Hello from California

[Zandr]

Greetings from sunny (at the moment) Berkeley, CA. I'm jumping in with both feet, having just ordered a kit.
This will run either my Locost (Miata 1.6 with ITBs) or a Lemons car to be named later.

Any wisdom on making ITBs run would be appreciated. The car is currently running with a very old Link, so shouldn't have too much wiring in my future.

-Zandr

[AndreyB]

Pictures or it didn't happen?

Welcome to the forum

[kb1gtt]

Hello and welcome to the forum. Have you found the wiki? Just in case you have not, here's a link that might be of interest.
https://rusefi.com/wiki/index.php?title=Manual:Hardware_Frankenso_board#Overview

About ITB's, I once made a circuit board which would combine multiple MAP signals into one MAP signal which was then passed to the ECU. It basically passes the lowest map signal to the ECU. Here's a linkk to the board.
https://github.com/jharvey/MultiMAP

[Zandr]

Somehow I don't have a good pic of the motor/ITB setup on the Locost, but it's this car: http://cheapsportscar.net
Here's a photo from when Keith was building it: I've started to dive into the Wiki, and have already found references to MultiMap. I'm not sure I understand the advantage of that over a single cylinder yet, but I'm just dipping my toes into EFI and tuning now, so I have a lot to learn.

To that end, any recommendations on what I should go read to get some basic knowledge about these systems. I know what most of the terms mean at this point, but am lacking the basic theory, I think.

Thanks for the warm welcome!

[kb1gtt]

Unfortunately we lack on documentation. Some day we need to make some videos or get around to making our wiki better. Once you have some core concepts the software becomes fairly intuitive. Much of it is done with tunner studio. There is also the console which is a program that is kind of similar to TS. The console used to be called the dev console as it was only for things that were not normally done in TS. Now there is some over lap in features.

[Zandr]

Actually, I was thinking of references on EFI tuning in general, not RusEFI docs specifically.

I'm a noob to the software side of making engines turn.

[kb1gtt]

Oh, software to make the engine turn is easier than you might think. You install the software on you PC, then grind up the PC with a meet grinder, or belt sander, then you funnel it down your gas hatch and off you go.

Part of the issue with our documentation is that everyone does it differently. Some people run the OEM engine, and move one cyl, incrementally to rusEFI, such that the OEM makes it all run, and you can tune the one cyl until it works close to the original. Others cannot do this, and have to go cold turkey. Some are using OEM stuff, others have custom parts that have only been assembled by them. So there are many many approaches, and not any one specif approach is right or wrong.

There are some notes about the general process or key steps listed below.
https://rusefi.com/wiki/index.php?title=Manual:Software:User/en#Open_the_box_and_start_here

An overview could be something like this. Once you have PC software installed and Discovery board powered up with everything wired.
-- Set you engine type via the "Console". See this link https://rusefi.com/wiki/index.php?title=Manual:Engine_Type
-- Calibrate your sensors for things like TPS min and max, as well as temperature curves for temp sensors, etc
-- Calibrate your injectors, perhaps squirt into a graduated cylinder, or perhaps you are close enough to an OEM that you can just start with a guess and tune it later.
-- Crank over and get RPM's reading on the "Console"
-- Crank over adjusting and offset in the "Console" until you find TDC with a timing light.
-- If you can run spark or fuel on the OEM, or if you can migrate one cyl at a time, try that and see if you can work in parallel with the functional system. Use TS to program load vs RPM tables, spark tables, advance, dwell, all those kinds of engine parameters are typically done in TS.
-- Once you can get it to run and idle, tune for higher RPM, cold starting, etc. This is again generally done in TS.
-- If you have alternator control, you can tune that in TS to produce the voltages you desire.

I've probably got a bunch of errors in the above, but I think that's a fairly basic list of steps. Each step should really have a video to show how it's done.

My daughter really wants me to use this emoji. So you have been Mr.Green'ed.