I have been searching for a week straight and can only find hints of how to do what Im trying to do... Hopefully someone here can point me in the right direction...

I have winaldl and TPRT, burn1 and "512" chips... Im attempting to clean up an almost stock tune on an '89 454 in it's stock truck... 7747 ecm, $42 mask, and mine_ecu ads file.

When looking at winaldl data I am showing a ridiculous amount of hits in the "spark counts" table. It seems that the number increases by about 75 hits per second in whatever cell is being monitored. I know these arent actually "bad knock" counts as the motor is almost stock and the timing is set heavy on the retarded side and fueling is dead on, or a tad rich. Upon further investigation I noticed that I didnt have a traditional knock sensor. I've looked all over the engine and there is a port where one might reside, but it's capped off. I've also been told that the ESC takes care of the knock duty. My dilemma is that I would like to start tweaking the timing curve but dont have any reliable knock data to verify when I've gone too far with the advance. I also dont have any datastreams that show how much the ecu is retarding the timing from (knock?)...

I have found how to adjust the datastreams to get what you are looking for, but cannot, for the life of me, find any data for my setup (addresses and such). Tons of information for SB's and nil for BB's and especially BB's with the ESC...

Judging by the wealth of knowledge here, that I have been trying to wrap my head around for the last 4 weeks, someone has gotta have a simple solution that I have probably overlooked a dozen times. Would someone be so kind as to give me the finger? (not like that silly, point me in the right direction)...


Any info brought forward is much appreciated...

Hoping to bounce off this brick wall I hit...

Overkill

 

A lot of the BBC of that era didn't run an ESC system. So the missing knock sensor isn't surprising. The ALDL stream does not output any spark information. Just PA3 counts (knock counts). Which without an ESC system will just keep counting up and rolling over. IIRC the stock BBC cals w/o an ESC ssystem have the spark retard tables zero'd out. That way there is no retard.

In the Tuning Guide Book sticky under the '8063 ' 7747 '8746 ECMs is a write up on how the spark works. In there is explains how to patch the ALDL stream to show the current SA. Can also patch over the PA3 count location with address $77. That is the spark retard.

Note that you need to be careful when pulling back a lot of timing. It really heats up the engine and exhaust.

RBob.

 

I know all about the heating up engine and exhaust... That is the problem that first brought me to this tuning board. It has been like that (hot and retarded) from the first day I got it, 2.5yrs ago... I have been chasing down the hot problem for a year or so. After replacing the radiator, water pump, tstat, doing flushes, and pulling out most of my hair I finally decided to get into her "head", so to speak and here I am... I played around with the timing tables and got her to scream really well, but didnt leave it that far advanced because I didnt have a way to monitor knock, or attempted retard. I didnt want to do too much damage to the old girl (in 10 months she will be a classic)...

I will check out that thread (I am familiar with it as I have half memorized most of the stickies on this forum) and see what I can break...errr... I mean modify... lol...

Much thanks....

 

Ok, I found the info that I needed, but I am lost on editing the bin (per the article, but I thought I would have to modify the ADS file... me lost again)... It says in the thread to use "promedit"... Promedit doesnt want to open on my puter, or is a dos based program (which I know little to nothing about)... Are the changes mentioned in the thread able to be done through TPRT or Winaldl? I guess this is the part Im stuck on, what to change and what to use to do the changes... Once I can start viewing the SA data, I should be ready to tackle my timing issues and finally get rolling...

Almost there... I hope... haha

 

Promedit is a DOS program, TunerPro (TP) didn't exist when the article was written. Can use TP and in the tools menu is the hex editor. Use that to patch the BIN for the SA items of interest.

Can then change the ADS file (for TP) or if using WinALDL whatever it uses to decipher the data stream. The patching of the BIN is to change the data stream. The updating of the data stream definition file allows one to view the new data stream in english.

RBob.

 

Here is where I get turned around, I cant find a place anywhere to put in an address that looks anything like the $77... I have been experimenting with editing xdf info from the xdf that Im using, but nothing Im getting looks anything like SA...

I have the hex editor opened, looking at what I suppose is my bin (the current active bin). I dont understand the $77 thing or where/how to find the PA3 location. Nothing in the editor matches anything that I have read. I see addresses (hex) and double digit numbers in rows/columns, none of which correspond with the numbers here... When opening the hex editor it just opens with all the data, I get no choice of what I want to open. I sooo went from sailing along on the "learning curve" river, to being up learning curve river, without a paddle... I will keep poking around until I hear something back...

Again, thanks a ton...

 

Ok, I have a reading that resembles retard. I put the $77 value in the 3 address place. This is where "PromID" highlighted when I selected those areas... I seem to be getting spark retard according to the math and values that came from the $77 designation... It's strange though, it is really slow reading, like I get retard then it hangs for quite awhile, doesnt seem to want to go away. I tested it by advancing the timing tables an obscene amount and it bounced up to match what I put in.

Thanks for the info (in oodles of various threads spread throughout the board) hehe... Im done for the day, 10 hours in today just trying to figure out how to read spark retard in the aldl stream... D'Oh!...

Dinner sleep -for the brain-, then at it again tomorrow...

Overkill (feeling like underkill today)