rusefi.com

G'Day to everyone!!!

My name is Jay. I have lived in Australia for 10 years as an American Expat. I rebuilt my first motor when I was 7. My dad gave me a Honda 250 three wheeler and the manual and said "the tools are in the garage, put them back, if you have a question, read the book before you ask!!!". That was just over thirty years ago and I have learned all those lessons well. Reading tech manuals all my life is of more interest to me than most novels, (less a couple exceptions) and even while in the Marine Corps I found a way to get under the bonnet of every vehicle I drove.

I have worked on most everything from bikes to boats to semi-trucks. As a heavy diesel mechanic I was unfortunately injured on the job over two years ago. I went to school at Chemeketa Community College in Salem Oregon for Automotive Technology, ITT tech in Portland Oregon, work at Qantas and then went to formalize my knowledge/education at ACE (Automotive Centre of Excellence Kangan Batman Tafe) in Melbourne, Victoria Australia. My last employer I worked on Volvo Semi Trucks. Most modern trucks have 16 sometimes more computers on board. I never really knew how the electronics on cars/engines really worked they just did. So I was always more interested in carby's. Well I dislike being ignorant so I ate up the information on how the electrical systems worked and communicated with each other of various slow and high speed bus systems and how the redundancy actually makes it operable even in a limp mode or how an engine may have crank and cam sensors and if only one is working the computer can still start and run it just takes longer if its the crack sensor because it has to travel further and bla bla bla..... I ate it up like a fat kid and a cup cake (no offence I'm not so small myself eh mate). Well my dad always said back in the 80's electronics where "Japanese magic" (no offence that was just American ignorance) and now I have freed myself from those shackles and found I understood the concepts but all the information I learned was proprietary and not easily implemented outside those "hollowed walls". Well my daughter has just turned 18 recently and I personally drive a diesel so apart from making a engine management system to monitor things not allot to do there; however we happened on a Holden Commodore VR Ute v6 that needed heaps of love and affection. The engine is out and has been stripped to a short block and now comes in a brilliant two tone paint scheme of lavender and lavender undercoat/candy metallic purple, alternating components that is. I'll post pictures if anyone is interested.

Well the fuel injection is why I'm here. pre-obd2 it's obd1.5 same obd2 plug but aldl communication. So I've wanted to play with Arduino and may be going back to school for programming since my only education are cars and killing and I can't do either. This project is awesome. It is exactly what I have been looking for. I want to be able to map her car for economy, sports & track. I'd also like to make a digital dash display that I can cycle outputs and integrate reversing camera into the TFT screen. So since she will be driving back and forth to university next year I need to dig in deep and put my elbow grease to the grind stone; as it were so I can finish this car as she wants to go to the Ute muster next year with it as well (rotflmao yes she's a dike and I tease her about it all the time as I wouldn't have her any other way so please no one take offence) oh and integrate the front side and rear parking sensors into the TFT as well. So I have a big job ahead and the engine is only just going back in weekend after next. So thank you for listening to my verbose intro. This is me, I've found this great project and can't wait to be involved I'll be ordering my kit this week as I'm on Workers compensation not only am I limited to the physical aspects but monetary concerns are of an issue as well so I do what I can do when the drugs and pain aren't too much and something like this really helps keep my mind occupied,

Kind Regards and Many Thanks to all you for your help ahead of time.....

Jay

Good evening Jay!

what engine you want start with rusefi?

Welcome along and feel free to read the wiki, it's a work in progress, so feel free to add to it. http://rusefi.com Feel free to ask questions and such in the forums. If you start a project feel free to add a thread about it.

Hey Jay!

Once you start this v6 with rusEfi, you might be
a) first v6 to run rusEfi (should not be a problem)
b) first rusEfi on the whole continent (that would be epic!)

Welcome to the forum

This is a fairly hacked version of the wiki for the car and engine as well as my experience with the Assembly Line Diagnostic Link here in Australia. I thought this would answer most questions and I look forward to working with all you as I digest as much of the information on here that I can. I will include photo's is the forum allows of engine transmission and car.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holden_Commodore_(VR)
VR (1993–1995)[edit]
Main article: Holden Commodore (VR)

The 1993 VR Commodore was a major facelift of the second generation Australian Ute architecture. Approximately 80 percent of car was new in comparison to the preceding models of this car.

The latest revision of the Buick 3.8-litre V6 engine was fitted to the VR Commodore, featuring rolling-element bearings in the valve rocker arms and increased compression ratios.[88] These changes combined to deliver an increase in power to 130 kilowatts (170 hp) and further improvement in noise, vibration, and harshness levels. Wheels magazine awarded the VR Commodore Car of the Year in 1993.

L27 Naturally Aspirated

A 3800 Series I L27 Naturally Aspirated engine installed transversely in a 1995 Buick Regal.
The 3,791 cc (3.8 L; 231.3 cu in) L27 produced 170 horsepower (130 kW) from 1992 onward, this engine was referred to as the Series I 3800, or 3800 TPI (Tuned Port Injection). The Australian L27 retained the LN3's one piece upper intake and lower plenum of previous years. Power was boosted to 130 kW (177 PS; 174 hp) in the revised VR Commodore in 1993. Bonus to Australian vehicles are emissions of this era where limited to the catalytic converter. There are no EGR valves actuators or sensors to worry about as well as testing is fairly leanient in comparison to places in the United States.

Applications:

Buick LeSabre
Buick Park Avenue
1991 Buick Reatta
Buick Regal
1991-1993 Buick Riviera
1992-1995 Chevrolet Lumina APV
Holden Commodore (VNII, VP, VR)
Holden Caprice (VQ, VR)
Pontiac Bonneville
1992-1995 Pontiac Trans Sport
Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight
Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight
Oldsmobile Toronado
Oldsmobile Toronado Trofeo
1992-1995 Oldsmobile Silhouette

Assembly Line Diagnostic Link or ALDL was a proprietary on-board diagnostics system developed by General Motors prior to the standardisation of OBD-2. For the assembly plant test system computer which was connected to this vehicle connector and known by the same name see the article IBM Series/1.

ALDL in Australia for the '93 production year made use of the current OBD2 plug unlike that of the American 12 pin
ALDL 12 pins connector - frontal vision
ALDL was previously called Assembly Line Communications Link or ALCL. The two terms are used synonymously.

This system was only vaguely standardized and suffered from the fact that specifications for the communications link varied from one model to the next. Due to great enthusiasam for the cars here in Australia schematics to port this are not hard to come by but the Frankenstein not only ports the works of the comunication into something palatable but makes room for more open source software (and yeah its fully sick to mate, I can't wait). ALDL was largely used by manufacturers for diagnostics at their dealerships and official maintenance facilities. The connector is usually located under the dash on the driver's side of left-hand drive (LHD) (RHD in Australia) vehicles.

I think that covers the questions here. I'm so thankful for the great response guys. I'll be starting a project page now since this is meet and great and port this information over there so as to help keep a clear flow of my experience along the way. I have been reading the wiki, and sort of finding the flow of information that I need to consume to get me where I am headed. In the future I may like to put my hand up to volunteer some wiki/how-to information to assist with making this accessible and readable if I find I have any issues with it. I have had many years of tech manual experience and actually wrote manuals at Integrated Device Technologies when I was in the states so please point me in the direction of whom I should pass my suggestions/formatting ideas on to please gentlemen.

Next order of business is that I am fingers crossed ordering my kit this week. Because access to some parts may be easier or harder here in Australia could you please suggest which kit would be best for me. I want to build it so I can do a walk through (maybe publish if no one has any objections and I'm not recreating the wheel) as I haven't found/read everything as of yet. I want to have memory so I can save faults and I want to be able to interface with the board in the future to run a full digital TFT dash as well as experiment with radar controlled cruise control in the future. I would like to have the digital screen on the ECU as this will probably end up a focal point on the interior of the car. Kinda my flux capacitor for my daughters car eh mate, lol. I think I've covered all the questions and information you want to give me an educated decision on my best option. Basically I need a fully assembled not yet assembled Frankenstein and know I can store fault codes and access it later once I write the code for the Arduino boards and outputs. Ok by now I'm probably a bit verbose yet again but I do wish to provide you with all the facts and I'm bloody excited and so is my daughter that we finally found what I wanted to do and she's going to have the coolest Commodore Ute out on the street.

Cheers Mate!!!
Jay

The Ute

The Motor and Transmission

Poseidon wrote:Next order of business is that I am fingers crossed ordering my kit this week. Because access to some parts may be easier or harder here in Australia could you please suggest which kit would be best for me.

https://www.tindie.com/products/russian/frankenso-diy-parts-kit/ is probably a bit nicer because power supply, LCD and connector on the same board - but the downside is shipping cost. https://www.tindie.com/products/russian/frankenstein-diy-kit/ is not really lacking in terms of features, just requires more wires between modules. You might want to get https://www.tindie.com/products/russian/stm32f4discovery-brain-board/ which you would need anyway. The rest is trivial 0805 resistors and capacitors, there should be available on any continent - a random bag of 0805 from eBay would cover 97% of them.

Poseidon wrote:I want to build it so I can do a walk through (maybe publish if no one has any objections and I'm not recreating the wheel) as I haven't found/read everything as of yet.

That would not be creating the wheel. Btw there is an opinion that we are recreating the wheel here There is http://rusefi.com/wiki/index.php?title=Manual:Hardware_Frankenstein_board

russian wrote: https://www.tindie.com/products/russian/frankenso-diy-parts-kit/ is probably a bit nicer because power supply, LCD and connector on the same board - but the downside is shipping cost. You might want to get https://www.tindie.com/products/russian/stm32f4discovery-brain-board/ which you would need anyway.

G'day thanks for the response,

So I'm correct in assessing that the frankenso is the shiz, and needs the discovery board? Do any of the kits (I may have missed this) have the aluminium heat sink? If not is this available did I miss any schematics to have one milled or cast?

Side bar who wants to speculate on doing a conversion on a 1969 drag Camero with a 471 Mega blower with NOS to rusEFI? Next door is thinking of converting but $6k is the figure they are giving him.

Ok pay Wednesday/tomorrow so will be ordering as soon as all my bills are paid as long as the $ makes itself available....

Kind Regards
Jay

Poseidon wrote:and needs the discovery board? Do any of the kits (I may have missed this) have the aluminium heat sink? If not is this available did I miss any schematics to have one milled or cast?

Yep, at the moment both require discovery.

As for a heat sink, so far we did not need it - still waiting for an engine to run high RPM long enough to see how much heat we get. That's something Jared is more qualified to comment on.

Cheers Mate!!!

I'll just confirm my order list shortly ie when I wake up as it's 1am and I'll just do a touch of reading before a get some rack.

P.S. I have now ported my adventure over to your car & your engine page of the forum thank you for such a great initiation to rusEFI!!!

Kind Regards

Jay

i would recommend a heat sink, but we have not made a drawing of it yet. What options do you have for making one? I can try to find some time to work up something. I'm assuming low cost is preferred, so hack saw would be a nice option. Are you planning on Frankenso? If so are you planning on using the OEM case?

Cheers KB

No I won't be using OEM.... I plan on something a little more flash (flux capacitor style from back to the future) all good. If you recommend it in the states it's needed here for sure then as we get weeks in the 40's sometimes (like 105-110F) also why she will be running an inter-cooler on normally aspirated engine to add performance within "P plate" guide lines. I've got access to a guy who does acrylic cases and can probably get a one off lost wax aluminium heat sink made for lowish cost. Thank you for your advice I'll keep everyone updated when I reach/planning cycle of the design.

Cheers M8
Jay