Engine mapping issues.

[Pacman.]

I’m going to choose my words carefully as I don’t want to excuse anyone of anything at this point.

However I’m wanting to know if anyone has experience or has seen anyone else have issues with engine maps which has lead to damage to engines.

 

[Inequality Street]

I’m going to choose my words carefully as I don’t want to excuse anyone of anything at this point.

However I’m wanting to know if anyone has experience or has seen anyone else have issues with engine maps which has lead to damage to engines.

There was this one, rather tidy looking, LY R27 with funny wheels and great re-trimmed Recaro's which went through a couple of engines.

Owner was a bit weird though.

 

[frayz]

You'll find this issue is apparent across all vehicles and all tuning scenes and almost all calibrators.
Almost everyone will posty what wonderful results they have but hardly anyone will put their head above the parapit and say actually the car now has driveability issues etc.

 

[McGherkin]

However I’m wanting to know if anyone has experience or has seen anyone else have issues with engine maps which has lead to damage to engines.

Well, yes, but ‘half the Mk2 Focus STs in the world’ probably isn’t very helpful to you.

What was the cause of failure?

 

[Cub.]

It was well documented on here that I had issues with the flamer when it was cammed and mapped on the first engine in it.

After a while, it started drinking oil. Ended up swapping the engine and stripping the map off and starting all over again.

The garage that did the work denied all knowledge and basically ignored the problem.

Only problem for them, was 4 or 5 other people who had the same cam / map package ended up with nuked engines so it got quite public quite quickly and didn’t exactly just “go away”. They still ignored the issue and never reimbursed or offered support to resolve.

 

[frayz]

Basically you would need to prove there was an error in the calibration, but even then its a bloody grey area.

 

[197.]

Pull the map and send it to another reputable mapper.

 

[Robbie Corbett]

I think you have to be a bit careful, there are a lot of things and reasons for engine failures. I would do the above and have the map looked at by someone else with a good reputation with these engines, but also post up some pictures of the damage.

On a normally aspirated engine I would expect something such as preignition to be a killer more than light detonation, what do the tops of the pistons and combustion chamber look like?

Often a new map together with the fun 'testing' that you do after can quickly highlight engine issues and that isn't really the fault of a mapper who has used sensible timing and target afr but they always get the blame. That isn't to say there aren't some complete cowboys out there who either r****d timing too much and chuck fuel in on FI cars to be 'safe' or too much timing in a normally aspirated car.

 

[jameswrx]

It amazes me someone could do such a bad mapping job to destroy a pretty low power N/A engine with such tiny gains to be had?

I’ve had a couple of turbo engines custom mapped and obviously the further you go there it can be a worry, but a clio engine destroyed by custom mapping? Looking at a 5% power increase usually aren’t we?

 

[frayz]

It amazes me someone could do such a bad mapping job to destroy a pretty low power N/A engine with such tiny gains to be had?

I’ve had a couple of turbo engines custom mapped and obviously the further you go there it can be a worry, but a clio engine destroyed by custom mapping? Looking at a 5% power increase usually aren’t we?

Irrelevant how much power, NA or Forced Induction.
get the timing and fueling wrong and you can blow any engine up pretty easily.

 

[jameswrx]

Irrelevant how much power, NA or Forced Induction.
get the timing and fueling wrong and you can blow any engine up pretty easily.

One thing I’ve never delved into.

So you could easily destroy a 172 engine live mapping it? Just seems strange to imagine something going so easily wrong in such a tuning scenario as a professional mapper.

I could certainly imagine someone bodging up a custom turbo engine tune with how quickly things can get lively but surely you’ve got to be a bit special to be the cause of blowing up a clio engine as a ‘Pro mapper’

I know when Simon used to map my cars he‘d say it was no end of hassle with people bodging tuning prep, crap parts, knackered engines etc etc. Then the mapper tends to get the blame when it all goes wrong.

 

[frayz]

One thing I’ve never delved into.

So you could easily destroy a 172 engine live mapping it? Just seems strange to imagine something going so easily wrong in such a tuning scenario as a professional mapper.

I could certainly imagine someone bodging up a custom turbo engine tune with how quickly things can get lively but surely you’ve got to be a bit special to be the cause of blowing up a clio engine as a ‘Pro mapper’

I know when Simon used to map my cars he‘d say it was no end of hassle with people bodging tuning prep, crap parts, knackered engines etc etc. Then the mapper tends to get the blame when it all goes wrong.

I agree 100% but yes it’s not that hard to balls it up.
it just happens a fair bit quicker in a turbocharged application.
Simon was also the only one to map my car bless him. But yes, get the timing and fueling wrong on any of them and you can create a pretty catastrophic situation easily enough.

It may well have not been an issue with the cal, but could quite easily have been mapped very close to the wire. A small otherwise insignificant engine issue be it an air leak, poor fuel quality or bad injector could have created a scenario that was enough to push it over the edge. Or even enough to start a chain of events that caused a component to fatigue and prematurely fail.

Until you see the cal and the engine strip analysis it’S hard to say what’s a cause and what’s a result.