Custom Performance Engineering's complete SPEED6 tuning solution

StuttersC said:
Nice...Did they give a reason?



That sounds like something Mazda would do. If they won't even help out the teams that race the cars, why not shut down the source of the connectors?


Nope no reason. They just act like they don't want to do business with us, or anyone else from the aftermarket for that matter :(


Jordan
 
www.cp-e.com said:
Nope no reason. They just act like they don't want to do business with us, or anyone else from the aftermarket for that matter :(


Jordan

That is really lame.
 
If you hear anything else from the owner that threw that rod, let us know. I'm interested to see if he was abusing the motor, or just had too much whp?
 
StuttersC said:
That is really lame.


No kidding! Josh actually threatened to fly out to visit the company personally, and now they start taking him seriously (dark)


MUSOM said:
If you hear anything else from the owner that threw that rod, let us know. I'm interested to see if he was abusing the motor, or just had too much whp?


You bet David. He actually just called us for advice, but if we hear from him again I'll fill you guys in.

I saw your other thread about our exhaust by the way. We're actually looking into offering a quieter muffler for the rear section of the SPEED6 exhaust. It's the same one we're using on the SPEED3 turboback, and we should have sound clips on our web page tomorrow if you want to check it out. If you like the sound better than the resonators, PM me and I'll see if I can get you more info.


Jordan
 
www.cp-e.com said:
No kidding! Josh actually threatened to fly out to visit the company personally, and now they start taking him seriously (dark)

Jordan


HAHA! Awesome.
 
Any more updates on the connectors??

If it has to be done I'm sure that we can pass the hat around and get that plane ticket if it will help. (gun) :D
 
jdub260 said:
Any more updates on the connectors??

If it has to be done I'm sure that we can pass the hat around and get that plane ticket if it will help. (gun) :D


Actually, Josh made some good progress the other day with one of our reps. It seems they've identified one of the two connectors and may be able to get us a part number. We're keeping our fingers crossed!


Jordan
 
Sweet indeed......

Jordan, On a side note, has the muffler issue(choosing a different type) been resolved yet? I have just recieved notification of shipment from RPM for my CP-E DP w/cat & Cat-Back exhaust but I only ordered the 1 muffler option.

From what I gather on the boards, I am fairly certain, I will be calling you for a different solution or additional muffler because of noise/drone issues. Have to excuse me, I am getting older an louder is just not me...........
 
www.cp-e.com said:
Actually, Josh made some good progress the other day with one of our reps. It seems they've identified one of the two connectors and may be able to get us a part number. We're keeping our fingers crossed!


Jordan

Jordan is this good news for us MS3's or just for the MS6's?

Also, I know you might not want to get into it, but what do you make of the XEDE/Vishnu blowup? http://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showpost.php?p=3007900&postcount=189 and http://www.e90post.com/forums/showpost.php?p=673409&postcount=42. Not the political stuff but the technical stuff. Can you give us some sense of the technical issues involved and how CP-E's solution addresses them? Again, I know it might be too much to ask, but I'm hoping you can help an ECU-mod newb get a handle on what's going on, especially as it relates to the newness of the DISI technology.
 
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desperado-c said:
Jordan is this good news for us MS3's or just for the MS6's?

Also, I know you might not want to get into it, but what do you make of the XEDE/Vishnu blowup? http://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showpost.php?p=3007900&postcount=189 and http://www.e90post.com/forums/showpost.php?p=673409&postcount=42. Not the political stuff but the technical stuff. Can you give us some sense of the technical issues involved and how CP-E's solution addresses them? Again, I know it might be too much to ask, but I'm hoping you can help an ECU-mod newb get a handle on what's going on, especially as it relates to the newness of the DISI technology.


You're right, I really shouldn't get involved in all of that, but I can tell you what Shiv told us last week at the BMW 335i dyno day at AMS, and also why I think our product is superior to the Xede.

According to Shiv, the Procede (the new Xede replacement at Vishnu) has more inputs and outputs, which can be used to monitor or alter sensor signals. It sounded like in order to clear some hurdles on the BMW 335i, he had to use TWO Xedes. Now this doesn't mean that the Xede isn't a great product, it just didn't have what Shiv needed to get the job done, that's all. But Chiptorque is still producing the Xede and I believe vendors on this forum are selling the product to SPEED3 owners.

We're very blessed however, to have a very brilliant electrical engineer in house. He's one of the co-owners of cp-e, and he builds all our piggybacks at our facility in Beltsvile, Maryland. Having the boards designed and built in-house gives us the flexibility to change the design as we please. You see, the Xede is made by Chiptorque, so if one of their customers or distributors wanted to make a revision to the board, Chiptorque (in Australia) would have to make the changes. As you can imagine, Chiptorque probably doesn't want to revise their board since it costs money, and it functions well in many current applications. On the other hand, Lou (our electrical engineer) can change his design as he pleases. His board layouts are very modular, and his next board revision will allow for more inputs and outputs than anyone would ever need.

But regarding the SPEED3, the Xede is able to adjust timing, boost, and air/fuel. In the past, the easiest way to adjust the air/fuel ratio was to lie to the computer about how much air the engine is receiving. So tuners would intercept the mass air sensor voltage output and scale it depending on whether or not they needed more or less fuel. But we think this is the wrong way to alter fuel on a DISI vehicle.

Traditional fuel injected cars have a bevy of injector and mass air sensor options over the stock equipment, so when you max out your MAF on your Chevy Tahoe (or whatever), you can just buy bigger injectors and a bigger MAF. But the SPEED3 (as I'm sure you're well aware) has a much more unique fuel delivery system, and bigger injectors simply aren't an option at this point. So when you max out your mass air sensor voltage (5-volts is the maximum) you're basically stuck unless you can control the injectors directly.

If you want a real-life example, 4DRHTRD has this problem at the moment. He installed a GT3071R turbo on his Speed6 along with a liquid to air intercooler and a turboback exhaust. At this point, the fuel injectors can deliver more fuel, but he's reached the mass air sensor's maximum voltage of about 5-volts. So he contacted us and he's going to try using our piggyback, which has a more creative way of altering fuel so we don't bother with skewing the MAF voltage. As such, we're sending him a piggyback to try and he should have it sometime next week.

The other issue the Xede does not alleviate is the throttle limiations. Mazda openly publicized the fact that this car limits torque in the first three gears to maintain traction under power. They were only being half-honest. It turns out the car limits torque in all gears but overdrive (5th and 6th), so to really unlock the potential of this car, you need to get control over the throttle plate. When you put your foot to the floor, the throttle should open to 100%, but it doesn't. It dances around depending on how much traction you have and how much power you're making. That's why our SPEED6 piggyback won't be sold to SPEED3 owners. Although our piggyback would work fine for the SPEED3 owners (we've even tuned our shop SPEED3 with our piggyback) we'd prefer to wait to release our unit until we have full control over the engine since it's only a partial solution in its current state. In addition to getting control over the throttle plate, Lou intends on controlling the cam phasing mechanism and get full control over the injectors for our 2nd-generation revision. He has already started development on the 2nd board too!

We just installed our first customer SPEED6 piggyback last night, and we're going to schedule a dyno appointment in the very near future to tune the car. If things go well then we'll release the piggyback to everyone with a base tune. And hopefully we'll have the 2nd-gen boards for you SPEED3 guys soon!


Jordan
 
www.cp-e.com said:
You're right, I really shouldn't get involved in all of that, but I can tell you what Shiv told us last week at the BMW 335i dyno day at AMS, and also why I think our product is superior to the Xede.

According to Shiv, the Procede (the new Xede replacement at Vishnu) has more inputs and outputs, which can be used to monitor or alter sensor signals. It sounded like in order to clear some hurdles on the BMW 335i, he had to use TWO Xedes. .... we'd prefer to wait to release our unit until we have full control over the engine since it's only a partial solution in its current state. In addition to getting control over the throttle plate, Lou intends on controlling the cam phasing mechanism and get full control over the injectors for our 2nd-generation revision. He has already started development on the 2nd board too!

We just installed our first customer SPEED6 piggyback last night, and we're going to schedule a dyno appointment in the very near future to tune the car. If things go well then we'll release the piggyback to everyone with a base tune. And hopefully we'll have the 2nd-gen boards for you SPEED3 guys soon!


Jordan

Thanks! Interesting, Xedes squared can't be cheap, but them 335i guys can probably afford it.

Anyway, kinda good news, bad news for us 3 owners. Good news: Lou is starting work on what will be comprehensive EMS solution for the 3. Bad news: Lou is starting work on what will be comprehensive EMS solution for the 3. Cool with me. I'll look forward to following the experiences of the 6 owners with the 1st gen.
 
Nice work guys. Thanks for keeping us posted on this.

R
 
Nice work CP-E. One question, might be a dumb question. When I get the 2nd board for my MSP3, will be able to V-to-A with my BOV with no problems? Or would you have to program the board for delivery to vTOa?
 
The install is NOT PnP and there should be soldering involved. Soldering makes a better connection and there is less chance of a wire coming loose, etc. Also, heat shrink should be used to make the connections more durable. Spare no effort as this is the ECU we're talking about.
As mentioned before, I did it last night with Jordan's help and it, daunting though it may seem, it's really not a big deal. You just have to be absolutely sure that your checking and rechecking your work. The Mazdaspeed6 ECU has four connectors and you have to connect to at least one wire on every connector. Connector 1 (shortest wires) is the toughest but thankfully there is only one soldering point on that wire. It's the first wire connected in the instructions and that doesn't do much for your confidence b/c its a total PITA. After that you mainly work with connector 4 (longest wires) and it goes much more quickly.

I had never soldered before so Jordan gave me a quick instruction and we didn't have much trouble.

Couple of things:
1. The front seat MUST come out. This is nonnegotiable. You will need assistance with maneuvering the seat out of the car.
2. There is crossmember on the floor board right where the middle of your back will be lying. Put a pillow, mat, upside down cookie sheet, etc. to minimize the height of this crossmember. I'm still sore...
3. Total install time was ~3-3.5 hours. Neither Jordan nor I had ever done this so we took our time and were very careful. I'm also including the time it took me to pretty up the ecu wires so that it looked as close to stock as possible. It is necessary to have help. You don't want to try this alone. Even if the help is not experienced, you'll need someone reading the instructions to you, handing you the soldering iron, solder, strippers, tape, heatshrink, etc. Get a good friend and a case of beer for afterward.
4. Because of the number of wires in the ECU, Mazda had to reuse some of the color combinations - sometimes in the same connector. The CPE instruction comes with full color photos and a wiring diagram so you can minimize the chance of error, e.g. the photo will show you that the black/yellow wire you're looking for is next to green, pink, and white/brown wires. It's not difficult to find the right wire but you need to know about this going in.
5. Removing the plastic sheath around each connector's wires will help you trace the correct wire so that you can tap in to it away from the connector itself. This just matters if you're trying to be stealthy.
6. You will need: wire cutters, wire strippers, razor blade, heat shrink, soldering iron, solder, electrical tape, 14 mm socket to get the seat out, and zip ties.

I have the piggyback installed now and the only thing different now is the boost is controlled at 15 psi and the car definitely feels different. There is less hesitation and power delivery is much smoother. It also keeps accelerating well into the 6k range. We haven't done any tuning but I'm psyched to get started. Lou showed me the graphical interface and it's really cool. Admittedly, I've never done this kind of thing before but it looks stupid easy to change lots of stuff. For that reason, I'll let the experts tune my car. I don't want that much power... now.

As for overall impressions of the install, I was VERY apprehensive in the beginning. Snipping that first wire certainly gave me a sinking feeling. After that though it was just follow the instructions. They were straightforward and easy to follow. The work is tedious, cramped, and uncomfortable. It is also certainly doable in a morning or afternoon. As I said, we did it in less than 3.5 hours.

Here are some pix (sorry for the low quality, only had my phone):


EDIT BY JDUB260:
Reason is that links to other forums don't work so I copied the images and added them here.

This shows the 4 Mazda connectors connectors AFTER the install.
1ecu_conn.jpg


This is the guts of the CPE piggyback tuner
2Piggyback_guts.jpg


I ziptied my piggyback in the space under the OBDII port. It's like Mazda left us the space just for this purpose...
3piggyback_installed.jpg


This is a crappy shot of the graphical interface Lou was working with.
4GI_screenshot.jpg
 
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awesome where you put it. lol, i checked that out when i was in my car today, what a perfect slot. i'd like to see some dyno graphs, but im sure you already know that lol. anything else done to your car besides this? is it boosting at a fully consistant 15psi all the way to redline without that stupid power drop off? so many questions i have...but ill keep these for now.
 
CPE Piggyback pre-tune

My car is totally stock save for the CPE mount. CPE will do the base map on it.

I've only driven this car four times since the piggyback install and the only thing changed is the boost control set at 15 psi but the difference is REALLY noticeable. The slight lag that was there before is completely gone, the pulls like hell all the way past 6200, and is MUCH more responsive when passing in 5th or 6th. I swear the thing is making more power or at least more useable power. Its also easier to drive easy around town. The torque feels better when letting off the clutch so the jerkiness that we've all had some difficulty with due to the clutch is much better. I have relearn how to drive it. I spent most of my ride home yesterday having to slow back down from 90. It's so much more responsive it just makes me that much more aggressive. I am so excited to have them start tuning this car. I'm now sure that Lou is a genius and Mazda is gonna be calling him to make a full ecu for them in the near future.
 
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