Buellwinkle

I have good news and bad news about setting the fuel settings to Stage 3 as suggested by some. The A/F ratio went to an idea 12.5:1. Horsepower took a serious 17 pony drop. This probably explains why my fuel mileage went up. I was getting 37 mpg at a steady 70 vs. 33.5 before. Also my ignition setting was set to 91 (what we call premium in CA).

I'm trying to decide on next steps. My shoot from the hip thought is to put the ECU settings back to stock and run lean until someone has a better solution.

BlackC230Coupe

if u were running 93 octance fuel how much would that help.,

linh

It might even be worse because we only get 91 octane in Ca and you set it at 93 octane, the ECU might retard the timing.

sdcaclint

wow buell
that is half of your gain. that doesn't sound good. are you going to try upsolute?

20FHK02

thank god i decided to wait for buell's results first and held off for the ECU setting when i took my car in for service A
i love this forum!

20FHK02

btw, has anyone has the ECU set to Stage 2 dynoed the car?
a silly thought is that maybe only Stage 3 screws the gain, but not Stage 2.

sdcaclint

linh,
i think BlackC230Coupe was speaking of what would the results be of running 93 octane fuel with the stage 3 settings, not swithcing the settings to 93octane.

linh

Do some of you people only get info from this forum but not give info to this forum? I know that there are at least three people that have this fuel stages setting before Buell but don't say jack about the result !!! It seem to me that Buell and i are the only people that give real result (good and bad) in this forum !!! Are you guys afraid of the manufacturer when it come to say negative things. Come-on, this is a forum for discussion, that meant we discuss good and bad info.

Buellwinkle

Actually, it's more than half my gain as that's 17hp at the rear wheels. I don't believe Upsolute will do the trick as 2 that I know of have tried it and it had no effect on a/f ratio. Even on their VW/Audi chips, they use fuel pressure regulators to fix a/f ratio yet GIAC does it with the chip, so I'm waiting for GIAC. As I've commented before, I don't believe it's dangerously lean and even though it's lean, it's only lean at full throttle and it's not like I spend much of my driving time at full throttle. And if it causes pinging, the ECU will back off timing to solve the problem so I don't believe it will damage my engine. There are a bunch of people with various brands of pulleys on their C230 and I haven't heard of any engine damage yet. So my current thought is to go back to stock settings and live with the lean condition at full throttle until GIAC has a chip or someone comes up with a better solution. I may try to get cooler spark plugs to deal with the hotter cylinder head temps. Linh picked up about 12hp with the cooler plugs alone.

eason

Buellwinkle:

Have you try the any of the Octane Booster along with your Stage 3 setting? I have been using Octane 104 Black bottle with a Volvo V40 (running @ 14.7PSI vs stock 6PSI). Those Octane booster can give you as much as 7 point increse in the Octane rating.

linh

I think (not sure) Renncpe set his fuel stage to "stages 2" and his A/F ratio is at 13.5:1 but he does not say anyhting about the effect of hp.


So far i hasn't get any good result at all when i went with Upsolute (stock and with pulley). The only way to tune a chip right is when the car is on the dyno (real time tuning), not doing the basic tuning like try a little more fuel, timing etc.

Buell, you might pick up some hp because based on your last dyno, your last 1000 rpm is pretty rough (alot of spike). With colder plugs if it smooth out then you will definitely gain some hp.

edvpt

You might want to try something in the middle, say Stage II and leave the timing at base.

The 91 Octane adaptive is retarding the timing too much across the entire band. Let the ECU do it when it senses ping instead of running that way all the time. I know my MB Tech and Kleemann both recommended Fuel Quantity Stage II and to leave the Ignition adaptive at base. As I suspect the 91 Octane setting is what is causing your performance loss and has little effect on the A/F ratio. The Stage III Fuel setting appears to be balancing your A/F ratio, which is good to know.

I should note, that I left the ignition adaptive at base because 93+ Octane is readily available here in my area and I did not what to retard my timing and take a performance hit. I set the Fuel quantity to Stage II as recommended to enrich the mixture now that the pulley is installed. IMHO I believe that is the best combination of max performance without running to lean.

edvpt

Linh, Are you talking about colder plugs in a 02 C230K or an older SLK? I thought colder plugs weren’t available, and probably not needed as the original plugs were cold enough, for the newer 2002 C230K Coupes.

mdp c230k

I've read on other forums that the octane number on the menu is the european rating. We've been though this before without a final answer but from the posts it seems that base is the best setting for the timing. A setting of 91 on the euro scale is like 87 here so that would account for the power loss. Try going back to it and see what the net result is. Remember, the timing also will make you engine run much hotter if it is not set right so that is where the excess heat is from.

linh

Mark Cumming who has an 02' C Coupe with Kleemann 'ring" was the one who recommending me to used the two step colder plugs on my car because he said that he used one step colder plugs on his 02' C Coupe and the dyno show that it make more hp. But when i asked him about his colder plugs parts numbers, he said that i doesn't remember the parts number.

BlackC230Coupe

if i was to get the ASP pully and had my fuel setting changed to stage 3 and my ignition setting to 93 octane. since that all i ever put in my car, would i have a loss like buell did? or will it not make me loose to much HP? comapred to the ASP pully at the stock settings?

20FHK02

if i understand correctly, what buell did was comparing the setup with ASP pulley with stock settings to the setup with ASP pulley with Stage 3 and 91 octane. he gained 17 hp less at the wheel using the later setup. so what he implies is that ASP pulley with stock setting would give u more gain.

if u use ASP pulley plus Stage 3 plus 93 octane then u're pretty much the same to his setup.

c230Kraz

what are 'colder plugs'.

gab

an intercooler upgrade probably can help prevent denotation?

mdp c230k

Plugs are made to opperate at a certain temperature. The length of insulator on the plug determines how quickly it can disipate engine heat. A colder plug can get rid of heat more quickly than a hotter one, so if you combustion chamber runs hot you want a colder plug to stay in the safe operating area of the plug. If your plug is too cold you wont get good combustion, too hot and you will detonate.

Buellwinkle

Bear in mind that before changing the ECU settings I did not experience detonation and it was not pulling back timing. This was a precautionary measure. Also keep in mind that it only runs moderately lean during full throttle accelleration which is not something you do for long periods at a time anyway. So while a cooler plug may increase HP and reduced the possibility of detonation at full throttle, it may impead performance and fuel mileage the rest of the time so it's a trade off although it may appear good on a dyno which is run at full throttle. More testing would have to be done to determine what configuration is optimal.

Testing Linh did with the Upsolute chip did not increase a/f ratio. This problem applies to all 2.3L motors (newer SLK230 and C230 coupes) with any pulley kit. On older SLK230 and C230 sedans, the issue is resolved with a fuel presure regulator.

BlackC230Coupe

buell can u answer my first question i am just curious.

thanks

here it is.


"if i was to get the ASP pully and had my fuel setting changed to stage 3 and my ignition setting to 93 octane. since that all i ever put in my car, would i have a loss like buell did? or will it not make me loose to much HP? comapred to the ASP pully at the stock settings?"

mdp c230k

If I was in your shoes I would just set the fuel to stage 3 and leave the ignition setting as is. I will be doing so when I get my pulley ring/pulley. The ignition settings are Euro octane according to an expert I talked to yesterday, as such 93 is really about 89 US octane! Stock setting is optimal according to him and seeing the cars he works on, he knows.

edvpt

Also agree. Unless getting 91+ Octane is an issue in your area stick with the base ignition setting, and set the fuel quantity to Stage II or III depending on how much time you spend at full throttle.

renncpe

We have all checked this out. The computer setting states " RON values at least 93 octane" do you think that they lost something in the translation? One way you could look at is that they mean a ron of 97 min.