M177 Stock Turbo Limits

[jacep]

Does anyone have some good logs of the stock turbos or turbo upgrades on the M177? I think I am reaching the limit of mine. WGDC is averaging around 80% on the top end and I can seem to get more that about 215kpa in the upper RPM range. My elevation is 4500'. I don't think I would have this question if I were at sea level. Now the questions is do I do some upgrades?

[chevota]

Your Optimum Torque settings would kill my car, so I set it how I would do it. Keep in mind that if does respond to that change I have no idea how much boost it might make because it is a big jump. I vaguely recall tinkering with someones 4.0L tune once and we couldn't get the boost up, like there was some other limiter we can't see in HP? Maybe you have the same problem, I dunno...

I did a few other things that I would do as well, if it were my car. Up to you if you want to try them, obviously.

chev mod 4.hpt

[jacep]

There Is definitely more torque limiters than what HP tuners has. I can't get mine to respond anymore. I would like to get close to 250kpa in the lower rpm but everything I have tried doesn't seem to help. I'll mess a little more with max torque variant 0,1, and 2. Hopefully it will show some sort of diff. This stock AMG GT 630hp files is pretty interesting

[outlaw_50]

Took a look at the tune,

Why are the Optimum Torque Monitors and Throttle Max Flow zeroed out?

could you post your stock file so we could get a better look at your changes

[jacep]

I'm guessing HP tuners has the wrong address for the throttle angle at max flow map. My guess on the monitoring is that the tuner is disabling it so it can't intervene with torque cut, also notice "testing comparison" and "min max fault" values maxed out.

[chevota]

jacep, I thought you zero'd out the Opt Tq Monitors. I thought it odd but apparently it worked for you so I left it alone. So this was a tune you bought?

[jacep]

jacep, I thought you zero'd out the Opt Tq Monitors. I thought it odd but apparently it worked for you so I left it alone. So this was a tune you bought?

Hey Chevota, correct this started as a STG 2 tune, I felt there was still a lot left on the table so I started playing with a lot of things. Unfortunately there are still some critical maps/limiters in that background that are not populated by Hp Tuners. I think these are keeping me from getting it where I want it. I did drop the Nominal torque down to 774 and managed to gain another 10 kpa of boost in 3rd. 4th hits almost 240kpa. The hit is a fair amount better, but peak boost in 1st and 2nd is still pretty sad. I'm going to keep messing more with this it has given the most gains through tuning so far. I wish I knew if logged torque is calculated from nominal torque or some other factor. I am assuming nominal which would be 10-15% lower than actual torque.

I'll have to get me a tactrix openport and start working on a solution for the Transmission next. I really need to up the limiters for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.

I first ran this tune with the stock intake, this was way restrictive. Not changing anything other than the intake gained about 25kpa at the big end.

Eurocharged on instagram has a good dyno graph of there STG1 on a C63. Based on comparing their hp curve to my curve I wouldn't be surprised if they are upwards of 250-260 kpa down low.

[chevota]

I lowered my Nominal to 800 and it works nice. One day I may try to get full power with it back at 885, just to see if I can.
My Optimum Torque Monitor values are lowered ~5%, which helped. Also changed the Eng Torque scaling on it from 185 to 191, which is as far as it goes, which also helped.
I don't need to push anything further because at some point I got my turbo duty cycle to stay at 100%, and since I can't do any better than that I haven't been messing with the torque stuff in a while. A side bennie of my tinkering, for whatever reason, is it doesn't pull throttle in 1st to 3rd gears like it's supposed to. Not sure why, but I'm not complaining.

From what I can gather, that Opt and Opt Monitoring just feed into Tq to Load, and Tq to Load seems to be the ultimate goal. The problem, imo, is the oem Opt settings won't drive to the highest % line in Tq to Load. So if you only raise the #'s in the highest % line in Tq to Load, nothing happens because it never got there on the map. Raise the next lower, or so, % lines, where it is hitting, and it responds. So I can do that but I prefer to get Opt to hit the max % line in Tq to Load, and I'm fairly certain I have. That's why I said your Opt settings would kill mine, because it would fall short on the Tq to Load map.

Note; which might just be my car, but weird sht will happen sometimes when I load a tune. All kinds of things from it simply not taking the change I did, to upsetting unrelated things, and the most common is a mysterious power loss. Since my turbo DC is 100%, when running right, it's super easy to spot an issue now because it'll drop below 100. So then I load the previous known good tune and make the same changes, or start from scratch and make the same changes. Either way it works and back to normal. No clue why this happens, but if things don't make sense or it's not cooperating, give it a try.

Tuning is back burner for me since I've been trying to get it to pass smog for months. I have a CEL for P2610 (Engine Off Timer), whatever the F that is, and I just can't make it go away. An unfixable CEL is the demise of almost all the electronic cars I've had, and the only fix is to get rid of them. I really want to keep this one, so we'll see.

If you can't figure out how to get the power you want, outlaw_50 would no doubt be the guy to fix whatever is holding you back.

[outlaw_50]

I lowered my Nominal to 800 and it works nice. One day I may try to get full power with it back at 885, just to see if I can.
My Optimum Torque Monitor values are lowered ~5%, which helped. Also changed the Eng Torque scaling on it from 185 to 191, which is as far as it goes, which also helped.
I don't need to push anything further because at some point I got my turbo duty cycle to stay at 100%, and since I can't do any better than that I haven't been messing with the torque stuff in a while. A side bennie of my tinkering, for whatever reason, is it doesn't pull throttle in 1st to 3rd gears like it's supposed to. Not sure why, but I'm not complaining.

From what I can gather, that Opt and Opt Monitoring just feed into Tq to Load, and Tq to Load seems to be the ultimate goal. The problem, imo, is the oem Opt settings won't drive to the highest % line in Tq to Load. So if you only raise the #'s in the highest % line in Tq to Load, nothing happens because it never got there on the map. Raise the next lower, or so, % lines, where it is hitting, and it responds. So I can do that but I prefer to get Opt to hit the max % line in Tq to Load, and I'm fairly certain I have. That's why I said your Opt settings would kill mine, because it would fall short on the Tq to Load map.

Note; which might just be my car, but weird sht will happen sometimes when I load a tune. All kinds of things from it simply not taking the change I did, to upsetting unrelated things, and the most common is a mysterious power loss. Since my turbo DC is 100%, when running right, it's super easy to spot an issue now because it'll drop below 100. So then I load the previous known good tune and make the same changes, or start from scratch and make the same changes. Either way it works and back to normal. No clue why this happens, but if things don't make sense or it's not cooperating, give it a try.

Tuning is back burner for me since I've been trying to get it to pass smog for months. I have a CEL for P2610 (Engine Off Timer), whatever the F that is, and I just can't make it go away. An unfixable CEL is the demise of almost all the electronic cars I've had, and the only fix is to get rid of them. I really want to keep this one, so we'll see.

If you can't figure out how to get the power you want, outlaw_50 would no doubt be the guy to fix whatever is holding you back.

Sure we could get it sort out but as he said tactrix would be better.
Thanks for the good input !

[jacep]

Sure we could get it sort out but as he said tactrix would be better.
Thanks for the good input !

Outlaw_50 do you have any logs of 63's that you wouldn't mind sharing? My GLC is coming along, still not where I am hoping to end up but its one of the funest cars I've had yet. I have some throttle blip in 1st and 2nd at this value. I need to play with the OT and see if I can pull this out without sacrificing boost in the higher gears. 3rd gear I am seeing around 255-260 kpa peak with good timing, but it still does taper off a fair amount up top. To get the results I have been looking for I have dropped my Nominal Torque down to 725. I still need my tranny done. One day when I get more time to play with it I'll have to hit you up about your transmission tunes and its possabilities. 1st is so short its pretty useless. Do you have parameter access to allow 2nd gear launches?

[chevota]

What do you mean by "I need to play with the OT and see if I can pull this out without sacrificing boost in the higher gears." Just curious really.

There is a forum; MHH Auto, that is kinda dark web-ish with all kinds of tuning info and what not. It's like $25 to join, but free to look. I joined but have hardly used it. Point being you can look in there for info on your eng, maybe some tidbits on what's holding you back and how to fix it? Other stuff too, including WinOLS or whatever.

Fyi I was poking around and saw this, which I ignore on my eng because default is 885. I don't know wth it is but it's not maxed out and the M178 has bigger #'s in it. Maybe nothing, but try and see?
TM Level 1 M177.jpg
TM Level 1 M178.jpg

[jacep]

What do you mean by "I need to play with the OT and see if I can pull this out without sacrificing boost in the higher gears." Just curious really.

There is a forum; MHH Auto, that is kinda dark web-ish with all kinds of tuning info and what not. It's like $25 to join, but free to look. I joined but have hardly used it. Point being you can look in there for info on your eng, maybe some tidbits on what's holding you back and how to fix it? Other stuff too, including WinOLS or whatever.

Fyi I was poking around and saw this, which I ignore on my eng because default is 885. I don't know wth it is but it's not maxed out and the M178 has bigger #'s in it. Maybe nothing, but try and see?
TM Level 1 M177.jpg
TM Level 1 M178.jpg

Thanks I'll give that a try. I've been slowing increasing my optimum torque table and decreasing my normalized torque value. This throttle closure in 1st and 2nd didn't start until this last time I lowered the normalized value. I am thinking I can lower my OT values at my initial spooling rpm to reduce the throttle closure, Idk thats just my guess. Do you have any recommendations?

Also do you mind sharing your stock m178 file. All of the stock files I have don't have many maps populated under Torque Model Monitoring

[chevota]

For me, when floored, the throttle stays open and boost does all the work. Originally, however, the throttle would close too. It was difficult to figure out if the tranny was closing the throttle, or the ECU, but from what I could gather after watching it and tinkering, the ECU only closed it "if" the boost control wasn't limiting it enough. The boost control is too slow so boost often gets out of hand and throttle kicked in.
When I floor it in 4th gear, so the tranny won't bother me, the throttle was 100% open and it was all boost control. Things are happening slow enough in 4th that boost control actually works. Now if I forced more boost than it liked, then it would close the throttle. I recall one time it closing and holding the throttle at ~25%. I forget why but I was experimenting and that was the result.

All my limiters are out of the way, and not just because they are annoying. Imo the limiters kick in too late, then as a result, respond by too much. So you overboost, then no boost, then have to recover from that. So I mainly use Torque to Load but also have it set to ramp power down more slowly as I get closer to mid-range, so the slow responding boost control can work and not overreact. The pix shows it better than I could explain. It's not an issue unless at max load, so max load is where it's modded.

What's your Optimum Torque now? I really think it should be at 100. Imo it's easier to set Optimum to 100 and use Torque to Load to control boost/power. If you have Optimum at 90 or something, then it's simply less on the Torque to Load because it is not hitting the bottom row in the map. It just makes it more complicated is all.
If going right to 100 makes you nervous, and it should to be safe, I'd still make it 100 but lower Torque to Load instead. You can math it out so 100 Optimum ends up netting ~stock power, then adjust from there. If not then you spend time trying to figure out how much of each equals your net power. Max out Opt and you can forget about it from then on.

On mine you see I don't go to 100, that's because the input of my Torque to Load is 80. So really my Optimum of 86 exceeds 100% command, which is simply to ensure it does hit 100% because the map feeding Optimum may not be feeding it 100%. Say the value feeding Opt is 95%, the 86 value is making up for it. If that makes sense. If 95% was coming into Opt, and it max value was 80 instead of 86, then the output into Torque to Load would likely be 75 or so, falling short of the bottom row in the map.

OptTq.jpgTq2Ld.jpg

Link to stock M178: https://forum.hptuners.com/showthrea...l=1#post693653

[jacep]

For me, when floored, the throttle stays open and boost does all the work. Originally, however, the throttle would close too. It was difficult to figure out if the tranny was closing the throttle, or the ECU, but from what I could gather after watching it and tinkering, the ECU only closed it "if" the boost control wasn't limiting it enough. The boost control is too slow so boost often gets out of hand and throttle kicked in.
When I floor it in 4th gear, so the tranny won't bother me, the throttle was 100% open and it was all boost control. Things are happening slow enough in 4th that boost control actually works. Now if I forced more boost than it liked, then it would close the throttle. I recall one time it closing and holding the throttle at ~25%. I forget why but I was experimenting and that was the result.

All my limiters are out of the way, and not just because they are annoying. Imo the limiters kick in too late, then as a result, respond by too much. So you overboost, then no boost, then have to recover from that. So I mainly use Torque to Load but also have it set to ramp power down more slowly as I get closer to mid-range, so the slow responding boost control can work and not overreact. The pix shows it better than I could explain. It's not an issue unless at max load, so max load is where it's modded.

What's your Optimum Torque now? I really think it should be at 100. Imo it's easier to set Optimum to 100 and use Torque to Load to control boost/power. If you have Optimum at 90 or something, then it's simply less on the Torque to Load because it is not hitting the bottom row in the map. It just makes it more complicated is all.
If going right to 100 makes you nervous, and it should to be safe, I'd still make it 100 but lower Torque to Load instead. You can math it out so 100 Optimum ends up netting ~stock power, then adjust from there. If not then you spend time trying to figure out how much of each equals your net power. Max out Opt and you can forget about it from then on.

On mine you see I don't go to 100, that's because the input of my Torque to Load is 80. So really my Optimum of 86 exceeds 100% command, which is simply to ensure it does hit 100% because the map feeding Optimum may not be feeding it 100%. Say the value feeding Opt is 95%, the 86 value is making up for it. If that makes sense. If 95% was coming into Opt, and it max value was 80 instead of 86, then the output into Torque to Load would likely be 75 or so, falling short of the bottom row in the map.

OptTq.jpgTq2Ld.jpg

Link to stock M178: https://forum.hptuners.com/showthrea...l=1#post693653

Thank you so much for the info. That makes the tuning so much more simple and it works great. Here are the first 2 tunes/logs that I tried. This will give me a lot to start playing with.

[chevota]

That's a lot on the Torque to Load imo. Plus it looks like it kicks in abruptly?
What fuel are you using?
Fyi here's what my Scanner looks like, if you want to upgrade:

CScan.jpg

[jacep]

That's a lot on the Torque to Load imo. Plus it looks like it kicks in abruptly?
What fuel are you using?
Fyi here's what my Scanner looks like, if you want to upgrade:
CScan.jpg

mod 14 warmer.hplmod 14 885NT.hplmod 14 3rd.hpl


Hey Chevota,

You are absolutely correct. I overlooked my log 14 thinking I was in 3rd, but I was really only in 2nd gear. I then threw more TtoL at it trying to pull more boost in 15. I'm on 91 octane right now its the daily so I don't really want to mess with anything else. You have a ton channels on your scanner. Are most those channels available for your car or are they user channels? My selection options are pretty slim.

I did a little more playing around with the car. It loved 25 degree weather this morning on the 3rd gear log. I'm not having the best of luck with higher Nominal torque values. You can see in the logs same tunes, NT is 885 on the one, and 722 on the others.

Have you done down pipes on any of these cars? If you pull the turbos can you get the DP out through the top? I would love to do some but I don't think I have the ambition to pull the tranny. Also any recommendations on turbo upgrades? Looking for something smaller that would still have good spool time and maintain low 20's for boost up top.

[jacep]

If you look at the draggy graph it really stops pulling at the high end of 2nd, and 3rd gear.

[chevota]

All my channels are active on the screen, and all oem. Some are math, but based on oem channels. There are a others I'm recording too, but don't appear on the screen. Eg; knock sensor voltages because my screen is kinda full. If I want to check knock voltage I simply switch to a saved screen setting that swaps out the cam positions (8 bars in the right bottom corner) with 8 bars for knock voltage. I check it, then switch back. I'm only checking the cams because some guy on the mbworld forum is saying the VVT for the cams is slow, jittery, locking and unlocking which is causing all kinds of problems and power loss. I told him I'm not seeing it, the VVT works incredibly well and does none of those things. Plus the cam position isn't that important so if it lagged I don't see the big deal. It seems he ignores what I say and continues on about it. I don't what to make of that since I can see more than he can, and I've recorded like 25k miles worth of it.
The Knock voltage is because I'm currently running 91 octane and the oem tune, in a effort to get smogged. I'm losing that battle but it pings on 91 and it's data to check out. I'm also running one (1) aftermarket motor mount, which is causing more more spark retard than normal. The mount originally caused massive retard, then I modified it and now it's only causing a little. So I'm comparing it to both oem with 91 oct and my tune with 50% Ethanol, just to collect data. Then I will do away with the Knock voltages. The theory is the more crap you record, and the more points per second you record it, the more bandwidth you suck and it delays things. I'm not seeing that, or at least it's not obvious to me, but if I don't need something I might as well remove it, and things like ambient air temp I set to less points per sec. I think I have one set to like one point per 5 sec?
The retard is why I was asking about your fuel because 91oct is ping city for me, even with the oem mount. I need to add ~25% Ethanol to prevent ping. Then with 50% I can bump the timing a bit.

That sux you can't see as much stuff. I guess HP has to add them with each new ECU or ECU change. MB doesn't seem to be much of a priority for HP. HP doesn't exist to give us tuning tools, they exist to make $. MB no doubt has low man hour/profit ratio compared to Chevy, Ford, Mopar etc. So my assumption is they spend all the time making those people happy, and maybe we just get the intern or noob programmers? Just guessing, but that's how they do it at my work.

I wouldn't trust the Dragy, and the G data is imo only somewhat correct as you can see it's all over the place. The steps down in G's are your gear changes. 1-2 and 2-3. You can math it out to get a better feel, and est wind resistance, but 1st always pulls better than 2nd and so on (assuming traction etc). Mine pulls better in 2nd because in 1st I'm either lagging on boost or losing traction
You have much better gearing than I, and AWD, so your start is much better than me. Once our gearing kinda matches then the G's in HP, match up pretty well. So I'd say it looks ok.
What I do to measure performance is check how fast it goes from x speed in 1 second. So 0, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 etc. Then I note, from 50 it went to 63 in one sec. From 90 to 98.9 etc etc. Of course I also do 0-60, 60-100, 0-100 etc.

The HP data is consistent, the Dragy, which I also record (when it works) is not consistent and always gives better 0-60 #'s. For distance, like 1/8th and 1/4 mile I think it's good. For 0-60 Dragy shows up to .5sec quicker times than HP or my G-tech. If I add the 1ft thing then it's more like .8 better. I'd assume the quicker your launch, the worse that is.
My best Dragy is 3.88, or 3.64 1ft. HP recorded 4.34 on that same run. It felt like 4.34, and I knew it was a "dud" run, then I saw the record 3.88. Wtf?
Some runs Dragy and HP almost match, but it's rare, like three times Dragy was less than .1 better than HP.
It's hard for me to compare since Dragy has only worked 29 times in the two years I've had it. I don't use it every day, it's too much time and effort to setup for a slim shot it'll record.

So I'd look at the HP data to see how it looks, and compares to tune changes. If I right arrow on the chart at the bottom it moves the time 1/100 sec. Ctrl-right arrow = 1 sec, so pretty easy to see what's happening. I start at the first 1/100 that speed moves, and I have speed set to read .01mph. If you set without decimals it's cheating, like the 1ft in Dragy.
For me, things happen too fast in 1st & 2nd, so I mostly use 3rd to see how changes are working out. Basically boost is what's it's all about, but now that I have boost pushed as far I can, and as far as I want where it can overboost, I'm playing with spark and cam timing, and the extra difficult task of getting my 0-60 time down but I don't think it's possible without fatter tires.

Have you checked out your car here? I assume this is your car:
https://automobile-catalog.com/car/2...lc_63_suv.html
It's really cool to see all the specs, gear ratios, speeds in each gear/rpm, etc. The acceleration #'s are simulated, so just an est.