You guys really seem to be having lots of fun with this. Wish I understood electronics a lot more than I do.

I'm following this because it looks like there is hope for my Z's F.I., maybe? I Don't understand what "DIP ICs or what Tatalum cap's" are :stupid: So I'm not even going to pretend I know what you are talking about. But rest assured I'm going to google everything

The only question I feel smart enough to ask " How much money will this sell for?"

Cost is really no issue for me, I think I want to believe it will be worth it to have no smogging issues with my car. And of course any improvement it would make would be a plus.

RCB, "DIP" stands for Dual Inline Pins. The black,rectangular integrated circuits you're probably most used to seeing, with pins on each side, some looking a bit like caterpillars, are DIP. The problem with the boards I've seen is that they have the ICs packaged in tiny little cans (with oil!) and wires coming out the bottom like some spider from Fukushima. There's no telling anything about what's inside the can! But give me a DIP IC, and I at least have a few clues, if not possibly off-the-shelf part numbers.

I always thought that "DIP" stood for - Dual Inline Packages.

Carl B.

Dual Inline Package

Who's going to write this up for ZCCM Magazine? You'll only get a 1-page article, but it'll probably get some attention from engineers that aren't members here, to get even more development or refinement.

You could also put it into GrassRoots Motorsport.

SIP, J-lead, PGA, been there too

JCB,

I haven't determined the selling price yet. I can already tell it is going to be more than I originally hoped for, but it won't be astronomical or out of line with any other similar system. (except for rcb who said price is not an issue for him. His will be wicked expensive! )

I do have the models & respective capabilities defined. There will be two models available: the HellFire Classic & HellFire Hybrid.

• Both models will be 100% configurable via the GUI for all fuel delivery maps & can support any intake manifold, throttle body, head, piston/cam upgrade ect.
  
• Both will also allow you to run any stock or after market sensors such as (stock vane style AFM, MAP, MAF, analog TPS, non-stock temp sensors, ect.)
  
• Both can control the fuel pump to give you a configurable # of sec prime pulse when ignition is turned on. Yay! no more hot start problems.
  
• Both will support a bone stock engine compartment or a highly customized one with AFM missing, custom intake, big bore Throttle Body, ect.
  
• 
  

The major difference between the two is that the Hybrid will be able to take over ignition duties & will have additional IO necessary for things like crank position sensors, turbo capability, shift lights, & similar. For 90% of us the HellFire Classic will fit the bill. However, if you are crazy and want to go all out with a crank trigger wheel, full on ignition control, coil on plug, & sequential injection you'll want the HellFire Hybrid.

Tomohawk,

Once I get the prototype operating a car & have something tangible to show, I'll contact a few of the Z channels to get more feedback. For now, the push is to continue development and testing.

Inquiring Minds Update -

I haven't had much time to work on it over the holiday, but I have the serial communication protocol fully implemented. I can now easily transfer command & data to/from the ECU. Data is transmitted with packets using a 32bit CRC so we have 100% reliable data. This is more of a pain than just simple ascii commands with carriage returns but in my opinion is mandatory for something that is controlling your fuel & ignition. One wrong bit when downloading a fuel map using simple ascii and you could seriously lean out an engine. I know it's a remote possiblity, but why worry. The communication protocol I used is a derivative of a custom one that I wrote about 7 years ago & is currently being used in well over 50,000 units in the field. It's on an industrial controller in an extremely noisy environment. It's time tested, and we will have no problems.

The GUI now autodetects the ECU as soon as it plugged in to any USB port, and then both the GUI/ECU maintain the connection & keep the user informed of the status. The GUI has a connected ICON & shows details at the bottom of the screen in the status bar. The ECU has an led dedicated to the communication link. I want the connection to be seamless & simple for the user.

I'm chomping at the bit to get this thing connected to the Z and some real world sensors, but I'm being patient. The GUI will be the primary debug tool for me as I bring the system up so I'm spending a lot of time making it solid and useful. Most users will probably never ever see it, but the ones that do connect their laptop I want to blow away by how simple it is to use. This is not an easy task as there is a lot of capabilities to the system.

Lenny

Excellent progress.

Were you intending to "run" the ECU on the bench before you tossed it into a car? I saw in one of the pics you had an EFI harness out on the bench... I was figuring you would power it up using that harness and use pots for the temp sensors, etc and a sig-gen for the ignition input. Twiddle the pots and watch the injector pulse width change?

I set one up on my bench like that but didn't get it to work. I didn't have a lot of time and had to get the car back together, but I figured I would take an hour and see if I could get it to work on the bench. I unfortunately ran out of time before I got any meaningful data.

If you want me to put that test set-up together, let me know. My Z is down for the season.

Captain,

Yes, my plan is to first simulate just as you outlined. However, I'm cheating. I also layed out a breakout interface pcb at the same time as the HellFire (I should post pics of it too) This board connects to the engine harness and has two pigtails that come out of it. One for the stock ECU , one for the HellFire. In theory I will be able to hot swap between the two ECUS while the engine is running as both see the same input signals. I buffered the inputs to the stock ECU and routed a path to the HellFire so it sees what the Stock ECU sees. There's a bit of head scratching I'll need to do to make sure the sensor scaling matches.

The outputs are switched via relays and one toggle to run the engine from either ECU depending on the toggle switch position.

There's also pots and switches on the board to simulate the engine sensor so I can just use it and the HellFire on the bench. I stopped short of adding a timer on it to simulate RPM. I'll just use a function generator.

Lenny

Any details on the GUI? Are you a programmer also? I Googled "Hellfire" and now I'm probably on somebody's watch list....