Well I confirmed the ECM is the issue today. Took the ECM out to my dads to toss in my TPI converted Jimmy and it is doing the same thing in it. So it’s not an issue on the harness side of things.

@RBob I emailed you Friday about my original issue. I guess now we can skip the troubleshooting phase. Is it possible to repair the ECM or am I looking at needing to replace it?

 

I have a question about the TT-1 W.B. I have a kit that Im finally going to install and set up with the Flash ll. Question is what have any of you been using for a wide band
0-5v display gauge connected to the Channel B output for displaying on a dash mounted gauge? It looks like all the ones I see are either for a narrow band or a complete
kit for a wide band sensor and controller built into the gauge unit.
Thanks for any input
Byron

 

Years ago I purchased the very cheap Prosport EVO Wideband o2 kit with gauge. Down the road I ended up purchasing a Innovate LC-2 kit without gauge. I still run the Prosport EVO Gauge with the LC-2 sending its data to it. If I remember right I had to go into the settings on the LC-2 software to get the 0-5V 10-20 AFR interpolation correct so that I matched on my EBL WUD and gauge. This was because the LC-2 is 0V = 7.35 AFR and 5V = 22.39 AFR out of the box. Whereas the Prosport gauge is setup for 0V = 10 AFR and 5V = 20 AFR. It was simply a matter of changing the analog output settings of the LC-2 and making sure my EBL WUD is also setup for the same Voltage to AFR values.

 

Thanks thats good information. I will see if I can order just the gauge from prosport evo. Sounds like it would work for me.

 

So I have a new question.... I'm tuning my 92 K1500 with a tpi swap (ebl port mod) and I've noticed that when I go from drive to park my idle goes up to around 1400rpms and then it takes about ten or so seconds for it to slowly idle down to around 850 rpms. Is that something with the IAC I need to tune?

 

Sounds like the IAC is not closing fast enough.

What might help is lowering the amount of IAC steps to the bare minimum in park/neutral by opening the throttle blades a bit. On my 7730 (non-EBL) I run roughly about 5 steps in p/n. It also minimizes the number of steps required in gear. I've found that overall that seems to calm down the idle speed behavior a bit.

Also I only have about ~50 rpm added to idle speed in p/n, again to minimize that kind of jumpy behavior.

 

@RBob Ain't died or anything has he? He has just fell off the face of the Earth since July 20th. I hope he is OK. I know it sounds morbid but I looked at the contact info for his business then looked there and at the surrounding areas for Obituaries from July 20th and newer. I didn't see anyone I thought might be him but I don't know how good my search was of the surrounding areas and he might live further away than I thought from his business address.

 

What is the split between your Idle Speed: Park/Neutral and your Idle Speed: Drive? You also should look at the IAC - Park to Drive steps. I know in the base bins (or at least 3005) it is only 1 step added. Maybe you changed yours unknowingly?

 

That actually wasn't the worst idea to look into. You hate to think the worst but at this point it is certainly very odd to at least not even have a status update from him.

I wonder if other mods have the ability to see the last time he was logged into his account? I know you can select whether that is public or not.

 

I have wondered about this also. It would be nice to know that he might be lurking around and is OK. I hope something nice has happened like he is with an amazing woman and they run off for awhile to a tropical paradise together or maybe he just got tired of all of this for awhile and run off on a multiple months long deep sea fishing trip.

I hate to think something bad happened to him.

 

There are two areas that you need to tweak...;

IAC - Run to Idle Down Delay
IAC - Idle Down Rate

- Rob

 

Both of those are startup parameters no?

IAC - Run to Idle Down Delay: Delay from engine run until IAC starts the Idle Down reduction.
IAC - Idle Down Rate: This table defines the speed at which the IAC steps down after the engine starts. A lower value is a slower idle down.

Originally I misread his post thinking this was a Park/Neutral to Drive issue. Now I wonder what his warm idle step counts are while in Park and while in gear. Seems like his step counts are too high while in gear (or engine is laboring too much) causing the IAC to open up a lot and when it goes to Park/Neutral with no load it causes a high idle.

 

The two areas I listed are the areas that will be tweaked for idle down overall. In his case he needs to reduce the amount of time it is taking, rather hovering, from Drive to P/N. If his engine never reached his commanded idle RPM this would be a different scenario, but he is describing a lingering or hovering idle, approximately ten seconds. He would need to change the preset value of 1.00 found in the Idle Down Delay to 0.90, or 0.80, etc, until he is happy with the final transition. I included the Idle Down Rate because this is another area where members get confused when wanting a faster idle down, and they wind up altering the Powerup Initial Step settings, which is a mistake. But I digress.

- Rob

 

EBL has separate IAC parameters for start up idle down and engine running idle down. The two areas you listed are solely for startup.

The areas that would directly affect the IAC on an already running engines idle returning to commanded idle (whether higher or lower) would be

IAC - Idle High Step Delays: Delay times before IAC corrects (moves) on an idle too high RPM error. Small is the small idle error delay, large is the larger idle error decay.
IAC - Idle Low Step Delays: Delay times before IAC corrects (moves) on an idle too low RPM error. Small is the small idle error delay, large is the larger idle error decay.
IAC - Idle Gain Breakpoints: These two are RPM breakpoints for desired idle RPM IAC changes. First is idle too high, followed by idle too low.
IAC - Steps Decay filters: Three IAC steps decay filters values. A lower value provides a slower decay. The 'Norml' is used for all decays except DFCO and Stall Saver. The 'DFCO' decay is used to decay out decel fuel cutoff steps. The 'StlSv' filter is used to decay out stall saver steps.

There are lots of other IAC adders/subtractors in the mix, but those relate towards an idle that is not maintaining the commanded idle.

 

Yes.... I know all about the EBL, have been tuning them since 2010 for members, and have promoted Dynamic's SFI-6 on the Turbo Buick boards, and know Bob pretty well. I appreciate your enthusiasm, but let the member take the advice I gave him and run with it. If it works out for him great. I responded to him though, not you, and am not looking to debate with anyone these days anymore.

- Rob

 

I'm not trying to debate you. If I have a critical misunderstanding of how the parameter definitions are worded in the provided EBL files versus how they actually function I would like to know. I am sure others would too.

 

Actually RobR (BobR) passing was announced on our GMC Motorhome EFI Google group about 2 weeks ago. I have not found any public announcement and I've been watching on this forum because I figured you guy's would be the first to know. I'd like to get a reliable confirmation of this, all I heard was that it was sudden.

Quite a number of us with the classic 1970's GMC motorhome use the EBL on our EFI conversions on our Oldsmobile 455 & 403 engines.
gmcers.org

RIP Rob.

 

I knew it. My searches online were telling me this in the PA database. I just didn't want to believe it.

Oh my God. I don't believe this. RIP Bob.

- Rob

 

Oh no!

He was such a fixture here... he practically WAS the DIY PROM section. What a tremendous loss to the forum (and to his family I'm sure as well).

RIP and Godspeed man.

 

OMG! You have got to be kiddin' me? This is truly a sad moment for the entire community, no wonder he didn't answer my emails. RIP Bob!

 

I’m at a loss of words, my prayers go out to his family. What a truly wonderful person.

 

oh man..

RIP

 

Do you have a link to his obituary or newspaper article about his passing? I really hope this is a mistake and he is off somewhere deep sea fishing or something.

 

He's gone buddy. Amazes me how fast life really moves. Christ I remember when this thread was started, feels like yesterday yet it was almost twenty years ago. He held a degree in Computer Engineering, as well as in other fields of study, and he brought that to this website. Everyone learned from him. His knowledge always astounded me. I remember guys like Bruce Plecan (Grumpy), Eric Marshall (Turbo Tweak), who were and still are die hard Turbo Buick guys, as well as many others in which all of them earned the right to do wonderful things on their own, but when you go back far enough you will see that everyone in the DIY community, and of course those non members peeking in, were all learning from and sourcing Bob Rauscher (RBob) to learn from. Most admit it, and some to this day still won't. This started well before his join date in 2002, a decade before this they were back engineering the '7148 ECM, as well as putting together the XDF files. I remember him telling me stories of how he and Bruce were the first to put a Grand National engine into a Fox Body Mustang, which the Buick community back then weren't too fond of (today they do it all the time), and part of the reason why he landed here with us. When it all arrived here, everyone was scrambling in the early 2000's how to get their engines tuned, but RBob always had the answers. Later on he revisited the Grand National world and created the SFI-6, I still have the video he sent me of his experimental coil packs that he installed on his own Grand National, this was years and years back. But anyway, the tuning sections found on this website were RBob's domain, everything is still there so absorb it all if you haven't yet, and everyone here who took part back then and who are taking part now will always be apart of that, so wear that and be proud of that. Thank you so much for being here and sharing your time with us Bob, you were an amazing human being who gave freely, had the patience of a saint, and truly cared about all of us. God Bless you.

Your friend,

- Rob

 

This place is listed on DynamicEFI.com as a dealer, maybe he could shed some light.
http://www.theautoshop.net/

The other Dealer listed deals in our GMC motorhome parts and apparently he has confirmed Bob's passing, but I have no other info.

 

Has anyone sent a ECM in to EBL in the last 2 months and received it back with the mods you ordered? My brother bought a ECM to send in but has no idea if he will ever see it again if he pays and sends it in. This really sucks for our TPI systems going forward. Never like seeing someone leave the community for any reason and this is the worse.

RIP and thanks for all the help over the years you will truly be missed.

 

I always felt like he could just read the code as the ecm sees it, like the matrix or something and then tell you what table did what where and how.

if he has family, I hope they know how much he meant to so many people that didn't even know him in real life.

 

Man, hate to see my fears being reality. Bob was instrumental on this board and the world of early GM EFI tuning. The wealth of knowledge he had was simply indescribable. RIP Bob, you will not be forgotten and will certainly be missed by many. Whether they fully knew it or not, your family should be proud of the legacy you left.

 

It's crazy to think this thread is almost 20 years old now.... Bob was the man. I hope someone takes over for his business and not let it die.

 

I never knew his real name till today. Nicely said, sir. God bless, Bob.

 

I have read many of Bob's posts and have learned allot about tuning through him. I am sad to hear he has passed away. He will be greatly missed. I will keep his family in my prayers and may he rest in peace.

Fred

 

Hi,
I've got 2 EBL units. One of them runs my 1985 Corvette perfectly. the 2nd unit had a bad quad driver burnt chip that controls the TCC (no lockup). I'm going to replace it soon (Texas Instruments DS3668N). Is there a bench test to verify the ECM working without connecting it to the harness?
Thanks

 

You would likely need a harness setup for bench use with ability to simulate the required parameters to replicate engine running to the point of activating the TCC lockup.

Likely easier just to install computer and test in the vehicle.

 

I think I sell the second unit as is. It runs great besides the lockup, and the quad chip needs a replacement. Where is a good place to sell it? I think 200$ is a reasonable price.

P/s. I have instructions from BobR RIP what and how to fix the unit.

 

does anyone know how to archive his site, so that info there isn't lost if it goes down?

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20240000...dynamicefi.com

https://web.archive.org/web/20240930...ynamicefi.com/

Now for the downloads, that would need to be done now before the site goes down. Maybe someone could download everything and put it on a shared cloud storage.

Edit: See below

 

Here are all the downloads under the updates tab.

 

Man, there's a surrealness to this whole thing...

I'm even starting to wonder if he knew ahead of time that his health was failing or something like that, and simply wasn't saying anything...

The P4 Flash II went "discontinued" (when I inquired about it last year) and didn't a couple of other things too? Which I thought was curious in that it seemed to be a popular item.

Was he not taking more orders because he knew he wasn't going to be able to continue the business?

 

awesome. I'm going to save all of that to my computer when I get a sec to turn it on.

maybe a mod can add this to a sticky that it might fit under for future reference?

the wiring diagram with repins needed and the wud files seem to be very important.

 

I just looked back at my emails and I bought my p4 on 5/6/23. they went out of stock pretty soon after that. I'm glad I grabbed one when I did. should have 10plus years ago

it definitely doesn't feel real. does anyone know the gm RV site section that he was a big part up. might be another resource guys can search by user over there for his knowledge base.

 

After 11 years of running open loop with wideband for reasons explained in my alternative intake build thread, I have installed a heated NB and activated closed loop. Initial drive last night went very well. BLMs didn't seem too far off but that isn't a huge surprise with my VE tables having been tuned with my WB previously. Learns were making progress especially at idle with the last learn showing 0 adjustment. Idle is very smooth, seems smoother compared to when running OL even while using base bin PRP and other CL settings. Seemed to be pulling fuel for the most part, and my wideband appears to have been reading a little off. In closed loop I am seeing consistent mid to high 15 afrs on the wideband while NB and BLMs show on the rich side. Likely due to my leaky Y-Pipe issues I mentioned in my build thread.

With it being so long since I have messed with closed loop I am a bit foggy on some of the details. Have been reading up to jog my memory but wanted to ask a few specifics.

I noticed I was coming out of closed loop on decel. Every time this happened my INT and BLM would reset to 128. Is this proper function or did I miss a parameter when reverting back to CL? I know about the open loop decel checkbox and have unchecked that to give that a shot on my next drive. But in case I have surging issues under decel, I am curious on the reseting INT/BLM being a correct function when coming out of CL. With it being a stick shift that means it was in and out of CL frequently therefore resetting to 128 frequently.

PE mode. My WOT was being tuned with the WB previously (obv) and was pretty close with AFRs in the mid 12s. Should I put PE mode inactive or with the VE table in that area being "close" will PE mode work correctly? My spark advance is all from the main tables with no adders btw so keeping PE active should only affect fuel.

With a heated o2 sensor, I should be safe to reduce some of the parameters to get into CL sooner correct? I lowered the CTS threshold from 50*C to 40*C and the warm timer from 30sec to 20sec. Haven't touched the cold timer which is at 120 sec.

Edit: One more question and probably a dumb one. E10 vs Non-Ethanol Stoich. I've never really concerned myself with this as I was running open loop and targeted lower 14s for my OL AFR for a majority of the cells. Does the narrow band sensor swing on "stoich" for whatever fuel is in the tank or do we need to change the parameters to target 14.3 vs 14.7 via the mV parameters?

 

Found answer to my last question above.

 

We have a Google email group for the GMC motorhome EFI conversions mainly centered on the EBL, but it's not very active as most of us have well running installs. We also had a number of documents but those were lost when Google made some changes. I'm not sure who is in charge of the Google Email group at the moment.

Most of our engines are the Olds 455 with the last 18 months or so of production being the Olds 403. There is not a lot of differences between individual engines since we want a low revving but high torque.build. Usually install the EBL system and get a BIN for whichever engine we have... do a few learns and the owner is happy.

You can find some info at our main forum GMCmotorhome.org . It contains a searchable section called GMCNet which is the old email list and forum going back to the late 1990's.

I'm thinking you guys have a great deposit of information right here that goes into more detail on a wider variety of engine applications. One thing that was lacking was a detailed manual on all the parameters and how they affect the engine operation. Bob had all that in his head just for asking. Maybe that could be a collaborative project for those in the know.

I also wonder about his intellectual property. Has anyone approached his wife (family) to save this? Maybe someone could take it over and continue to produce the circuit boards and refine it.

RIP Bob.

 

It's just too much to do. But more importantly, without Bob being here it wouldn't feel right. But that's my opinion, others may feel differently. I have an EBL-P4 and an SFI-6, they are staying with me even if I don't use them simply because it was his creation and work, and he was a dear friend. I couldn't see myself or anyone else hacking, and re-writing it all for the sake of keeping it going and making a buck because then it's not even his anymore. So I would just leave it. The ECM's are repairable, the XDF's and information was saved by Patrick in case the dynamic website shuts down soon, so that is where it ends in my opinion. It's just not and wouldn't be the same without him if it keeps going. Just like Moates in my opinion. There are alternatives, though.

- Rob

 

This has crossed my mind as well. With this being unexpected and Bob not "handing over the keys" I think it would be weird.

Regarding the ECMs being repairable. If true please recommend where or who to contact. I still have the EBL Flash that failed on me back in July when I first started being concerned of no replies from Bob. I have suspicions it is the ECM itself that failed and not the EBL Flash or port mod boards. Swapping them into a new board however would be beyond my skills and I would love to be able to get it fixed so I have a spare moving forward.

 

Pat, have you taken it apart and inspected for blown resistors? Depending on the issue, say for instance no spark, you would trace the corresponding pin into the circuit board. The resistors are color coded via ohm and easy to find if blown, which is usually the culprit. Test resistance on either side of the resistor that is suspected with a multimeter and see if its completely shot. There are plenty of ECM specialists out there that can repair these issues, the question is do you want to sink money into an ECM when there are alternatives for a similar price having more features. I hate the fact that I even have to mention alternatives to the EBL on an EBL thread, but at this point there is really no choice for the new guys wanting one.

- Rob

 

I looked it over at that time and didn't see anything that stood out as being a issue. Even unmounted the EBL Board to look under it.

Back in August I outlined the problem upthread. Problem began as a Map Low Code 34. Installed a new AC Delco MAP and started the car. Idle was decent but AFRs seemed higher than should've been on a cold start. It had no SES light and only the far right "stored" code in the WUD. I thought I would flash my most recent BIN in it and I got an error message when doing so. This was while the car was running and WUD was actively operating normal. Thought that was odd so shut the car off. Turned the key to on and looked at the WUD. No data, spinning "data" indicator, and still wouldn't flash a BIN. Looked at the SES and it was flickering rapidly and dim. Unplugged battery connections and reconnected and still the same. Pulled ECM fuse and reinstalled as well as unplugged ECM harness connections and reconnected. Really thought it was a wiring problem so took the ECM to my dads to throw in my old Jimmy that is also setup to run a EBL Flash. Problem was the same. Installed a "new" (used) EBL and it was operating normal.

Only "smoking gun" of the whole ordeal was I did end up having to fix my MAP 5v wire after installing the "new" EBL. Something happened to the harness on that and it lost power. However the TPS had power (diagrams say they are spliced somewhere). I fixed it by splicing into TPS 5V power and it has ran fine since. Never did find the root cause of that wire losing power, the harness has new loom everywhere and is tucked pretty good under my FIRST intake and would take a significant amount of disassembly to remove. If I had to guess the problem is where the harness was modified from MAF to MAP for the EBL conversion.

 

are the older maf ecm's still pretty cheap to find? I think I still have one and a painless harness in a box somewhere I meant to sell but lost track of.

maybe if you can remove the ebl and swap it to another ecm?


​​​​​​

 

That is the theory. Problem is, the soldering required is beyond my ability. I just don't have the finesse or experience in doing such precision soldering. Plus the port mod board would need swapped as well, which was a "in house" only mod by Bob so no directions are public far as I am aware. It adds to the complexity of swapping, but could be done I am sure by someone with experience.

The EBL Flash DIY install directions are available on DynamicEFI if you go through the "way back machine" to before circa 2016.

 

ahh I didn't realize port mod was something only he did.

that is a shame.