22. Mapping Time!

 Been waiting for this one for a while!

Now it was count down to mapping which was booked for 17th May at RRR Engineering (ECU Master UK). Had a few jobs to do prior to mapping and more importantly pass my B+E trailer test so I was actually allowed to tow the Clio.

First was a tidy up for the engine bay and inside, a few cable ties to keep things where it should be. Replaced the fuel pump connector as it kept losing connection and the fuel pump would drop out. The crimps were buggered basically.

Rear towing eye. Used an adjustable TRS and bolted to the boot floor, probably could have got away with a standard length one. But gave a bit of margin.

Whilst going round doing a spanner check I noticed the RHS drive shaft cv boot was still touching the engine block, thought I had fixed this previously by adjusting the boot position along the drive shaft. So decided to machine off the tab on the engine block. Before and after picture.

Also gave wrapping the headlights another go, did a shite job the first couple of goes, 3rd try was possibly a 6/10 so certainly improving. Cleaned the sticky pads off where the number plates use to be so it was all ready for its first trip out.

Decided to check what sort of nose weight we were looking at to make sure the Clio was in the right place for the future. Measured at nose and jockey wheel so in future can just check the jockey wheel and then will know roughly what the nose will be, only found the measuring pole things up to 140kg so are pretty pointless. So used the car scales instead.

Next stop RRR Engineering!

Arrived at RRR Engineering and to say I was excited was an understatement, at times over the past 2.5 years it felt like the end was never in sight but it was actually happening.

Greg and the team wasted no time and got the Clio on the dyno. I had a number of questions regarding the setup between the ECU Master gear (EMU Black, PMU and ADU) which Greg said he’d go through each of them one by one once the car was mapped.

Then ran into an issue that the PMU was shutting itself down at 6k rpm. Did it a few times. And I immediately thought the worse that the loom I made was crap and there was an electrical problem that we’d never find. Greg wasn’t convinced and found that the crash sensor was being triggered. I had hard mounted the PMU to a sheet of aluminium which is then bolted to the bulkhead so must have been vibrating quite a lot. Sure enough, turned the crash sensor off and no more problems. So one job before testing was to mount the EMU and PMU on some rubber instead.

Apart from that we didn’t have any other issues and after a few hours it was time for some power runs. Made 152whp at 6550rpm. Seeing as it was a stock engine with 110k miles on it we thought that was pretty spot on.

Greg then patiently went through my list of questions which I hadn’t been able to work out prior to the visit, didn’t just sort them out but showed me and explained how to approach each one which was great. Meant I had a better understanding of how to do all sorts with the hardware.

It was things like how to send data via CAN from the ADU to the EMU and then allocate that CAN message to an input. For example sending wheel speed from the ADU to the EMU and then mapping it to the correct input so the EMU can use wheel speed for the pit limiter/gear calculator. How to make a start/stop button rather than just turning off the ignition button.

Whilst there we picked up the CAN Keypad inserts, always can get some more if we change our minds in the future.

We also got the newly released tyre pressure and temperature monitoring system from RRR. Will send pressures and temperatures via CAN to be displayed on the ADU. We also asked what they recommended for overlaying data onto video and it was great to hear that ECU Master are working on some new software to do just that. So hopefully in the near future we’ll be able to make some great onboard videos with overlays of all the data we’ll be logging.

So all in all a great day down at RRR, big thanks to Greg and his team, all really helpful and friendly people and would highly recommend them! Was well worth the long day not that it felt long as I was like a kid at Christmas.

Now time to get ready for our first test which hopefully will be at Teeside Autodrome. Need to get it booked but hopefully in the next couple of weeks.