Thread: Mp3Car to Control Your Car!

I would be VERY keen to see any progress you make in this area.... some good inatitive shown here...!

I have a friend who is re-building a sick Charger from the ground up and has been playing with these things too...... currently he has built the equilivent of a monster techo with his PC and the parallel port....... rather cool...

Originally posted by Toaster:
<STRONG>It sounds like its going to be damn good. I would be a bit cautious about letting your carputer control anything to do with driving the car, though. I wouldn't like to imagine what state it would leave your engine in if the carputer crashed...</STRONG>

Already thought of that...
The system (carputer) will constantly send out a "Alive" signal to the controller board telling it that its alive and kicking. Incase the computer crashes the control module will disable itself and pass the control of the engine to the cars ECU. So basicly the default setting is using the standard ECU that comes with the car. So in this case even if i take the carputer out or disconnect it ...it wouldnt effect the operation of the car.

I wouldn't worry about having your computer control the waste gate ... let the turbo do that !! If you run at too high a boost, you'll ruin a perfectly good engine. More importantly yet, do you know what a waste gate actually does ??

NB. Running at 14.7psi boost is double the air pressure at sea-level.

Also, why worry about an intercooler water spray?? Repeat after me: Water to air. Water to air.

Originally posted by JamesB:
<STRONG>I wouldn't worry about having your computer control the waste gate ... let the turbo do that !! If you run at too high a boost, you'll ruin a perfectly good engine. More importantly yet, do you know what a waste gate actually does ??

NB. Running at 14.7psi boost is double the air pressure at sea-level.

Also, why worry about an intercooler water spray?? Repeat after me: Water to air. Water to air.</STRONG>

I would like to control the waste gate as a mean of disabling the turbo... another words fuel economy.
When the turbo is enabled it will control the waste gate. The computer will only work for enabling or disabling the turbo (opening or closing the waste gate).
Im currently running around 11.8Psi but the engine can handle up to 14Psi without too much trouble.
Water spray is a common method of cooling the intercoolers down specially in hot countries (like Australia) The water used to do that will be much colder (condensation of the Air Con) or any other method.

In terms of effectively turning your turbo "on and off", you'll have to consider how you are going to divert exhaust to the primary turbine .. without loosing too much power lost to lack of back pressure.

How much has having a turbo rig really affected your fuel efficiency? You will probably find that easing up on the gas pedal will save you even more =)

As per the intercooler .. you will actually require a seperate reservoir for the "fogger" system. I would personally suggest another method which will not incur such weight (and maintenance) implications.

I would like to warn you about doing this, in the interest of saving your engine. If the computer does crash (well, not so much if, but when) and control goes to the factory ECU, will it be able to compensate for the high boost properly? I mean, will it be able to instantly adjust fuel and spark to match? I don't know much about the Laser, but I have doubts about this.

Have you ever considered just going with an aftermarket engine management system like a Haltech? The cost would be about the same, but you get a professionally designed system meant to do as you ask. I know a lot of people running them in their RX-7s, with great success.

Originally posted by JamesB:
<STRONG>In terms of effectively turning your turbo "on and off", you'll have to consider how you are going to divert exhaust to the primary turbine .. without loosing too much power lost to lack of back pressure.

How much has having a turbo rig really affected your fuel efficiency? You will probably find that easing up on the gas pedal will save you even more =)

As per the intercooler .. you will actually require a seperate reservoir for the "fogger" system. I would personally suggest another method which will not incur such weight (and maintenance) implications.</STRONG>

Well i was looking at the operation of the wate gate, and what it seems like doing is just by-passing the exost gases trough a different path then turbine. Which means i still wont loss any back presureas as the gases travel the same path as it would with turbo or without.
To tell you the truth i dont know how much fuel it will be using with the recondition engine but with the old engine it was using heaps (something like more then the V8).

AS for the water spray well i dont really need liters and liters of water, the spary system will only operate with RPMs going over 4500 so it wont be constantly on.
And its not really complicated just another washer bottle with intake and outtake.
As for Aarons the comment

I would like to warn you about doing this, in the interest of saving your engine. If the computer does crash (well, not so much if, but when) and control goes to the factory ECU, will it be able to compensate for the high boost properly? I mean, will it be able to instantly adjust fuel and spark to match? I don't know much about the Laser, but I have doubts about this.
Have you ever considered just going with an aftermarket engine management system like a Haltech? The cost would be about the same, but you get a professionally designed system meant to do as you ask. I know a lot of people running them in their RX-7s, with great success

Well you see the Carputer doesnt directly controll the Air/fuel mixture. It tells the the cars ECU to do so. Basicly making it work more efficently. Another words the ECU alone would do a fine job ( but not as efficent(sp?)). The carputer tricks the ECU to think that it needs to Rich the mixture or other wise when its required.
If the carputer does crush ECU will go back to its set setting which is still in the limit of the Engines operation.
I could go to after market ECUs but im not after boosting my power what im trying to do is get the best ratio between economy/power.

Thanks guys so much for your feedback. it really helps to know other peoples opinon.
mtmsol thanks for the links ill check them out.