Knock sensors

Typically located on the engine block, cylinder head or intake manifold. It is placed here because its function is to sense vibrations caused by engine knock or detonation by basically a sensitive microphone. The ECU uses this signal to alter the ignition timing and prevent detonation it senses. It will compare this information with its preset ECU tables to identify a valid knock condition (when listened a crackle or high 'splat' noise). If detected it will retard the ignition timing to protect the engine. I have had a few customers with this switched off!, of course from the factory the sensitivty and frequency sometimes isnt valid for a highly modified engines.

Diesel tuning

Seems a lot of people are applying petrol techniques to diesel whilst some elements are the same you cannot apply most of them, notably with the admission of VNT turbos. The turbo regulates boost and spool, in most cases decatting does nothing and you dont need bigger exhausts until running a lot more power and boost with the additon of bigger turbo's and more boost!. A common platform is the VW 1.9TDI i really think the limit on these is 2.1 bar especially with standard injectors, many have failed above this with other being ticking timebombs, often cracking pistons!.

Diesel tuning - Tuning boxes

Tuning boxes can be attractive option for diesels considering their ease of installation and ability to not effect warranty, however generally they cannot be compared to a full good remap. They are effectively a middle man not properly working with intertwined tables and often effect MPG (portraying they are more optimistic than they actually are). Most now on the market come with 2 sensors for boost and fueling and can be altered with a pot or dip switches. In most case they fall short of a true remap and are generally 25-50% less power and torque than a remap and torque spikes. We have seen these several times with expensive tuning boxes too!.

Benefits of Boost solenoids vs standalone boost controllers

Traditional boost sensors work but dont provide feedback they are typically in the £150-300, a boost solenoid based on PID/PWM can perform the same function but can improve spool and remove osscilations due to talking to and from the ECU thus has the benefits of boost by gear and detecting over boost thus cutting fuel they are also typically in the £75 range!. However they typically have around 4 tables to adjust inc wastegate duty cydle, error and various others we can significantly effect boost and how its delivered and maintained.

Motorbike fuel filters inline with boost sensor 

When using a external boost sensor or map sensor you can sometimes get harsh oscillations in boost or bad resonance, an inline motorbike fuel filter can act as an 'electronic dampner' and smooth out the signal. Some ECU's have a DSP chip for engine related sensor but not MAP/Boost sensors. 

Wideband wiring and pinouts 

This will be updated and expanded upon in the future but here are 2 common pinouts and wiring for widebands - generally most ECU's used on an S2000 will use C16 pin.

Files to download

Below are various manuals and software to download

9/06/2023

Fraser turbo s2000 running a hondata this time big power setup. Tuned elsewhere but customer complaining of bogging and hesitation disabling him for driving it properly . Fixed and diagnosis showed poorly setup tip in/tip out basically ae in hondata talk and fighting fuel trims ltft/stft by closed loop not setup properly.

15/03/2023

Previously tuned elsewhere Car had a couple of runs on the dyno and driven home - now customer reports it runs like crap. Very rich, doesnt idle very well, disabled acceleration enrichment and generally poor in boost and out - i wonder why? so many things wrong with this and some basics wrong i havent managed to fit everything wrong with the map in one screenshot the more you look the more you see issues. I'm first to admit few year back when i first used these ECU's I didn't know them very well but at least got the basics right.

12/03/2023

12/02/2023

04/07/2020

Mike's turbo s2000 all the way from the USA in for tuning. Greddy turbo kit with EMU. In this particular example there are few tricks i know to get partial throttle better since it will just be learnt over with an OBD2 with LTFT and STFT's.

12/09/2022

22/06/2022

20/04/2022

29/01/2022

01/04/2021

01/04/2021

01/05/2021

03/02/2021

01/12/2020

26/10/2020

26/10/2020

31/09/2020

31/09/2020

Chris's s2000 ITB setup in for a tune - itbs are notorious to get a good tune with no icv and typically no map sensor, previously mapped with poor response, excessive cranking times and overly rich. Aem v2 can't support true alpha N. To be continued whilst he fault finds some issues.

31/09/2020

Johns S2000 in for a tune this time on Hondata flashpro - low cost for a DBW S2000. Minor bolt on's so smaller gains than usual - nevertheless should see some good gains and benefits of lower vtec.

23/08/2020

Andys mx5 NB with rockateer v6 kit in for a tune on ME442, this should fly with around 260 bhp and bags of torque from the high compression aj30 lump. Customer currently looking at tps issue as it will effect acceleration enrichment map and isn't linear.