Tuning the Megasquirt (Pt 11.) - E85 Ultimate Guide 2

[@LoganDiehl2]

YES IT'S HERE!!

[@tougestarsgarage]

Glad to see you playing with this thing still. With the help of your original MS series, I turbo’d my single cam s13 on MS2pnp running flex with a handful of other goodies. Quality info laid out in very logical & easy to understand ways, appreciate all your work man!

[@projectzlowpoke]

Thank you for the time you have spent on this series. Excellent information all in one location.

[@Russ84NA]

Thankyou for all your videos. I wish you had done them all a year or two earlier. I had to find my way through a NB 1999 Miata with a Jackson racing SC that was running lean and went to Fast forward SC piggy back E Cool card which also would not get enough fuel to the engine. Gave up on all that and went to MS3pnp and e85 using a 5th injector to cool the charge rather than a intercooler. Somewhere along this trip the 4th cylinder did itself in because it overheated. Rebuilt the engine to a 12.5:1 CR. The good thing is that E85 usually come out of the pump around here at E90 or so. I may go back and redo some of the tuning I did based on what you put in the videos. Thanks and keep them coming.

[@boosted55chevy24]

Great information video. Extremely helpful. Thank you for your dedication and time.

[@mrwest5552]

You were helpful to Sarah -n- Tuned with your knowledge so a Thank You is in order. 👍

[@OGPedXing]

Thanks, yeah she's great 👍

[@autoaddictions]

excellent MS info. well done. I've been using Ms3 for years and I learned a few things.

[@Rrrrac3r]

Another tip for cold starts on E85 is to adjust cranking timing toward TDC. This packs the mixture in closer to the plug where it will have a greater propensity to light off quickly. Great video!

[@OGPedXing]

Great tip!

[@MotorSwapDan]

Might try this one today !

[@Samiyr]

Thanks again for this informative video, I just went out and tweaked my setup not realizing that when I did the flex blend I had also increased VE3 by 60%. It was running but not quite right, I followed the vid correctly this time and will go out and street tune.

[@DJimeku]

Glad to see your videos back. I’m about to start mine up MS3/MS3x diybob, I’m running AEM Uego (with no dedicated sensor ground)…. since it’s manual say’s chassis ground, where do you recommend a good place for us to ground a chassis-only wideband ground? Thanks

[@LoganDiehl2]

Guess I never read my manual, I'll chassis ground mine too. Don't quote me but I believe I've heard to use the same or close ground to the ECU ground?

[@OGPedXing]

Typically I recommend the ground under the brake booster if the wiring is more on the engine bay side. But if ground wire is with the controller in cabin with you, then grounding to a bolt on the trans tunnel works fine in my experience. You may want to sand the sheet metal a bit to make sure it's a clean connection.

[@DJimeku]

@@OGPedXing thanks! I was told the ecu was grounded near the throttle body. Not sure if this is applicable to all year miata's. I'll have to look into it. I guess it makes sense, since the relays are in the engine bay and the ecu can get grounded to the intake manifold up there.

[@OGPedXing]

@@DJimeku that's an option also. I think 90-93 has the ECU ground under the throttle body. My 94 (and I think later) is at the back of the intake manifold near the EGR. The only downside of using that one is that the heater part of the wideband is high amps compared to any sensor. This can produce some intermittent spikes in potential which can affect the accuracy of other sensors.

[@DJimeku]

@@OGPedXing yeah what's weird is the only ground coming out of my AEM 30-4110 Uego wideband controller is a thin single black chassis wire. In find it weird it's high amps yet a thin wire. Is yours like that?

[@norb231]

You don;t have to use the blend curve, once you enable the flex blend sensor it will add the correct fuel if the original ve table was tuned for gasoline.

[@OGPedXing]

You don't have to, but using two tables with the blend gives better results than a straight calculated fuel addition. No blend is what I call Level 3 in the Part One video.

[@Max_Arjona]

at the risk of sounding a little silly, I already have a good dyno tune on e85 running close to 400 whp. I want to add flex fuel for convenience purposes, among other reasons (I have trips planned where e85 is not available within 100 miles.) Can I just do these calculations backwards to get started on the gasoline tune? I don't care at all about extracting every ounce of power I could out of the pump gas, so I really wouldn't mind running a rather underpowered/conservative tune for the pump gas. At this time I'd prefer to avoid having to go back to the dyno just to tune the gasoline tune. I'm just not sure exactly how to go about starting with a solid e85 tune instead of starting with a gasoline tune.

[@OGPedXing]

Yes, you can basically remove 30 or so percent across the board and get a gasoline tune that will likely be ok. Save the original fuel ve and ignition tables and then create a new tune. Load the original tables into both table 1 and 3 areas. Then remove 30 percent of the fuel from table 1, this will be your gas table. When you get your flex sensor installed you can turn off the fuel multiplier percent completely. Set it to 100 instead of the normal 165 percent or something on that screen. This will allow the car to blend between table 1 and 3 based on the ethanol content but will not modify or multiply the values on the fly. Make sure everything is still good with e85, the afrs are the same as before, etc. Then fill up with normal gas (drive to empty and fill up or empty and save your e85) and do some street auto tuning on table 1. After a bit of driving it should be reasonably good.

[@joelhernandez393]

@23:39 in this video. Is that your spark table on regular pump gas? If so what octane was it? Or is that already an e85 table?

[@OGPedXing]

Yes this was my table for 93 octane gasoline.

[@BigKillacamster]

Thanks for the dedication. Really enjoy the videos. Do you use a knock sensor? Really interested in installing one with my turboed 95 running ms3. Any input?

[@OGPedXing]

Not currently on my 94. There are a few ways to do it on an NA but I'm not convinced they are reliable at the moment. I think that the guy behind the Speeduino project is working on a dedicated board and that might be interesting and reasonably priced. Not sure of the ETA on that though.

[@BigKillacamster]

@@OGPedXing thank you. I’ll keep an eye out. You’ve giving me the confidence to try e85. I’ve been holding off because the closest e85 is an hour drive.

[@JoJoGator]

too bad e85 isnt even guaranteed to be 85% from the pump it can be anything from 50-85%. would recommend a flex fuel sensor for sure. One big reason why i went back to 93. Consistency and secondly availability.

[@OGPedXing]

Yeah, for me the flex fuel sensor is a must. Otherwise, your tune will be all over the place. Once you have a good blend table though, even e50 is higher octane than 93 full gasoline, which you can take advantage of by increasing timing and boost.

[@flameninja00]

Are you running MS3? I only ask for clarification sake, because my DIYPNP only has the base, boring flex fuel settings. No real table for it. But I do have a question you may know. I'm having my car dyno tuned on E85. I'm Wonder if I can have it tuned on E85, setup my VE table for E, then set the Flex menu to pull timing and fuel for 93? So, have sub-100% on the left side, and have 100% on the right.

[@OGPedXing]

Yes I'm on an ms3x. I think it can work for want you're saying. You can tune for the fuel you want to run normally and then use the percentages to pull fuel/spark for gas vs adding fuel and spark for e85. It won't be perfect when running the other fuel but it should run reasonably well.

[@flameninja00]

@@OGPedXing that's what I was thinking, but I haven't had a chance to check it yet. Can't mess with it when the engine's out. I'd rather the fuel and timing be spot on on the ethanol side than the 93 side. Plan was to pull extra timing and leave it rich-ish on 93.