VOLVO 2.4l 5CYL ENGINE TUNING - GREAT RESULT

[ianj99]

My colleague has been down to the Solent to test our digital diesel tuning module on a twin Volvo 5cyl 200bhp engined power boat.

We used a single, 2 channel module connected to both engines with 9 settings available. Off , plus low, med and .user' selectable by a switch on the dash.

On setting 2 (low), timing it from 5.5kn to cruising speed of 24kn, with it off took 14secs, with it on, took 11.

Max speed was 27kn creeping slowly upto 28 standard, and 32 with the module on.

Fuel consumption decreased at 24kn from 23L/hr to 19L/hr, reducing the fuel cost by 21% and extending the range by 3 hours.

Photos & vessel details will be posted on our website by the weekend.

On max setting the performance was even more impressive but by deliberately driving it like a complete prat, brought on the engine warning light. An experienced skipper would not have had this happen. However, this setting will be removed to save the inept from themselves. (Restarting resets the warning light)

The boat will be on show and demo at the Boat Show.

Ianj

 

[volvopaul]

I presume your talking about the D3 engines?

Id say at those uprated figures it wont be long before the reliability is reduced, there is a gen 2 d3 out that hopefully cures all the probs of the first D3160 and D3 190hp engines.

 

[ianj99]

I presume your talking about the D3 engines?

Id say at those uprated figures it wont be long before the reliability is reduced, there is a gen 2 d3 out that hopefully cures all the probs of the first D3160 and D3 190hp engines.

The aim was to get it onto the plane more quickly.
The extra torque is therefore only used whilst accelerating vnd then fuel consumption is reduced by being able to throttle back slightly but maintain the same 24kn cruising speed.

This is what was asked for and what we delivered.

I see no reason why reliability will be affected. It isn't on road vehicles, again partly because the extra performance is only needed for short periods and partly because the engines are over engineered to allow for poor fuel quality, extremes of temp, poor servicing and maintenance, harsh drivers, severe use (eg towing).

 

[gingie]

we have a couple of boats on d3 190`s running the chip tuning box.

What we have found is smoother running, more response but top end has not been affected.

So we got a couple of sweeter running D3`s. Vodia doesnt know they are there as in does not recognise something is plugged in between the loom and fuel pressure sensor.

Even see the fuel usage improve slightly.

Interesting thing was as an experiment after one owner had been running regularly for a month I unplugged the box and reconnected the loom as is it should...................not noticed that was 9 months ago!!!! lol

 

[ianj99]

we have a couple of boats on d3 190`s running the chip tuning box.

What we have found is smoother running, more response but top end has not been affected.

So we got a couple of sweeter running D3`s. Vodia doesnt know they are there as in does not recognise something is plugged in between the loom and fuel pressure sensor.

Even see the fuel usage improve slightly.

Interesting thing was as an experiment after one owner had been running regularly for a month I unplugged the box and reconnected the loom as is it should...................not noticed that was 9 months ago!!!! lol

Sounds like it was a very mild box.

With ours switched off, the performance felt flat and in contrast to it switched on, now seemed to struggle onto the plane. The owner was very pleased with the result.

 

[rafiki_]

I have the same problem with this as with car engine "upgrades". When the engine manufacturer spends a fortune on engineers, prototypes and testing, why do people think that with a bit of tweaking to the ecu, fuelling and waste gate, that the performance improvements will not effect the reliability?

Where is the validation testing? What has the cylinder BMEP been raised to? Whenleaning off at higher speeds, what affect on piston cooling? (note most overfuel at high speeds for cooling) and on and on..........

Who is going to warrant the engine now? I'm sure Mr Volvo is not!!

 

[gingie]

We set it at various settings and no difference on top end but planing times differed each time until we found the ultimate one.

Apart from changing props and gearing to increase top end i cant see how yours differs with out radically changing fuelling and upping the boost a lot?

Have you a link i would like to have a look and maybe get one in for our demo boat please

 

[ianj99]

We set it at various settings and no difference on top end but planing times differed each time until we found the ultimate one.

Apart from changing props and gearing to increase top end i cant see how yours differs with out radically changing fuelling and upping the boost a lot?

Have you a link i would like to have a look and maybe get one in for our demo boat please

I will post the link when I've updated the page - ina dayor two.

The results differ depending upon who made the box. Ours are digital so we can alter the fuelling (pressure) anywhere in the rev range. Indeed or car modules have 2 swithes, each with 3 positions so the driver can alter the torque at low rpm (approx below 2500rpm) and at high rpm (above 2500rpm).

 

[ianj99]

I have the same problem with this as with car engine "upgrades". When the engine manufacturer spends a fortune on engineers, prototypes and testing, why do people think that with a bit of tweaking to the ecu, fuelling and waste gate, that the performance improvements will not effect the reliability?

Where is the validation testing? What has the cylinder BMEP been raised to? Whenleaning off at higher speeds, what affect on piston cooling? (note most overfuel at high speeds for cooling) and on and on..........

Who is going to warrant the engine now? I'm sure Mr Volvo is not!!

You aren't thinking this through.
As I said the engines are over engineered - there's a large 'safety' margin with all aspects of a vehicle or its engine.
If there wasn't, a large percentage would fail due to production tolerances, poor servicing, poor fuel, etc.
In other words if an engine is rated by the manufacturer at 200bhp its not going to fall apart or wear out if its called upon to produce 220bhp or even 240bhp.
Engine tuning has been around as long as the IC engine and electronic diesel tuning for over 10years. If reliability was an issue the industry would not have survived. In five years I've no evidence that our products are causing problems and other companies are still going strong after 10years.

In fact the biggest impact on reliability is the way owners abuse and neglect their vehicles or engines. How many drivers never check the oil between changes?

I'm not trying to convince anyone to tune their engine, just dispelling a myth that tuning it will automatically affect the reliability.
Ian

 

[ulyden]

To increase the power of a marine engine is something I have done many times. Its just to increase the fuel rate.

But the initial steps im used to are a little different from these.

First make suplyers aware that you will increase the power.They normaly come with proposal of what their components can take and what modifications that have to be done. This can apply turbochargers, pistons, valves, fuel injection systems, etc. If you know that all parts can be made then the whole engine needs to be calculated in a FEM software.

If the calculations are ok then the new parts have to be orded. A engine have to be modified with the new parts. The new parts are often modified with better materials and design.

On this engine temperatures in the piston,valves, turbocharged bearings have to be measured. All the heat comming for water, oil and charge air cooler have to be measured. Performance like fuel consumtion and air consumtion ,emissions aswel.
Fiering pressure, rate of heat release needs to be confirmed and often strain gauge measurement on critical parts as engine block, con rod, rocer arms etc has to be performed
.
All these measures have to be done in a fine mesh were speed and tourque is shiftet a bit between each step. You have to be sure if the mecanical or termal loads not is over limit. Then the torque curves can be decided.

When all the pressure and temperature stresses in the engine is measured and verified, the engine is ready for a long test. This is often run over a few hundred hours at 110 or 120% load. So is the engine stripped and inspected. Then a field test can be started

The new specification is then tested according to IMO or EPA requirements and if it manage it ,then the engine can have the new rating.

I think chip tuning is easyer!

 

[spannerman]

I can confirm that your warranty is completely invalid as far as Volvo is concerned if you do any form of chip tuning etc, because the system is controlled by a map the easiest way for 'tuners' to increase the power is to raise the fuel pressure so for the ECU regulated amount of time the injector is open more fuel gets sprayed into the cylinder.
The way they do this is by fooling the system to run the high pressure pump harder to generate higher rail pressure. This has a fuel pressure sensor to monitor rail pressure so the ECU controls how much the pump works as although its gear driven from the engine it has a proportional valve in the intake which controls the amount of fuel delivered to the pump.
The 'add on' for want of a better word interferes with this feedback loop and basically forces the pump to deliver more fuel than the engine actually requires, hence more power.
But its not for nothing Bosch who make the system for Volvo and Mercruiser/Cummins have set limits in the system for either overpressure and underpressure.
Be interesting to see some results after a real long term test as to engine reliability.

 

[volvopaul]

I can confirm that your warranty is completely invalid as far as Volvo is concerned if you do any form of chip tuning etc, because the system is controlled by a map the easiest way for 'tuners' to increase the power is to raise the fuel pressure so for the ECU regulated amount of time the injector is open more fuel gets sprayed into the cylinder.
The way they do this is by fooling the system to run the high pressure pump harder to generate higher rail pressure. This has a fuel pressure sensor to monitor rail pressure so the ECU controls how much the pump works as although its gear driven from the engine it has a proportional valve in the intake which controls the amount of fuel delivered to the pump.
The 'add on' for want of a better word interferes with this feedback loop and basically forces the pump to deliver more fuel than the engine actually requires, hence more power.
But its not for nothing Bosch who make the system for Volvo and Mercruiser/Cummins have set limits in the system for either overpressure and underpressure.
Be interesting to see some results after a real long term test as to engine reliability.

Quite right SM, im sure latestarter will be posting on this thread as he will know exactly at what hp the d3 will blow up at.

 

[ianj99]

.
The way they do this is by fooling the system to run the high pressure pump harder to generate higher rail pressure. This has a fuel pressure sensor to monitor rail pressure so the ECU controls how much the pump works as although its gear driven from the engine it has a proportional valve in the intake which controls the amount of fuel delivered to the pump.
The 'add on' for want of a better word interferes with this feedback loop and basically forces the pump to deliver more fuel than the engine actually requires, hence more power.
But its not for nothing Bosch who make the system for Volvo and Mercruiser/Cummins have set limits in the system for either overpressure and underpressure.

You are correct in how common rail tuning works and as its a multi millon pound worldwide industry, has been proven to work and not harm reliability.

You are bit sketchy on pressure control mechanism so I'll fill some details:
The 'valve' you mention is not on the pump input. The pump always receives fuel from the low pressure pump or there would be a risk of fatal fuel starvation since the pump relies on the fuel for lubrication. On some engines the regulator is actually on the opposite end of the fuel rail to the sensor and therefore operates at rail pressure.

The pressure regulator is in fact a solenoid that is pulsed such that the on/off duty cycle determines the pressure. If a tuning box tries to increase the pressure such that the duty cycle exceeds about 95%, the ecu firmware will interpret this as a fuel leak. It will then stop the engine or invoke limp mode to prevent the damage to the pump that would occur in the event of fuel starvation. So the power increase is ultimately limited by the ecu not the tuning box. This gives manufacturers the ability to restrict any increase by simply running the pump closer to the 95% cut off point.*

Furthermore, the pressure is not constant throughout the rev range but varies with rpm and load. This means it is possible to increase the pressure at low to mid rpm from standard but WITHOUT actually exceeding the maximum power design pressure. eg if the normal maximum operating pressure is 1300bar at 3000rpm, at 2000rpm it may normally just be 1000bar. This gives the tuner, 300bar to play with to boost torque without exceeding the manufacturers figure. Hence our products allow torque increases at low-mid rpm but with no increase in peak bhp (depending on what the customer wants)

In reality, Bosch don't run their pumps near maximum output so there is plenty of margin to provide the extra fuel. I don't know of any vehicle owner who has had HP pump failure.

*The Denso system fitted to many Japanese vehicles works differently. in that the pump output is more closely matched to the engine's fuel requirement. Therefore it is impossible to get large increases in fuel other than at lowish rpm wiithout invoking 'fuel leak' fault codes for the reasons mentioned above.
Ian

 

[Latestarter1]

Quite right SM, im sure latestarter will be posting on this thread as he will know exactly at what hp the d3 will blow up at.

Like the good Fairey (Not a typo) here I am!

This post raises a number of fundamental issues which would lead me to question the data presented.

Number 1 there is a fundamental difference in the way that boats and vehicles transmit power;
Engines move vehicles; propellers move boats, just think about it??
In any propeller driven vessel there is only one point at which available engine power and the propeller demand are in balance, that is at the engines Rated power i.e. this is the only point at which the propeller demands 100% of power available from the engine. We are talking pure theory here so I will ignore the 90% absorbed clean bottom rule for now.

Think of a boats engine throttle governor being more akin to cruise control on a car or truck, allows the engine rpm to be set anywhere between idle and high idle. Once the engine revs are set at a certain figure all the engine governor needs to do is hold the set speed. At any rpm less than rated speed, engine power available is ALWAYS greater than that demanded by the propeller, hence the concave shape of the Propeller Law Curve (Demand Curve) on an engine data sheet. Always remember that in this game it is the propeller which is calling the shots, not the wife, I mean the engine. Unless propeller is properly matched to new power output at engines rated speed the whole exercise is pointless. If vessel referred to the original post was marginally over propped before engine up rated then the results obtained could be feasible.

My most serious concern regarding changing engine output on boats Vs automotive applications is duty cycle related. At 70 mph in still air on a flat motorway your family car is running at no more than 15-20 % engine load, the load increased on a gradient percent load increases until engine lugs down to gear shift point, once in a lower gear revs increase and engine load immediately drops, then increases as grade steepens. The important point is that the load factor on the vehicle engine is low or at best cyclic when needing higher output to pull a grade.

In a marine application we have close to 100% load rated speed and at cruising speed propeller demand power represents around 50% engine load, very different indeed.
Chip tune a car and it will climb a hill faster therefore the ram air effect though the radiator increases generally offsetting greater engine heat rejection to coolant. Increasing engine power of a marine engine is a lottery; manufacturer is unlikely to reveal the maximum capacity of the heat exchanger.

Begin the season and life is good, engine has been up rated however does not go up hills any faster like the automotive engine with greater air-flow to assist the radiator Delta T , weed begins to increase hull resistance until we are pulling 120% engine load which could be as little as failing to reach rated speed by say 200 rpm. Raw water impeller may lose a chunk or two which become lodged in the heat exchanger blocking a couple of the tube stacks. Power is heat, once engine is on the edge components fail very quickly. No point in rambling about engine cylinder pressures, I need to get a life.

Moving on the so called chip tuning, common rail diesel engines are real nuts easy to play with. The engine ECU has a grubby little notebook tucked just inside its top pocket. Mr ECU is looking at all the various inputs coming in from engine sensors and throttle; he is scanning through the pages in the notebook until he finds the part of the fuelling table which matches the input information he has, which is why pages in the notebook are well thumbed. Table says to inject X amount of fuel which is easy done by turning the ‘tap’ on in the common rail injector, fuelling table just gives PWM signal the length of which defines how long the tap (injector) stays open.

Plug in power devices simply keep the tap turned on for a little longer, hence more power which is somewhat different from and more linear than the way ECU recalibration works.

Device can be as simple as a 10p resistor in a project box from RS Components.
By the way NEVER underestimate Mr ECU, he is the class sneak, it all goes in that grubby note book of his, engine over temp, over speed as well as percent engine overload and for how long. When the master Mr Laptop asks for the note book it is handed over without question, who passes it directly to the headmaster Mr Warranty Manger.

Mr Warranty becomes very angry asks loads of questions when naughty pistons attempt to avoid detention by escaping to atmosphere!

 

[Wiggo]

Good explanation. I have such a contraption on my car and it works very nicely, although turning the wick up too far did indeed cause the dash to light up like a Christmas tree and put the engine into Sulk Mode for a while.

Should the thing go catastrophically pear shaped, I can coast to the side of the road, remove the tuning box and hide it about my person and wait for the nice AA man to tow me to the dealer where I will look all perplexed while putting in a warranty claim. (Not that I think this is a likely scenario, but yon box will of course be removed for routine servicing).

I think the difference (and hence concern) is that 'coasting to the side of the road and waiting for the AA man' is somewhat problematic 50 miles offshore in deteriorating weather, hence the conservative views hereabouts...

 

[ianj99]

Like the good Fairey (Not a typo) here I am!

Plug in power devices simply keep the tap turned on for a little longer, hence more power which is somewhat different from and more linear than the way ECU recalibration works.

This is true of remapping the ecu, where the injectors are opened for longer.

Its the pressure that is increased on a common rail system by a plug in module.

I think I need to clear up a misconception about diesel tuning whether by chip or ecu remap.

I get the impression that many believe the aim is to extract the maximum possible power increase.
It isn't, its about what is safe, has no effect on reliability and improves fuel economy.

My thread starter explained that what was wanted was a reduction in the time to get on the plane and then better economy. No desire for a higher cruising speed or top speed was requested. Therefore the power boost is modest, since cruising speed is the same, power absorbed is the same so the engine load is the same, but due to the way the electronics work, fuel efficiency is improved.
Credit it me with some knowledge of the power absorbtion characteristics of a prop or in this case jet drive, and that marine engines do work harder than their vehicle counterparts.
If you've blown your engine its your own fault, if we'd blown it, I'd have quit my job as I'd clearly be irresponsible and incompetent.

 

[scottie]

There will be very few VP dealers that do not already have a collection of scrap D3 engines so why ad to them

 

[spannerman]

You are bit sketchy on pressure control mechanism so I'll fill some details:
The 'valve' you mention is not on the pump input. The pump always receives fuel from the low pressure pump or there would be a risk of fatal fuel starvation since the pump relies on the fuel for lubrication. On some engines the regulator is actually on the opposite end of the fuel rail to the sensor and therefore operates at rail pressure.


Sorry but I beg to differ. We are 3 Volvo and Cummins engineers here reading your mail and who have all recently been on Volvo Common Rail courses, we are all in agreement that you have it completely wrong, Volvo use what is called an MPROP valve on the INLET side of the high pressure pump to control delivery to the pump and ultimately pressure. Its clearly shown in the Volvo workshop manual between the low pressure and high pressure pump.
The pressure regulator on the fuel rail is not for controlling fuel pressure as you claim, its an over pressure valve, and if it ever opens it will need replacing as its a blow off valve which should never open in the normal course of events, as the ECU maintains the correct pressure by means of the MPROP.
It was made very clear to us on the course how 'tuning' gadgets work and how the modified data from the pressure sensor is used to fool the ECU into opening the MPROP more to increase pressure in the rail.
All I know is several of our go fast customers had their D6's and CMD 320's chipped and they never ran right causing all sorts of faults codes to flag up, I personally tested one boat where the gizmo guy loaded in 4 new software versions in one afternoon, and every time I tested the boat it either smoked badly or hit the inbuilt rev limiter or went into limp home mode, we played about with props but it never ever delivered what he promised, the customer sold the boat and bought the same type but with a bigger petrol engine, as the Yanks always say' there ain't no substitute for cubic capacity'.
And I had a boat in with chipped D3 which was a real pig, it overheated and overevved, in the end we told the guy to take it away as we were just wasting our time trying to fix it.
Its because of the lack of understanding of how the system is designed to work by a lot of
tuning companies that Volvo will turn their back on you if you go down that route. As earlier stated its not for nothing they spend fortunes on R & D to develope a motor that is reliable and meets the emmission regs.

 

[gingie]

With you on that one Spannerman.....still have my course notes that read almost as you wrote

The MPROP is on the intake side of the pump. The fuel pressure sensor tells the ecu what pressure is in the rail. Should it over pressurise it sends a signal to the ecu and then to the MPROP and the MPROP goes in to fits.

 

[ulyden]

Well the details on the controll of the common rail pump i don't know. The one i know is a bit larger consumes 90kw and have a trottle valve on the inlet of the high press pump. (L'orange)

But if you load the boat, all the people in the back and uses 3min to get to the plane. Is the settings still safe then? Is the inlet temp of the turbine ok?
Piston ring grove temp?, force in rocker mecanism? torsjonal stress i crankshaft and drive system? exhaust valves temperature, oil film thickness in drive shaft gear weels?

I don't think you know. If you dont you can be terrible wrong and destroy the owners allready higly stressed engine.

Even the engines i work with can be tuned for lower fuel consumtion and higher torque. Sometimes 30% above normal. But then you have to know the limitations on all engine parametes. That is only engine builder that have.

So if volvo gave me a chip and sad this is ok for your engine i would be taking it everybody else: no thanks!