90 Talladega SPG

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squaab99t
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Re: 90 Talladega SPG

Postby squaab99t » Sat Nov 09, 2013 12:43 pm

Jordan wrote:The car that was having problem revving, I moved the sensor out to 2mm and it cleared up all the issues. Revs nicely up to 7k now. I still want to to do some investigative testing to see if I can get a better/cheaper sensor combo for rev2 of the flywheels (if there needs to be a rev 2).


This makes sense since VR signal straight is based upon speed. I think this is a fact that the OEM trigger is a true window and has no metal in the background like there is with the slots on the freewheel. The sensor could be picking up that metal at the higher speeds and not creating a clean sine wave. The trick is finding a sweet spot that supports engine start up when the cranking speed is slow.

If you are working on revision 2, I would seriously look at a different approach on how the sensor is retained in the bracket. The sensor should be located and retained in a full bore, and not tangentially in a slot at two points. The sensor tab should only prevent rotation and the sensor from popping out.
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Right now the tab is doing all the work and is cantilevered out, acting like a spring board with large mass on the end. At the different engine speed thus harmonics it is hard to predict if the sensor hits some weird frequency and starts oscillating and looses signal. Best to keep the bracket and sensor as rigid as possible.
my .02

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Jordan
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Re: 90 Talladega SPG

Postby Jordan » Sun Nov 10, 2013 12:20 pm

I see what your saying, but the bracket is very stiff and I'd have a hard time seeing any frequency that would cause any significant deflect of the sensor.

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squaab99t
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Re: 90 Talladega SPG

Postby squaab99t » Sun Nov 10, 2013 1:20 pm

Jordan wrote:I see what your saying, but the bracket is very stiff and I'd have a hard time seeing any frequency that would cause any significant deflect of the sensor.


Fair enough. The bracket may be stiff but you are relying only on the tab of the sensor to dampen and keep the sensor in place. The tab might be good today, but after a few years of flapping who knows?
Just trying to help you out. You have very little control over what sensor is used and it's condition, but you do have control over how it is retained. It might be a simple as the direction in which you plung the end mill?

hutch
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Re: 90 Talladega SPG

Postby hutch » Sun Nov 10, 2013 7:37 pm

Interesting discussion, feel free to continue it and brainstorm some ideas. I agree that the flywheel bracket is pretty sturdy and while not out of the realm of possibility I would be surprised if it would be able to flex enough to affect the sensor's reading. For the gap problem my money would be on it picking up false readings from the flywheel like you said so it needs to be spaced further out than OEM spec to get the 'proper' one. I know we had all sorts of weird problems getting this car to run while missing bolts for the other clutch pattern on the flywheel and getting inconsistent signals before Jordan figured it out.

Anyway I finally got this new tuning laptop in the mail and am going to try tuning the car a bit tomorrow. It also has a copy of WIS for the 9-5 and 9-3SS which doesn't help me out a ton however it does have the EPC for the older 9-3's so I'm sure that will be handy to have. And then it also has T5,T7, and T8Suites installed so it should be nice for all the various Saabs I know. I'm also looking forward to running the open SID on my 9-3 and seeing all the cool features it has.

I opened up my spare ECU to do the T7 BPC mod, think I'm gonna need some stronger glasses for this one :-O . I ran out of sunlight before I got home today so wasn't able to get the current ECU out of the car to compare so I know what I'm doing with the mod but I will tomorrow. Before that though I need to run to get a few things from radio shack but hopefully it won't be too tedious and I can get into the tuning. I'm sure I will have plenty of questions tomorrow about T5Suite for all you guys that have played around with it.

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Mezzanine
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Re: 90 Talladega SPG

Postby Mezzanine » Mon Nov 11, 2013 3:36 pm

Regarding the sensor mounting, I've been doing a lot of research on VR & hall effect sensors for the crank triggers on the Megasquirt forums lately. The general rule of thumb MS recommends is that your sensor bracket should be sturdy enough that you could use it as an engine pick-point. The sensor mounting bracket on the EEuroparts kit certainly looks sturdy enough, but the design suggestion that Dennis made is around the sensor mount, not the bracket itself. That style of sensor is available as VR or hall and are intended to be mounted in a bore, not just by the sensor flange. As Dennis says, it probably holds up fine most of the time, but that flange will continue to be fatigued over time. Add to that some of the harmonics happening at different RPMs and I wouldn't be surprised at all if that could create a vibration leading to a trigger error. The MS guys set up a VR conditioner and run a hall effect sensor... I've wondered if you could get T5 to run with a hall sensor as I suspect it could resolve some of the challenges VR sensors present. The differences of course are that Hall effect sensors are powered and usually trigger on the leading edge instead of zero crossing like VR.
__________________________________
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast

hutch
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Re: 90 Talladega SPG

Postby hutch » Sun Nov 17, 2013 11:06 pm

Ok quick question here, I have an ECU pigtail that I'm going to use to try to read and flash an ECU outside of the car so I can get a hang of it before before I go and screw anything up on the one that actually works. I am going to pick up a 15v power supply and a D9 connector to use with the Lawicel CANUSB but I wasn't sure if I needed all the 15v pins to the ECU or just one. Since the 9k SFI connector only has the one 15v I figured I only needed the one connection and then I saw this picture while searching around:
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For the record this is what I was going to use:
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Pin 1 for 15v, Pin 25 for ground, Pin 62 for CanH and Pin 63 for CanL.

If I do need to use all of them why would mine not have anything at pin 60 where theres supposed to be 15v? I have 2 full harnesses and this pigtail and only one of the has anything in pin 60 so I figured I didn't need all of them but after reading the T5 manual I'm not so sure.

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Re: 90 Talladega SPG

Postby hutch » Thu Aug 07, 2014 6:47 pm

Soooo been a while since I updated this thread. I assume people like Luke have been 3D printing a 900 from scratch and Squaab is building a full exhaust from titanium or something wild like that. I on the other hand have spray painted some things :lol:

But seriously, I've just been enjoying this car this summer and haven't put much effort into fiddling with it because its been driving so well. I had a CEL for the TPS so I swapped in a new sensor and another TB and it seemed to cure it. Also had a CEL for the o2 sensor that was very intermittent. I found the zip tie I used to keep the vacuum hose for the MAP sensor in place was pretty tight so I undid that and the car has run infinitely better since then. I used to have random hesitation right around 0psi and the aforementioned o2 problem. Ever since then the car runs very well, idles at a rock solid 900rpm and haven't seen a CEL, I can only assume I must have been pinching the hose just enough to cause those problems. Other than that I replaced the SPG kit with a spare set I had sprayed black a few years back. Its sort of a flat black like a few of the 85's had, I know a lot of people like the stock grey kit but I love the flat black. I still don't like the color I painted the wheels for my previous SPG but I realized I should have repainted them before I traded Gary my spare set of 4x108 wheels :thumbsup:
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Also refinished a severely beat up OEM whale tail, I used to have the SAS one but never loved it. Its not perfect when you get up close but it looks a lot better than it did sitting in pieces for the past year.
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And to finish up the spray paint trend I also cleaned up this dual tailpipe to send off to Jordan.
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My 9-3 blew a head gasket so this car has had DD duty for the past few weeks but once that changes back I'm hoping to rip the a/c out of this car, install the FMIC I've had sitting around. Swap out to a newer radiator and install the non a/c radiator hose that deletes that little aluminum piece in the middle. I also have my old TE-0516G I'd like to install. Then hopefully I am planning to take a trip to visit Jordan up in CT sometime in September to get a little tuning work and hopefully pick up a 3" exhaust for this car. I also want to put in the Bilstein shocks I have and the extended trailing arms as I have some rubbing issues with the big wheels. All in time to put it away for winter when I may finally repaint the wheels (because that worked so well last winter) :lol:

gmreider
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Re: 90 Talladega SPG

Postby gmreider » Thu Aug 07, 2014 7:49 pm

Hutch, I could probably loan you 4 tires & rims so you can paint your wheels. After September 15th , the PHA Hill Climb season is over and things slow down. I also have a bead blast cabinet that will hold a 15-16' wheel without a tire. Would clean them up quickly to re-spray


Gary

hutch
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Re: 90 Talladega SPG

Postby hutch » Thu Aug 07, 2014 10:00 pm

Thanks for the offer, I have enough jack stands I could put it up in the air while refinishing (or swap with my 85 notch) I've just been too lazy so far. Being able to blast them properly would be really nice though, maybe I'll be in touch later on in the year to do something like that. It'd be nice to bring the 900 up to your place instead of the 9-3, that was a really nice drive when I was up there earlier.

hutch
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Re: 90 Talladega SPG

Postby hutch » Sat Aug 29, 2015 6:01 pm

Time for my yearly August update :lol:
hutch wrote:...I assume...Squaab is building a full exhaust from titanium or something wild like that
Looks like I wasn't that far off!

On a more serious note I've pretty much just been driving this thing all summer, it has a new tune from Jordan that runs much better. It idles at like 1000rpm but will occasionally dip down to where it should be so I assume its just a slight SW correction that needs to be made. Other than that plenty of power and around town driving is great. Even seemed to manage 30+mpg on a long trip so its doing something right...

Its now an antique which means no more emissions testing so I managed to pick up and install a 3" JT exhaust, I got it a little cheaper because the flange is a little off, I didn't think to check if it is a T25 or something but the holes for the elbow bolts were too far in so you couldn't bolt it up. My quick and dirty solution was to take an angle grinder and create slots so that I could get the bolts lined up properly. I am almost ashamed to show it on a board like this but I think it should hold up just fine and long term I will replace the elbow with a proper 3" bend anyway so this was just sort of a stopgap so I could drive it. I put the mechanics wire on there to try to keep some tension on there so the bolts don't slide out but I've checked it a fair amount and they haven't moved at all so its probably not doing anything.
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Other than that I painted the wheels a silver color that I much prefer to the dark grey I had, I wish it were a better match to the OEM color but oh well.
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I'm beginning to wonder whether I really want to install a FMIC on this car, I know the stock intercooler is pretty lousy but I'm not sure I want to hack apart the front end to get it to fit as I never really see this car as making a million hp but we'll see. Water injection or a water/air IC could be fun but again probably overkill for what I'm looking to do. Who knows...

Fall/winter plans will be to address the rear suspension and to fill and redrill some mounting holes for the whale tail but other than that I'm just really happy with how the car is driving so I don't think I'll be messing with it too much.

See ya next august :lol:

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Re: 90 Talladega SPG

Postby hutch » Sun Jan 10, 2016 8:32 pm

A rare 6 month old update :lol:

The El Nino has meant I probably didn't need to tuck this car away for winter and could have kept working on it, but oh well. Long story short I got tired of the JT 3" exhaust, the 2nd set that I've now felt that way about, when will I learn o_O :mad: I loved the loud sound of the 3" system, but fitting the large pipes is just a pain and it was constantly knocking around that I just felt it was overkill so I took it off.

So I threw on a 2.5" stainless downpipe and mid pipe, into a stock muffler and a nice shiny stainless dual tip tailpipe. I was hoping that having just one muffler, even if its the stock one, would result in a nice sporty sound but its actually pretty tame so I may be replacing it with a glasspack or something similar.
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And I may still make a build thread one of these days but this is the vert I picked up last summer that took up all of my wrenching time last year.
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Anyway, in meeting up with Gary this weekend I have become determined to figure out how to get my CANUSB adaptor working and be able to understand T5Suite better. If we can land on a freaking asteroid racing across space, I can conquer Windows XP :lol:

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Luke
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Re: 90 Talladega SPG

Postby Luke » Tue Jan 12, 2016 9:50 am

Glad to hear the SPG is being treated so nicely! I hear you (no pun intended) on the exhaust, as I get older I really appreciate the classics in their mostly stock form, while its fun to have a project car where you try different things, its also really nice to get have a reliable nice running classic to enjoy. The convertible looks really nice as well!

hutch
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Re: 90 Talladega SPG

Postby hutch » Tue Jan 12, 2016 1:43 pm

Yeah I would tend to agree, though this car is not exactly stock I really prefer an 'OEM Plus' approach, bringing the car up to date a bit while still maintaining its original characteristics. There will certainly not be any Holset swaps or anything wild with this, if I want a FWD with too much power I have the 9-3 :lol:

Although sadly while working on the exhaust what was a small rust hole in the jack point became a pretty serious collapse so I will now need to get that addressed before it spreads any further, though this car is still very clean all things considered. The convertible is also seriously clean, theres a dent in the rear by the tail light and a key scrape by the door handle but underneath the car is exceptionally rust free which is worth its weight in gold these days...

hutch
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Re: 90 Talladega SPG

Postby hutch » Mon Jan 18, 2016 10:18 pm

So two and a half years later I finally made the harness this weekend so I could flash an ECU out of the car :lol: I bought some 5.5mm DC power plugs so I could plug it into my 18v guitar pedal power supply, then figured I didn't want to fry that and bought a universal power supply. I also have another connector so I can do a T7 setup too but that will be down the road.
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Not the prettiest thing in the world, but it should work. I also ordered one of those Combi Adaptors as I've never gotten my Lawicel Canusb to work properly and it seems more versatile. I'm weighing my options on my little tuning laptop, it needs a new battery as it dies instantly when you unplug it, making it virtually worthless as a mobile device. So I need to figure if its worth getting a new battery and updating it from XP, or just doing a dual boot setup on my Mac.

The plan will be to pull the files from my spare T5 and T7 ecu's a few times so I get the routine down before I try doing it in car and risk screwing anything up.

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Jordan
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Re: 90 Talladega SPG

Postby Jordan » Tue Jan 19, 2016 10:55 am

I was thinking about doing a online seminar with some Trionic setup and tuning basics. Does that sound like something a few people would be interested in doing? It's just hard to get together with all of us all spread out.


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