DIY_EFI Digest Wednesday, 2 October 1996 Volume 01 : Number 294 In this issue: [admin] List services (automated monthly post) RE: Re: Combustion chamber heat Re: EEC IV reprogramming Re: EEC IV reprogramming Re: EEC IV reprogramming Re: Combustion chamber & twin plugs Re: EEC IV reprogramming A thought... lots o' stuff on a 911 Re: EEC IV reprogramming Re: A thought... Re: Combustion chamber & twin plugs Re: A thought...PC in a car Re: A thought... Re: A thought... Re: A thought... Re: twin plugs Re: Combustion chamber & twin plugs Re: A thought... Re[2]: A thought... Re: A thought... Re: Combustion chamber & twin plugs Re: Combustion chamber & twin plugs Re: A thought... Re: Combustion chamber & twin plugs Re: EEC IV reprogramming See the end of the digest for information on subscribing to the DIY_EFI or DIY_EFI-Digest mailing lists. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jsg (John S Gwynne) Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 06:10:08 -0400 Subject: [admin] List services (automated monthly post) This message is post monthly as a reminder of the available list services. For help: Send "help" to Majordomo@xxx. To post: Send to "[list name]@xxx.edu" To subscribe: Send to Majordomo@xxx.edu subscribe [list name] [your email address *only* if different than your "From" address] To unsubscribe: Send to Majordomo@xxx.edu unsubscribe [list name] [your *registered* email address if different than your "From" address] The archive to each mailing list is available through the following sources: 1) WWW. http://efi332.eng.ohio-state.edu/ 2) ftp. ftp://efi332.eng.ohio-state.edu/ 3) Majordomo. Send "index [list name]" to Majordomo@xxx. 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John ------------------------------ From: Mark Pitts Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 13:22:22 +-100 Subject: RE: Re: Combustion chamber heat I think you would need some kind of wave guide in to the plug hole, with = a micro wave transparent plug in it to stop the combustion going up the = wave guide?=20 Mark - ---------- Or a handfull of Gunn diodes and 30v at a few amps... How much mw power = would it take to ignite the mixture, and how would you get the power = into=20 the chamber? Steve Ravet sravet@xxx.com Baby you're a genius when it comes to cooking up some chili sauce... ------------------------------ From: Thor Johnson Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 08:13:03 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: EEC IV reprogramming On Mon, 30 Sep 1996, M HILL wrote: > > >>i'm betting he's refering to the fact that the CPU is just looking up a > > >>bunch of tables. (remember superchips .. just tables no code) > > >>the cpu only has to look up injector "on time" and SPOUT "phase shift" > > >>for any certain rpm, mass air, and engine temperature and its job is > > >>done. add on a few more bells and whistles and its done. A real > > >>programmer would use the CPU to "compute" these outputs not look them up. > > I take it from that that you have not seen the strategies for the > computers. They do a lot more than just looking at a couple of > tables. I know 'cos I have seen the strategies for EEC-IV. Would /could you care to elaborate? I would love to know the strategies in commercial use (if not under NDA/trade secret whatever)... TIA, Thor Johnson johnsont@xxx.edu http://falcon.mercer.peachnet.edu/~johnsont Have you seen the WarpMap lately? http://falcon.mercer.peachnet.edu/~johnsont/warpmap ------------------------------ From: cloud@xxx.edu (tom cloud) Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 09:23:13 -0500 Subject: Re: EEC IV reprogramming >> I take it from that that you have not seen the strategies for the >> computers. They do a lot more than just looking at a couple of >> tables. I know 'cos I have seen the strategies for EEC-IV. > > Would /could you care to elaborate? I would love to know the >strategies in commercial use (if not under NDA/trade secret whatever)... > >TIA, > Thor Johnson I don't care if they're trade secrets ... let's hear 'em Tom Cloud None of the opinions expressed here are mine or anyone elses ------------------------------ From: Land Shark Date: Tue, 01 Oct 1996 09:25:37 -0600 Subject: Re: EEC IV reprogramming Howsabout someone come clean with all those 8061 opcodes :) I've heard that they are very 8096 like ... Jim PS: Who works with 8096 in Bosch Gen. 3 Motronic units ------------------------------ From: Stephen Dubovsky Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 11:18:06 -0400 Subject: Re: Combustion chamber & twin plugs > >Does anyone have any references to any work dealing with multiple >spark plugs per cylinder? > To my knowledge, all of the rotary powered RX-7s use two plugs. I believe they are different sizes and are fired w/ a slight phase shift between them (although you probably shouldn't quote me on that...) Dont know how much of that is revelant to pistons. SMD ------------------------------ From: M HILL Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 17:06:35 GMT0BST Subject: Re: EEC IV reprogramming >> I take it from that that you have not seen the strategies for the >> computers. They do a lot more than just looking at a couple of >> tables. I know 'cos I have seen the strategies for EEC-IV. > Would /could you care to elaborate? I would love to know the >strategies in commercial use (if not under NDA/trade secret >whatever)... >TIA, Unfortunately I cannot elaborate as I am forbidden from discussing them as I work for ford doing development work and the information is confidential. It is interesting though. A lot more to it than I thought. Martin ------------------------------ From: Arnaldo Echevarria Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 12:00:19 -0400 Subject: A thought... I'm thinking of putting fuel injection on my pontiac 455 in a '78 trans am. I'd like to buy the 900cfm throttle body from holley that already includes: 1. 4 injectors, 85lb/hr (kinda like a tbi 4 barrel) 2. tps All I'd need is an interface to these four injectors, a computer, couple of sensors (map, temp, ego, etc). I'm thinking, instead of going the 68hc11 route, using a pc. Instead of building a a/d and d/a board, use two parallel ports. That would give me 8 ins and 8 outs. Timing would be resolved by the computer, hell, 386/486 motherboards are cheap. Question 1: Am I crazy? Anyone see an inherent flaw in all of this? Question 2: I need a good power supply to give me +12,+5,-5,-12. Should I pull the car's power, use a 12/24 volt transformer, then get a couple of voltage regulators to give the voltages I need? Car voltage lines are extremely noisy, any ideas on how to clean the signal? Question 3: Any suggestions, ideas, or people interested? Arnaldo aec@xxx.net ------------------------------ From: Stephen Dubovsky Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 11:18:07 -0400 Subject: lots o' stuff on a 911 Does anyone know of a practical boost pressure/hp increase can be used on an original non-turbo 911? I know it has a higher compression ratio than the 930 (so I may have detonation problems) but my 180 stock ponies just aren't quite enough (I figure another 100 would require replacing the tires a little more often;) Its an 83 3.0L 911SC w/ K-Jetronic. I plan to replace the K system w/ a DIY-EFI type w/ enough injector duty cycle/fuel pressure left to be able to supercharge it later. My real dream and goal is to use a supercharger and electrically drive it to close loop control the boost (I do motor drives for a living, so this seems easier (and a neater project) than driving it off the crankshaft). The system would also allow itself to be turned down to 1atm for 'normally aspirated' driving on longer trips so the fuel economy gets back into the double digits;) I really dont care what kind of mpg it gets when Im having fun, if I could use an indycar engine w/700hp @ 2mpg I would do it in a minute. Any suggestions? Im also worried about getting the heat out since its air (and oil;) cooled. I guess I could measure cyl temp and limit boost vs temmp to keep it under some max temp... Has anyone though of injecting water (atomized of course) into the shroud (after the fan) to increase the latent heat capacity of the cooling air. Sort of like driving on a REALLY humid day all the time (or just when required). I dont care to reclaim the water, its cheap... The last question (for now...) is will the stock conrods/crankshaft/etc take the extra forces. The heads need to be rebuilt anyway sometime in the near future (or at least stripped down and looked at) and was wondering while I had it in a million+ pieces, should anything stock be replaced (other than obvious worn stuff)? Tnx, SMD ------------------------------ From: "Edward C. Hernandez" Date: Tue, 01 Oct 1996 14:46:50 -0400 Subject: Re: EEC IV reprogramming M HILL wrote: > Unfortunately I cannot elaborate as I am forbidden from discussing > them as I work for Ford doing development work and the information is > confidential. Thanks. And people say there isn't any integrity in the net. 725 unread message to go... - -- Ed Hernandez Ford Motor Company ehernan3@xxx.com ------------------------------ From: "Dan J. Declerck" Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 13:31:27 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: A thought... > > I'm thinking of putting fuel injection on my pontiac 455 in a '78 trans am. > > I'd like to buy the 900cfm throttle body from holley that already includes: > 1. 4 injectors, 85lb/hr (kinda like a tbi 4 barrel) > 2. tps > > All I'd need is an interface to these four injectors, a computer, couple of > sensors (map, temp, ego, etc). > > I'm thinking, instead of going the 68hc11 route, using a pc. Instead of > building a a/d and d/a board, use two parallel ports. That would give me > 8 ins and 8 outs. Timing would be resolved by the computer, hell, 386/486 > motherboards are cheap. Yes, but how will you mount it in your car? How much power can you afford to use to run this PC? The benefits might be swallowed by the additional Horsepower lost in the new alternator required to run the thing. You have to do things in Real-time, and no RTOS is easily accessable for this system? How will you isloate this computer system and it's connectors from vibration inherent in automobiles? How do you do the timing control without a TPU, and/or PWM waveform generator? How do you get timing control tighter than 55 ms? (the timer tick on PC boards are 1/18th of a second). How do you program in 80386 assembler and have few bugs? > > Question 1: Am I crazy? Anyone see an inherent flaw in all of this? > > Question 2: I need a good power supply to give me +12,+5,-5,-12. Should I > pull the car's power, use a 12/24 volt transformer, then get a couple of > voltage regulators to give the voltages I need? Car voltage lines are > extremely noisy, any ideas on how to clean the signal? > > Question 3: Any suggestions, ideas, or people interested? > > Arnaldo > aec@xxx.net > > - -- => Dan DeClerck | EMAIL: declrckd@xxx.com <= => Motorola Cellular CSD | <= =>"The truth to CDMA... is spreading" | Phone: (847) 632-4596 <= - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ From: Kalle Pihlajasaari Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 21:18:57 +0200 (sat) Subject: Re: Combustion chamber & twin plugs Hi All, I'm an alfa fan. > >Does anyone have any references to any work dealing with multiple > >spark plugs per cylinder? The 4 in line Alfa Romeo engine has had the option of twin plugs in the hemmispherical head for over 26 years. They give it about 15% more power and 15% more torque and the torque peak is real low at 4000 RPM. All the current 4 cyl alfas have twin spark only. 1970 cc with 110 kW/6200 RPM and 187 Nm/4000 RPM Get you to accelerate real nice on a standard car. Cheers - -- Kalle Pihlajasaari kalle@xxx.za Interface Products Box 15775, Doornfontein, 2028, South Africa +27 (11) 402-7750 Fax: +27 (11) 402-7751 ------------------------------ From: Kalle Pihlajasaari Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 21:41:58 +0200 (sat) Subject: Re: A thought...PC in a car Hi Arnaldo, > I'm thinking, instead of going the 68hc11 route, using a pc. Instead of > building a a/d and d/a board, use two parallel ports. That would give me > 8 ins and 8 outs. Timing would be resolved by the computer, hell, 386/486 > motherboards are cheap. > > Question 1: Am I crazy? Anyone see an inherent flaw in all of this? Too expensive in production but otherwise pretty ok, also got lots of hardware in your computer that may cause it to glitch a car but not a spreadsheet such as timer alarm interrrupt, 24 hout interrupt, parity error crash and other such. Takes a significant amount of time to boot even from frlash drive (a must). > Question 2: I need a good power supply to give me +12,+5,-5,-12. Should I > pull the car's power, use a 12/24 volt transformer, then get a couple of > voltage regulators to give the voltages I need? Car voltage lines are > extremely noisy, any ideas on how to clean the signal? There are PC104 form factor PC in all flavours and you can get for US$ ~200 a PC104 powesupply from the local AMPRO agent (third party product) that takes 8 .. 30 V DC in and gives you the required voltages for the PC card. You will then need a flash disk or a ROM card and then a ADC DAC card and you shoyuld have a Computer you can use, I expect you will not be the first to have done it. > Question 3: Any suggestions, ideas, or people interested? Sounds like fun, over kill for me, Just want to add mapped ignition to my Alfa with Dellorto 4 Barrel Carbs. Cheers - -- Kalle Pihlajasaari kalle@xxx.za Interface Products Box 15775, Doornfontein, 2028, South Africa +27 (11) 402-7750 Fax: +27 (11) 402-7751 ------------------------------ From: MSargent@xxx. Sargent) Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 15:47:19 -0400 Subject: Re: A thought... > From: "Dan J. Declerck" > > > > I'm thinking, instead of going the 68hc11 route, using a pc. Instead of > > building a a/d and d/a board, use two parallel ports. That would give me > > 8 ins and 8 outs. Timing would be resolved by the computer, hell, 386/486 > > motherboards are cheap. > Yes, but how will you mount it in your car? How much power can you afford > to use to run this PC? The benefits might be swallowed by the additional > Horsepower lost in the new alternator required to run the thing. Let's get real here. We're not talking about putting a full tower, with mirrored SCSI disks, CD-ROM, sound card, 21" monitor, etc. in the car, just using those components that make sense. A typical PC MB is rather small these days. Mount it is a box in the trunk. The new Pentium MBs include serial, parallel, IDE, floppy, KB, RAM and cache. Leave room for a couple of commercial analog cards, and add in an IDE drive for permanent storage. (Later burn the working code into ROM and replace the BIOS ROM chips.) The whole shooting match would probably only need about 20 watts of power (measure it sometime). > You have to do things in Real-time, and no RTOS is easily accessable > for this system? There are lots of RTOS's available for PC's (i.e. RTEMS or QNX). > How will you isloate this computer system and it's connectors from vibration > inherent in automobiles? Same way you would do it for any controller. What's so diffent about a PC? > How do you do the timing control without a TPU, and/or PWM waveform generator? This is the sticker. You would want to find an add-on card with a TPU (or equiv). Otherwise you will be doing a lot of high speed bit twiddling (see below). > How do you get timing control tighter than 55 ms? (the timer tick on PC boards > are 1/18th of a second). Just plain wrong. The timer on a PC uses a programable divider to generate interupts. Under DOS, and Windows 3.x, the timer was programmed to a value of 65,536 (actually 0 is used for this divisor) and that resulted in the 18.2 Hz interupt. But if programmed with a lower value, you will get faster interupts. A value of 1 would produce interrupts at a rate of 1,193,180 MHz. To get interupts at a rate of 10,000 Hz, a divisor of around 119 would be used (actually giving 10,026 Hz). BTW: With an engine turning at 6,000 RPM (100 RPS), the engine turns over 360 degrees every 1/100 of a second. With interupts at 10,000 per second, that means an interupt will occur every 3.6 degrees. That should be accurate enough for most people. But if you want greater accuracy, just reduce the divisor to 33, and you'll get interupts every degree. (Admittedly, your ISR will need to be pretty tightly coded even on a Pentium in this case.) > How do you program in 80386 assembler and have few bugs? Why not use C, or C++, or Pascal, or Ada, or Forth, or ... The language choices are better for a PC than for any imbedded processor. A PC could be a very good choice. If you look in an issue of Circuit Cellar you will find all sorts of ads for Imbedded PCs, which are PC compatible and usually have all sorts of analog and digital I/O available. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Michael F. Sargent | Net: msargent@xxx.com | Phone: 1(613)721-0902 | | Gallium Software Inc.| | FAX: 1(613)721-1278 | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------ From: cloud@xxx.edu (tom cloud) Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 15:28:27 -0500 Subject: Re: A thought... >I'm thinking of putting fuel injection on my pontiac 455 in a '78 trans am. > >I'd like to buy the 900cfm throttle body from holley that already includes: >1. 4 injectors, 85lb/hr (kinda like a tbi 4 barrel) >2. tps This is essentially my direction for my old Bronco -- except I bought the whole kit & kaboodle from Holley (the 2 bbl 670 cfm). It works, but I thought I could do better. >All I'd need is an interface to these four injectors, a computer, couple of >sensors (map, temp, ego, etc). > >I'm thinking, instead of going the 68hc11 route, using a pc. Instead of >building a a/d and d/a board, use two parallel ports. That would give me >8 ins and 8 outs. Timing would be resolved by the computer, hell, 386/486 >motherboards are cheap. Sure would be big. >Question 1: Am I crazy? Anyone see an inherent flaw in all of this? I used to use PC (understand the word PC was around long before IBM got into it -- back when MITS, IMSAI, etc were making 8080, 8085, & Z-80 boards) motherboards for dedicated apps. They were very reasonably priced and had lots more power than I needed -- but, they were lots bigger than a specially designed board and usually needed bigger power supplies. >Question 2: I need a good power supply to give me +12,+5,-5,-12. Should I >pull the car's power, use a 12/24 volt transformer, then get a couple of >voltage regulators to give the voltages I need? Car voltage lines are >extremely noisy, any ideas on how to clean the signal? >From that question I deduce you need a little help. You can't get the other voltages from the 12 volt supply without going through an inverter of some sorts -- a transformer only works with AC and then only with a limited, specific frequency range. The transformers you are used to work at 60 cycles / Hertz. Aircraft transformers work at 400 cycles (they can be smaller at higher frequencies). If one knew how, he would build a high frequency inverter (like 50 to 70 kilohertz) and go from there (it's what's in all the current PC's, it's called a switching power supply). [In fact, while I think about it, one could take a standard PC switching power supply that sells for about $30 and modify the transformer and switching portion to operate off 12 volts. See, the supply in your PC rectifies the 120 VAC from your house to get about 170 volts DC and then switches it (turns it back into high frequency AC) and puts it through one or more transformers to get the different voltages desired. The car already has DC -- it's just 12 volts, not 170. All that should be required would be to rewind the transformer(s) and beef up the switching transistors to handle the higher currents.] Note that the PC motherboard may not need anything but +5 volts. The +/- 12 is for the RS-232 ()serial) and +12 is used for the disk drives. I'm not sure if the -5 is required anymore?? If one of the voltages other than +5 is required but needs small currents, there are chips that use only capacitors (not transformers) designed specifically to generate low current bias voltages. >Question 3: Any suggestions, ideas, or people interested? > >Arnaldo >aec@xxx.net Tom Cloud None of the opinions expressed here are mine or anyone elses ------------------------------ From: "Mike Fahrion" Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 15:58:07 +0000 Subject: Re: A thought... > > > > I'm thinking of putting fuel injection on my pontiac 455 in a '78 trans am. snip > > I'm thinking, instead of going the 68hc11 route, using a pc. Instead of > > building a a/d and d/a board, use two parallel ports. That would give me > > 8 ins and 8 outs. Timing would be resolved by the computer, hell, 386/486 > > motherboards are cheap. > > Yes, but how will you mount it in your car? How much power can you afford > to use to run this PC? The benefits might be swallowed by the additional > Horsepower lost in the new alternator required to run the thing. I don't think that power consumption or power supply problems will be a serious issue. Maybe as much as 0.1 hp difference. It is very common to run a laptop from cigarette lighters. A laptop would be really nice in some ways, but you may have an interface I/O problem - you'd need to take advantage of the PCMCIA slots. A desktop machine/motherboard doesn't sound nearly as convenient - especially the display. > How will you isloate this computer system and it's connectors from vibration > inherent in automobiles? Good point - you'll need to put some thought into this - doesn't sound too bad though. I'd consider a non-mechanical data storage format. Hard drives don't like lots of motion (although that's hardly even true anymore) - but my experience is they definately don't like to spin at cold temps. > How do you get timing control tighter than 55 ms? (the timer tick > on PC boards are 1/18th of a second). With programming techniques you can get resolution in the microseconds (ballpark numbers). > > Question 1: Am I crazy? Anyone see an inherent flaw in all of this? crazy? probably :) snip > > Question 3: Any suggestions, ideas, or people interested? I'm interested..... - -mike mfahrion@xxx.com ------------------------------ From: fridman@xxx.ca (Robert Fridman) Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 15:10:36 -0600 (MDT) Subject: Re: twin plugs > > > >Does anyone have any references to any work dealing with multiple > >spark plugs per cylinder? > > > To my knowledge, all of the rotary powered RX-7s use two plugs. I believe > they are different sizes and are fired w/ a slight phase shift between them > (although you probably shouldn't quote me on that...) Dont know how much of > that is revelant to pistons. > > SMD Staggering the sparks on a hemy headed engine like the bmw boxer seems to have a positive effect on power. I have no idea why this would be the case. RF. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 83 R100 DoD 749 Robert Fridman 84 320i fridman@xxx.ca ------------------------------ From: fridman@xxx.ca (Robert Fridman) Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 15:06:27 -0600 (MDT) Subject: Re: Combustion chamber & twin plugs > The 4 in line Alfa Romeo engine has had the option of twin plugs > in the hemmispherical head for over 26 years. They give it about > 15% more power and 15% more torque and the torque peak is real low > at 4000 RPM. All the current 4 cyl alfas have twin spark only. > > 1970 cc with 110 kW/6200 RPM and 187 Nm/4000 RPM > what does the Alpha use to distribute the sparks? Do they use a distributor or some sort of solid state device? RF. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 83 R100 DoD 749 Robert Fridman 84 320i fridman@xxx.ca ------------------------------ From: Kalle Pihlajasaari Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 23:42:45 +0200 (sat) Subject: Re: A thought... Hi, > Yes, but how will you mount it in your car? How much power can you afford > to use to run this PC? The benefits might be swallowed by the additional > Horsepower lost in the new alternator required to run the thing. > > You have to do things in Real-time, and no RTOS is easily accessable > for this system? > > How will you isloate this computer system and it's connectors from vibration > inherent in automobiles? > > How do you do the timing control without a TPU, and/or PWM waveform generator? > > How do you get timing control tighter than 55 ms? (the timer tick on PC boards > are 1/18th of a second). > > How do you program in 80386 assembler and have few bugs? I hope you are kidding, There are more RTOS's for bigger processors than the embedded ones, you can get DOS, UNIX and NT variants plus many other less common ones. If you use the PC104 formfactor the connectors are 0.1" pin grids which are very reliable (not perfect mind you) and loads better than the ISA edge connector. The PC104 designs also gave a full set of standard periferals on the card to give you a diagnostics RX232 port (2 of) a parallel port for one interrupt in line and 4 data in lines and 11 data data out lines. You also get drop in ROM, FLASH, SRAM cards that are available in automotive temperatures. Many vehicle tracking systems make use of embedded PCs in cars and trucks. The sixe of PC104 is about 3.5" x 3.5" and as such smaller than the standard car controller (still needs driver circuitry which will make up for it). Also if you find the 386 just does not get you there drop in a 486 or pentium, YOUR CODE STAYS THE SAME (or almost, depending on coding style and ability) and the rest of the hardware does not need to be changed just the processor card. There is a bult in timer in the PC which is programmable and does get set to a much higher speed in most OSs besided DOS. You have one timer channel output on the speaker port with an independant gate on the output and input of the timer channel. you can get many multi IO cards with analog and digital and timer functions all on one card. You can connect all of the functions to the PC with ribbon cable (yuck) and there will be no vibration stress. 80386 assembler is about the same as al lthe others and there are a lot more development tools to work with for a PC than any other processor out there if I guess right. Cheers - -- Kalle Pihlajasaari kalle@xxx.za Interface Products Box 15775, Doornfontein, 2028, South Africa +27 (11) 402-7750 Fax: +27 (11) 402-7751 ------------------------------ From: Terry Sare Date: 1 Oct 96 17:05 CDT Subject: Re[2]: A thought... The IDE will not survive in a automotive environment. If you decide to risk it -- use the older 100 - 500 meg drives. They have less sensitivity to shock than the new high capacity drives. Put lots of soft padding around the chassis holding the drive. Mount the drive directly to the chassis though, otherwise it seems to transmit more shock to the drive. I didn't ask why but that what the accelerometer data showed. A better choice would be PCMCIA flash and sram cards. They can work the same as a hard drive and would be more likely to survive the nasty environment. Get a two slot and plug a flash in one and a sram in the other. The sram is battery backed up so it retains the information on power down. Oh, there are direct IDE plugin flash cards that look like an IDE to the system. Terry Sare - ------------- > From: "Dan J. Declerck" > > > > I'm thinking, instead of going the 68hc11 route, using a pc. Instead of > > building a a/d and d/a board, use two parallel ports. That would give me > > 8 ins and 8 outs. Timing would be resolved by the computer, hell, 386/486 > > motherboards are cheap. > Yes, but how will you mount it in your car? How much power can you afford > to use to run this PC? The benefits might be swallowed by the additional > Horsepower lost in the new alternator required to run the thing. Let's get real here. We're not talking about putting a full tower, with mirrored SCSI disks, CD-ROM, sound card, 21" monitor, etc. in the car, just using those components that make sense. A typical PC MB is rather small these days. Mount it is a box in the trunk. The new Pentium MBs include serial, parallel, IDE, floppy, KB, RAM and cache. Leave room for a couple of commercial analog cards, and add in an IDE drive for permanent storage. (Later burn the working code into ROM and replace the BIOS ROM chips.) The whole shooting match would probably only need about 20 watts of power (measure it sometime). > You have to do things in Real-time, and no RTOS is easily accessable > for this system? There are lots of RTOS's available for PC's (i.e. RTEMS or QNX). > How will you isloate this computer system and it's connectors from vibration > inherent in automobiles? Same way you would do it for any controller. What's so diffent about a PC? > How do you do the timing control without a TPU, and/or PWM waveform generator? This is the sticker. You would want to find an add-on card with a TPU (or equiv). Otherwise you will be doing a lot of high speed bit twiddling (see below). > How do you get timing control tighter than 55 ms? (the timer tick on PC boards > are 1/18th of a second). Just plain wrong. The timer on a PC uses a programable divider to generate interupts. Under DOS, and Windows 3.x, the timer was programmed to a value of 65,536 (actually 0 is used for this divisor) and that resulted in the 18.2 Hz interupt. But if programmed with a lower value, you will get faster interupts. A value of 1 would produce interrupts at a rate of 1,193,180 MHz. To get interupts at a rate of 10,000 Hz, a divisor of around 119 would be used (actually giving 10,026 Hz). BTW: With an engine turning at 6,000 RPM (100 RPS), the engine turns over 360 degrees every 1/100 of a second. With interupts at 10,000 per second, that means an interupt will occur every 3.6 degrees. That should be accurate enough for most people. But if you want greater accuracy, just reduce the divisor to 33, and you'll get interupts every degree. (Admittedly, your ISR will need to be pretty tightly coded even on a Pentium in this case.) > How do you program in 80386 assembler and have few bugs? Why not use C, or C++, or Pascal, or Ada, or Forth, or ... The language choices are better for a PC than for any imbedded processor. A PC could be a very good choice. If you look in an issue of Circuit Cellar you will find all sorts of ads for Imbedded PCs, which are PC compatible and usually have all sorts of analog and digital I/O available. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Michael F. Sargent | Net: msargent@xxx.com | Phone: 1(613)721-0902 | | Gallium Software Inc.| | FAX: 1(613)721-1278 | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------ From: Michael Manry Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 15:24:23 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: A thought... This may be overly simplistic for this forum level but...... ACCEL makes a "universal" TBI setup that is good for up to about 300HP. It uses four 45lb/hr high-pressure (3 bar) injectors and all of the sensors etc are stock GM stuff. Using their CALMAP software, you can adjust just about everything but your tire pressure. I used this system on a Buick 215 V-8 sand car and it worked great. You can get the whole works for about $1200 from Jeg's or Summit. Hope this helps Mike Manry ShadeTree Racing "Bolts Right On"...Seldom Does On Tue, 1 Oct 1996, Arnaldo Echevarria wrote: > I'm thinking of putting fuel injection on my pontiac 455 in a '78 trans am. > > I'd like to buy the 900cfm throttle body from holley that already includes: > 1. 4 injectors, 85lb/hr (kinda like a tbi 4 barrel) > 2. tps > > All I'd need is an interface to these four injectors, a computer, couple of > sensors (map, temp, ego, etc). > > I'm thinking, instead of going the 68hc11 route, using a pc. Instead of > building a a/d and d/a board, use two parallel ports. That would give me > 8 ins and 8 outs. Timing would be resolved by the computer, hell, 386/486 > motherboards are cheap. > > Question 1: Am I crazy? Anyone see an inherent flaw in all of this? > > Question 2: I need a good power supply to give me +12,+5,-5,-12. Should I > pull the car's power, use a 12/24 volt transformer, then get a couple of > voltage regulators to give the voltages I need? Car voltage lines are > extremely noisy, any ideas on how to clean the signal? > > Question 3: Any suggestions, ideas, or people interested? > > Arnaldo > aec@xxx.net > > ------------------------------ From: Kalle Pihlajasaari Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 00:40:57 +0200 (sat) Subject: Re: Combustion chamber & twin plugs Hi Robert, > > The 4 in line Alfa Romeo engine has had the option of twin plugs > > in the hemmispherical head for over 26 years. They give it about > > 15% more power and 15% more torque and the torque peak is real low > > at 4000 RPM. All the current 4 cyl alfas have twin spark only. > > > > 1970 cc with 110 kW/6200 RPM and 187 Nm/4000 RPM > > what does the Alpha use to distribute the sparks? Do they use a > distributor or some sort of solid state device? In the past twin points twin coil and large distributor with 8 out and 2 in. These days I'm not sure but could be the same but have not looked at any new Alfas, too much plastic. The 159i had a single spark performance engine with the first Alfa electronic fuel injection (mechanical ones before that) and it had a variable timing inlet cam, and it prbably had mapped ignition though not sure, only played with one once. I don't think Alfa have made one of the V6 engines with twin spark but I'm sure some enthusiast have. The new engines are 4 valve (boo) and fuel injected at least on some of the models, probably all of them. Cheers - -- Kalle Pihlajasaari kalle@xxx.za Interface Products Box 15775, Doornfontein, 2028, South Africa +27 (11) 402-7750 Fax: +27 (11) 402-7751 ------------------------------ From: fridman@xxx.ca (Robert Fridman) Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 17:18:10 -0600 (MDT) Subject: Re: Combustion chamber & twin plugs > In the past twin points twin coil and large distributor with > 8 out and 2 in. > > These days I'm not sure but could be the same but have not looked > at any new Alfas, too much plastic. > Thanks for the info Kalle. What I'm trying to do is somehow make the Bosch CDI unit on my bike fire 4 plugs instead of two. And I don't have the money to buy a second CDI unit;) RF. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 83 R100 DoD 749 Robert Fridman 84 320i fridman@xxx.ca ------------------------------ From: Roger Heflin Date: Tue, 01 Oct 1996 19:32:22 -0500 Subject: Re: A thought... Michael F. Sargent wrote: > > > You have to do things in Real-time, and no RTOS is easily accessable > > for this system? > > There are lots of RTOS's available for PC's (i.e. RTEMS or QNX). You would not even need a RTOS. Most control systems micros have no OS at all. They do everything themselves. > BTW: With an engine turning at 6,000 RPM (100 RPS), the engine turns > over 360 degrees every 1/100 of a second. With interupts at 10,000 per > second, that means an interupt will occur every 3.6 degrees. That should > be accurate enough for most people. But if you want greater accuracy, > just reduce the divisor to 33, and you'll get interupts every degree. > (Admittedly, your ISR will need to be pretty tightly coded even on a > Pentium in this case.) You probably would not use any ISRs. It is not like the computer has anything better to do. Probably just one loop, no ISRs at all. Let the clock run free (ignore its interrupts) and make sure that you loop will execute in less than 1 rotation of the clock (more than 18.2 times a second - should be pretty easy), then just scan all required sensors (including the clock) every pass and make the decisions based on that. ISR only complicated things unnecessarly, you only use the if the computer has something better to do with its time. It really doesn't sound that hard to do. - -- Roger Heflin rah@xxx.net ------------------------------ From: Craig Pugsley Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 09:43:43 +1000 (EST) Subject: Re: Combustion chamber & twin plugs > Also heard of American Eagle making that 12 cylinder engine for drag > racing with 3 plugs per cylinder on a 4 valve engine. The chambers were > so huge that a central plug wasn't enough. FWIW, all mazda rotarys use a twin plug arrangement, as the combustion chamber is very long and thin (compared to a piston engine). Realistically, disconnecting the "secondary" set of plugs makes little noticable difference to the power output (on mine at least). I think it's mainly for emissions. Also, the 4 rotor engine used in the le mans car has a 3rd plug-probably to get the last 1-2% power at 10,000 rpm ;-) Cheers, Craig. ------------------------------ From: "Jeffrey Engel" Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 19:52:10 +600 Subject: Re: EEC IV reprogramming Anyone with a little pull at Intel? I called them today and the person I talked to couldn't find anything on the 8061 or 8065. I've an '88 Turbo coupe engine that I want to teach a few new tricks to. . . je > Date: Tue, 01 Oct 1996 09:25:37 -0600 > To: diy_efi@xxx.edu > From: Land Shark > Subject: Re: EEC IV reprogramming > Reply-to: diy_efi@xxx.edu > Howsabout someone come clean with all those 8061 opcodes :) > > I've heard that they are very 8096 like ... > > Jim > > PS: Who works with 8096 in Bosch Gen. 3 Motronic units > > > > ------------------------------ End of DIY_EFI Digest V1 #294 ***************************** To subscribe to DIY_EFI-Digest, send the command: subscribe diy_efi-digest in the body of a message to "Majordomo@xxx. A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to subscribe to that instead, replace "diy_efi-digest" in the command above with "diy_efi".