rangerovers.pub
The only place for a coil spring is up Zebedee's arse
Member
Joined:
Posts: 6

Hi
How long should the test run?

I am actually doing it for the first time (myself). Have tartarini system on my V8 disko1.
It worked well for 10years
Need to calibrate it I think 😳
Never did.
I don't have lamdas connected. (Have 2) problem?
So the autocalibration runs for an hour before I just exit. It never finishes.
What should I expect?

Member
avatar
Joined:
Posts: 8082

A lot less than an hour. If it isn't finishing it has found something it isn't happy with so isn't going through the full cycle. Which Tartarini system? One of the ones using the AEB2568 controller with different firmware hopefully. Lambdas don't need to be connected, it just means that you can't see the lambda output without having to have a code reader showing live data plugged in at the same time. If you monitor the lambdas you should be able to see why it doesn't complete. What makes you think you need to recalibrate anyway? What have you changed?

Member
Joined:
Posts: 1141

it would sound like its not seeing a required condition - usually its not seeing something happen its asking you to do, or something is broken and stopping it autocalibrate.

Why do you think it needs it now? Has it stopped working? If so what does it do or not do when you try to use it?

Member
Joined:
Posts: 6

How to know the ECUmodel and firmware?

I have the car and lpg for 10 years. Lately have an issue of not having power when climbing up. Petrol ok. Gas no. Cleaned reducer. And also injector rails. Calibrated to 0.45mm. Started to feel better. But have jerking while driving. I see the diff between timings of petrol and gas of about x2
So thought I should do calibration and see what's what in the software.

Member
Joined:
Posts: 6

How to know the ECUmodel and firmware?

I have the car and lpg for 10 years. Lately have an issue of not having power when climbing up. Petrol ok. Gas no. Cleaned reducer. And also injector rails. Calibrated to 0.45mm. Started to feel better. But have jerking while driving. I see the diff between timings of petrol and gas of about x2
So thought I should do calibration and see what's what in the software.

Member
Joined:
Posts: 6

Also. I checked the tinj.petrol reading while driving on gas vs driving on petrol. Is it correct? Is it important to check between tinj.gas vs tinj.petrol ?

By the way when I drive I hear poping noise from the exost pipe. It's more notisable when standing and pushing the peddle.

Also I read that I should test switching the injectors on and off to see that not much should differ in the engineer running. But I see difference. Some even cause the engine to stall

Any comments suggestions are more than welcome
Thanks guys

Member
avatar
Joined:
Posts: 8082

ECU model will be engraved on the casing with Tartarini on a sticker..AEB supply controllers to numerous manufacturers but with different firmware depending on who's label is on it.

You can check tinj petrol when running on petrol and compare it with tinj petrol when on gas, they should be the same. Then check tinj petrol with tinj gas, tinj gas should be between 1.2 and 1.5x tinj petrol.

If it stalls when turning off just one injector there is something seriously wrong. What you are doing is switching a cylinder from gas to petrol so you'll have 7 on gas and one on petrol if you switch them one at a time. So it shouldn't make any difference in reality unless there is something else wrong. What injectors are fitted and although you say you've cleaned the injector rails, have you done the injectors themselves?

Member
Joined:
Posts: 1141

The switching cylinder issue sounds to me like the injector cuts are mixed up - if they haven't crossed banks that shouldn't matter so much, but would be a good place to start sorting it out. Also bear in mind an ignition fault will show up more on gas than petrol.

Given its a Disco 1? Don't know if you have any diagnostics to access on that offhand? I'd suspect if it was working originally that the issue your seeing when swapping injectors from petrol to gas isn't your issue, or you have an injector that isn't opening/closing at all (maybe injector at fault there or something else). Have you cleaned the solenoids at tank and reducer as they can sometimes clog up, Also is the outlet valve on the tank (if its a single hole) fully open at the same time? If it is a supply issue rather than ignition I'd expect you to see pressure being a bit erratic if you can see it in the software.

Might be easier to take photos of the bits you can see if your not sure what type they are and post them here, someone should be be able to identify them then.

Member
Joined:
Posts: 1356

If it's always been OK and now it isn't then it won't be calibration that's the problem unless the ECU has forgotten calibration settings (by which point the ECU is more or less broken really), it will be due to a hardware problem with either the LPG system or the vehicle (lambdas usually).

You probably shouldn't be at the point of attempting to calibrate yet but If you do try to calibrate....

If it's Etagas it will take forever to calibrate unless you drive it to keep rpms within the certain ranges until all the range boxes are learned. It would be no good trying to hold rpms in the range boxes while not driving as there wouldn't be enough engine load and all the learning/autocal done would be wrong.

Since you say you have the ability to switch individual cylinders back to petrol it would seem you have a sequential system.

If you have a sequential system don't try to get ginj = pinj, do try to get pinj to remain close to unchanged when you switch between fuels.

It doesn't much matter on a P38 if ginj is 1.2 or 1.5 or even 0.8 x pinj at idle. The at idle multiplier should depend on spec of components fitted and pressure settings... If you have Matrix injectors I might expect multiplier of 1.1 at idle falling to 1 at flat out loads, if you have some of the worst performing Tartarini injectors fitted I might expect mutliplier of 1.2 at idle to 1 at high loads, these figures are only so close (1.1 / 1.2) because the P38 idles with 4ms pinj anyway (and 4 x 1.2 = 4.8 which is an easy minimum pulse duration for nearly any LPG injector). But really, knowing how half of P38s were/are setup by installers of the day I might expect anything between 0.7 and 1.7... but it should still work OK.

You should never see ginj remain the same multiple of pinj across the load range, ginj should become a lower multiple of pinj as load increases (at anything much above low loads at least) and for best results from any components you have fitted ginj should be close to pinj at high loads when at the same time mixture at high loads is correct. Or calibration is wrong, or you have a pressure sensor problem.

Popping from the exhaust could have various causes including implications from an overall too lean or too rich mixture or a dodgy ignition system, but if you only get popping from the exhaust when you switch a specific cylinder back to petrol it could be that your gas injector plugs are on the wrong gas injectors... and in that case they might even have been put on the wrong injectors intentionally by an installer who was trying to hardwire an 'advanced injection sequence' (on something as simple as a P38 this would usually have been because they'd fitted a setup with incorrect combination of nozzle size and pressure).

@Dhadara, what did you calibrate to .45? The best way to see how well an engine is running on a certain fuel is to check inlet manifold vacuum readings at the same time as ensuring lambda is correct, a happy engine will draw more vacuum, there shouldn't be any difference between petrol vacuum and LPG vacuum. You can get more vacuum with a rich mixture but remember we covered correct mixture with lambda and we're looking for most vacuum with correct mixture.

Member
avatar
Joined:
Posts: 8082

Simon, one thing you have probably missed is that although this is predominately a P38 forum he says he has a Disco 1. Rather than using the Thor engine as in the Disco 2, the Disco 1 used the 14CUX engine with a distributor for ignition as in a Range Rover Classic so will be batch fired anyway.

Member
Joined:
Posts: 1356

I did miss the fact it's a Disco 1, and as you've said this will mean it runs batch fired injectors.
This will mean the installer is less likely to have hard-wired an injection sequence advance if they did correctly set injection type as group in software / but it they incorrectly set injection type as sequential they might still have tried it. Most of the other aspects I mentioned above are still relevant with the engine being batch fired, in fact type of injectors fitted is more critical on a batch fired engine because of the shorter (but twice as often) injection pulses , also affects the shape of the map (usually a greater difference in multiplier between idle and high loads).

On the older AEB systems it's usually possible to get good results setting sequential injection type when the engine runs group injection - when the rpm wire is used some of the old AEB LPG ECUs just read the total pulse time of the front petrol injector on each cylinder bank between X ignition pulses and then they will actually drive all the LPG injectors sequentially (just spaces each cylinder dose of fuel according to rpm) even on a group petrol injection engine. It shouldn't be set like that really but good results can be had... it means LPG injectors last longer (only doing half as many pulses) and don't have to be as quick to open/close than if the correct (group) setting is used (can get away with less decent injectors - which is why some installers found that setting sequential on a group engine got better results than setting group). Setting sequential on a group engine still opens up all the ways that the installer might play around with injection sequence such as hard-wiring an injection sequence advance.

Member
Joined:
Posts: 6

Woohooo.so much information guys. Thank you thank you. Though I am technical person I am not a mechanic.
Sadly I can't see the model sticker on the ECU. It's hidden in between .... but I see it's also unreadable. Too old.
Any other way to know the model. more interesting is maybe to know the firmware version. I would think the software should show that. But I didn't see it.
The 0.45 is the measurement of the solenoid movment which is the open and close of the individual opening in the rail.
I am also confused as I don't have any injectors apart from the two rails with the solenoids. It looks like Valtek injector rail. Type 03. The nozzles are 2.3 that's engraived on them.
I don't have lamdas connected to the ECU.
I even have one lamda nonfunctional. This causes a non stable idle engine run. When at high speed it doesn't have any affect. Or maybe I am wrong as I am not really a mechanic. So I don't see how lamdas have any connection to the LPG part of the system.

In any case I think I need to check why switching one injector off the engine stops. Maybe the idle is too low 700/800. Will boost it a little and then test.
One bad symptom is when I at high speed without too much load The engine starts to get jerky. When I push gas peddle or slow down (kind of opposite to each other in terms of gas flow) It gets better. Some timing issue or other.
There is a fact that I drive this for 10 years. But maybe I am ignorant enough to NOT notice there is a problem. I can't say with confidence that although it was running for 10 years that means the installation was perfect.

Member
Joined:
Posts: 1141

Dadarara wrote:

Woohooo.so much information guys. Thank you thank you. Though I am technical person I am not a mechanic.
Sadly I can't see the model sticker on the ECU. It's hidden in between .... but I see it's also unreadable. Too old.
Any other way to know the model. more interesting is maybe to know the firmware version. I would think the software should show that. But I didn't see it.
The 0.45 is the measurement of the solenoid movment which is the open and close of the individual opening in the rail.
I am also confused as I don't have any injectors apart from the two rails with the solenoids. It looks like Valtek injector rail. Type 03. The nozzles are 2.3 that's engraived on them.
I don't have lamdas connected to the ECU.
I even have one lamda nonfunctional. This causes a non stable idle engine run. When at high speed it doesn't have any affect. Or maybe I am wrong as I am not really a mechanic. So I don't see how lamdas have any connection to the LPG part of the system.

In any case I think I need to check why switching one injector off the engine stops. Maybe the idle is too low 700/800. Will boost it a little and then test.
One bad symptom is when I at high speed without too much load The engine starts to get jerky. When I push gas peddle or slow down (kind of opposite to each other in terms of gas flow) It gets better. Some timing issue or other.
There is a fact that I drive this for 10 years. But maybe I am ignorant enough to NOT notice there is a problem. I can't say with confidence that although it was running for 10 years that means the installation was perfect.

I'd suggest you fix the lambda sensor - The petrol injector timings are altered using that with other things to keep it around the right mixture. The lpg ecu will take those calculated timings and adjust them to suit. If the timings are wrong in the first place (as it doesn't have a working lambda to control them with) you're not starting from a good point. You might get away with it with a open loop single point system, but not with a multipoint or any other closed loop system. Any idea if its working above idle speed (and even if it provides an output, can it be correct if its not working fully?).

Taking some photos might help identify what you've got while your there? also on the version you already have the software working, so which software is it your using (name and version of it, that should narrow down the options somewhat)

Member
avatar
Joined:
Posts: 8082

The rails with solenoids are the injectors, each solenoid is an injector. Do they look like this? http://tinleytech.co.uk/shop/lpg-parts/valtek-type-30-4-cyl-injector-rail-with-nozzles/

No matter how low the idle is, then turning off just one injector shouldn't make it stall, it's still got 7 others that are running. However, as your engine batch fires the petrol injectors (it doesn't fire them one at a time but fires all 4 on each bank together) it may be that you aren't turning one injector off but one bank of cylinders. They will run on 4 but only just......

The lambda sensors control the fuelling on petrol and the LPG system just piggy backs off the petrol system. Instead of the pulses from the petrol ECU firing the petrol injectors, it fires into the LPG controller, which adds a fiddle factor (the difference in inj time between petrol and gas) and fires the LPG injectors instead. So if it isn't running right on petrol it never will run right on gas.

Member
Joined:
Posts: 6

The rail do look like the picture. The software is like https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XREUCnUdHIc

But I think till I fix the lamdas there is little point in bothering you guys.
Thanks
will get to it.

Member
Joined:
Posts: 1141

I'd also give your ignition (distributor and leads/plugs) a check over if it hasn't been looked at in a while while your there.

Member
Joined:
Posts: 1356

As Gilbertd implied, if your ECU is old enough to be not fully sequential then switching one channel (would expect cyl 1 or cyl 5 in LPG software) back to petrol has the potential to switch the whole bank back to petrol... It shouldn't happen but can happen and is more likely to happen when a recent version of software is used with an older ECU, the ECU may not properly support all the features the software seems to offer. For similar reasons it can happen if 'anticipate the injection sequence' is ticked in software Could also potentially happen if the engine is already struggling to idle properly on one bank and you switch a cylinder back to petrol on the other bank if on the other bank the injection sequence has incorrect routing (i.e. LPG injector channel numbers don't match petrol injector channel numbers) such as when an installer has hard wired an injection sequence advance.