Emerald K3 & M3DK ECU

Update..... Emerald has released its self mapping ECU the K3, luckily my M3DK spec ECU was able to have its firmware updated to this specification, so I now have an ECU that is able to map itself while I drive the car.  It works tremendously well, as with all these things it is a little geeky.  I have put a page on the Dubai Petrolheads forum, with my adventures in self-mapping.  This allows anyone else to contribute their thought or experiences.

 

Installing the Emerald

After a bit of a production delay the Emerald M3DK ECU, wiring loom and sensors arrived in Dubai.  During the wait it became clear that my standard Weber green (270cc/min @ 3 bar) fuel injectors would not be man enough to flow enough fuel for the upgraded engine.  After a load of discussions on Blatchat and an email or two to Karl at Emerald, I decided to fit the Cosworth supplied Bosch injectors.  Duly ordered from Cosworth at a very reasonable £160, these injectors came with a fuel rail included in the price.  The injectors are Bosch Green 0280 155 968 which flow 413cc/min at 3 bar fuel pressure.  So with my fuel pressure regulator (FPR) running at 3.7 bar, the output is 458cc/min, more than enough for my needs. 

The physical install of the Emerald was complicated a little by the need to fit a Wideband Oxygen Sensor (WBOS).  One of the best features of the Emerald is its ability to receive an input from a WBOS and log the AFR and other engine data in a exportable file for further analysis.  I had planned to analyse this data using a piece of software written by an enthusiast called Chris Good.  Chris’s software is a Perl script that compares the AFR output of the Emerald logging system with a lookup table, which defines optimal AFR settings.  It then suggests tweaks to fiddle the map settings towards the optimal.  More of this later.

I had researched WBOS’s at length and had chosen a Innovate Lambda Cable (LC1), which at $199 was very reasonable in price.  The LC1 is a bit of a sensitive soul and is particularly susceptible to noise and interference caused by bad earths. 

The specific wiring of the LC1 was as follows

  1. Red 12V supply                   - to ignition switched source
  2. Blue Heater Ground             - to common chassis ground
  3. White System Ground          - to ECU ground
  4. Yellow Analog out 1              - not used (as is for narrow band)
  5. Brown Analog out 2              - to pin 34 (Aux1) on Emerald ECU
  6. Green Analog Ground            - to ECU ground
  7. Black Calibration wire          - to led, then reset button then ground

The rest of the wiring of the Emerald was straight forward and I managed to hide it all behind the scuttle.  The LC1 O2 sensor was installed after the exhaust primaries, with the actual LC1 placed in the engine bay.  A calibration button and LED for the LC1 was drilled into the dash, so I can monitor the readiness of the LC1 to log AFR.

 Once installed it was a matter of defining the output of the LC1 and setting up the Emerald.  Getting my laptop to talk to the LC1, which was no mean feat as I have a USB only laptop.  Once I had found a suitable serial to USB converter, I still had some difficulty talking to the LC1.  I found the best method was to start the LM Programmer software, then turn the ignition on to power up the LC1.  With the connection made, I changed the settings of the Analog 2 output of the LC1 to indicate a AFR of 11.0 at 0.0 volts and an AFR of 16.0 at 5.0 volts.  This gives a finer band of operation than the factory default settings.  It also mirrors the settings of the AUX1 lookup table in the data-logging section of the Emerald software. 

After much hassling of various patient souls (thanks Karl & Ammo), I had a collection of Duratec maps which featured (as did mine) sequential injection.  I tried all of the maps and they were pretty far out and initially I was a bit confused.  After more sessions of Blatchatting and emails to Karl at Emerald, I realised that the problem was all maps had been made with different injector and fuel pressure settings.  If you are using someone else’s map, it is crucial to know what injectors (and their flow rates) and what fuel pressure they used while mapping.  Once this information is known, you can go to the Injector Scaling page on the Emerald software and re-scale the map to suit your injectors and fuel pressure.

Innovate LC1 & O2 sensor

Emerald M3DK ecu

Emerald ECU Software

Scaling injectors or fuel pressure

Injection map
 

Scaling the injectors and fuel pressure basically changes the (Micro Seconds Per Bit) MSPB of the map.  This in effect changes the time the injectors are open for a given injection map number.  In my case after putting in the injector data from the map I was supplied and my new injector data it changed the MSPB from 80 to 55.  As soon as I had done this the car ran pretty well and the map became usable.

All the other major settings in the Emerald software, including the first stage of calibrating the TPS are very intuitive and well covered in the manual.

This probably all sounds a bit complicated, but if you are a little computer literate and take your time you will get there.  For those of us without access to Dave Andrews and his Dyno expertise, it makes a very viable way of setting up your ECU to compensate for any fits of upgradeitis.


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