Laptop Engine Monitoring Project...

[Goldy]

Thought I may as well post up about this months mini project. I'm planning on building a "black box" that will hook up to the ecu and allow you to monitor.

Basically going to have connections to hook up to the appropriate ecu wires to monitor stuff like revs, air flow, throttle position, injector pulse, air fuel ratio, battery voltage? Anything else anyone can possible think off?

It'll be a usb microcontroller device, i'll hopefully be hooking it up to the laptop then writing software..

Ordering parts this month and building next month so should be done by end of october maybe?...... Anyone else intrested in one? Should be less than ?100 in total!

- Simon

[adamh]

excellent idea, definately interested in one goldy dependant on final cost.
temperature readings possible?

[Goldy]

ooh yea good point... forgot about them.... temprature should be possible as well.... does the mk2 have a proper oil pressure sensor?

[adamh]

i think its just widget on side of head. must send analogue signal to gauge , not sure what happens ecu side.

*beg pardon.. isnt the mk2 just an on/off signal? the mk1 is analogue

[Peebs]

Oooh, this projy sounds interesting :)

:popcorn:

hmm, how bout vacuum / psi (for NA / Turbo)

is this a poss ?

Volts coming from alt ?

How bout knock sensing - an in depth insight ?

temp of all kinds, oil, water, air maybe even gbox oil (some sensor may have to be fitted i know) :)

[Marksman]

Hmm, web cam with video capture pointed at speedo, DV camera pointed forwards, mikes on induction and rear tyres, gear indicator oh and GPS and you'd have a hell of a track day data logger...

O.S.

[Goldy]

Hmm, web cam with video capture pointed at speedo, DV camera pointed forwards, mikes on induction and rear tyres, gear indicator oh and GPS and you'd have a hell of a track day data logger...

O.S.

and the moon on a stick as well mate? :slap:


Peebs,
vacuum / psi (for NA / Turbo) < very possible

Volts coming from alt, maybe but not sure...

Knock sensing could be possible though it'd need some calibration I think / external amplification circuit. (I'll look into it).

Temp sensors I was thinking, Water, Oil & Air Intake temp... Not really bothered about a gearbox... It could be an expandable option. Really it'd just be a case of changing the connectors / reference in the software.

[JMR_AW11]

Thought I may as well post up about this months mini project. I'm planning on building a "black box" that will hook up to the ecu and allow you to monitor.

Basically going to have connections to hook up to the appropriate ecu wires to monitor stuff like revs, air flow, throttle position, injector pulse, air fuel ratio, battery voltage? Anything else anyone can possible think off?

It'll be a usb microcontroller device, i'll hopefully be hooking it up to the laptop then writing software..

Ordering parts this month and building next month so should be done by end of october maybe?...... Anyone else intrested in one? Should be less than ?100 in total!

- Simon

Are you going to fit an external box or fit it inside the ECU?

If it's external you will need lots of wires all over the engine bay. How will you splice into the loom?


BTW I don't know if you realise but the stock ECU does all this already.

There is a high speed datalogging interface built into every Denso ECU.

I've been fiddling with this interface on my UK mk1 NA for 3 years now.

(The UK mk2 MR2 has one too)

After reading your post I dug out an old JDM 3SGTE ECU and looked through the ROM code.

I quickly modded my mk1 interface (firmware change) and coupled it up to the 3SGTE ECU.

yup, the JDM 3SGTE talks too... :thumbsup:

See www.jmross.freeserve.co.uk/page1.html for an old screenshot (latest GUI looks better)

Basically the 3SGTE ECU supports about 300 commands that ask for ECU data.

This can be anything from TPS, AFM, EFI, air temp, RPM, ignition timing, ox sensor, STA, coolant temp, speed in mph, ECU diagnostic error codes (the same ones that flash the MIL lamp on the dash)

There are dozens more things, even down to the individual EFI correction factors and ignition timing corrections.

This interface would have been used by the ECU manufacturer during development of the 3SGTE ECU. (they needed to be able to monitor pretty much everything in the ECU during development) It allows about 100 commands a second so you can get some very fluid datalogging of lots of things in parallel.

All the above is available via an interface that uses just a few connections. I'm working on the interface for the mk1 SC ECU at present and have recently found out how to get the diagnostics to run on the SC. The SC ECU is quite a complex beast and the interface took me a long time to crack. :boogie:

The mainstream ECUs like the 3SG(T) have a much simpler 'gateway' into the diagnostics.

[Sponge Bob]

Great post mate...!!

I was going to say doesn't the ECU already have all this monitored already - you just have to come from that to check things...

The thing you'll need to know though, is how the varying voltage outputs relates to a signal that is readable!!

[Goldy]

quality, thats exactly the sort of thing I was looking to do, just with a slightly different user interface.

I was going to have external connections to the ecu inputs and use a micro with usb and an A/D to get the readings. But if the ecu already has a facility to talk to grab data then it'd probably be better to use that.

Whats actually involved with getting that data out of the ecu? What protocol does it use? What electronics are involved etc.....

Cheers

- Simon

[JMR_AW11]

quality, thats exactly the sort of thing I was looking to do, just with a slightly different user interface.

I was going to have external connections to the ecu inputs and use a micro with usb and an A/D to get the readings. But if the ecu already has a facility to talk to grab data then it'd probably be better to use that.

Whats actually involved with getting that data out of the ecu? What protocol does it use? What electronics are involved etc.....

Cheers

- Simon
My interface uses a simple RISC micro to act as a translator to convert the data to RS-232 format to allow easy connection to a PC or PDA.

With it, you can tap into the ECU at any time and as often as you like (up to 100 times a second typical)

The ECU reads in your request, digs out the data from its MCU RAM/registers and sends it back out to the interface.

I'm hoping to sell the SC interface soon. If that goes well then I'll look at a kit for other ECUs. The UK mk1 NA interface is very fussy to operate but the later ECUs have a really neat interface that allows data 'on demand'.

They all have different protocols, some easier to hack than others. I'm amazed they didn't choose a fixed standard for all Denso ECUs. i.e. the SC interface will not work on the 3SGTE ECU and vice versa. Some ECUs even allow dumping of the factory ROM code via the diagnostics.

BTW there is no connector inside for the interface, in fact all trace of it was removed on the production ECUs. I found it by taking out the MCU chip and extracting the masked ROM from the chip. I ran the ROM through a disassembler and found the interface hidden in the code. It was quite a surprise to find this capability in these old ECUs!

[superchargedsam]

ah goldy I see JMR has introduced himself ! have been following his work for a while now as he has just done the SC ECU that I follow on IMOC and he only lives a short throw from me so followed it with high interest as he thought it may be possible to use a PDA to monitor the engine which sounds good to me !

[Goldy]

Sounds pretty good, monitoring with a PDA would be awesome!.

I'd like to do something similar as it seems neater than splicing the sensor wires and taking measurements myself, though without knowlege of the code / memory addresses for the different data in the ecu I think it'd be pretty hard. I don't really fancy code dissasembly, as my background is electronics rather than programming :confused:

[mr2aw11turbo]

ah goldy I see JMR has introduced himself ! have been following his work for a while now as he has just done the SC ECU that I follow on IMOC and he only lives a short throw from me so followed it with high interest as he thought it may be possible to use a PDA to monitor the engine which sounds good to me !


if its the thread i think it is that your on about sam, then he is an even shorter throw for me, this is an very nice idea, will be folowing this one i think

[AlunJ]

Got to admit I've been looking at things like this too, but that's using a PicAxe system (cheap but fairly decent for simple stuff). Coded up a speed / rpm / gear display (with gear dependant outputs to run a boost controller), tested through Croc Technology but not got around to getting it build and fitted yet. Costs about twenty quid, plus a scrap serial LCD and DIY 12v-5v converter. I've got one coded up to solve a little airflow problem on my engine too, so will be fun to see how versatile they can be.

Which controllers are you using for your projects if ya don't mind me asking? Would like to look at something with a bit more codespace to use, I'm limited to about 600 lines at the moment.

[superchargedsam]

Si it is the thread your thinking of and yes you are closer, but your not closer than me when Im staying at me mums ! Also you have PM Si !

Goldy this is brilliant stuff and worth checking out his work as am sure he has a website !

[Goldy]

I was planning to use the Microchip PIC18F4550 as i've worked with a similar one before (18F452) ... The 4550 has 13 10bit ADC channels and is usb2 compatiable (means i can power it from the usb as well).

Its listed at $5 on their website, though you'd need access to a programmer.

I'd like to do the read from chip jobbie, but it sounds a bit more complicated to me?

[JMR_AW11]

if its the thread i think it is that your on about sam, then he is an even shorter throw for me, this is an very nice idea, will be folowing this one i think

Hi mr2aw11turbo
The SC/3SGTE datalogging stuff is all at low level wrt the GUI etc. Nothing exciting to see yet, only raw numbers coming back for each command and some crude bargraphs for data returned that fluctuates (eg I can wobble the AFM volts with an external trim pot and watch the AFM data on the PC screen go up and down)

However, I do have a fully modded up mk1 NA ECU with diagnostics and datalogging AND real time tuning. It can be tuned for fuel and ignition in real time with the engine running. (this tuning ability requires a large processor PCB with FLASH memory to be fitted in place of the old ECU's MCU chip)

All with a fancy display with tables that track the mapping in the ECU in real time.

I'm quite happy to demo it, (I tested it a year ago at a local rolling road in Tewkesbury called Powerstation and they were quite impressed by it)

I haven't used the tunable interface for ages although one of the tunable ECUs is in my car full time. The mk1 MR2 (NA) board runs the stock ECU ROM code but allows tuning access to the maps, rev limiter, TVIS etc.

I live closer to Tewkesbury than Cheltenham BTW so you are not far away.

I'd like to produce the same tuneable board for the mk1 SC ECU and maybe the 3SGTE ECU. This will be quite some time away though as I don't have much free time at present.