPa. LTFT was trimming my WOT cells the first time but I noticed this quickly and remedied it.
More idle improvements have been made - specifically for compensating the fan coming on (idle no longer dips) and fine tuning the after start enrichment and startup idle PWM adder. The results are that startup now goes to ~1800 RPM and cascades down to 850 cleanly. I've spent a fair bit of effort attempting to idle at 14.7 AFR but the engine just won't do it comfortably. It needs to sit around 13.8-14 to idle smoothly. Oh well.
Not sure if I've saved any fuel yet as idle tuning really messes with my MPG figures. I'll know soon enough - likely a few weeks of trimming to go.
I've learnt that acceleration enrichment and overrun fuel add are not required when your VE tables are much more accurate (thanks to the LTFT). You need to run with AE disabled for LTFT to work correctly, but it's really opened my eyes to how important the VE tables being accurate are; one can obtain a whole new level of smoothness. I have avoided stomping the throttle due to the lack of AE but I have tested a few stomps and, whilst not perfect, it worked better than the original map with AE configured.
Another note: make sure the "max MAP" setting is below 90/100 kPa. LTFT was trimming my WOT cells the first time but I noticed this quickly and remedied it.
More idle improvements have been made - specifically for compensating the fan coming on (idle no longer dips) and fine tuning the after start enrichment and startup idle PWM adder. The results are that startup now goes to ~1800 RPM and cascades down to 850 cleanly. I've spent a fair bit of effort attempting to idle at 14.7 AFR but the engine just won't do it comfortably. It needs to sit around 13.8-14 to idle smoothly. Oh well.
Not sure if I've saved any fuel yet as idle tuning really messes with my MPG figures. I'll know soon enough - likely a few weeks of trimming to go.
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SpyderGS (05-20-2019)
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05-29-2019, 02:04 PM
#8
Registered User
Thread Starter
The map is nearing finality. I have got some LTFTs hitting 3% now. I think a little more trimming and it will be there.
I haven't been able to make any further optimisations with cold start or idle. I have tried a plethora of configuration options but can't improve on where it is currently.
In other news, we have also had a mix of warm and cold weather (as cold as 5C but as warm as 23C) and the map has performed flawlessly.
I haven't been able to make any further optimisations with cold start or idle. I have tried a plethora of configuration options but can't improve on where it is currently.
In other news, we have also had a mix of warm and cold weather (as cold as 5C but as warm as 23C) and the map has performed flawlessly.
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SpyderGS (05-30-2019)
06-13-2019, 09:13 AM
#9
The map is nearing finality. I have got some LTFTs hitting 3% now. I think a little more trimming and it will be there.
I haven't been able to make any further optimisations with cold start or idle. I have tried a plethora of configuration options but can't improve on where it is currently.
In other news, we have also had a mix of warm and cold weather (as cold as 5C but as warm as 23C) and the map has performed flawlessly.
I haven't been able to make any further optimisations with cold start or idle. I have tried a plethora of configuration options but can't improve on where it is currently.
In other news, we have also had a mix of warm and cold weather (as cold as 5C but as warm as 23C) and the map has performed flawlessly.
A few questions:
1) What are you using for knock sensor. I was under the impression you're forced to use non-resonant, wideband bosch style knock sensor instead of Honda's OEM resonant type.
2) Is there data logging feature with this ECU?
Observation:
- You went from 5-7 spark/ignition around idle which resembled OEM to 20+ degrees and a 6 degree jump between 500 and 100RPM. Yes it interpolates between two cells... but maybe it's too drastic of a jump? Look @ the fuel map too.
- This is usually done with fuel maps as ignition is not as touchy and you don't have to get as granular with it... but just in an effort to see if it'll smooth out your idle @ stoich, why not add 850rpm and maybe even a 1250rpm column to fuel and spark tables. This way you'll manipulate the exact idle area and initial clutch out, take off areas. Then go back to 5-10 degrees OEM like spark and make the spark & fuel transition between 500-850-1250 more smooth?
- You mentioned ITBs... you'll have to re-tune using AlphaN so TPSvsRPM instead of MAPvsRPM
- Is your fuel map also in 1000 increments? Getting wild with resolution isn't necessary especially with ignition, however, with fuel it might be good to do every 500RPM intervals and be smooth.
06-13-2019, 09:49 AM
#10
Registered User
Thread Starter
OEM knock sensor works fine. I have knock setup but not fully tested it yet.
Data logging is also good - CSV export is all I've used so far.
I've changed the ignition table since the post and will post it with the final map. However, I'm not following your observation? I don't have any issues with idle or idle exit - it's as good as OEM. I just wanted to try and make it even better but have been unsuccessful in doing so.
Drivability is arguably beyond OEM at this point. If I wanted to add more RPMs around 1000 RPM, I would need to sacrifice points somewhere else as the 16x16 table is as big a resolution is allowed.
Data logging is also good - CSV export is all I've used so far.
I've changed the ignition table since the post and will post it with the final map. However, I'm not following your observation? I don't have any issues with idle or idle exit - it's as good as OEM. I just wanted to try and make it even better but have been unsuccessful in doing so.
Drivability is arguably beyond OEM at this point. If I wanted to add more RPMs around 1000 RPM, I would need to sacrifice points somewhere else as the 16x16 table is as big a resolution is allowed.