Southern California Tuners

[sdcat]

After installing the Geartronics paddleshift system, we are still trying to get it to work just right. The manufacturer says that this depends on having my engine properly tuned. Although it has always seemed to run well, it still has the factory tune. So, I might be able to improve on that. I'd prefer having someone familiar with these cars do the work, but the tuner at Bisimoto is busy until late November with SEMA. Anyone used any other tuners in Southern California? We have the dyno shop in Santee, but I don't think he has worked with these cars before.

Anyone had good experiences with any other tuners?

Justin

[super7guy]

After installing the Geartronics paddleshift system, we are still trying to get it to work just right. The manufacturer says that this depends on having my engine properly tuned. Although it has always seemed to run well, it still has the factory tune. So, I might be able to improve on that. I'd prefer having someone familiar with these cars do the work, but the tuner at Bisimoto is busy until late November with SEMA. Anyone used any other tuners in Southern California? We have the dyno shop in Santee, but I don't think he has worked with these cars before.

Anyone had good experiences with any other tuners?

Justin

Justin,

Last year, I talked with a guy at speedfest and later visited him in Santee. It is off 67 and west of the ricks machine shop. I noticed that it is under new ownershipl not sure if the same people are there or not. The guy that I talked to said that he had worked on a zetec before.

If you check this out, let me know the results.

Wayne

[sdcat]

Thanks Wayne. I will give the Santee shop a call to gauge their experience with these engines for track use.

Wish I hadn't missed the last few dyno days at Bisimoto! I am thrilled to have my car back home, and eager to get it sorted.

[rzempel]

Anyone had good experiences with any other tuners?

I had my Zetec dyno tuned by the guys at JBA Racing (5675 Kearny Villa Rd. San Diego). As agreed, they tuned it very slightly rich for street use. I don't think they do Zetecs regularly, but they got it right for me.

Since then, I talked with a guy from Dynamic Racing Solutions (431 Park Industrial Dr. La Habra, CA 90631). They claim loads of experience with the Zetec, but I've not either been to their shop, or had them do anything to my car. Might be worth checking, though.

[moosetestbestanden]

After installing the Geartronics paddleshift system, we are still trying to get it to work just right.

What's wrong w/ it?

[sdcat]

I had some work done by JBA before, too. This is a duratec rather than a Zetec, but they can probably handle it.

The Geartronics system uses pneumatics to shift the transmission, and to blip the throttle. It has a computer that times everthing and also cuts spark for upshifts, and as part of the downshift. Upshifts are great. Really fun! The downshifts just aren't as smooth as I'd like. 6th to 5th and 5th to 4th are good, but 4th to 3rd and 3rd to 2nd are not smooth enough. When shifting while breaking in a straight line, it is fine, but if the wheel is turned at all, the brief slowing of the rear wheels upsets the car. We've messed with the Geartronics programming a bit, but the manufacturer says I need to make sure the tuning of the car is optimum.

[sdcat]

By the way, have added hard CF half doors. It gives me the illusion of having a bit mroe protection on track. They look great, but now necessitate climbing in from the top.2014-10-11 13.12.55.jpg

[super7guy]

Justin,

Who made the cage?

thanks, Wayne

[sdcat]

Wayne,

It is from Caterham. I think they refer to it as the R400 cage on their website.

Justin

[Sean]

Hi Justin - car is looking great! You might want to talk to those who have done this before. Even if they cannot help directly, they may be able to direct you to someone who can. Some individual 7-ers I have read about running w/ Sadev+Geartronics installed are:

• blubarisax on USA7s.com (Karl) - New Jersey
• Catastrada on Lotus7.club - Ireland, I think?
• Mike Biddle on Lotus7.club - Dubai
• Paul Richards on Lotus7.club - UK

Dealers/installers/racers who may also be able to provide some helpful input:

• Simon Rogers at Meteor - UK
• Joachim Westermann at MOG - Germany
• Sturt Faulds at Fauldsport - UK

The search function on Lotus7.club (used to be Blatchat) is still all honked up, with many known legacy threads not showing up in results, and sorting of results seems random, but there is still some info there. They have recently added the capability to e-mail the author of each individual post in a thread as before ("Blatmail"), so that should make contacting those guys easy. If that doesn't work, let me know, and I can contact them on your behalf, if you like.

Searches on PistonHeads forums also show other Geartronics Flatshift users who may be able to help. Best of luck.

[sdcat]

Sean,

Thanks for the suggestions! I bought the system from MOG, so have been working with them all along, and have also been corresponding with the North America Geartronics distributor, as well as the Geartronics manufacturer. MOG has sold kits for these for a number of Caterham owners, so has done a lot of trouble shooting. I had chatted with blubarix before, and he pointed me to the North America distributor, who helped him. The system is not nearly as easy to get set up as I had initially hoped! We have gone through literally hundreds of e-mails between all these sources for installing and now tuning the system. The next logical thing is to make sure the car is tuned properly.

Blatchat doesn't have much on these. I think I will get a membership, though, since I have searched it a lot in the past. Thanks for the tip on searching archives in lotus7.club

These systems are not exactly plug and play! We have spent a lot of time getting it to work right, and although I was a little frustrated at first, I am now intrigued.

Funny thing, I used to love to work on cars when I was younger, then went through a period where it became a burden to keep the cars running on the track. Lately, however, I am back in a mode where these sort of things are fun for me again. Go figure - I'd still prefer driving to wrenching, but these kind of projects can be fun, too.

I called JBA, and I will take the car to them. They did a good job with the Zetec, and should have plenty of experience to tune this.

Thanks,

Justin

[moosetestbestanden]

Funny thing, I used to love to work on cars when I was younger, then went through a period where it became a burden to keep the cars running on the track. Lately, however, I am back in a mode where these sort of things are fun for me again. Go figure - I'd still prefer driving to wrenching, but these kind of projects can be fun, too.

+1

[sdcat]

I am very curious to see if the MBE ECU is locked.

I was surfing the SBD site some more, and saw again on their page the following comment:

"Please note that all Cosworth & Caterham MBE ECUs are locked during manufacture, which means they cannot be modified in any way. You can only use the CAN mapping kit & Easimap 6 software for Real Time Viewing as an aid to diagnosing faults with sensors & replacement or setting up of throttle pots."

I hope this isn't the case! It is on this page:


http://www.sbdev.co.uk/Engine_Manage...rogramming.htm

I also found this thread that says it is locked, and one comment that the unlock code may be 8654:

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=1338322

We will see!

[Sean]

Do you have the MBE985 cable+USB/CAN BUS adapter? You will need this to hook the laptop up to the ECU. Also, many cars do not have the appropriate pins on the OBDII plug populated (pin 6 CAN High, and pin 14 CAN Low), so that may very well need to be addressed ahead of time as well. I found all of this out the hard way!

I can offer my experience on this, if required.

[sdcat]

Sean,

We do have the cable from sbd, so I think we have the proper connections. They will try tomorrow to read/write on the ECU, so I should have an idea then if we can change the maps. Thanks for the offer to help - if we run into any trouble tomorrow I will certainly ask for it!

Thanks,

Justin