Adaptaptation Channels

[noone]

I'm going to TRY and write up some info on Adaptation Channel Tuning.

I have a habbit of getting these things slightly wrong or using incorrect terminology, so please feel free to correct me and if this thread gets popular, I'll amend the information in this Post.

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Disclaimer: Playing with any of these applications could cause damage to your vehicle, any changes you decide to make have nothing to do with me. I take no responsibility for the information in this thread and it is only provided for research purposes.

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What are Adaptation Channels and Adaptation Tuning?

Before I try to explain what Adaptation Channels control, let me tell you what they don't control:

There are a few areas of a cars computer control system. When you buy a tune from one of the many Chipping / ECU / Computer Flash companies, you are buying an edited version of the OEM computer program. They don't play with every little setting, just the ones that relate to the engine settings and in our case, turbo settings. They utilize all the normal instruments (like the MAF) to make the new tune work with the normal car's operation.

The 'maps' they create differ from company to company, each mapping how the power is delivered in slightly different ways. This is what I will call dynamic, as it works across different areas and with the cars normal adaptation settings.

So what are adaptation channels?

Adaptation Channels are another area of control for the ECU. These are stored in Semi Volatile memory (won't go away if you turn off the ignition, but won't be there if you pull the battery for 20 minutes).

VAG 1.8T's of a certain vintage have these channels which allow tweaking of certain parameters across the engine range. These are NOT dynamic, in that you can not make changes to 2000rpm alone, they are always used.

What settings are there?

Here are the 14 channels (2 of which are unused):

01 Idle Speed Offset
02 Fuel Tweak - Increasing Loads
03 Fuel Tweak - Decreasing Loads
04 Startup Up Fuel Enrich
05 Warmup Up fuel Enrich
06 Lambda Regulation
07 Additive Offset To Speed Limiter
08 Secondary Fuel Tweak
09 Ignition Timing Offset
10 Primary Fuel Tweak
11 Unused
12 SEL Scaling
13 Control Bits (Unused)
14 Idle Torque Additive Offset

Now the big question: What does each channel do?

I have found it very difficult to find a comprehensive guide to these control blocks. Why? Because if you mess with them you can do some serious damage. All applications are free, therefore no manual, no support. These settings allow you to control the car's settings, not tweak the tune you bought. There are little bits of information here and there, I'll link the good ones below.

If you can do serious damage, why are you playing with them Fool?

Because 1: I like to play and 2: If you take care and go slow, you can get more out of your car without spending any money!!!

Some general information:

What software options are there?
Lemmiwinks, V-Tune, CustomSettings and Unisettings. There are probably more.

Is there a difference between them?

V-Tune is designed for APR'd vehicles only. This software is not compatible with the software map on our little Pog. If there are enough people interested, we may be able to ask nicely for them to make a version for us.

V-Tune has a feature that allows the boost to be turned up, this is NOT available through any other software. My understanding which is still wanting is that the V-Tune software controls boost in a different way to addressing Adaptation channels.

The others all look and act pretty much the same. I used CustomSettings as it worked for me and has the ability to save files. I like the idea of saving a file before I start (even though the settings are very basic).

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So I don't need a tune, I can go and make my own maps, right?

No. A map is more than just changing a value, there is a lot of R&D, time and expert industry knowledge that comes into play when making a map for a vehicle. The settings in these applications do not give anywhere near the control that the tuners do. What can be done is pretty small and it is STRONGLY advised not to change anything unless you know what you are doing.

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Is there a procedure for making changes to these settings?

Yes. Log your car with Vag-Com or another application to see what your car is doing. If you feel that the car is operating well, with no symptoms of issues, you can make changes to the Adaptation channels.

The general rule I have found is Log, make small change, Log again. This ensures you don't go messing things up.

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What are my plans?

I'm not sure yet. I don't yet know enough to make any changes accept to the Ignition timing offset. I don't want to try and explain exactly what is does as I will no doubt give an un-suitably un-technical description to something that is technical.


Some Links:

Lemmiwinks S4 Wiki

Lemmiwinks Non Guide - Guide

Adaptation Discussion on Fortitude forum

Description on Vortex



Enjoy...

[h100vw]

Some good research there Ben.

Gavin

[philthy]

I believe Jmac was talking about doing some of these adjustments at the dyno day coming up 10th April. Will be interesting to see what happens on the rollers.

[Jmac]

My thinkpad had a shart yesterday, but have a new T43 on order. So will be transposing all my software across. If time permits should be able to have some fun with a couple of ME7 guys.
Upside my T42 ( latest ) keyboard is still good so the my T4 van will have a built in screen linked to my old lappy for off car chipping, manuals etc and the new thinkpad will be on the cars now
Jmac

[noone]

Today I made some adjustments and did some more logging.

I advanced the timing to 3 deg and logged. Advanced to 4.5 and logged.

3 degrees was fun, had wheelspin for the first time in ages!

4.5 started to see some timing pull in a range I am not happy with, so I've pulled it back to 3 deg for safety.

My timing pull appears mainly on Cyl 4, is there something that may cause this or is this type of thing normal?

[h100vw]

Can you post the logs for us Ben?

Or email me.

Gavin

[noone]

Thanks Gav, mailed.

I'm reading on some other forums that the timing pull can go upto 12 safely. I don't want to run anywhere near these numbers, but its interesting to see what the Audi boys used to do... Some of them seem to abuse their cars, run it harder and harder until it pinged then think about pulling it back.

Think I've found how to up the sample rate, should help give better detail.

Think I need to look at AFR's and airflow, see if thats all doing the right stuff...

[noone]

I found this thread again: What not to do with your adaptation settings

[noone]

Here is a log with 4.5 deg of timing added.



The torque starts lower than normal and feels like its boosting harder, but its not, just the machine working better... I keep expecting the power to drop off earlier, but it just keeps flying.

I've done some logs in 2nd gear to make sure everything is running ok to the redline, same results but revs out too fast for good logging.

This is one of the many logs I've done with this setting, all the same. No codes thrown, no smell, no high under bonnet ambient temps.

I will have to get the car on the Dyno Day coming up in Syd...

[noone]

I've been doing some more reading on ignition timing, its pretty interesting stuff.

Could not help myself, thought I'd put up a quote on how someone suggests that you tune the timing on an Integra:
"This is why we advise you to advance until you hear knocking at idle and then retard back 2 degrees for safety."

I know its an NA setup, but the idea of cranking it up until you get detonation, then winding it back a little seems miles from the ability of the ECU, sensors and logging ability of the VAG's.

[blackbetty]

NOONE - that quote brings back memories - thats how we were taught to do the timing on the old holdens and fords and valiants. works fine for a points distributor where there was a fixed amount of initial timing and vac advance was on a fixed scale too - and this was all set as a best average for the whole rpm range. But i wouldnt think anyone would do that with a computer controlled car (surely not) since there are more scientific ways to get perfect timing throughout the whole rpm range.

sometimes i think simplicity is better than computers - bring back the carby and points distributor
then i slap myself for being stupid.

[h100vw]

NOONE - that quote brings back memories - thats how we were taught to do the timing on the old holdens and fords and valiants. works fine for a points distributor where there was a fixed amount of initial timing and vac advance was on a fixed scale too - and this was all set as a best average for the whole rpm range. But i wouldnt think anyone would do that with a computer controlled car (surely not) since there are more scientific ways to get perfect timing throughout the whole rpm range.

sometimes i think simplicity is better than computers - bring back the carby and points distributor
then i slap myself for being stupid.

Access to timing maps is a great deal more involved than the old days. I have messed with stops and advance in MK1 GTIs, I had to do this to get max power at the top end yet still be able to get it to tickover.

With the Polo the nearest the man on the street can get is Custom Settings utilities, where you can add in timing everywhere. There is a bit of science to it, in that you look for the timing being pulled and use that as the indicator of which way to go

[noone]

So I guess its time for an update as I don't think anyone else is playing in this space.

I've decided to remove all advancement of the timing settings. I've played with various settings over time and found the car works best with the stock timing.

What happens:
When you add some timing, the car pulls harder. There is more power, more noticable off boost. The more timing, the more power!

The limit:
The limit of what timing you can add depends on how cautious you are. you can potentially add as much timing as you like before detonation. I used some guidance from Gav (h100vw) to give me an understanding of what the ECU is compensating with. Based on a timing pull of no more than 6degrees, I was comfortably able to add 3.75 degrees when it was warmer without much pull.

So if there was more power, why take it away:
The biggest limitation with the adaptation tuning is that it is not mapping. I'm not doing what the tuners do, I'm simply overlaying fixed values across the range. This unfortunately works against me with my APR tune as the tune was not intended to have more timing added everywhere across the range.

What happened:
Whilst there was more power there at first, as the ECU adapts to the new timing, my new power is decreased over time until the car feels different, but not really better. There is always more torqe / power off boost, but then when the boost is coming on, it feels a little more sluggish. My understanding is that the natural adaptation of the car is leaving me with more power off boost, but then retarding the timing when coming on boost, thus reducing the boost fun (smoothing out the acceleration).

Ok, so now what:
Now I'm looking toward the N249 bypass for answers. I've bypassed the N249 today and instantly have more power as the boost comes on, quicker diverter action and less general boost interference from the ECU.

As the car will / may tame this new configuration over time, I'll leave it as is for a while and see if the ECU manages to pull back somewhere, again circumventing my attempts for more power with existing hardware.

Before anyone else chimes in, the N249 bypass could potentially be removing a failsafe designed to protect the engine. Rather than reiterate the whole point, do a search or look on Tex if you are interested.