As much as I hate to agree with Al, something does look to be amiss with the ignition system. However, it think it may have something to do with the way the AEM is charging the factory coils, not the coils themselves. This isn't unusual with stand alones/piggy-backs that attemp to charge the factory ignition coils. They often do so less well than the factory ECU. I've seen the same problem in the Subaru aftermarket too. Premature coil failure, misfire, erratic performance, etc., You might want to try running different dwell settings or contact AEM for other suggestions.

My 2c,
shiv

 

BTW: Buschur was having a misfire problem also...they are releasing some "kit" to fix it.

 

Shiv has better people skills.

Anyway, is that your daily tune for the EMS or was that just a rough tune and dyno pull?

 

I see all this talk about the ignition not working the way it should and I do wonder if the Mitsubishi setup is that fickle of a system. Does anyone know of any Mitsu car using the twin coil system where the ignition has been tweaked?

 

A point to why the majority, non race car, Evo owner would be better served with the OE ECU in place. I'm not taking a stab, slap, or in anyway "picking a fight". There are more con's than pro's to a stand alone on a car that gets grocerys and takes you to work daily.

 

I compeltly agree that the standalone is not for 95-99% of the EVO owners out there. I have tried several different stand alones over the years and agree that there can be a lot of driveablitly problems with them. Something you are not going to want on a brand new $30,000 car you drive daily.


RnR Racing with be sticking to the s-afc for a very simple tune that will provide plenty of security, driveability and power.

We also are looking to try the dynoflash along with the s-afc.


There are a lof od downsides the a stand alone that people don't realize.

 

I will start by reminding everyone what i said in the post:

I wanted to simply share the curious ignition issue...


As far as the power numbers etc. I am not even trying to get there yet. The main focus was to get an initial tune with good idle, drivability etc. We will make more power after we get the ignition upgraded... Any suggestions on using the aem vs. anything else?

On a final note, 403 whp at stock boost is what i thought was interesting.

 

Looks to me like a lot of up and down jerks in the power band... supposed to be almost smooth. Maybe you have a lot of detonation? You should look in to that before something serious goes wrong.

 

Just to clarify, not all piggy-backs drive the factory coils. Some, ignition controlling piggy-backs like the XEDE, simply replicate the desired CAS waveform and pass it along to the OE ECU which then drives the coils just like stock.

Just in case my previous post wasn't clear..

My 2c,
shiv

 

Knowing that is why I stated that I was not trying to "start something" right after your post. I don't like piggy backs for my purposes, but I think I'd go that route with my grocery getter/kid hauler long before a stand alone system. Now for a "race car", the AEM sounds like the most user friendly option going...

 

100% agreed with shiv's observations with stock coils and stand alones - noticed that Pruven had MSD ign and coils with its haltech equiped evo

The power band on a 400 whp evo whould look like this one tuned with just the dyno flash

 

Well, Roshan from Brainstorm says that the way this particular dyno estimates flywheel horsepower adds about 18-20 hp from the wheel hp rating. It does this by figuring out approximate driveline loss thats different per car, instead of giving the same percentage loss for every car.

 

As for the jerky dyno pull, shiv has a good point as far as the coil dwell, aem usually sets this number high to get the most out
of the coils, but as the saying goes more is not allways better.
The aem base map has coil dwell at about 35-40, you might want
to try 28-30. I don't have my laptop in front of me, but If I remember corretly on john's car we set it at 30 and the curve was
pretty flat. An other thing you might want to do is datalog your
knock #1 & your knock raw values & see waht you come up with.
Last but not least check your plug gap. We usually try to run
a bit smaller gap like .026 if you don't have an aftermarket Ignition. You are definatly on the right track, just keep stabbing at it. Very impressive #'s . Good luck.

Frank@sfp

 

oops, yeah I agree the e-manage does the same to the coils as it will ctually burn them out if ignition is turned on without the car running,

 

Well the dyno I use has the tach pick up on order from Dyno Jet - hopefully the next sheet I post will have rpms - but no need to get your panties in a buncth - all my posts are in 3rd gear so you can easily calculate the rpms if you know 3rd gear

I usually do post the lamdas - at least I post up dyno sheets - unlike some others

Hope you get the ignition sorted out - at least I got Shiv to agree with me for once !