dynamix

iTrader: (3)

pmsl

jonny1gap

Afternoon folks. My first post after an enjoyable read.

Great posts and discussion but please don't let it turn into the MLR.
Many people view this forum from afar believing their own forums to be superior which I do not believe to be the case.

You have, in the main, presented a knowledgable and mature topic. Something I appreciate as a propective Subaru owner since recently selling up with the EVO's after many years.

Thankyou for reaffirming my faith in the subaru community. I look forward to more of the same.

Maddog

Correct Mark. So far i haven't seen anything to suggest Andy has lied and indeed he has tried to get clarification from the company concerned and has since posted his findings.

When Andy posted about having phoned Stuart to cnfirm or deny this £200 thing that Harvey's banging on about, it triggered something in my one brain cell about there being a not so amicable working relationship between Stuart Newby and Steve Simpson, which i think was mentioned on other htreads, possibly to do with the Sigma ecu thing. (Someone else can do the searching if they feel like it), so what is being said by whom, when and whatever, whenever may not be as clear cut as is made out.
From what i believe, Stuart and Steve split the cost of the dyno. Steve does the mapping, so any dyno work will be dealt with by Steve, not Stuart (who deals with the builds and the rally car prep etc etc), so wouldn't be surprising if Stuart knew hee haw about it. I think Andy should have phoned Steve,not Stuart.

I personally wouldn't want the thread to be locked until Harvey has justified his position on why this thread has changed from what was a "rolling road"/"mapping on road" debate to what looks like a bulldog mission to prove some minor gripe over a trivial technical detail.(to an outsiders eyes)
If it does get locked then this and other threads will continue to surface in the future with to quote "the same old ****e".

harvey

iTrader: (48)

Now I know what you are referring to I can comment with some accuracy but you will appreciate that as I am not a mind reader I cannot be expected to know what you allude to with vague references.

Martinninnybobs (which was one of your specific examples) did achieve 357.6 bhp. Whether he ran or not was in doubt during the week before as he was encountering DET under normal driving conditions. His run was stopped when DET was encountered. Some short time afterwards he ran at Prosport and made 370 bhp. His spec may have been different between these two runs and I believe his fuel differed but that is for him to comment on. He was still suffering DET at Prosport. Some time later, I understand the issues he was encountering were resolved by Bob Rawle.
I have seen Martin's car make 400 bhp at Well Lane consistently.
If you ask him, I am sure he will confirm the above and may even publish figures showing how consistent his car has been when run on the same rollers and working properly.

Factually incorrect.

I can comment only on the cars I had/have personal involvement with like Martin's above.
killa/Ali. His car was running sufficiently rich to have a strong petrol smell in the engine oil.

As regards Alan Jack's car, this was a Rolling Road Day, not a mapping or diagnostic session and this applies elsewhere.

Please look at my previous posts and you will see that I have stated very clearly, early in the thread, that a small number of cars will not run satisfactorily on the rollers because of the effect of air turbulance on the MAF Sensor. This applied to Kevin's car. This is easily detected and please remember I am advocating ROAD and ROLLER mapping for best results by your average mapper and have only been of that opinion for a little over a year as I have gathered increasing knowledge.

My own car on the day (95 WRX) 9.6 bhp (2.5%) down on what I did six weeks before on the same rollers and 15 bhp down on what I hoped to see. Very interesting. That showed me that the changes I had made, expecting to increase power were not successful. Lesson learned. Like I said, "Must try harder"

Well Lane : Well I think I have answered that. Martin consistently produces around 400 bhp. As we all know some tuned cars occassionally have off days/periods, some more than others and some down to the owners own actions. Afterall some guys cannot even remember to top up the engine oil.

Correct and consistent. This car has an O/E ECU and is relatively standard and in a fixed state of tune so there is no real opportunity or need to tinker. Same car at TEG Sport is 335bhp/333ft/lbs. Not a fair comparison as they are different types of rolling road but near enough for my purposes.

I agree 100% that if you are selective in the results and do not have the full facts you can put whatever spin on the results that suits your purpose if you are motivated to do such an unsatisfactory think and not approach it in an unbiased open minded way. However that does not work with specifics.
You gave an owner a power figure of 351 bhp.(not 340 bhp as I originally said) Quite a specific figure. Same car on Dyno Dynamics rollers at a rolling road day at Alan Jeffries, 317 and 319 bhp I think. Owner is concerned and goes to Simpson Motorsport, nearest Dyno Dynamics to him. This was for a power run only and he gets 322 and 323 bhp on consecutive runs.
I doubt that Steve Simpson new of the involvement of AJs in advance or the figures but he may have. Check with him if you want.

Now what does this mean to an unbiased observer?
Dyno Dynamics claim their equipment in Australia will give the same result as equipment in the US or UK. It does rely on the operator running the equipment properly.
The equipment costs £70K plus so it is reasonable to assume that purchasers are happy as to its accuracy and repeatability, especially in view of the manufacturers claims.
So a reasonable conclusion might be that the car in question was producing around 320 bhp.

dynamix

iTrader: (3)

Its time to leave it tbh - this is getting boring now that the serious discussion has been had.

911

Agree with Dynamix, but the techie parts have been great and the veiws of all appreciated I think by the majority, certainly I have.

Has it changed my mind?

No, but I do feel more enlightened.
Would like to know more about the RR man's Hillclimber though.

Graham

Ninnybobs

Wow...... never thought my car would get a mention in such an interesting and informative thread.

As my cars 'figures have been quoted several time on this thread, I thought that I should give the figures in context.

28th January 2006...... attended TEGSport RR day. Prior to attending the RR day the car was experiencing detonation problems 'on the road' at WOT. Ran the car using Tesco 99 ron + 2ml/ltr of NF. The car was 'run up' twice on the rollers before I 'pulled the plug' due to a rather sparkly Knock Link. This resulted in 357.6/340.

19th February 2006...... attended Prosport RR day. Running the car on Optimax + 3ml/ltr of NF. The car made 397/370.

8th April 2006......attended TEGSport as a spectator, but was persuaded to put the car on the rollers. Running a straight Tesco 99 ron fuel, the runs were terminated after the second run due to detonation problems. The car made 370/360.

10th September 2006..... attended Well Lane RR day. Running the car on Shell V-Power + 2ml/ltr of NF. The car made 402/330

Following discussions with Bob Rawle on another SN thread on Tesco's petrol, the problem with detonation was determined to be fuel based. No further issues following the sole use of V-Power.

Hope this clarifies the situation.

Martin

Maddog

Was there any changes to the car between January and February? or is the result for February low due to run being aborted?
From February onwards, the results look to make sense in terms of power though torques a little wobbly.

Ninnybobs

The only changes to the car during ALL the RR runs was the use of Tesco 99 petrol (as opposed to Optimax) for the two runs at Teg.

Martin

Andy.F

This has all been explained before, however at the risk of boring the more intelligent reader, I'll pull some quotes together here regarding the reasons why a rolling road is incapable of measuring the actual power produced on the road, particulary with respect to new age cars which have been Ecutek custom mapped. This goes some way to explaining why cars will achieve completely different outputs on different makes of rolling road using different acceleration rates and load application.

Harvey acknowledges this below and quotes Kevin as another example earlier on this page.
I assume before Harvey made his comments regarding the car aboves 'roller power' that both rolling road venues took the car out on the road with boost and AFR monitoring kit attached to verify the AFR and Boost data ?
If it did align, then I would be most surprised because even if the airfow could have been correctly simulated then the ECU would still be applying different Ignition/fuel/boost and wastegate settings on the rollers compared to the road where these parameters would be based on the actual acceleration rate achieved. This was also explained earlier but was obviously missed and therefore warrants repeating below with a bit more detail added.
Interestingly some of the Subaru OE maps use this feature to actually reduce the acceleration rate in the lower gears, surprising as it may seem, I can only assume this is to minimise drivetrain loadings or perhaps make the std power delivery feel almost 'turboless' for reasons best known to the makers !

Here is a typical std v modified acceleration profile achieved with the aid of individual gear tuning on the road.



As far as I am aware the DD dyno does not recreate such an acceleration profile. It runs up at a fixed rate, which as you can see from the above graph will only stand a chance of being correct at 1 point in the rpm range


Here is a typical 'roaddyno' power prediction (note - prediction) based on purely on the above acceleration rate. This is calculated from the actual acceleration rate of the car, taken directly from the ECU with no need for external pick ups etc.
With input of the vehicle weight, drag coeficient, gearing, tyre size etc the software then calculates the actual power output on the road at that time.
The accuracy of the output is obviously dependant on accurate data inputted and a power run in both directions is advised to eliminate the effects of road incline or wind.



I have no idea if other OEM ECU's have the same type of 'per gear' set up that the subaru has ? I consider that the excessively long exhaust manifold on the Impreza turbo is one main reason for boost control requiring 'propping up' in the lower gears. This may also help explain why other makes of car run more consistantly on rollers than an Impreza ?

Andy

dynamix

iTrader: (3)

Andy - do you always use the very heavy smoothing feature on the DD road dyno?

That looks like a very nice car to drive with over 300lb/ft torque available from 3500 - redline ... fun fun fun.




It reminds me of my DD graphs

Ultimately all of the recording of power whether on the RR or DD is arbitary as conditions vary one run to another unless you can set a strict control procedure re engine temp, wind direction, tyre pressures, fuel level, weight of car, ambient temps, drivetrain temp... the list goes on ...

Aztec Performance Ltd

iTrader: (234)

I tried knocking this one on the head on post #2

dynamix

iTrader: (3)

seems so long ago now

harvey

iTrader: (48)

Let me know the rolling road venues that take prior to a power run or on a rolling road day.

How ridiculous.

ZEN Performance

Harvey,

Andy's concerns relate directly to mapping. The fact that power figures are going to be different isn't really an issue, assuming that people are really concerned about the actuall numbers (although some are!).

As you have previous written, I am indeed investing a substantial amount of money on a rolling road. For me personally the risks and problems with road mapping, combined with an increase in productivity justify the expense. But as a person heavily rooted in road mapping, i will be looking to make the most of my rollers, and hopefully transition as much running to them as is practicle.

If the end result is of high quality, gives customer satisfaction, accuracy and utmost reliability, then whether it's acheived by mapping on the road, rollers or the moon, it doesn't much matter.

APIDavid

iTrader: (4)

Nice advert mate. Any idea how soon it'll be up and running ??

David APi

MartynJ

I couldn't have put it better myself........

911

Agree so much with #228.
Surprised this thread is still active!
Graham

Jza

Blimey guys... dont you lot disagree

You may not remember me - i started the thread 8 pages ago in a quest for opinions as i want to dabble in the black art of remapping.

So here i sit as a common or garden punter. No technical knowledge of what you do... wondering who i should call to get my car re-mapped.

I've read every post on this thread. And do you know what - im still none the wiser LOL

So the fact's as i see it are:

1) the road only mappers say that you cant replicate what they see on their laptops sat in a punters car on a RR. Real world condiitons and all that. They are after drivability not huge BHP figures.

2) the RR guys are saying "rubbish" we can replicate what we like. They say that good bhp equates to good drivability. Then we have the RR guys saying they have improved on a road mappers re-map - i found that very interesting.

I haven't seen any mention from Andy or Bob about having improved on a RR mapped car?

Do they care to comment?

Have either of you taken a RR mapped car (and i mean a RR remap with a mapper that they consider "knows what they are doing") and made the car more driveable?

Also Bob and Andy, can you confrim or deny - if you had the choice (money no object etc etc) - would you really not use a combination of both the road and the RR at all? I guess neither of you might answer this.

Are you saying you really dont see any benefits at all in a RR session?

And if you did use both - which would you use as your base? Would you start on the road and tweak on the rollers ... or would you set the car up on the RR and then get out on the road and tweak things in your quest for "Drivability" over "BHP".

I'd also ask the same question of the RR guys... if you had someone of Andy's or Bob's expertise - would you really not go out on the road after an RR mapping session just to check "driveability"... are you saying that that is really not necessary? And if you did think it was worthwhile - where would you start the mapping process - on the road and tweak on the rollers or the other way round?

Seems to me that someone with a lot of money should pay to get Andy and Bob and the RR guys together..... bet that would be a well mapped car and a decent business... if only i can win tonights lottery

Thanks for a good read guys... please carry on

Jza

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

Jza, it's a false dichotomy: very few road mappers haven't used a RR and very few RR mappers wouldn't advocate testing on the road. Both sides will acknowledge (sometimes grudgingly) the benefits of the other's methods. At the end of the day many of the contributors on here have a business to run, so at the end of the day, the road mappers will say their method is better and the RR mappers, vice versa.

You just can't do the kind of comparisons you'd need to determine which is the superior of the two - it's not practical.

The real isssue is the skill of the mapper!

If you're starting out, I would have thought road mapping would be the cheaper option for you. Try both and see what you get on with best. That's the one you should stick with I'd suggest!

Your real problem (if you want to do it commercially) is you're up against some real masters!!!!

As Paul said, if the customer is happy then that's all that mappers.

Just be aware that -if the customer isn't a RR shootout monster- then their assessment of the quality of the map will be based on how it drives on the road

Ns04

Bob Rawle

I've already stated I have mapped and do map on the road, on the rollers, on the engine dyno ... so you can draw your conclusion as to why I still say road mapping is the correct way (in my book) to map a car, I used to think my approach to mapping must be same as anyone else but I now know its not. I will repeat, the rolling road is a v useful tool, but garbage in garbage out.

There aren't that many customers who get their kicks by driving a car strapped to a rolling road ... are there ?? Most of mine are into things like "handling", "braking", power slides (woops).

Jza ... see post 143 re my comments relating to improving on rolling road maps, you missed that I guess, its also not restricted to rolling road maps either.

cheers

bob

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

I have to admit I enjoyed getting my car mapped on the road. Wasn't expecting to, but I think that I did enjoy it was largely a reflection on Bob.

My girlfriend who spent the time in the back seat seemed to enjoy her book more When I asked her about it, she said

"I trust your driving, so got on with reading"

I replied.

"Good, is now a bad time to admit that Bob was actually controlling how fast the car went, I just steered!!!"

Ns04

BTW For anyone wondering how road mapping works, please note: I'm only joking, you are in complete control of the car at all times- dodgy throttle control and all!!

911

I recall very well the instructions from AndyF on my first map with the 20g etc.

AF
I'll be looking at this screen (the laptop); you just make sure you are looking through this one (car screen).
911
Yes Sir.
AF
And I don't like going sideways.
911
Yes Sir, but I don't either.

The car went to Well Lane about a month after (a shoot-out without AndyF)) and showed 407 bhp.
I took it to Powerstation on their Open Day 3 months later still, and it ran 380bhp

The difference?

Too many to list I guess!

Road mapping is very interesting.
That same day I rode shotgun with 2 other Imprezas, same routine etc and the cars were so much better (from the back seat).

Graham.

scoobyDAZZA

mine falls asleep
the snoring puts Bob off


or should i rephrase that last bit

bob

Had a few scoobs mapped by Bob (road mapping) also had a scoob mapped by PE (rollers) and another mapped by SC (rollers finished of on the road). When going to RR shoot outs I find the car gives what is expected for the mods on the car. So for a punter like me I cannot tell the difference. Wonder how many punters would know if the car was mapped on the road or on rollers if they were not told.
The only difference I have found is road mapping you drive the car. RR mapping your sat down eating bacon sarnies and drinking coffee…
I have no complaints against any of the remaps I have had seem’s I have picked good mappers. I do like Zen Performance quote
Quote:
If the end result is of high quality, gives customer satisfaction, accuracy and utmost reliability, then whether it's acheived by mapping on the road, rollers or the moon, it doesn't much matter.
End Quote:

Now where do I get the WR1 mapped road or rollers….

pat

A wise man one said :

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind

It seemed quite poignant in this context. The trouble is that both methods in isolation are incomplete. You miss things on the road that the dyno picks up. You miss things on the dyno* that you see on the road.

As a general rule of thumb, then, one would try to get the basics right on the dyno and then go out on the road to check the dynamics and that the car behaves as expected there. Often there will be things that you adjust on the road that improve the way the car goes that you cannot* see on the dyno, but it's important.... you can make the numbers yet the car just doesn't "feel right", only road testing* will reveal these foibles.

There may be other concerns at play, of course. Safety is paramount and this alone precludes the possibility of mapping very powerful cars on the road.... been there, done that, got the T-shirt, ain't doing it again... it's "entertaining" when a 900BHP engine comes onto cam and you do a rolling burnout at 140MPH... traction control "saved" the day but the EGT and AFR readings were meaningless as a result... not a lot of good when you're trying to get the fuel table right; the "solution" was a higher gear, but there's only so many 200MPH pulls you can do on the road before you realise that it's not the most sensible idea you've ever had....

Dynamic load conditions on the dyno are typically different to the road, but it should be noted that any static condition can be created... try holding an engine at 2.85 bar / 4500RPM on the road for more than a few seconds and you're either going up a 1:1 gradient hill, or about to vapourise your brake pads, neither of which are particularly appealing, yet on a dyno you could hold an engine there indefinitely (if it didn't expire).

You do tend to find a small discrepancy between achieved airflow on the rolling road and on the road at what is notionally the same operating point, although this can mainly be attributed to different ambient airflow characteristics. Boost control differences are mostly down to the use of a constant ramp rate rather than inertia simulation, and that is mainly down to the control algorithm... to target a constant ramp rate we need only look at the last two samples, check the acceleration and adjust the roller load to try to maintain a constant ramp rate... to get inertial loading we need to continuously vary the ramp rate based on measured torque, somewhat more involved but it is available as an option on some dynos (including Dyno Dynamics).

* - Strictly speaking, this is not entirely true. There are dynomometers in existence that are able to replicate pretty much any load characteristic you want. We don't normally encounter them because, at one million dollars, transient dynomometers are not the sort of thing you're likely to encounter in your local tuning shop!

Cheers,

Pat.

Andy.F

My point is, other than for a basic initial set up or dialing in race cams etc, I would have little interest in static rpm data. A high power engine will rarely, if ever, experience a fixed rpm at WOT, it will always be in a transient state. From the datalogs even at 210mph my car was still accelerating at 1mph/second but we quickly ran out of distance
If you map to static loadings you are missing out on true road performance as the engine is likely to cope with more loading if its just traversing a load zone.

Yes, I've seen the videos of F1 engines on proper dynos which can simulate a lap of a circuit, including downshift blips etc ...... well cool
Guess I'll just have to keep saving up then


Andy

Alan Jeffery

Tried to stay away, but can't do it!

Great to hear that Zen are going dyno, and also great to have the opportunity to mention once again that I did that thirty years ago! I assume he's going where we've gone, and will find it the best bit of kit he ever bought.

Re Jza's question about road mappers and dynos, we already did that, having had both AndyF and Mark Shead ( MA Developments ) down here doing just what you suggested on our own dyno. Of course, the results were good! they both mapped the cars just fine on the dyno, they both learnt something, and so did we, which as far as I'm concerned, was the object.
I'm certain that Andy could sort out his cars any way he chooses, and has proved that beyond doubt. I'm equally certain that he would find a dyno of his very own a useful addition to his armoury. If I win the lottery, I'll have one sent to him gift wrapped! ( Tartan of course )

pat

You have to start somewhere, and trying to build a map from literally nothing on the road will always be more difficult than it is on the dyno. You have traffic, corners, lights, roundabouts etc to worry about, so just when you thought you'de had it in a zone for long enough to get meaningful data...bam, the road dictates that you're out of that zone again. On a dyno you can hold it wherever you want it for however long you want (limits of engine and dyno accepted).

Fortunate, then, that I don't restrict mapping activity to soley the dyno As I said in my opening statement, both methods are incomplete. You can always improve a car that has only been mapped on the dyno. You can always improve a car that has only been mapped on the road. Often, but not always, you can improve a car that has been mapped on both (it's always easier to polish a base map than to get to the same point in a single hit).

Cheers,

Pat.

harvey

iTrader: (48)

How refreshing. I could not have put it better myself. Clearly there are some things that Pat and I can agree on.