tastyratz

Has anyone tried actually running what Civic completed here?

From what I can tell he finished it but had manifold leak problems and ditched the idea. Has anyone built what he came up with and seen how it works?

I have this turbo and want to run it on my car but I do not have the clearance for the stock controller to the shock tower.

Civic did you ever take any pictures of your setup before abandoning?

I personally am more comfortable with the idea of relocating as much electronics as possible and running a pigtail to a separately mounted controller.

I am a machinist with access to a manual bridgeport mill, I could easily build brackets/housings myself.

Designing the controller though? Outside my range.

dracozny

what you see is what you get he used the stock housing and merely stripped the stock circuit-board out. there are no other pictures, I have asked him by email . what you can do however to resolve your clearance issues are a couple things, remove the exhaust and compressor housings and locate the clocking pins, and remove them, then you can rotate the main assembly a bit to give clearance. don't give too much rotation you still want the oil flow to drain from the turbo correctly. the alternatives would be to fab your charge pipe and exhaust manifold connections accordingly,
as far as the controller, there isnt much for you to do its merely hooking it up and programming it with the code he gave you, the wiring and pins are all neatly explained. I haven't done it because i didn't want to modify the stock housing and feel there is a more elegant way to handle the vane position instead of using a potentiometer tapped into the housing.

tastyratz

I have clocked it btw, I get the best clearance with the chra perpindicular to the strut tower. The housing is just insult to injury on this massive turbo.

I personally can machine a new lower profile/slim housing or modify this one for clearance depending on how it gets pulled off.


We can still toss around ideas though and continue, don't need to let the thread die. There were multiple people participating and saying they are doing there own thing, I would love to hear how that's going.
What I don't want to do is build whats there if there are flaws in the system because I am limited in my capability to engineer its change. I don't yet have a stable platform with my car build enough to isolate a new set of variables.


What about a resistive strip sensor similar to a fuel tank sender instead of a potentiometer? Or maybe something like a hotpot? http://media.digikey.com/pdf/Data%20...s%20HotPot.pdf

I have not really worked with potentiometers in high heat applications before, so the question is will something like that grow values predictably based on temperature? If so would adding a thermistor to the calculation circuit and measuring/entering values at specific temperatures to develop a response scale make sense? Would it be repeatable enough?

tastyratz

Damn hmt for not letting me just edit this in.
instead of a $1.50 potentiometer what I was really thinking of when referencing a fuel tank level sender:
http://www.nissanmurano.org/forums/a...t-dsc00187.jpg
It actually has a row of conductive contacts and an arm to complete the circuit. I am not sure how they work, also resistive strip?
Do inductance potentiometers have the same problem as resistive ones and head?

dracozny

in your case i might suggest machining a screw type gearing although it might not be fast enough could gear it up faster to move the vane adjusting gear the thought is to reduce the profile thats protruding into the shock tower and having the motor off to the side, as far as determining where its at you can either deal with keeping count of motor turns from 0 - 100% closure or have the electronics look for an overload condition in either case.
I'm kinda working along these lines although I don't need to machine anything so the sensor finding the 50% mark on the stock gear is what I am looking at.
potentiometers are just such unpredictable things, thats why I am avoiding them entirely, your fuel sender idea is rather interesting though.

R34ztune

Hi there,

I am new to this thread, but I am not new to turbocharger control and electronics. I am from Mechatronics and computer engineering background, specialized in forced induction ECU design and research in my thesis (decades ago anyway). My first touch on VNT/VGT in gasoline is inspired from the Aerocharger VATN turbochargers (they are still around see www.aerocharger.com) .

I am working in a motorsports and performance parts business right now. We are throwing in lots of resources in VNT gasoline projects instead of treating this as a home made or school project. We have a bunch of cars here ready for test projects, including factory turbocharged cars like a series of Nissan GTR's from R32 to R34, Audi/VW/Porsche turbos , 911 NA turbo conversions and such .

Personally, I have done at least dozens of electronic boost controller installations, HKS EVC, Apex AVCR, Greddy and ECU mapping work.

I read through this thread and find that its the most active up-to-date VNT turbocharger thread in gasoline . But there is something I really need to point out. First of all, thanks to CivicTSI who has done a lot of work on reverse engineer the Holset actuator (not controller). I think he has mixed up the "controller" and the "actuator" . I don't think its a good idea to mixed up the 2 pieces into a single model. First, an actuator should accept signal for vane position (or wastegate actuation for wastegated turbochargers). Secondly, the boost controller is a unit that should send out signals to the actuator according to boost changes or with other logics (will explain further later). Whether the actuator accepts a CAN message protocol or a PWM is not important, it is just an implementation issue. What is important is how your controller will control the vanes. I hope reader is with me and is clear about what I want to point out. Garrett make two versions of their REA (rotary electronic actuator, rotary electric actuator). The second accepts a PWM signal for vane position for simplicity and the first uses a CAN message. The AVNT slide vane turbochargers found on GT37V series (GT3571VA, GT3771VA, GT3782VA, GT3788VA, GT3794VA) turbochargers all uses a PWM signal for vane position control.

VNT turbochargers control is much more complex is not as simple as wastegated turbocharger control, in a way it can be simple if you setup your control schematics clearly. Mixing the actuator and controller together will result yourself in a very difficult situation.

A VNT turbocharger can varies the A/R of the turbine, but not controlling the boost. If your turbine A/R is small, it result in high exhaust manifold pressure and causing the turbine to spin up fast (we all know that) . Open up the vanes result in a larger A/R, result in lowering the exhaust back pressure but will still keep your turbine to energize and result in speeding up the turbine (not bypassing the turbine). A wastegate bypass the turbine and deenergizes the turbine and causing it to reduce speed. Most gasoline engines have a high working range (high rpm) and high EGT . The way how turbocharger works is we pickup the energy in the exhaust gas and use it to drive the turbine. So that, in theory or in practice, open up the vanes (large A/R) doesn't mean you that you can control the boost. Gasoline engines uses a throttle to control engine load, the higher the rpm , the higher the gas flow rate and will continue to cause boost to rise unless causing your compressor to reach the stall line (refer to your compressor map) . That means, a wastegate is needed to bypass the turbine for boost control. This not happen to diesel engines because they don't use throttle so that the maximum air flow can always be determined.

If you go youtube or threads that have successful installation of VGT in gasoline, most of them (at least the ones that I saw) are all done by wastegate actuators. This way, you missed the beauty of VGT that allow you to open up vanes wide in cruise mode for reduction in pumping loss thus improve fuel economy. Another advantage of VGT is engine braking by closing up the vanes when needed. These logics can only be done by electronics, or a complex solenoid valve setup with vacuum reservoirs by a dual port wastegate actuator (Aerocharger people use this kind of setup, but no vacuum reservoir). Relying on vacuum is just unreliable because vacuum will/may run out due to driving condition changes.

To properly take advantage to a VGT turbine, what you need is to setup a controller with a mapping style control. The map should be a 3-axis (rpm+tps+targetboost) for vane position readout. As in different air flow (rpm+tps) rate there should be a desired turbine A/R according to your target boost level. When your compressor is under surge (air flow rate beyond the left line in your compressor map) the vanes should remain wide open so that your engine maintains in a highest VE to reduce compressor surge . Before you reach a certain flow rate your compressor doesn't/cannot make any boost anyway. Vane position should remains wide open so that when cruising/surge you get the best VE and thus best fuel economy. This is one advantage over wastegate turbo . A map for vane position is really needed because you don't want to close up your vane with a wide open throttle so that will cause your engine to choke, or even an unpreditable engine VE in a given situation so that you have no way to setup your fuel maps AFR properly.

I would like to point out some missing information as well. Don't mixed up turbo lag and compressor surge . There is no way to get around with compressor surge if your compressor is large (or with a high value of A/R on the compressor) in low air flow situations. Turbo lag is the time required for spool . If you pick such a large compressor for high power and you will deserve a surge line at high flow rates (only able to make boost in high rpm, thus high air flow rate). If you really need boost in low rpm (low air flow rate) the only way is to use a smaller compressor to give up some top end power. It is always good to pick compressors which has a "wide flow range" at a certain pressure ratio (the Garrett GTX compressors are good in this) . The other way to get around this issue is go for a sequential turbo with twin smaller compressors so that they can add up at the top end.

I am sorry to post such a long message but I hope this will clear up some misunderstood turbo theory from home builders .

For my own VNT projects, I vote for Garrett AVNT because the actuator (the VGT solenoid uses a electro-hydraulic) accepts a PWM signal out of the box so that we can interface it easy. There is no easy way in hacking the CAN messages because we don't know about the protocol and is really a waste of time. We bought dozens of GT37Vs out of Ford Powerstrokes and GM Duramax turbos so that we can pull them apart and pick the size of compressor wheels that suit for each engine build. For example, a 71mm or 76mm compressor will be good for a 2.0, and twin 82mm compressor will be good for a 2.6L twin turbo GTR or Porsche. One more thing to point out is that the Powerstroke turbos are not watercooled, it is no good for serious power outputs so the Duramax turbo is better but they come with stock 88mm compressor or 94mm compressor which will be too large for most of the applications .

For CivicTSI work, I strongly suggest he should separate the actuator and controller. If he can standardize his actuator implementation for the HE351VE turbocharger, it can be a very useful piece of work. It will be not difficult to use the PIC ADC to receive a PWM signal for vane position to simulate what the Garrett turbochargers can do . There is apparently a weight disadvantage for the HE351VE comparing with Garrett GT37V, also for the popularity for parts in garrett turbochargers, there is a bunch of compressors out there, or even the GTX compressors which has a better flow range .

Last post from CivicTSI is 6 months ago and not sure where is he up to now. Hope he is still working on the project or he is still viewing this thread. Its nice to see people around working on VGT and is having the same goal.

My current engineering project is the turbocharger boost controller for VNT turbochargers. We are now busy in setting up a new workshop and will have lots of equipment coming, including a dyno and a new turbo balancer for in-house turbocharger rebuild and modifications. Once we have some results and we will post some updates. Work progress is slow, but we are getting there.

Hope this information is useful to the thread. Thanks for reading.

defibf

As someone who was “kicked into action” by this thread I thought it only right that I contribute in some way
I am by no means an electronics expert, I stopped working with electronics 20 odd years ago and then only ever worked with TTL logic, micros were not about then. The last few months has been spent relearning what I had forgotten and learning as much as I could about modern micros
I have a controller which holds the vane open at tick over and cruise, it closes the vane to the required position on application of throttle. It is under testing at the moment and no doubt will require tweaking here and there.
I am using an AVR micro and borrowed CivicTsi’s idea to use the RC motor driver, as this makes the job (for me) simpler. A whole lot easier than decoding the CAN signalling of the factory system. I use a Tial wastegate which is set to control boost (by the vehicles ecu) at a pressure slightly higher than the setting on the vane controller.
A max9924 ic can be used to interface the shaft speed sensor. I do not use this input for vane control (for the reason given below), I am going to display the speed and egt temperature and may well use them as an emergency override.
One thing to watch out for when developing a controller is that by moving the vane you are changing VE. If it is to be used with an ecu which uses speed/density fuel control, the ecu has no “idea” that VE is changing so whatever inputs you use to control the vanes must take this into account.

n0ckter

I know how you can get rid of the potentiometer.

But i feel i should get the introductions out of the way so there can be no mistaking my motives here. I HATE rick p. i do not like anything he has done and i do not wish to further his endeavors in any way. That being said my project is currently going nowhere and i like working together and hauling *** more than i like to live in the past.

http://www.*****************.com/for...?topic=10007.0

oops should have known you cant link to the original site any more, anyway *****************.com look under forced induction/ holset he351 knows were its at

Above is a link to my project thread, in it there is code that uses the bldc motors original hall sensors for position feedback with no potentiometer, encoders or modification to the actuator at all other than removing the circuit board.
It works rather simply, the hall sensors change state every time the armature moving next to it changes poles. So three sensors times four poles gives you twelve state changes per revolution, with the gearing you get about 300 lines of resolution over the full range of the rack gear, just enough to run a nice tight pid loop on. Im sure the original engineers had this in mind when they designed it. The crude looking sub at the bottom of the code dose the decoding the rest of it is the pid loop. I have not written a homing routine yet and don’t see myself having the time to do it unless I get laid off again. This would also be easy for someone who is good with code. All you need is to send the current limit output from the esc to the microcontroller. The micro would move the rack slowly until it could not travel any more (and trips the current limit) then move the other way until it cannot travel any further (and trips the current limit again) if the difference in these two points is say >290 the micro now has a unjammed rack that is zeroed out a ready to be positioned. This is just like using limit switches only without the switches. I don’t know if a hobby type esc would have a current limit pin on it, maybe you could highjack a current limit led or you could read the voltage off a shunt on the mains going to the esc, I didn’t have this problem because I rolled my own bldc driver. The code has it stands right now should work with your esc just fine with very little modification. But you will have to zero it yourself by pulling the vanes all the way out and resetting the controller.

Here are some boring videos:

n0ckter

or any version of **** at all go ---- your self rick p

n0ckter

email me if you want to see the code nockter@gmail.com