This is true, they use a 60-2 tooth wheel on the crank. I use Electromotive on my GTi, and setting it up for timing was pie!

Dave maybe something like on of these wheels would work for you, if it will adapt to to AEM?
http://www.electromotive-inc.com/triggerkits.html

 

VWJeff, the 12 tooth wheel that Brad Brooks came up with is similar, 12 teeth though and I did have it on the car up until just recently. BTW, you better send me the finished list o what is suppose to be done to your car..........either you didn't or I am an idiot (could be that) as we have nothing on your car and Eric asked me yesterday if we had started on it...........because you asked him. Uh oh.

 

Dave, what was the reason for removing the 12 tooth wheel? It ses lke it worked well for you.

 

Have any of you really looked carefully at the timing parameters of the 4G63 crank and cam signals?

It's actually a very sophisticated timing system. Going to a 12-tooth crank trigger and single cam trigger is a step in the wrong direction, from a theoretical standpoint.

My guess is that the AEM uses some kind of algorithm to roughly determine what cylinder is at TDC when the crank signal says a cylinder is at TDC. Likely, they have bad tolerances on the timing events. Things like timing belt stretch, cam twist, and cam torsional vibration/resonance likely cause enough variation in the signal that the AEM improperly determines what cyclinder to fire.

AEM could likely write a better algorithm for the 4G63 and it would solve their poor start performance and these random failures. The factory triggers can ACCURATELY determine exactly where the motor is in it's engine cycle in under 90 degrees of crankshaft rotation, at any given point in the cycle.

None of that changes the fact that it is my opinion that the AEM is junk.
I'm not a fan of Hydra either.

I did like the way the Autronic works, from a theoretical perspective. But I believe a lot of guys have had problems with the Autronic at high loads.

 

I've been on the Autronic forums the past 3 years and never heard anything of the kind.

 

Talk to the Honda guys. Tony1 would probably know.

It could have been resolved by now, but for for a while, they were having huge problems with ignition issues at high loads.

 

I have run 1000hp on a 4G63 with no issuses but then again I know what is needed to do to get a ecu to work at that level,
I have run 1100hp on a RB26 and this needed crank and cam trigger mods, this took 2 diff trigger mods as the first one was incorrect due to the inexperiance of the first company doing it.

Mark

 

I guess it comes back to the age old adage...

"I never have time to do things right, but I always find time to do them twice."

I guess you could substitute money for time...

When it comes down to it the MoteC is the way to go. It'll be the LAST ecu you ever buy.

 

I was wondering the same thing. Were there any downsides with the 12 tooth wheel that made you switch back?

 

I don't know much about the technical aspect of the 12 tooth crank disc.

But one thing that I did notice is that when installing the crank disc. the wire for the Cranksaft position sensor runs really close to the timing belt. I had to get a little creative with pull ties to sort of pull the wire back towards the front cover. otherwise the timing belt would've ate through it. Thats the only negative thing that I've noticed with the disc. and I drive the car all the time

but the wheel does really work as far as decreasing startup time. and the car runs great with the 12 tooth disc!

 

+1 on this Dave

 

Good old RB's with their 360 slot cam sensor that drive 99% of the EMS's crazy at high rpms.
The 12+1 trigger disc mod is popular for the nissans also. I've used a couple on nissans running the AEM EMS and it made a world of difference. With the AEM the nissan cam sensor is hit and miss. Something I never understood. One application would run perfectly and the other would not.

 

I like what you have said here.

Obviously the "issue" is not a hardware short comming from as none of these issues exist on the cars with the factory ecu or any of the other aftermarket ecus I have tuned such as Hydra, Power FC, Autronic, etc etc

The AEM is a problem plauged nightmare at times

Al

 

I have to wonder if some of the issues the Honda guys were having was related to their cam trigger setup. Obviously Tony1 and others saw a need for a new trigger system using other ECUs.

I've only tuned one Autronic, and it was only at the 400 HP level. I loved the ECU and thought it was the best standalone I've every dealt with. I hated their setup system of using flags and bit values to determine how the ECU dealt with everything, but other then that, the tuning setup kicked ***. I believe they have since had a major rewrite on the software and things are likely handled differently now as well.

The only thing the Autronic really lacked was support locally. At the time I put the unit in, I could not find a single person in my area that had ever messed with one. Also, I couldn't find a single decent base map for my application just to setup the triggers for crank and cam timing events. I had to build a map literally from nothing, and yet I was still able to do it in a bout a day with no prior Autronic experience.

I have not tuned a Motec though so I can't compare to the "best" aftermarket system out there.

Honestly though, the factory ECU has as much if not more capability then all of them. I just wish there was interest in going to a speed density system that was similar to the Autronic mapping of VE and AFR tables. It's kick *** to see that if you improve engine VE, you can change the VE table to accommodate. If you want to remap AFRs, no problem as it's completely independent of the VE mapping.

 

The Honda problem is more related to the actual hardware/ mechanics of the cam sensor. It's actually located in the ditributor on some models and that's where the problem lies. Simple fix is to install a remote sensor as Tony1 has done.
The EVO on the other hand has great cam sensor hardware. The crank sensor lacks resolution for certain aftermarket EMS's.

Agreed.