Disadvantages Of Wolf 3d Ecu's?

[satanic]

Paul, I got my F-CON setup for about the same price as a SAFC2 so no I didn't look at a Motec or an Autronic.

[paulr33]

but you just said before it was 3k

I got my setup on the cheap so it's not a clear indication... but my guesstimate for ECU, harness, all sensors and the navigator would be somwhere close to $3k.

to me, it would have been almost useful to just go autronic/motec

and take out the unknown of auto support and have lots of tuners

[paulr33]

oh ive re-read it again, you got the one you brought cheap, but for normal retail it would be around 3k. right gotcha. my bad

[Sydneykid]

Maybe this was left out somewhere in the discussion but the HKS F-CON does have a hand controller; it's called the F-CON Navigator or Navigator PRO. It displays all the monitoring sensors etc just like a PFC H/C does. However, unlike the PFC it cannot be used for tuning purposes. The most you can do from what I understand is set the desired A/F ratio that you want.

However, reading into the F-CON features there is an override feature which will enable you to bypass the F-CON allowing for a limp mode. Also, since it's installed in a "piggyback" style, the stock ECU is still there meaning you can always revert it on the spot (simply leave your AFM in the boot or just not hooked up I guess).

Ok, I give up, I am totally confused.

My understanding was we were talking about the stand alone, a full replacement ECU.

If we are talking about a piggy back, then forget all of my previous posts. Being a piggy back, it uses the standard ECU shift logic for ignition retard and cut. From memory it sits between the CAS and the standard ECU much like the SITC. It modifies the trigger inputs such that the ignition timing is controlled. But when the standard ecu retards or cuts the ignition (eg; for gearchanges) then the piggy back simply follows.

Obviously it is somewhat better than an SITC as it has multiple 2 dimensional load points, but in operation it is much the same.

All the nice stuff like cold start and run, idle sped control for electrical, power steering and air con load etc is controlled by the standard ECU.

Simply put, it’s a slightly more sophisticated Greddy EManage with a HKS badge on it for 3 times the price

cheers

PS; stick some larger injectors in there and a different AFM and turn the piggy back off and see whether you can drive it. Hell, see if you can even start it.

[GTRNUR]

I noticed Rob92's comments about having the wolf being hard to tune on a GTIR SR20, with issues to do with ignition timing and also idle issues with large injectors. It sounds like you needed to get some better support because something was definatly a miss there... Every engine has a few diferences, and the abilty to rotate the entire sensor assebly on the SR20 is one of them. You could have easily adjust the trigger 1 setting to set your static timing if you weren't able to get enough adjustment in the sensor itself.

I've previously tuned a wolf 3dv4 on a S13 SR20det with 850cc injectors running sequential injection(that being the key), and it idled perfect with 1.55ms injector pulse width, and made well over 330rwhp with 20lb boost. Absolutely no issues at all with idle stability either. The trick is making it idle first before you start messing with the idle control features. If it doesn't idle smoothly when its warm, it certinly won't do it when its cold. It says that in the book by the way... but not a lot of people read that..

If you go down the custom plenum path and want to upgrade to a stepper idle control motor, the idle stability is awesome. I've used a haltech stepper with the wolf ecu on a wrx engine with great success before. Its dead quiet and really smooth in operation.

MerlinTheHapyPig mentioned the wolf's wideband support and datalogging as a handy tool, but fact is you can't datalog wideband data. The data logging is actually quite limited and only records min and max values for a drive. Its still very useful, but to get real data logging you need something better. Personally i interface a PLX devices M300 to the wolf, and it simulates narrow band data to the wolf, yet displays wideband data on the display. Allows me to use the hand controller for displaying all the other data i need. The wolfs wideband info is just displayed on one of the hand controllers screens, so if your looking at the AFR, you can't also look at the current injector pulse width at the same time.

Im runnign a wolf 3dv4 plus on my skyline r32 with a RB20det at the moment. Having had some experience tuning them I can easily create a base map in about 10 minutes, and make it safe and drivable in about 20-30 minutes. Once your used to them they are great ecu's. My last quickie safe tune made 315 rwhp on a stock SR20DET with 550cc injectors and a GT2835. With stock injectors the tune of my RB20DET was very good. I had it tuned for max economy and managed 540k's out of a tank on a long drive including some overtaking and a hill climb up a range. This was running open loop too.

But its not all roses... I've recently upgraded to 440cc gtr injectors and as a result have lost some low end drivability. It occasionally miss fires on all cylinders at low engine load and idle. This is because the idle MS pulse width of theinjector is 2-2.2ms at idle. Keep in mind that injection is fired in 3 banks, with 2 injectors wired in parallel on each bank. This means the injector is being asked to turn on and off for 1ms per engine rotation. The injectors become stable at 1.3ms, but that is way too much fuel for idle and for low speed crusing. I can't be certain, but i think this is where an FC would be better than a wolf as i think they fire injectors sequentially.

The solution is to switch to a high rate regulator, and run low pressure at idle so the pulse width's can be larger. Then at 20lb boost the fuel pressures will still be 75psi+, providing the flow needed for 20lb boost at 7500 rpm.

I am seriously considering changing the injection setup to run 12 injectors when I install my new plenum however. I could run the stock injectors for low end, and then stage in the 440cc injectors above 0lb boost. This would give me the best of both worlds, plus fuel for 25lb boost.

Just my thoughts...

Ian.

[satanic]

Paul; yes that is correct...

SK; it is full stand-alone unit but installed in a "piggy back" fashion... not sure how else I can explain this

[GTRNUR]

Paul; yes that is correct...

SK; it is full stand-alone unit but installed in a "piggy back" fashion... not sure how else I can explain this

Parallel wire in i guess... I originally installed my wolf ecu in this fashion next to the factory management but later discovered it was overkill and not necessary to retain the AWD system of my GTS4, so i yanked out all the factory wiring and scratch wired it in a much simpler fashion.

The advantage that I wouldn't have minded having was having the capability to download factory data using that datalog system, and getting access to PING data as an additional tuning aid.

Ian.

Edited June 14, 2006 by GTST4Newbie

[satanic]

Thanks for that Ian

[Abo Bob]

I note that the thread originator has a manual.

[satanic]

LOL Thanks Adam

[D-limo]

steer clear of george mays. your best option is to drive to someone who 1. has a dyno, and 2. has experience with your engine and that computer. I have had my own personal experience with george and will say I was extremely dissappointed with the results. I ended up paying alot of money for nothing really.

I ended up taking the car to redcliff dyno where they looked at the tuning and laughed and showed me how dodgy it was, and they arent even wolf distributers! they tuned it up really well and treat any car like their own.

just my experiences with george mays.

Rhys

Thanks mate, Did they have much experience with the Wolf?

Can anyone give opinions as to who in South East QLD I should be enlisting to tune my car?

[rob82]

I noticed Rob92's comments about having the wolf being hard to tune on a GTIR SR20, with issues to do with ignition timing and also idle issues with large injectors. It sounds like you needed to get some better support because something was definatly a miss there... Every engine has a few diferences, and the abilty to rotate the entire sensor assebly on the SR20 is one of them. You could have easily adjust the trigger 1 setting to set your static timing if you weren't able to get enough adjustment in the sensor itself.

I've previously tuned a wolf 3dv4 on a S13 SR20det with 850cc injectors running sequential injection(that being the key), and it idled perfect with 1.55ms injector pulse width, and made well over 330rwhp with 20lb boost. Absolutely no issues at all with idle stability either. The trick is making it idle first before you start messing with the idle control features. If it doesn't idle smoothly when its warm, it certinly won't do it when its cold. It says that in the book by the way... but not a lot of people read that..

If you go down the custom plenum path and want to upgrade to a stepper idle control motor, the idle stability is awesome. I've used a haltech stepper with the wolf ecu on a wrx engine with great success before. Its dead quiet and really smooth in operation.

MerlinTheHapyPig mentioned the wolf's wideband support and datalogging as a handy tool, but fact is you can't datalog wideband data. The data logging is actually quite limited and only records min and max values for a drive. Its still very useful, but to get real data logging you need something better. Personally i interface a PLX devices M300 to the wolf, and it simulates narrow band data to the wolf, yet displays wideband data on the display. Allows me to use the hand controller for displaying all the other data i need. The wolfs wideband info is just displayed on one of the hand controllers screens, so if your looking at the AFR, you can't also look at the current injector pulse width at the same time.

Im runnign a wolf 3dv4 plus on my skyline r32 with a RB20det at the moment. Having had some experience tuning them I can easily create a base map in about 10 minutes, and make it safe and drivable in about 20-30 minutes. Once your used to them they are great ecu's. My last quickie safe tune made 315 rwhp on a stock SR20DET with 550cc injectors and a GT2835. With stock injectors the tune of my RB20DET was very good. I had it tuned for max economy and managed 540k's out of a tank on a long drive including some overtaking and a hill climb up a range. This was running open loop too.

But its not all roses... I've recently upgraded to 440cc gtr injectors and as a result have lost some low end drivability. It occasionally miss fires on all cylinders at low engine load and idle. This is because the idle MS pulse width of theinjector is 2-2.2ms at idle. Keep in mind that injection is fired in 3 banks, with 2 injectors wired in parallel on each bank. This means the injector is being asked to turn on and off for 1ms per engine rotation. The injectors become stable at 1.3ms, but that is way too much fuel for idle and for low speed crusing. I can't be certain, but i think this is where an FC would be better than a wolf as i think they fire injectors sequentially.

The solution is to switch to a high rate regulator, and run low pressure at idle so the pulse width's can be larger. Then at 20lb boost the fuel pressures will still be 75psi+, providing the flow needed for 20lb boost at 7500 rpm.

I am seriously considering changing the injection setup to run 12 injectors when I install my new plenum however. I could run the stock injectors for low end, and then stage in the 440cc injectors above 0lb boost. This would give me the best of both worlds, plus fuel for 25lb boost.

Just my thoughts...

Ian.

GTIR's dont have a a geared CAS as they run a dizzy that can only go in 2 ways 180 degrees apart. Now what I thought was a plugin was an ECU that when you plug it in you dont have to change phase angles or the like. So no I couldn't just turn the dizzy/CAS. THis is probably where wolf f**ked up.

[GTRNUR]

Fair enough I didn't realise the GTIR's used a dizzy, but putting that aside... Trigger 1 configuration allows the engine position to be calibrated from -11 to 78 degrees.

With a timing light when setting up a wolf the first thing you do is calibrate this setting so that the degrees ignition displayed on the hand controller is the same as what the crank pully says.

Lexus V8's don't have a dizzy or any sensor components that move at all, and you can calibrate them just fine. Not that i'm trying to convince you to go buy a wolf ecu again, but i figured that your problem wasn't as big a deal as you thought.

Edited June 14, 2006 by GTST4Newbie

[Al]

actually the wolf has

+ pin code lock

the powerfc has

+ knock sensor support

so the feature set is even. each has their own advantage and disadvantage

both have airtemp support and correction

Thanks Paul, even when i don't want to talk about Wolf you know how to push my buttons

PIN Lock: If you have the wolf hand controller, there is a PIN security feature that disables the injectors till the PIN # has been entered.

Pfc Knock Sensor: RB's come with knock sensors from factory, even though the pfc displays knock it does not do anything with the reading to minimise knock on a hot day. The wolf also uses these knock sensors, but does not display the amount of knock. The wolf will retard ignition if it detects too much knock (so i have been told).

Air Temp Compensation: If the Pfc had air temp compensation (on the rb25) why isn't there an air temp sensor, and why do you get more knock on a hot day? The rb25 never came factory with air temp sensors, so the pfc can not compensate for air temp. Even though the Wolf is PNP, an air temp sensor has to be installed b4 the throttle body, usually fited onto the i/c piping just after the fmic. The Wolf does compensate for air temp by retarding the ignition.

Wolf3D has 16 tunning load points, Pfc only has 6.

Wolf3D can be tunned per 125rpm, Pfc by 250rpm. But the Wolf also has the capability to tune finner down low by sacrificing fine tunning (wich is not really required) up top.

ie: Between 500-2000rpm you can tune by 50rpm increments and reduce the resolution between 5000-7500rpm to 250rpm.

The Pfc is much easier to tune, especially for idle and a/c rpm controll, but a GOOD Wolf tunner will be able to get the low rpm pretty damn stable. Wolf generally needs an extra crank or two in the morning (cold start); it will start on first turn, just need to hold it that fraction longer.

As i stated previously, please do a SEARCH on "Wolf3D", as this has already been extensively debated multiple time.

[paulr33]

so whats with all the sucky starting problems ?

[GTRNUR]

Hi Al,

How do you get the wolf to use greater low end resolution?

Also, as I understand it an FC or factory MAF based load sensing ecu's don't need an air temp signal. However for a wolf to accurately know engine load it needs the air temp correction to work with manifold pressure and RPM.

A wolf can retarded ignition with hotter air temps for sure, and it also removes fuel by a few percentages of the base map to maintain correct AFR's.

A MAF sensor doesn't need to have correction maps that work in this fashion because the load sensing is already based on air density.

One isn't better than the other, its just a different approach for ecu design and tuning IMO...

Oh and starting problems just means its not tuned properly... Fact is most people have their cars tuned by a shop in the middle of the day, so the tuner rarely has the opportunity to tune the car in the morning when its cold and make corrections to the cold start fuel and ignition maps. It takes a fair amount of tweaking to get that factory degree of drivability accross the entire engine temperature range and as the car warms up quickly you don't get a lot of time to fix it. And its impossible to have a tuner fix it unless they are the first to start the car that day.

Ian.

Edited June 14, 2006 by GTST4Newbie

[rob82]

Fair enough I didn't realise the GTIR's used a dizzy, but putting that aside... Trigger 1 configuration allows the engine position to be calibrated from -11 to 78 degrees.

With a timing light when setting up a wolf the first thing you do is calibrate this setting so that the degrees ignition displayed on the hand controller is the same as what the crank pully says.

Lexus V8's don't have a dizzy or any sensor components that move at all, and you can calibrate them just fine. Not that i'm trying to convince you to go buy a wolf ecu again, but i figured that your problem wasn't as big a deal as you thought.

You cant change the phase angle/sync point too much as the rotor will be pointing in between or slightly skew of the rotor cap buttons which will cause a misfire. I was at 78 degrees with the dizzy right to one edge and the minimum timing was 22 degrees.

You've got to remember too that more points doesn't necessarily mean more accuracy so in saying that the comparing 600 points of the WOLF to the PFC's 400 means f**k all. Thats why you can tune an Autronic with in a similar car with 80 points. Hell an XR6T uses 14 rpm points at 6 different cam angles so a 6x14 table and thats with closed loop cam control. So that means that an XR8 uses a 1*14 points to do the entire fuel calculation as it has no cam phasing. And I can garuntee you that its much more accurate than any aftermarket ECU I've ever seen!!!!

[Al]

so whats with all the sucky starting problems ?

2 lazy SARD 550cc injectors

This prevented my mechanic to tune the idle and cold start properly, which then fouled up the plugs and possibly my O2 sensor/s . Start-up was gradually getting worse.

Have sent all my injectors to be thoughly tested, cleaned and if required reco'ed.

If i still have a problem after this i am going to try another tunner. My mechanic is GREAT with tools and fabrication, but that doesn't make him a great tunner . He has used a valid excuse, as Steve from AEM (he designed the Wolf3D), came down to help my mechanic (Vic started to pull his hair out ) and after much testing diagnoised the fault.

[paulr33]

right well that would explain the sucky starting but how would that have affected the engine during normal operation? i would have expected the cycl #'s to fail or die given lazy injectors?

what do you mean by

Wolf3D has 16 tunning load points, Pfc only has 6.

6 load points? for what? where?

[Al]

Hi Al,

How do you get the wolf to use greater low end resolution?

Also, as I understand it an FC or factory MAF based load sensing ecu's don't need an air temp signal. However for a wolf to accurately know engine load it needs the air temp correction to work with manifold pressure and RPM.

A wolf can retarded ignition with hotter air temps for sure, and it also removes fuel by a few percentages of the base map to maintain correct AFR's.

A MAF sensor doesn't need to have correction maps that work in this fashion because the load sensing is already based on air density.

One isn't better than the other, its just a different approach for ecu design and tuning IMO...

Oh and starting problems just means its not tuned properly... Fact is most people have their cars tuned by a shop in the middle of the day, so the tuner rarely has the opportunity to tune the car in the morning when its cold and make corrections to the cold start fuel and ignition maps. It takes a fair amount of tweaking to get that factory degree of drivability accross the entire engine temperature range and as the car warms up quickly you don't get a lot of time to fix it. And its impossible to have a tuner fix it unless they are the first to start the car that day.

Ian.

Thanks Ian, your added info on MAF sensor explains a few things Paul will be happy

The change in resolution is done via the s/ware. I honestly have no idea how it is done, but even Steve confirmed that this is possible.

My starting and idling problems are due to my injectors and the poor tune as a result. Hopefully this will all get fixed soon, as mentioned above.