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Suggested Racing Chapter Premise

Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2005 1:52 pm
by MD
I know that it seems like a crazy conflict. Have a competitive race car but tell everyone how it's made up and instantly loose your competitive edge !

I fully appreciate that that this type of information is not possible to obtain. The similarity lies in JimK's dilemma about trying to help all of us with information but retaining enough interest and info for his book and fair enough too.

My take on it is this.

Being the would be racer that I am, I don't need cutting edge stuff. I am still in the throws of getting my first pair of welded on underpants that keeps the brown stuff in when you freak out on a high speed turn.

I am therefore happy to receive info as I have said before from former racers who have moved on but had competitive machinery before.

Anyone starting off in racing usually evolves their skills and machinery along with it. Just to get on the starting blocks with a properly configured and purpose built unit would be a huge buzz. So I don't feel that contributors are giving away their competitive edge as the info doesn't necessairly have to be the latest and greatest (but hey, if you give, we'll certainly take it !)

Other contributions could also come from knowledgeable people that have an engineering and/or racing background and just want to share their knowledge to help prommote the sport.

I just wanted to lay my cards on the table.

Re: Suggested Racing Chapter Premise

Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 4:32 pm
by MD
Given that since 2005 there has been no contributions to this topic, it would seem that people hold their information much closer to the chest than I anticipated.

Where would this site be if we all did the same?

Re: Suggested Racing Chapter Premise

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2013 1:10 pm
by kevin
Hey MD ( rest of oz crew - Duk , Jules Ben etc) , thanks for your contributions as still would have exploding clutch housing , strange handling gtv and even scarier roll cage . Also big thanks to Mats for pointing out the obvious when you just don't see it . (blinkers on) . Speaking of Mats , - nar kommer ditt projekt bli fardigt ?

Re: Suggested Racing Chapter Premise

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2013 5:07 pm
by fedezyl
I'm finishing up my Giulie racer this week, i'll be contributing a bit to this forum soon.

Re: Suggested Racing Chapter Premise

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2013 6:42 pm
by festy
I'd be happy to help anyone looking to race a Bosch/Motronic powered Alfa.
I'm most familiar with the earlier ECUs (75/164 TS, 12v 3.0 etc) but also know a bit about the 155 TS, 24v v6 and others.
If your engine modifications aren't too crazy, I can assist with tuning the stock ECU, modifying rev limiters, datalogging etc.
I know most of you guys run an aftermarket EMS of one sort or another - but for someone starting out on a budget, the stock ECU can be DIY tuned quite cheaply.

Re: Suggested Racing Chapter Premise

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2013 9:01 pm
by 75evo
Festy

I have a cammed 155 V6, with shaved heads and squadra chip. But the chip is geeric, so would benefit from an xdf file. Botch Moron-tronic M1.7.

Re: Suggested Racing Chapter Premise

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2013 9:16 pm
by festy
Give me the ECU number, and I'll see what I can do.
It'll start with 0.261.2..

Re: Suggested Racing Chapter Premise

Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 12:55 am
by Mats
MD: Over the years I have found that to get a good answer on internet forums you need to write a good question. A well defined question that can be answered without having to write a paper is generally answeredquickly or there is a good discussion around it. Similarly if you write a question and ask: "A or B?" type of questions.
However, the question above where you really ask: "write down everything you know and I decide if I think it's important or not" is generally NEVER answered, just like in this case. 8)

Kevin: den blir klar när den blir klar... (It will be finished when it's finished). :wink:
Good Swedish, just lacking some dots. :)
The new motorway to work opened up mid December and it saves me 40 minutes of driving per day. I'm home much earlier now and I feel motivated to hammer the GTVback together. Slowly but surely. :)
I have progressed a lot in photography instead, if anyone is interested in having a look at some of my racing photos you can have a look at: gallery.onemanracing.com
Sadly I have noticed that the quality of the photos are terrible after uploading, some form of automagic compression taking place. Some of the pictures are available on the new site we're building for the Swedish Club Alfa Romeo Racing site: carchallenge.se
Maybe I'll set up a better site for my photos some day, not now though. 8)

Re: Suggested Racing Chapter Premise

Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 1:24 pm
by MD
Mats,
Your response is a good logical one and it makes sense from a certain point of view. I suppose this really is a chicken or the egg question. Do you make your own race car and then share what you know as in the case of many examples of Forum members here have done, yourself included. Or does an owner of a former good race car of any breed share information that may be useful to be used in principle on transaxles as well?

The first approach is limited by the builder's own knowledge and timely as you go advice which can result in costly mistakes and trial and error holes in pocket ( :D just ask me ) Whereas the latter can be timely advice in advance for incorporation in the project knowing that at least it has been proven to work well.

I know this is a bit of a hairy fairy approach (apologies to all hairless fairies out there :D ) and its a fine line to walk and perhaps the approach should be refined exactly as you say, ask the question and you may get the answer. Sorting out the subject and where to put it so you can find it on the Forum is perhaps another headache of its own.

This is one reason I started this non specific topic that would be here to talk about racing subjects generally out of which some gold may be shared from the sand granules of information that one could make use of and hive off to a specific topic sets we have already.

The subjects can be anything from braking , shifting, steering techniques. Useful race preparation approaches before the big day. Pitfalls to avoid. How to score hot chicks after the race meet at the bar (Good luck with that one) Hard learned lessons to avoid in forced induction engines etc, etc. As long as the subject benefited racing that our readers could distill for themselves as being useful, then such information is welcome.

As usual, I have written another Ben-Hur novel :wink:

Re: Suggested Racing Chapter Premise

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 3:11 am
by festy
75evo wrote:Festy

I have a cammed 155 V6, with shaved heads and squadra chip. But the chip is geeric, so would benefit from an xdf file. Botch Moron-tronic M1.7.
I did a bit of research and I think the only M1.7 ECU used on the 155 V6 was the 0.261.200.537? There was a 0.261.203.829 ECU, but that's an M2.10.3 AFAIK...
So based on that, I've put together a basic XDF for you.
It covers the important things like fuel, timing, rev limit, DFCO, idle speed, AFM etc.
It's still a work in progress, and I haven't nailed the checksum calc just yet but added a flag to disable the checksum verification so use that for now ;)
Let me know if there's anything important missing.
Most/all the maps are defined in the xfd, but I haven't put names to them all. That process takes a lot of time...

There's a zip file with the xdf, a stock 155 V6 bin and a modified 155 V6 bin here.
I'll stop hijacking MD's thread now...

Re: Suggested Racing Chapter Premise

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 1:05 pm
by MD
festy/75evo
As long as the subject benefited racing that our readers could distill for themselves as being useful, then such information is welcome.
Feel free to continue if that is the case.

Re: Suggested Racing Chapter Premise

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 1:47 pm
by festy
Considering there's a (very quiet) area on this forum just for discussing the stock Bosch EMS, that might be a better place for things like this.
The information on tuning/modifying these ECUs is very model specific, so for example those files for tuning a 155 V6 won't be of any interest to those looking for general race car preparation - and they may interest people who aren't looking to race their 155, but want to improve it's performance...

Anyway, thanks for your very detailed threads both here and on the vic forum MD, I've been preparing a '77 GTV for track use at glacier speed on and off for the last decade or so, and your posts have been great inspiration/motivation.
Although I haven't directly 'copied' the things you've done in your builds, just seeing the sort of issues you've come across has helped me avoid future issues.
But I'm seriously thinking of copying your rear brake caliper access panels, even with standard brakes/rotors it looks like a great time saver!

Re: Suggested Racing Chapter Premise

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2013 2:34 am
by Mats
Hmmm, I have a 155 V6.... 8)