We're always trying to improve things. Trying to make engine control solutions that are clearly superior to anything else you could get for your EVO-- at any price! This has always been the goal from day one. And having developed the XEDE ourselves, specifically for the EVO, we have a distinct advantage over those who resell more generic, 3rd party tuning devices. And after this latest round of new features, we've made it even harder for competing products to approach the XEDE's level of user-tunability, adaptability, flexibility and safety. I won't bother to document ALL of the new features and upgrades we've came up with so I'll just focus on 1 new feature. A feature that has many, many, many useful applications:

CONDITIONAL LOGIC PARAMETERS

What this means is that now we can add Boolean logic structure to each and every one of our tuning tables. Enabling or disabling them under certain conditions. This allows us to program in very useful safety features as well as noticeable performance enhancers. Something that usually doesn't go hand in hand.

Few new features that we engineered into the following maps:

SMART Boost Table-- The XEDE's boost control will remain disabled until it verifies that the car is running rich under boost. In other words, when you put your foot into it, boost will jump to mechanical wastegate pressure (~14psi on the stock turbo). When it gets there, the XEDE will run a super-quick diagnostic by looking at wideband AFR. If the car is running richer than the user-definable threshold curve (see graph below), the XEDE will allow for higher boost. If the AFR doesn't get rich enough, boost will be limited to the mechanical spring pressure. This is a big deal for those running methanol, nitrous, auxiliary fuel pumps, additional injectors, etc, as it rules out the possibility of lean-run induced failure. The slight delay between low and high boost (nearly imperceptible) also gives for enough time for the methanol or fuel from additional injectors (if so equipped) to make its way into the combustion chamber. Without this very very short delay, the slight lag in meth/fuel delivery always results in transient lean spot at the onset of each high boost condition. Here are the conditional parameters that enable this feature:



Fuel Table-- Now with integrated lean-run protection! Under load, it constantly monitors AFR and checks to make sure it is richer than the user-defined AFR threshold table (see graph below). If it is leaner than desired for longer than a certain period of time (it is set to 100 milliseconds below), the XEDE will induce a fuel cut. This fuel cut is the second line of defense after the boost reduction mentioned above. Again virtually eliminating the possibility of lean-run induced engine failure. Here's what the condition screen looks like:



SMART Fuel Table-- Now that each map has its own set of conditional parameters to go with it, there is no need to have the old school threshold table to activate the SMART fuel map under boost. Now it activates itself as per the conditional parameters. That is, it is active when load is greater than the user-defined load threshold curve (see below):



SMART No Lift Shift-- Before, NLS could be a little annoying with the secondary rev limit being triggered whenever your foot brushes against the clutch pedal (and activates the clutch switch). This was annoying under normal driving conditions. So now we set up a conditional that only activates the fuel cut when clutch is depressed AND load is greater than a user-defined threshold curve (see below). This means that the NLS feature will only work when you want it to (during full boost flat-foot shifting) and not during casual city driving. Here's the conditional for this map:



Boost Enrichment-- Now is when things start to get really nifty. We all know that when tuning cars, the tuner has to be conservative and account for the worst possible conditions. That is, the tuner has to account for the distinct possibility that the customer may go and conduct sustained top speed pulls in his EVO. Or that gasoline octane will not always be up to par. And so on and so on. This is great and all. But it actually kind of sucks when conditions are good (which is probably 90% of the time!) So here comes this little boost enrichment feature we came up with. It's a little tricky to follow but let’s take it step by step. First, here's the basic SMART boost table:



RPM on the X axis. Engine load/MAF on the Y-axis. Pretty simple 3d boost table made a little bit cooler by the SMART boost conditional feature described earlier. Made a lot cooler by the boost enrichment table here:



This boost enrichment table starts where the standard SMART boost table leaves off by taking the output of the SMART boost table and making it its input. This boost enrichment then applies an additive enhancement to the duty cycle output (i.e. more boost!) if, and only if, the conditions are right. And these conditions are:

1) If knock activity is below a user-defined curve (dictated by the table itself-- the Y-axis is knock level.. neat huh!?!) and...
2) Boost level/MAF freq is below a user-defined curve which dictates the absolute maximum allowable boost pressure and...
3) Boost isn't sustained for more than a certain period of time (I set it to 3 seconds)

This not-so-obvious feature allows for quick bursts of acceleration under good and fortunate conditions. This greatly improves daily drivability without negatively impacting safety when the going gets rough. I got this idea from reading about the new Porsche 997 twin turbo which employs similar logic to generate its 500+lb-ft of torque for short bursts of time. Yeehaw! The conditional table for this boost enrichment feature looks like:



So now our little EVOs have one more thing in common with a $130,000 supercar!

Well, that's it. Well, not really. There is a LOT more you can do with these conditional features. This is just a few of the possibilities. It may sound confusing but the nice thing is that we did all work for you. You can just leave these conditional parameters alone and rely on them to run the background and keep things happy and strong. Or if you get the hang of how conditionals work, you can make your own to meet your own particular needs. The XEDE is a VERY poweful tool. But it's also very smart and safe to use. It's very unusual to have this combination of strengths. But that's the advantage of designing an engine control solution for CUSTOMERS and well as TUNERS. I have yet to see anything that comes close to achieving this.

We're in the final stages of testing right now and fully expect these features to be available to current and new XEDE users within the next 2 weeks. And wait until you see the next round of software upgrades after that!

And no, we're not concerned with China ripping off our work and selling it for 3 yen on the dollar. America innovates. Complaining about things you cant change just gets in the way.

Best Regards to all!

-shiv

 

And now for your moment of Zen...

 

Can't wait for the IX Xede.

 

I vote Shiv as best Evo tuner ever. Does that make me a Vishnuite?

 

Xede integrated and driven meth kit please!

 

That's next. We're going to convert the water spray output to a fully mappable 0-100% high current methanol pump driver. It will require a little inexpensive add-on box. But think of the possibilities when you incorporate all the SMART and conditional features It will be nearly impossible to blow your engine up Not to mention the improvements in power and reduction in methanol comsumption. Wonderful things happen when you actually map methanol delivery to your engine's needs (instead of relying on two global control knobs.

Here's a pic of a methanol table:

 

Will these new features be incorporated into our tunes on the March 25th Houston Tune?

 

Yes indeed. They will also be retrofittable to every single XEDE map ever created by myself or any of our customers. Yes, we've been busy campers these last few months. This is also why I spent most of my much-needed vacation in Monaco looking like this... exhausted

 

****'in A!

 

geez.... so is this user tunable? or do we must go to vishnu for tuning

 

Wow.... *grin*

 

Nice features, once that is done I think I will be making a call. Right now I have a custom DF for alky AND run a SAFC off a 3.5 bar map sensor driving the TPS input. That way I can atleast control afr's based of boost and not tps. It really seemed to help smoothen afrs for me when the alky hits but you new set-up would be kick ***.

 

It is most definitely user tunable.

 

Very impressive stuff. Kudos to you for innovating (and 'leveraging' ideas from those tricky German engineers ).

 

OMG, my car on alky instead of me! 500whp, 450wtq safe daily driver on 91 octane at only 25psi.

BTW, so many people think the Xede must be tuned only by Shiv. Completely wrong. It is very easy to learn and use. Many tuners can use it and are using it around the country. Alfred from Tuning Technologies in SoCal, and Andrew from Dyno4mance in GA are the best known competent Xede tuners (aside from Shiv) and many others are good with it as well (Martin at AMS).