Had my Evo2 tuned - Unichip Q

[m3nally]

I picked my car up today after having a Unichip Q fitted along with a Rongineer airbox which allowed removal of the air flow meter.

My car is a 1988 E30 M3 Evolution, known as evo2 in the UK. It has covered 25,600 km and was totally standard before the mods. The car is still running on the factory Evolution cams.

To say I am pleased with the results would be a huge understatement. The car is transformed as I am sure you can tell looking at the before and after dyno plots. The engine note has become noticeably deeper and my 80-130 kmh time in 3rd has come down from around 6.3 to circa 5.5 seconds, a reflection of the increased torque. This is with the higher Evolution 3:15 diff too.


Massive thanks to Paul Shepherd who came up from Castle Coombe to Norwich to fit the Unichip Q along with Clive and Dan at Clive Atthowes in Norwich where the work was done. Paul has been involved in developing the Unichip Q for the past couple of years. Paul, Clive and Dan took nearly four hours to get the mapping spot on and said it would have produced more power with a higher rpm limit as power was still going up before they got too close to the limiter.

237 bhp is 240 PS or 176 Kw, and 186.5 lb/foot is 252 Nm.

More details to follow.

[inastrangeland]

Nice improvement. I plan to do the same before and after when I install my Megasquirt.

[temple]

Can you tell us more about the Rongineer? Do you need an alpha-n? I looked at the website, but it does not have a price for the complete system?

[ShepsEVO3]

Kevin, glad you are pleased with the results, to be fair, I was astonished what gain we got without the CF airbox, and showes the Rongineer box is a great alternative to the CF airbox. It also showes you just how restrictive the standard AFM is on the S14.

Paul.

[ShepsEVO3]

Can you tell us more about the Rongineer? Do you need an alpha-n? I looked at the website, but it does not have a price for the complete system?

As you remove the AFM, you will definately need some sort of Alpha N management system. On Kevins car we used the Dastek Unichip version Q which allows such a conversion, but also gives the mapper total control over ignition timing aswell as fuel. The ignition timing facility has proved to be extremely essential to this type of conversion, especially where larger injectors have been fitted. You can get ginerically mapped EPORMS to "suit" the conversion for ignition timing cheaply enough, but as yet, I have not come across one single same spec'd S14 which has needed identical ignition maps. The Unichip has to be mapped on the dyno and hence you get the very best out of the car with live mapping and watching the numbers from the dyno as you tune.

The conversion costs circa £1k to £1200, but really is dependent on time taken and this is only for the conversion itself and not including any CF airbox or Rongineer air box. There is a dis-advantage to the Unichip. The software is not available to the general public, and all Dastek's dealers including me have a contract with Dastek for confidentiality about the software and its products. If you want to play with it yourself... get the MAXX Alpha N with an EPROM to match your modifications or a decent standalone system.

As with all systems, the biggest cost is the initial supply, install and set up. Re-mapping costs depend on what Unichip dealer you choose to do the work and how long they take. But approx 2 hours of dyno time can have you a re-map on a system already up and running.

Paul.

##EDIT## This is by no means a "sales pitch" as I am not a trader and I don't "own" any company. Yes I work with this product (I helped develop it for this conversion) and other products for my employers, but the above is only meant to give everyone an insight into what other options there are. I have many years of experiance with not only the S14 engine managment systems, but also the vast majority of other EMS's out there and I will ONLY advise using MY OWN experiances for referance. HTH.

[Sporty1]

I picked my car up today after having a Unichip Q fitted along with a Rongineer airbox which allowed removal of the air flow meter.

Great figures.

What is this airbox? Any pictures or web links?

[kiko]

There you go, Steve:

http://www.rongineer.com/airbox.html

[m3nally]

Thanks Frank,

You beat me to it, I have been to a really boring meeting this morning that was supposed to last all day but i had enough by lunch.

Still I have just booked the family holiday this afternoon and will now give the plastic a bit of rest for a few months!

Paul is at Circuit motors in Castle Coombe and can be reached on 01249 782596.

If you want some details of what the Unichip Q can do, here is a link to Clives website.

http://www.enginetuning.net/Unichip.html

I would recommend this setup to anyone and if you want more details of the other bits needed you just have to ask. Obviously it has its limitations in that you cannot tune it yourself but i was happy with that as I won't be constantly upgrading it. If I do add cams in the future I would just have it remapped but I would be into the laws of diminishing returns at that point from a cost/benefit point of view.

I thought most of you guys in the States would be familiar with the rongineer box as he has been using this with the splitsecond mAF conversion I think for a while.

[90E30M3]

I was talking to a few members of our local E30 spec team (racing 325i's) and they are using the Unichip with the AFM as their class allows after market chips, but not removal of the AFM.

This is asking an opinion - Do you think it would be worth the effort going to the Unichip on the S14 and keeping the AFM in place?

The reason I ask is that I want to keep the car as stock as possible but really would like more linear throttle response.

I do have to admit, I like the look of the rongineer box. It does look fairly stock.

[ShepsEVO3]

I was talking to a few members of our local E30 spec team (racing 325i's) and they are using the Unichip with the AFM as their class allows after market chips, but not removal of the AFM.

This is asking an opinion - Do you think it would be worth the effort going to the Unichip on the S14 and keeping the AFM in place?

The reason I ask is that I want to keep the car as stock as possible but really would like more linear throttle response.

I do have to admit, I like the look of the rongineer box. It does look fairly stock.

Yes, it is worth the effort to just Unichip the S14 in the normal way, however, results are limited because of the AFM being so restrictive. I got another 6bhp peak power and around 10ftlbs peak increase on my standard Evo2 which had a tube fitted inplace of the AFM, but had the same internal diameter/volume characteristics as the AFM, so the restriction was still in place. That said, because we converted the load signal from AFM to TPS, it made for a much nicer driving car. Obviously much more can be had from removing the AFM. I also have my standard Sport Evo Unichipped with the AFM in place and working

I can recommend the Rongineer box for its "standardish" looking. Hopefully Kevin can get a pic up of his engine bay? It certainly does its job.

[90E30M3]

Thank you for the response and without knowing it I believe you answered my next question. I was trying to think about how to write the question. Hopefully I'll make just enough sense for you to figure it out.

That question is....
With the AFM, the existing ecu receives a signal (voltage) relating to the position of the swing arm. I was going to ask what do you use for this signal to the unichip. Is this the load signal from the TPS? I have been going through the posts about the TPS, but those posts are not directly linked to the unichip discussions.

Bottom line on this is that I am trying to figure out the missing element of how the unichip/ECU knows how much airflow is coming into the engine.

[ShepsEVO3]

With the AFM, the existing ecu receives a signal (voltage) relating to the position of the swing arm. I was going to ask what do you use for this signal to the unichip. Is this the load signal from the TPS? I have been going through the posts about the TPS, but those posts are not directly linked to the unichip discussions.

Bottom line on this is that I am trying to figure out the missing element of how the unichip/ECU knows how much airflow is coming into the engine.

Sure.... a facility of the Unichip is being able to record readings from sensors at the same load points and RPM sites. So, with this conversion, we would fit and wire in the TPS and keep the AFM fitted. We select MAF to MAP learn on in the software, It says MAF to MAP but applies to anything really. We then drive the car on the dyno at all RPM and load sites. The Unichip records the readings of both the TPS and AFM. Basically we feed the TPS with a 5v feed so the potentiometer part of the switch will give a 0-5v signal to the Unichip. The Unichip then converts the signals from the TPS to what the AFM would have been giving the ECU. Next you turn off the learn and select MAF to MAP mode on. Now the AFM is disconnected and the TPS signal wire is then put in place of the AFM signal wire to the ECU. The car will now drive as if the AFM was still fitted, the ECU will not see anything different.

Because of the MAF to MAP learn, we now have a fuel map equal to the AFM still being fitted. This is the Unichips base map. From here we can remove the AFM and fit a CF airbox or whatever and map the car on the dyno.

If you are thinking of a ram air effect at high speed and altitude changes, which the AFM would be able to accomodate, but a TPS won't give a signal to compensate, then the effects are pretty minimal. At higher altitude, you will see a slightly richer AFR, but at speed you may see a slighly leaner AFR. But if you were ramming air into the intake, the AFR difference has been proved to be pretty minimal and the AFR's still remain in a safe threshold. If all this worrys you, the Unichip and take a signal from a MAP sensor also and make its own compensations for this. The ECU will look at the Baro sensor for ambient pressure, so when you are in the hills, that will help compensate.

You can fit a MAP sensor instead of the TPS or AFM, but the throttle response will not be that much improved over the AFM and there is less load sites to map as it reacts pretty much the same way as the AFM. But atleast the restriction has been removed.

[90E30M3]

Remarkably easy to understand - Thank you!

Now I only wish I lived in the UK and could swing by and hand you the keys.

[ShepsEVO3]

Remarkably easy to understand - Thank you!

Now I only wish I lived in the UK and could swing by and hand you the keys.

Invite me over for a holiday and get a dyno shop who will allow me to use a dyno and I'll come over. :smile2:

[90E30M3]

I'll just have to check and see if any of these local tuners want to learn from the Master. :battle: