1990 300zx - Hello Everyone

[zimmer87]

Hello everyone,
My name is Zimmer and I live in NorthCentral Arkansas. Right off the bat I have to say that from my understanding this project is exactly what I was looking for. All I wanted was a highly configurable and customizable ECU that wouldn't cost me an arm and a leg. I would consider myself to be quite skilled in engine mechanics and have little experience in software development. There are a lot of things that I could easily just get someone else to do but I enjoy doing it myself no matter how daunting the task. So anyways on to the project, I want to put this system in my 1990 300zx twin turbo. This car is far from stock I am currently in the process of rebuilding the engine when finished I am shooting for the neighborhood of 550-600hp. Heres a short list of mods and/or stock systems that I think might interfere with the rusEFI.

Although stock the car has a variable timing system
EGR delete
AIV delete
Cat delete
555cc phase 2 injectors
t28 turbos
replaced recirc valves with blow off valves
manual boost controller may convert to electronic if I can get this ECU to work for me.

This is a list of what I hope to accomplish with a fully custom ECU.

Real time system interfacing through touch screen double din head unit.
Wifi/bluetooth/gsm/gps capabilities
Android phone as full remote including security control, remote start, keyless entry, user proximity awareness.
Multiple driver profiles
Multiple preset maps for differing environmental conditions (ie. air density, humidity, temperature...)
Extra I/O ports for additional sensors
Automatically update data logs to local server
This list could go on for days, so I will leave it at this for now.

Yes I fully understand that what I am looking to accomplish here is an astronomical project, and I am not attempting to accomplish all of this anytime soon or even in this decade for that matter. Also I dont have the expectations of someone else doing everything for me, I would really like to be involved with this project and do what I can to advance it. All I'm looking for are guidance, ideas, critisizm, and answers.
What I am looking to find out rather quickly is, am I on the right track here, are my expectations feasible or have I seen to many sci-fi movies.
And how soon can I get my hands on one of these systems, As fate would have it while reading the wiki here I had my stock ecu sitting next to me on the floor where I procedded to step on it while standing up and broke the daughter board in it leaving me with a case and connector.
I noticed that all the current Frankenso kits are for 64pin ecu connectors and my ECU has 116pins, does this mean I should go ahead and scrap the project now or can this be worked around. I also have a tuned EEPROM for this car. I cannot find any info on the company that tuned it (ToyoMoto) but it was tuned so well to the car that it would have to be a good starting point for custom maps although the injectors, and turbos have just been upgraded so I cannot vouche for its compatibility for the new set up. Here is a pic of the Z almost 2 years ago, while she actually looks worse now due to an accident I had a while back, it's pretty much a brand new car inside. PM me if you would like a complete list of mods.

Z.jpg (144.24 KiB) Viewed 9783 times

Thanks in advance and keep up the good work

[AndreyB]

Hey Zimmer

I'd say most of what you are dreaming about should be possible, it's just the question of someone (like you? ) implementing all the code.

And how soon can I get my hands on one of these systems

I am just too busy to deal with the Chinese shop which assembles these boards for us - that's if you want an assembled board. If you think you would be capable of soldering a board for yourself, there is a kit available - here on the forum you can see some threads where guys have actually assembled some boards for themselves.

With 6 cylinders you might be pushing the limit of the 64 pin connector, not sure - you would need to sit and actually count how many pins you would need. For now that 64 pin connector works for us, same as the 100 pin chip we are using is fine for now - at some point in the future we might migrate to a 121 pin connector and a 176 pin chip, but that's a year away.

[kb1gtt]

Hello and welcome along. Have you found the wiki yet? Frankenso wiki found here http://rusefi.com/wiki/index.php?title=Manual:Hardware_Frankenso_board

300ZX you say. Some moons ago, I had an 84 for a while.

I would suggest by starting what I'm dubbing a system schematic. It would help identify what IO you need. For example, what else is in that 116 pins? Perhaps there are other issues, like transmission control, or something like that. From where I stand I don't think you need that many IO, unless your controller is doing more than just controlling the engine. A system schematic would help identify what features you need for the system. For example does it have IAC? If so is it stepper, or solenoid, or other?

I would say that many of the features you mention are potentially possible, but the software and at times the hardware is a bit less mature. Long term I dream of a dash like this http://rusefi.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=775 However at the moment, touch screen is a bit far off.

Frankenso should be good for 6cyl of staged sequential injectors, with 6 ignition channels. Frankenso drives to a high voltage and low voltage, which allows driving a variety of external ignitor modules. This kind of configuration would gobble up all the outputs, so you would need an expansion device to get things like fan control, or you would need to step back from staged injection. A system schematic even if on a napkin or Pizza box would help show what is a potential problem. It would also answer if you are hall, VR or other.

Welcome along.

[zimmer87]

http://www.ttxtz.com/tech/lee/

Thankfully there is plenty of documentation for this car, its been a real life saver through this build.
It does have an IAC valve and it is operated by a solenoid.
As for the amount of connectors in the connect, although I still haven't sat down to count I am fairly confident that I wont have any issues converting to a 64pin connector. My car is a manual transmission therefore does not have a trannsmission controller. Plus all the emmission deletes, lack of the factory electronic boost controller, and features that were not available in the US, I think I can clear enough pins to get by.
As for the hardware, my THEORY was to use microcontrollers to operate other features of the car such as radiator fan or diy security system. The microcontrollers would be able to handle their own isolated tasks while still reporting their status to the ECU via single wire. As for the touch screen I was looking at android powered double din head units. I would use this as the main interface while using a permanent USB connection to the ECU for monitoring and tuning purposes. While the additional hardware increases the chanses of something failing I think it would also help locate errors because an error would be traceable back to its microcontroller. Please be sure to understand before you slam my theory that by no means am I an electrical engineer or software developer I actually work construction. All my knowledge about hardware and software development came from the school of Google, which is why my knowledge is minimal. I feel no urgency to have all the features I listed. I just want the system in my car and operational even if at a basic level becuase due to the injector upgrades I would have to rechip the car anyways. And the part where I clumsily stepped on my OEM ECU and broke the daughter board this morning, I'm looking at having to repair or replace my current ECU either one would still need a new chip. I would rather go ahead and pay for the standalone now as opposed to fixing my current one just to replace it later. Not to mention that I don't forsee the Z being roadworthy for about another 2 months which would give me time to tinker with it. (I plan on ordering next week btw)
The speedy responses are awesome I figured I would have to wait a day or 2 to hear anything back

[AndreyB]

I definitely spend too much time here, and still the whole thing is a bit raw. I think this platform only has ~250 miles _TOTAL_ driven over 13 vehicles. Too many small things are still work in progress - for example, there is no acceleration enrichment right now. Until somehow miraculously someone else would start spending 20 hours a week, every week on this project this would stay just a toy.

[kb1gtt]

Seems we have no shortage of us hardware guys, what we need is more software help, as russian is well over 90% of the code base and coding efforts. I think Frankenso is nearly there in terms of hardware, but software is lacking resources.

It's easy to dream up ideas and features, it's hard to make them a reality.

[AndreyB]

Speaking of which:

[zimmer87]

As a linux user I learned along time ago to be patient with open source projects, and you being sold out while not surprising is a downer.

[zimmer87]

Update

So I sat down with the wiring diagram and calculated that I need 64 pins exacly if retain the 2 wires that control the AC (which I currently do not have so can sacrafice a few pins if I have to.

On a side note should this post be moved to a different thread as I feel like I am past the hello stage with this one.

[AndreyB]

I need 64 pins exacly if retain the 2 wires that control the AC

Worth noting that the 64 pin contains 16 thicker "power" (?) pins and the rest are lower-power pins - you can see that @ http://rusefi.com/wiki/index.php?title=Hardware:OEM_connectors#64_pin

Injectors and other solenoids would need the thicker pins I guess, but I know nothing about electronics anyway. Worth noting that the 121 pin connector only has 13 super-thick pins - see http://rusefi.com/wiki/index.php?title=Hardware:OEM_connectors#121_pin the rest are all tiny.

[zimmer87]

Well I think I may have got lucky here. My OEM ECU has 76 pins 16 of wich are thicker than the rest. Although my injectors do run off of these my coil packs do not as the car has a PTU (Power Transistor Unit).

[kb1gtt]

The Frankenso board has a hi/lo driver which can be configured to drive to +5, or +12 and GND. Do you know what kind of signals need to go to the PTU? It looks like 6 wires, so I would guess that's a signal wire for each coil. Do you know if that's 12V, 5V, GND or other signaling? Can you sniff the existing setup with a scope, or do know of someone who has published a schematic or something about controlling that PTU? That PTU is the only thing I see in the schematic that might be a lump in the carpet for controlling that engine. It looks like you would loose some of the dash gauges, but I think you are OK with that as you aim for a different display.

[zimmer87]

I read somewhere how the 300zx PTU converts a +5V signal to 10,000 but cant remember where I am still researching this much. As far as controlling the unit I beleive that the 6 wires running to it from the ECU are signal wires. I found a repair site for the phase 1 PTU with pictures of it opened up.

http://tech.aus300zx.com/pturepair/Image12.gif

I beleive phase 2 will be the same way becuase to convert to phase 2 (phase 1 was recalled) the main thing needed is a harness converter set up to switch to the phase 2 connectors. I run phase 2 with the harnes converter. I dont know if it helps right off the bat but I have an extra phase 2 PTU lying around somewhere wouldnt be hard to find.