Ben Jones

Another update. Problem is still occurring. Not very often these days but its still an annoyance. Everything i can see tells me that the ECU is losing the right firing order. Cycling the ignition a couple times always fixes the problem. Have had it occur a few times on first start getting back to my car.  You look like a bit of a tit trying to start it up with pops and bangs coming from the exhaust in the middle of town. Given the sparse triggers on the camshaft and the amount of advance possible from the AVCS, is it at all possible the ECU is getting the ignition timing out by 360? Â

Just to update this thread, took the Legacy around Taupo yesterday and the problem showed up again. Everything had been running fine for about 4,000km on the road and was great throughout the day on the track except for one moment 1 lap in to my 3rd run of the day. The engine suddenly lost all power as before. With no interior and a rice cannon fitted - i could clearly hear what was going on and all cylinders lost power at the same time and immediately. No pops or farts - just like someone had flicked the ignition off. Tacho and speedo were still displaying correctly (link driven) and no CEL. I kept my foot on the gas and rowed down through the gears until i was off the track. Then I came off the gas, hit the clutch and the engine dropped to idle and ran smoothly. Without sticking around to ask questions, i mashed the loud pedal and gave it hell for a few more laps. Enabled on board logging at that point but not a single problem for the rest of the day. I havnt looked too hard at the logs but all the main parameters are being logged correctly.

Hey Link guys, Im thinking about wiring up a loom so i can run my G4 Extreme in my 2nd car in an attempt to improve power and efficiency. I just recorded a best ever fuel economy in my daily driver using the Link - better than what it ever managed on the factory ECU and im not even running CLL!! So i'd like to stick it into my second car in the hope of improving things a bit. I figure ive already got the most expensive component (the ECU) so need to pick up a new loom. Is there a smaller loom available? It seems a waste to buy a 2.5m loom when i only need about 6 inches. Also, what kind of support exists for the Jaguar AJ6/AJ16 engines?  The crank angle sensor is external, so very easy to count teeth/degrees. I dont think they run a cam angle sensor tho and just use batch fire injection with a distributor ignition, The injection gear is all Lucas so must be reasonably common.

Hi Scott, I can hear the pump prime when i cycle the key but cant tell if its running or not with the engine cranking. I hooked up the status wire from the fuel pump controller to one of my digital inputs but havnt had it enabled since i'd forgotten about it until now. I will activate this input and make sure its logged. Im pretty certain its not a fuel pump failure since disabling the pump at idle causes it to run crappy on low pressure for a few seconds before it stalls. I'll keep my laptop/multimeter handy for the next time the fault occurs and will try to get some more answers/data. Â

Yay I have progress! So I was in the shed tonight configuring the Link after putting my wideband LC-1 on the car. It was idling warm when suddenly stopped. Since i had PCLink running anyways - i was able to start logging almost immediately. I started the log and noticed it inserted 15 seconds prior to my starting point (not sure how) and during those 15 seconds showed the engine stalling. Ive had a snoop through and cant find anything of interest. You can clearly see the seperate cranking attempts. I found it interesting that as i disengaged the starter - the engine would cough backwards and spike the rpm reading and bump the trigger error counter. During all cranking attempts there was popping and smoke from the exhaust , no backfiring in the intake and occasionally one or 2 cylinders would pick up as can be seen in the RPM log. I tried about 6 seperate cranks with throttle and without - 3 captured on this log and 3 on another after i'd checked the injectors for power (which was present). As soon as i cycled the ignition - the engine started and ran perfect with all parameters normal. Log file attached.

Also gutted i didnt have a laptop or even a multimeter on me. Any drawbacks to running the built in logging from now on to try and catch this?

Latest update: It died again this morning on my way to work. I left the car idling outside a shop and when i returned 2 mins later - it had stalled. So i attempted to restart and got the familiar cranking with popping out the exhaust. Giving it more throttle caused the popping to increase in frequency and volume. After cycling the ignition - the 2nd cranking attempt got a couple of cylinders firing but not enough to get it going. I didnt have my laptop on me so couldnt check any of the trigger errors! 3rd attempt i left the ignition off for a couple of minutes and it fired right up and idled perfect. Fuel pump was definately priming during all of this. Its almost as if the timing is out on some cylinders. My second guess would have been lack of fuel but that wouldnt explain the pops/flames out the exhaust. Battery voltage is good and yes all cylinders are coil on plug with built in ignitors. Now running firmware V4.9.3.  Experienced identical problem on V4.9.2.

Hey guys, I have an intermittent fault that has stranded me once and scared me a couple other times. Apologies for the long read. Car details; G4 Extreme Red, Subaru EZ30 with AVCS,  factory H6 loom with appropriate shielding and grounding, used as a daily driven road car 99% of the time. Symptoms: First time this occurred, i was coasting into a roundabout on the overrun fuel cut. As i hit the clutch to shift down - the engine stalled without drama, just quietly died. So i coasted to the side of the road and attempted to restart. The car would not fire and i could hear a pop out the exhaust every 5-10revolutions. I connected my laptop and no fault codes were present, trigger error counters were at 1 or 2 and not increasing. After quite a few unsuccessful attempts to start the car, i gave up and went for a walk. 5 mins later when i returned - it fired up and ran perfectly fine. Second time this happened, i was again on the overrun fuel cut coasting down a hill, when i went to get back on the gas - i had no power so kept shifting down gears with my foot partially on the throttle until it started running again. There was no misfiring or afterburning - just smooth deceleration as if someone had cut the ignition completely. When it resumed firing - it did so smoothly and ran flawlessly. This happened a 3rd and 4th time, on all occasions i was able to just keep chopping gears until it ran again. Every time PC link has not shown any fault codes or errors and the tacho/speedo which are ECU driven have continued to work correctly. It has only happened 4 times over 10,000km so i havnt been able to catch it when datalogging. I cant find any problems with the power supply to the injectors or coil packs - they are all run on the same relay as the ECU so surely if it was to quit - the tacho and speedo would also die. It has happened across 2 different firmware version so im reluctant to blame the ECU but dont know where else to look. Ideas?

Hey Cameron, Dave at D-tech informed me that the later EZ30 models came with 2nd harmonic knock sensors and so arent suitable for use with the G4 as stated above. I run a pair of early EZ30 sensors (pre-2003) which seem to work correctly. I do get a bit of a noisy signal around 4,000rpm but they do the job nicely everywhere else in the rpm/load range with pretty much default settings.

Hey chaps, Can confirm this also happens on my BH Legacy with the same fuel pump controller. I scratched my head about it and concluded the same as Dave. The fuel pump will prime for a preset time even with the ignition turned off after priming has begun.....which is a royal pain the ass when youve forgotten to re-connect the fuel hose.

Ok it would appear it doesnt have a cam angle sensor. That would explain the lack of information about them! So am i right in thinking i could just use batch fire injection? Or would i be better off affixing a cam angle sensor somehow. The power steering pump is run off a seperate pulley on the back of the exhaust cam so it would be super easy to bolt a toothed wheel on i guess.

Hello again! Dont suppose the trigger settings are available for a PSA XU9J4? Also known as the Mi16 engine? Found in a few Peugeot models and the Citroen 1.9. Have found this information for the crank trigger, not sure if they are helpful or not; Wheel type: 60-2 @ fly Sensor type: OEM vr sensor Wheel alignment: Tooth number 20 is under the sensor when engine is @ TDC Wheel decoder setup: Trigger A=5 Trigger return A=19 Trigger B=35 Trigger return B=49 Spark settings: Trigger angle=90

Hey Guys, Any possibility of me being able to get EGR working? The motor seems to use a 6wire stepper/solenoid on the EGR valve. Im just trying to boost cruise fuel economy as much as possible. Ive got a lot of input/outputs spare and figured this would be a good use if at all possible. A bit of feedback; im a very happy customer! The car is ten times nicer to drive on the G4. Once ive got closed loop lambda sorted - im sure my fuel economy will come back up. After the whole process of buying, installing and fine tuning (Keith Stewart did the hard bit) it has been a rewarding experience and the quality of materials and support provided has exceeded expectations. Have just purchased a Peugeot for the track and plan on getting the Link wired into it in good time. * One small bug ive noticed is the gear indicator in the PC Link software reports 5th gear as 6th. Just thought id let ya know!

Thanks for the idea Simon. I hadnt considered using a virtual aux. Final solution was to use the fan output as a gp output. Triggered 1 as virtual aux (configured as an engine cooling fan) or Trigger 2, a digital input (a/c pressure switch). The a/c clutch will then be triggered by an a/c request digital input. This satisfies all of my requirements without creating any new issues.