Thanks for sharing! Really interesting stuff...iv always wonder what this kit is like and look forward to seeing the final results. Refreshing to see someone go in a different direction compared to the usual swaps.
Frank's 1zz Rotrex
Ready or not, the Rotrex Spyder club now has a new member. The last few days I've been driving around with a C30-64 boosting my 1zz. It's a fun ride and gives me a taste of what a FI Spyder feels like - exactly what I had in mind from day 1 with my Spyders, coming up on a year ago. It turns out even a mildly boosted Spyder is a lot of fun.
Here's what it looks like:
![Auto part Vehicle Engine Car Exhaust manifold]()
![Auto part Family car]()
![Auto part Machine Machine tool Vehicle Gear]()
The setup is based on a Power Enterprise kit, sourced directly from Japan. PE makes Rotrex kits for about two dozen different cars. To my knowledge, this is the first install on a Spyder that I've seen documented on an English language forum - there could be others, I just haven't found them yet.
Yes, the turbine sits on the hot side. That's different from every other Rotrex build I've seen here - they all place the turbine on the firewall side. "Vive la difference," yes? In my future, there's a charge cooler, and an engine oil cooler, you know it. The "piece de resistance" is that mounting bracket in the second picture. From the looks of it, that bracket could take a direct hit from a small tactical nuke and not flinch. It mounts onto the powersteering stays. There was no relocating nothing, there was no cutting the firewall, and all elements of the system are easily accessible while standing next to the car - well, except the oil cooler, mounted on the front of the trans. You gotta love that easy access.
That's it for the brawn. As for the brain, it's a MAP-ECU3 piggyback, included in the kit. As its name implies, the tune goes by manifold pressure, by intercepting/spoofing the MAF signal. Separate fuel and timing tables - no vvti, but lots of other interesting features. We're gonna see how she does. MAP-ECU comes from a little Kiwi company that has been steadily improving its product offering over the years, and delivers amazing personalized support to every customer that requests it.
Here's the install chronology:
A week before Memorial Day, car goes up on stands. There is an interference issue to resolve between the PPE header and the turbine. The turbine can't go anywhere so the header has to give. Header goes to the welder on Monday, comes back with cyl1 tube rerouted and tacked for test-fitting on Wednesday, gets welded Thursday, wrapped again on Friday, and ready for install over the holiday weekend.
![Auto part Vehicle Car Engine Bumper]()
![Electronics Electrical wiring Technology Electronic engineering Electronic device]()
Meanwhile turbine and oil cooler system installed and primed, injector harness is re-pinned for Sard 440's, vacuum lines are routed with a vacuum box installed, and the harness is wired and tested. Memorial Day weekend it all comes together, Monday is first start. Some issues - mostly wiring - are identified and corrected on Tuesday and Wednesday, and this brings us to Thursday, today, shakedown complete for first stage of the install, end except for guzzling gas like it's pink lemonade (good think we're still at $58 a barrel), the car is eminently and satisfyingly drivable.
The objective of this stage 1 implementation was to get the car into a drivable state, minimizing any variances from the PE kit. Mission accomplished - but this is only the beginning. There are several areas to address for increased performance, reliability, and durability, coming in future stages of implementation. This means: at this point I can have fun driving the car, and think about what I want to do next.
Some notes:
Some thanks:
I'll continue this thread with added details and developments, issues and resolutions, and answers to questions.
Here's what it looks like:
The setup is based on a Power Enterprise kit, sourced directly from Japan. PE makes Rotrex kits for about two dozen different cars. To my knowledge, this is the first install on a Spyder that I've seen documented on an English language forum - there could be others, I just haven't found them yet.
Yes, the turbine sits on the hot side. That's different from every other Rotrex build I've seen here - they all place the turbine on the firewall side. "Vive la difference," yes? In my future, there's a charge cooler, and an engine oil cooler, you know it. The "piece de resistance" is that mounting bracket in the second picture. From the looks of it, that bracket could take a direct hit from a small tactical nuke and not flinch. It mounts onto the powersteering stays. There was no relocating nothing, there was no cutting the firewall, and all elements of the system are easily accessible while standing next to the car - well, except the oil cooler, mounted on the front of the trans. You gotta love that easy access.
That's it for the brawn. As for the brain, it's a MAP-ECU3 piggyback, included in the kit. As its name implies, the tune goes by manifold pressure, by intercepting/spoofing the MAF signal. Separate fuel and timing tables - no vvti, but lots of other interesting features. We're gonna see how she does. MAP-ECU comes from a little Kiwi company that has been steadily improving its product offering over the years, and delivers amazing personalized support to every customer that requests it.
Here's the install chronology:
A week before Memorial Day, car goes up on stands. There is an interference issue to resolve between the PPE header and the turbine. The turbine can't go anywhere so the header has to give. Header goes to the welder on Monday, comes back with cyl1 tube rerouted and tacked for test-fitting on Wednesday, gets welded Thursday, wrapped again on Friday, and ready for install over the holiday weekend.
Meanwhile turbine and oil cooler system installed and primed, injector harness is re-pinned for Sard 440's, vacuum lines are routed with a vacuum box installed, and the harness is wired and tested. Memorial Day weekend it all comes together, Monday is first start. Some issues - mostly wiring - are identified and corrected on Tuesday and Wednesday, and this brings us to Thursday, today, shakedown complete for first stage of the install, end except for guzzling gas like it's pink lemonade (good think we're still at $58 a barrel), the car is eminently and satisfyingly drivable.
The objective of this stage 1 implementation was to get the car into a drivable state, minimizing any variances from the PE kit. Mission accomplished - but this is only the beginning. There are several areas to address for increased performance, reliability, and durability, coming in future stages of implementation. This means: at this point I can have fun driving the car, and think about what I want to do next.
Some notes:
- Don't even think about doing this without a patch harness, without it this install would have been a nightmare, and why one is not included in the kit, I don't know.
- Be prepared to test, test, and re-test each wiring path end-to-end.
- It helps to lay the groundwork (AFR, gauges, etc.,) and shake it all down months if not weeks in advance.
- Euro 6-speed 3.941 final drive and LSD. Lightweight flywheel. Lightweight wheels. Yah baby.
- And.... with this kit it really really really helps if you have working knowledge of Japanese. If you don't, be prepared to improvise big-time. All instructions and documents for the kit are provided in that loveliest of difficult languages.
Some thanks:
- MikeV and Silversprint, for giving me initial feedback on this kit before purchase, that led me to deepen my knowledge and form a decision tree for all things that could possibly be wrong and how to address them.
- Oxy, for demonstrating that you can go your own way on a Rotrex install, in a far away place, away from everything and everybody - not an island out in the middle of the Pacific, but pretty cool anyway, Oxy.
- Hayakawa-san at PE, for Yoda-like depth of wisdom, economy of words, and mastery of metaphor.
- MapEcu-Man (Peter), for steadfastly patient support.
- And of course, thanks to all of you who post fantastically detailed descriptions of your builds on Spyderchat (Curt, Mandalay, Sammy, Axle), without your info I could not have envisioned this or understood it the way that I do.
I'll continue this thread with added details and developments, issues and resolutions, and answers to questions.
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Hot side... Nothing a heat sheild and some gold won't fix 
:subscribed: Good luck.
:subscribed: Good luck.
goldsome gold won't fix
Dblazer, your turbo build really helped me early on when I was thinking about FI for my car - even though I went a different route. As I said before, I'm envious of your torque curve.
Hot side... Nothing a heat sheild and some gold won't fix
:subscribed: Good luck.
I've said before that money is the easiest part of solving these problems. I'm coming up against another limit: time running out. I've got to finish up my projects while I can. But I really enjoy seeing how you two - among others - solve your build problems in creative and imaginative ways.gold
This is really good input, Silversprint. Thank you as always.
Initially, for my base tune, I didn't have any knock sensing and logging, and, I didn't think I needed it, because supposedly, the PE/Rotrex kit that I bought came with a safe tune to make it plug and play. It turned out to be anything but. So I made my initial base tune without any timing adjustment or knock control. I went rich on fuel at WOT, and relied on the stock ECU to save my butt from blowing the engine. By going rich, after my first few initial runs on the first day, I never had any noticeable knock after that. Here's what my most recent fuel map looks like:
This is much evolved from the fuel MAP that came with the kit. The kit's fuel map was flat. It believe that it just rescaled the injectors to 440cc by a constant factor everywhere. It was dangerously lean at WOT and even at partial throttle. The kit's timing map had essentially no modification to stock except at idle; without any means to monitor knock, I just left it that way.
Now that I have the GM sensor and the J&S/Bosch both installed, I've been able to monitor and log knock, and I have confirmed that, just as you said, the stock ECU is doing a pretty good job of controlling knock. Here's some recent logs, with the knock signal from the GM module in orange.
The scale for knock is knock events per second and the range I've logged is 2 to 6. Knock was occurring in only a few cells. After I got these logs I retarded the timing in the corresponding cells by 2 degrees and since then there has been no more measured knock.
So, where do we go from here?
The MAP-ECU does have the capability to do knock retard. It does requires the GM sensor, as it will not play with a stock sensor.
My plan is to disconnect the factory knock sensor and rely on the MAP-ECU for knock control, with the J&S as a backup. This is the best option considering that I can't do anything with the stock knock signal. It parallels your suggestion of using the stock sensor with the J&S as a backup. However, to use the stock knock signal, I would have to ditch the MAP-ECU and go with something else compatible with the stock knock signal, like for example PowerFC. It's not out of the question that I might do that at some point. But for now I'm continuing with the MAP-ECU. Tuning resources are very limited here (read, non-existent), and the MAP-ECU has the advantage of offering nearly real-time technical support. It's really amazing what this organization does to support customers. That's more important to me than bells and whistles on the gizmo.
I understand your point about the resonant frequency with the single-lead stock knock sensor. However the GM sensor and the Bosch sensor both address this issue, and are not limited to a single knock frequency like the stock sensor. So I think we're safe there.
If you have any thoughts or feedback on this, please let me know. I'm always open to your suggestions.
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