99 Honda VFR800, PnP ECU NOW turbo EVENTUALLY

[coolantbongrips]

Hello!
My personal website logging this build can be found here: https://vfrenjoyer.neocities.org

My goals with this build are to A: Make my bike faster and B: Come up with a reliable turbo setup other people can easily copy while minimizing the time spent with an unridable bike or chasing electrical/tune issues.

I have a 1999 VFR800 and while looking for ways to make it faster that don't involve spending lots of money on a centrifugal supercharger I found an old video of someone who fit a turbo on one. My first steps have been to work out engine management for which I'm currently in the process of setting up a MicrorusEFI 4.8 to plug into the stock ECU harness via a breakout board.

Here's a beautiful block diagram of what I'm attempting:


This setup is a few days away from starting since during a night of partying hard I somehow sent > 7A of current through the ECU's processor and in the process also killed the TLE8888's VR signal conditioners and I'm waiting for digikey to deliver a replacement. Once I have it reliably running on the microrusEFI my plan is to completely throw away all the hard work I've put into the MRE setup in favor of a much less (installation) labor intensive solution.

RusEFI Hellen Based Plug and Play ECU for the 5th Generation VFR800

What started as a project to make a breakout board that would let someone use prefabricated molex harnesses to connect to a uaEFI turned into this, which is a a Hellen based ECU that should fit in the stock ECU location and only require the addition of two WBO sensors to install. I'll order the first boards for this once I'm certain the pinout is correct and have the microrusEFI setup sorted out. I'm hoping to start work on the actual turbo install sometime in the early summer, and even without a turbo my bike should make a bit more power once tuned for 93 octane

Things I should have put in the OP but forgot to:
The MRE setup only has the cam sensor connected since there's only one VR input

[AndreyB]

Anything SVX Dron would approve

[coolantbongrips]

Funny you say that, I have a dead SVX sitting in a storage unit and just made a proteus to 96-97 OBD2 era SVX wiring table for a fellow SVX owner today.

The igniter off a SVX (22438AA050) can be added to the list of working ignition parts, and I have to imagine similar nissan versions for VG30s called "Power Transistor Modules" would also work for six cylinder sequential ignition.

[AndreyB]

See https://rusefi.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1470 https://rusefi.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2031

[coolantbongrips]

I'm trying to set up trigger offset but don't get any spark when cranking. I've confirmed triggering the spark plugs via the bench test menu works so I assume I have the trigger set up wrong
Tune: https://www.rusefi.com/online/view.php?msq=1601
Logs: https://www.rusefi.com/online/view.php?log=1340

[AndreyB]

Not critical but trigger investigation is one area where https://github.com/rusefi/rusefi/wiki/HOWTO-upload-log#data-rate is especially important - wiki has relevant screenshot now.

[AndreyB]

Let's see... https://github.com/rusefi/rusefi/wiki/All-Supported-Triggers#honda-cbr600 at the moment expects special tooth gap from 5 to 9.

In your log interesting gap ratio seems to be around 4.2

image.png (100.6 KiB) Viewed 23537 times

Let's try gap override like this:

image.png (37.13 KiB) Viewed 23537 times

[AndreyB]

I am not sure if anyone ever has used this trigger worst case we are going to be fixing it now

Q1: does https://github.com/rusefi/rusefi/wiki/All-Supported-Triggers#honda-cbr600 look right-ish? Which of the two wheels is located where? Can you please post some photos of those wheels even if from the internet?

[coolantbongrips]

The cam sensor looks right.

The crank reluctor is missing two teeth. The right side of this wiring diagram has drawings of the crank and cam wheels and I've attached a service manual page showing what the crank and cam sensors look like



Here's a new log with the gap override set as shown in the attachment
https://www.rusefi.com/online/view.php?log=1342

[coolantbongrips]

https://rusefi.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1030
The "CBR600" trigger appears to be based on a modified CBR600f4i crank trigger with two teeth removed, which I assume is totally unrelated to this since I don't have the crank sensor connected.
According to a wiring diagram I found the stock trigger is the same

CBR600 wiring diagram showing the same trigger as a 99 VFR800

f4itrigger.PNG (151.76 KiB) Viewed 23528 times

[AndreyB]

since I don't have the crank sensor connected.

please elaborate. Do you plan to have crank sensor connected eventually?

[coolantbongrips]

since I don't have the crank sensor connected.

please elaborate. Do you plan to have crank sensor connected eventually?

Not with the microrusEFI as it only has a single VR sensor input. I'm very sorry, I thought I mentioned this only had the cam sensor connected but I forgot to!

[AndreyB]

The "CBR600" trigger appears to be based on a modified CBR600f4i crank trigger with two teeth removed

https://github.com/rusefi/rusefi/commit/761d431df8f82def099f9ab447d6c3c9b56079a4

please give it 20 minutes to build new firmware and update to latest snapshot from https://rusefi.com/build_server/

[coolantbongrips]

Updated the firmware and now I see spark while cranking!

[coolantbongrips]

I've spent the past few days working out kinks unrelated to the tune and trying to get my bike started with no luck. I'm very stupid and somehow forgot the VFR has a funky firing order which is usually one of the first things every VFR owner mentions when evangelizing how great the VFR is.

VFR firing order

vfrfiringorder.PNG (9.33 KiB) Viewed 23078 times

VFR FSM cranking injector pulses

vfr injector pulses.png (119.11 KiB) Viewed 23078 times

I can't work on this until later tonight, but would setting odd fire to "true" and the cylinder offsets to 180, 270, 360, 450 be the correct settings for this engine?

what I assume the cylinder offsets should look like

potential cylinder offsets untested.PNG (34.33 KiB) Viewed 23078 times

[AndreyB]

No.

We define offsets as _offsets_ from even firing, not as firing angles see for instance odd fire tune at https://rusefi.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2693

Also there is currently a defect https://github.com/rusefi/rusefi/issues/5894 which might be blocking you. I guess simplest work-around would be for me to disable that logic for now.

[coolantbongrips]

The cam sensor looks right.

The crank reluctor is missing two teeth. The right side of this wiring diagram has drawings of the crank and cam wheels and I've attached a service manual page showing what the crank and cam sensors look like



Here's a new log with the gap override set as shown in the attachment
https://www.rusefi.com/online/view.php?log=1342

Still not working with the cylinder offset set to -90, although I haven't updated my microrusEFI as there isn't a firmware snapshot yet. Should I still have the gap overrides in this post enabled?

[AndreyB]

as there isn't a firmware snapshot yet

Something is wrong here. Please provide much more details on what you expect and what you believe is actually happening.

[coolantbongrips]

Ignore that, I was very confused. My problem is I'm having trouble setting trigger offset. I can fiddle with offset so my timing light has the marks lining up correctly when cranking, but small changes in offset of 5-10 degrees seem to correspond to large changes in actual ignition timing and vice versa where changing the offset by large values appears to make no difference. I uploaded two logs to rusEFI online, one where the ECU stimulator is set to 100RPM and a trigger offset of -180 results in a log that has ignition events at the correct timings, and one with actual cranking attempts where the ignition events and the trigger seem totally incorrect. The only things on the tune that changed between these logs are the trigger offsets. The trigger waveform in the logs looks pretty bad, could that be the source of my problems?
Logs: https://www.rusefi.com/online/view.php?log=1344 Stimulator set to 100 RPM, -180 degree offset
https://www.rusefi.com/online/view.php?log=1345 Actual cranking attempt, 60 degree offset

[AndreyB]

Stimulator?! You've lost me there. I can think about only one thing at a time.

Please forget about coils.

Please remove spark plugs. Please note what data points my screen shot is focusing on. Please focus on trigger decoding.

Please note inconsistent and unexpected trigger sync ratio sequence - I fail to see a consistent pattern.

Please note inconsistent and unexpected trigger channel 1 shape.

I believe that something outside of the microcontroller is pretty not right. If you do not trust rusEFI logs please hook up a $9 logic analyzer to the crank test pad and confirm consistent repetitive signal.

Please forget about coils until you stop seeing trigger error counter going up.

image.png (131.13 KiB) Viewed 22989 times

[coolantbongrips]

TL;DR: One of the pulses from the camshaft sensor is half of the amplitude of the other two, feeding the MRE a fake cam sensor signal with all the pulses close to the same amplitude does not produce the problem I'm seeing. Maybe the amplitude difference is tripping up the TLE8888 somehow?

Context: This is a used microrusEFI harvested from an old PNP board and there's some silkscreen damage and the thru hole for VR+ pin 45 has a fly wire connected to the CRNK+ pad of R17 to fix this. This particular ECU has been through lots of abuse including shorting something through the STM32 and killing it, but both the STM32 and the TLE8888 have been replaced since then. The case is also lined with kapton at the moment to rule out the board shorting to it.

Behavior while cranking:
Today I redid the fly wire under a microscope and I don't believe that or the wiring going from the microrusEFI to the bike are the source of the problem. I logged the output of the CRANK pad of the TLE8888 while cranking and this is the result:

output of CRANK pad while cranking, this is what the MCU sees

CRANK pin output when actually cranking.png (36.24 KiB) Viewed 22755 times

I also probed the output of the camshaft sensor at both the stock ECU headers of the bike and at the board side of the microrusEFI's connector and got these two waveforms. Notice one of the pulses is only around half the amplitude of the two closely spaced pulses. I think this may somehow be tripping up the TLE8888, and as far as I can tell this isn't due to any of the wiring or any problem with the microrusEFI.
Probes at the microrusEFI:

Camshaft sensor output measured between vr+ and vr- pins on the board side of the microrusEFI's connector

VR+-pins zoomed.png (23.89 KiB) Viewed 22755 times

Probes at the stock ECU headers before the adapter harness:

Camshaft sensor output measured at the connectors for the stock ECU

Cranking VR sensor measured directly at STOCK ECU headers zoomed.png (40.22 KiB) Viewed 22755 times

Behavior with a simulated camshaft sensor:
Earlier today after inspecting the board and redoing the fly wire I connected the MRE to a power supply and a function generator and fed it a poorly drawn approximation of the camshaft sensor output, which resulted in a good waveform on the CRANK pad unlike what I'm seeing when actually cranking the bike. When I logged this with tunerstudio the trigger error wasn't incrementing over a 10 second datalog, and the triggerchannel1 waveform looked good.

Badly drawn approximation of cam trigger:

Fake cam sensor output sent to the microrusEFI

simulated cam sensor output.PNG (30.48 KiB) Viewed 22755 times

CRANK pad measurement with above waveform as an input, Much nicer than when cranking on real hardware:

TLE8888 CRANK output when simulated cam sensor waveform is connected to VR+ pin 45, as far as I can tell this confirms everything on the microrusEFI side is functional.

CRANK pin output with simulated VR sensor input.png (34.15 KiB) Viewed 22755 times

Trigger events in tunerstudio with fake cam signal:

Tunerstudio showing a much nicer looking trigger waveform

tunerstudio log with fake camshaft sensor input.PNG (60.16 KiB) Viewed 22749 times

Misc info:
The crank and camshaft sensors have a common - pin, but disconnecting the crankshaft sensor leaves the camshaft sensor waveform completely unchanged and I doubt that's the problem.


All of this makes me suspect the issue isn't hardware damage that makes it impossible for the microrusEFI to reliably process the camshaft input and is somehow related to the pulses coming from the camshaft sensor having two different amplitudes. Tomorrow I'll read the TLE8888's datasheet and see if that has any relevant wisdom.

[AndreyB]

TLE8888's datasheet

Technically we have 'mode' which I believe no one has used ever?

image.png (21.76 KiB) Viewed 22749 times

[coolantbongrips]

TLE8888's datasheet

Technically we have 'mode' which I believe no one has used ever?

image.png

Section 10 of the datasheet explains more about this and I think the highlighted part may be the culprit
https://www.infineon.com/dgdl/Infineon-Infineon-TLE8888QK-DS-v01_02-EN.pdf?fileId=5546d4624f205c9a014f402ebd1c6095

datasheet1.PNG (158.67 KiB) Viewed 22738 times

Looks like manual mode disables any internal algorithms and lets you set all the parameters manually over SPI

datasheet2.PNG (52.66 KiB) Viewed 22738 times

Semi auto mode is described as "The algorithm of the semi auto mode is based on less number
of measurement information as the auto detection mode. This leads to a simpler implementation of the
detection algorithm," which is vague enough that I'll enable it tomorrow and see if it makes a difference.

Now I'm wondering if setting the peak level to the lower of the two amplitudes in manual mode would get around this

[coolantbongrips]

I tried cranking it with the mode set to semi auto with no difference.

CRANK pad signal when cranking with TLE set to semi auto

CRANK pad TLE semiauto.png (21.35 KiB) Viewed 22707 times

The good news is I'm able to replicate the issue with the MRE off the bike and hooked up to a function generator and power supply!

Signal applied to VR+ pin:

New fake cam sensor signal

Fake cam sensor signal 2.png (31.65 KiB) Viewed 22707 times

CRANK pad signal with the above signal applied to VR+ pin, TLE is in Auto mode but semiauto mode makes no difference

CRANK pad, TLE auto mode, fake cam sensor signal with pulse amplitude difference

CRANK pad with fake cam sensor signal 2.png (41.36 KiB) Viewed 22707 times

It looks like the TLE's auto mode is getting thrown off by the lower voltage pulse, so manually setting the parameters could potentially fix this.

[AndreyB]

I doubt that TLE8888 driver has manual fully supported and I doubt that we should keep investing in TLE8888. Please consider uaEFI which gives you both MAX9924 and discrete VR with bias control.

[coolantbongrips]

I doubt that TLE8888 driver has manual fully supported and I doubt that we should keep investing in TLE8888. Please consider uaEFI which gives you both MAX9924 and discrete VR with bias control.

Thankfully my PnP design is based on uaefi. My solution for now is going to be a VR sensor conditioner flywired to my breakout board and using hall effect mode on the TLE.

[coolantbongrips]

I doubt that TLE8888 driver has manual fully supported and I doubt that we should keep investing in TLE8888. Please consider uaEFI which gives you both MAX9924 and discrete VR with bias control.

Thankfully my PnP design is based on uaefi. My solution for now is going to be a VR sensor conditioner flywired to my breakout board and using hall effect mode on the TLE.

Adding a VR sensor conditioner fixed the problem, Video and logs will come once everything is charged back up and I have idle dialed in

[coolantbongrips]

The first batch of ECUs came! I'm still waiting for some parts to arrive and need to flash firmware onto these so no videos yet

[AndreyB]

NICE!

I see dual WBO, do not see SWD exposed - did you get some https://github.com/rusefi/rusefi/wiki/Tag-Connect-TC2030 to program WBOs?

[AndreyB]

PS: wanna post on the FB group and share your hellen experience while making this hellenVFR?