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Loltus Exige

In another episode of tonight I did a thing!

I have been chasing the electrical gremlin that is " my dash cluster wont turn off"

You know , the one I really decided Id like to fix 6 days before Spa even though it had been a problem for 5 years? Yeah , that one.

So , I have removed the ECU to check for pin damage.
Zero

I removed the adapter loom and spotted a bent pin that I have straightened. It was for the water coolant circuit.

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I have re assembled everything in there and checked the earths , again.

After some inspiration from John @ SeriouslyLotus I jerry rigged an earth from the battery to the back of the loom in the dash. ( No pics - imagine a 20AWG wire about 3.5m in length. One end taped to the earth on the battery and the other end with a shakey hand Andy trying not to hit pin A1

I earthed out the earth point and sod all changed.

HOWEVER , if I short the igniton live on pin A3, clunk. I hear the relay in the engine back do its thing and the cluster turns off.

So , it seems the ignition switched feed isnt working correctly. I am not quite sure how to progress on that bit.
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Can confirm that the dash goes into lots of small bits

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Absolutely parking this right here now.

Toys are out of the pram and I am sulking.

Car works despite my best efforts of trying!

In conclusion I have found the following:

  1. Snapped/bent pin on the adapter loom for the water coolant circuit. Rectified and noted water still circulating.
  2. The clips on the ECU to Lotus loom adapter are very , very sensitive. Look at it the wrong way and the car will turn over but not start. You get a sinking feeling when this happens. This appears to be fixed.
  3. The dash needles are a right pain to remove, The either take the spindle out of the motor or fly across the garage snapping the needle. UHU glue to the rescue and then fuse pulling to reset the needles
  4. The dash is actually quite simple but hard to work on in terms of solder due to the size. Ideally needs magnifying glass but can substitute an iphone with camera in macro mode. You cannot test the dash properly without tape to hold the main board to the daughter board that controls the oddo/water/fuel LCD.
  5. It appears to be something to do with the switched live on the car to dash that is causing my issue. If I earth it the dash goes off. If I remove the power and reconnect the dash will return to its last state - IE cluster on.
  6. I can hear a relay clunking in the rear hatch when I either ground the switched live , or press the window down. What is this relay?
I blatently cannot leave this alone.
 
I have gone halfway house with a PDM and AIM screen. I bought a not very well know GARW dash. Its an IC7 standalone dash and isnt tied to any ECU manufacturer. The thing that put me off until I did some research is that the dash came out and the developer got swamped and stop developing.

He has now re-emerged onto the scene.

So , I bought the dash new to me ( ebay ) and it arrived this morning. Fresh back from my lunch break with it sort of plumbed in and working via a node.js windows screen controlling it over Wifi. That work was carried out by a chap called Dustin Sterk over on Lotus Talk

This kind of stuff really floats my boat as I love IT , I love data and now bringing the two together.

Boxed up

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Opened up

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In place

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Couple of config tweaks so it knows the parameters for my car and voila - two screen that you can flick between

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A few things that I need to sort :

1) Oil pressure and temp. I have the feeds from my probe in the oil sump. Ill run a fly wire to the loom from my gauge and check they work before snipping any wires. Will be great to see that on the dash


2) I know my ECU is outputting AFR over CANBUS but I need to change the input on the dash to read it. I also dont want it in lambda as I cant read it quickly. Old fashioned AFR.

3) Mileage correction is possible in the dash , but I cant seem to get into that menu. Work in progress.

4) Update firmware ( if applicable )
 
I have been working on the dash and trying to get more data for me to look at.

I want the AFR to work and I partially have it working but I am not doing something right as it seems to fluctuate too much.

I do have the dashes setup as I want them mind, for now.

1) Standard S2 Exige from 2004 dash
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2) Later model S2 Exige dash but I have changed it to KMH to make my life easier when abroad
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3) "Race" dash with AFR ( bottom right ) Ignore the oil pressure. I havent wired it in yet.
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4) Can diagnostics. This helps me work out what channel is sending what data. I change it in the SXTune software when connected to my ECU and validate that its sending the data here. The 0x600 is my custom output sending wideband lamba 1.
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5) LFA dash. I put it on as I like the look of it! Pressure and oil temp are null as again , not wired in yet. It will be though!
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when you say afr fluctuates too much what do you mean? when running closed loop the control will generally switch from rich to lean contiguously, its not a stable thing.
 
when you say afr fluctuates too much what do you mean? when running closed loop the control will generally switch from rich to lean contiguously, its not a stable thing.
With you on that matey - I wasnt too clear.

The numbers wildly vary. They go from like 0.6 to 1.2 and then stabilise.

On my SXTune dash its constant. Its like it needs some damping in the display to calm it down a bit.

Example :

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I am fine with the 0.88 on the SXTune and 0.9 on the dash - round error innit?

However when I blip the SXTune gauge stays relatively sane , sure it leans out a bit to perhaps .95 and then slowly decreases back to the 0.88 or thereabouts where as my dash goes OH SHIT CHANGE THE NUMBERS STRAIGHT AWAY and I see 0.9 then 1.6 then 1.4 all in a split second.

I think its something I havent done , like the scaling but I think it needs damping a bit ..
 
I found myself with a spare couple of hours after @Fonzey dropped off a blanking plate for the radio.

Cue a 4kg saving in radio and front two speakers. Ill get round to removing the rear two but didnt have the patience to remove the seats to get access today.

Whilst I remove the seats Ill whip off the existing speakers, route the ECU cable into the car instead of flywire and remove the seatbelts.

But for now, 4kg saved.

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In todays episode of I did a thing I changed the door open/close detector.

Simple case of undo a screw swap over the connector and voila. Bobs your uncle, right?

Parts arrived
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Undo the existing switch and the spade are missing. Balls.
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They are in this void , or easier by going in from the back
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Undo the speaker cover and fish out the cables
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Some tape, a long screwdriver to push a piece of wire through and reverse fish the wires back out the small hole
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New one fitted and done
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Absolutely shredded my left hand doing this on the sharpest plastics known to man as developed by Lotus
 
Shit.

Just got in the car and noted that when I swapped around the seat bases I didn’t swap around the harness clasps.

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That means it’s seat out time. Again.

I despise taking the seats out.

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Swap the clasp left to right and the male part right to left and refit.

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I am well impressed with spending 2h fancying around with that
 
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