Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) Monty Gets a New ECU

Following fitting my Fusion Fabrications Supper Sports exhaust system.




And my new long runner ERG/swirl flap delete inlet manifold, also from Fusion Fabrications.




Monty's engine is definitely shifting more air, with no AFR gauge this increase in air was proved the old school way.

* Audible crackles from the exhaust on the overrun
* A deep trombone like tone from the engine on tip-in
* A generally dull throttle response
* Some mild flat spots in closed loop below 3,000rpm

The concerning lean condition was further confirmed by the Visteon/Ford ECU showing a long term fuel trim of +16.4% on my OBD reader!



Monty's Visteon/Ford ECU was throwing in as much fuel it could to match all the additional air the engine was now shifting, but it had clearly reached the limits of what it could do. To solve the dangerously lean condition and release the additional power waiting to be enjoyed, I desperately needed a way of applying more fuel, this basically left me with two options:

1. Find someone who could genuinely map Monty's Visteon/Ford ECU

Firsty, I want to be clear that I have a great deal of respect for the old Visteon/Ford ECU, while it is rather outdated engine management technology from the early 2000s with narrow band lambda sensors, there's no question it is a well designed and thoroughly developed OEM ECU from Ford that proved itself on a gazillion Mondeos and Focus'. However, finding someone who could genuinely live map this ECU properly on a rolling road proved rather challenging, after lots of research the most convincing people I spoke to were Motor Sport Developments based a considerable 230 miles from me up in Blackpool.

https://www.motorsport-developments.co.uk/index.html

Motor Sport Developments estimated a live mappings session would be somewhere between £600 to £900 depending on the time needed, this on top of the time and cost of the near 500 mile round trip from home to Blackpool and back. I was also mindful that my further development plans of fitting a set of Newman Phase Two cams would demand another mapping session, perhaps just a couple of hours on the dyno this time but still more cost and another big trip to Blackpool to get it done, in the end I could see myself spending over £1000 on mapping and fuel and I still wouldn't have access to the ECU myself.

2. Take the aftermarket ECU route

On paper there are many benefits to taking this option, but I've gone down this road before and have had a mixed experiences ranging from a very positive result with a friends Lotus Elan Plus Two we converted to a Haltech system, to some enormous challenges using a Canems Dual Fuel ECU on my TVR Chimaera. In both cases these installations were what is typically referred to as a stand alone ECU conversion, that is the new aftermarket engine management system stands alone using its own sub wiring harness that does not fully integrate with the vehicles existing wiring.

In my experience most of the challenges that come with a stand alone ECU are with the sub loom that you need to build and install on the car, even if your stand alone loom is built well it still needs to be spliced into the vehicle and I just didn't fancy doing that to Monty who’s factory loom is really rather nicely made in my opinion. Furthemore, due to the adoption of Control Area Networked (CAN) wiring we see on all modern cars, a stand alone installation isn't really an option. These days so many systems, devices and typically all dash gauges are CAN, this means you're going to lose too many critical functions on the vehicle if you try to splice in a stand alone ECU.

To solve the CAN challenge all the better aftermarket ECU manufacturers now offer what are called Plug & Play systems (PnP), the brilliance of the PnP is it utilises the vehicle's existing wiring loom, so unlike the stand alone the PnP requires no potentially problematic separate loom to be built and laid into the car. However, where it gets tricky is these PnP systems need to be vehicle specific, a patch cable is created to connect the vehicle's factory ECU connector to the aftermarket ECU which is the simple bit, the vehicle's CAN system is then interrogated (sniffed) and the language it communicates in (the protocol) is identified before the aftermarket ECU is the programmed to talk to the car in that same language.

There's absolutely no doubt the PnP approach is the way forward for the aftermarket ECU industry and customers looking to gain tuning control over their more modern vehicle, the trouble for us Morganeers is nobody offers a true PnP for our cars. This pushed me back to the option of trying to work with the old Visteon/Ford ECU which was a bit disappointing to be honest.

Until that was that I discovered this on the Ecumaster Facebook page:


It sure looked like a PnP for my Morgan Plus 4 was actually available after all, so after chatting with the UK agent for Ecumaster I was convinced, I coughed up what amounted to just £250 more than I was likely to end up spending mapping the old Visteon ECU twice over and I had myself a Morgan Plus 4 PnP.

Or at least I thought I had a Morgan Plus 4 PnP!

As it turns out the German Morgan that was fitted with the one and only system shown on that Facebook post was on throttle bodies, what I discovered was that the so-called PnP was not CAN compliant at all. I suspect the car was a Super Sport, Morgan used an Omex ECU on this model so perhaps they directly wired the gauges ect and no CAN was used, or perhaps the German Morgan was a race car?

Whatever the reason the Ecumaster Morgan Plus 4 PnP was a long way off being plug and play because when I first tried it the car failed to start, and I also had no warning lights or gauges

Fortunately Ecumaster are an honest company so I was offered a full refund, or the option of them interrogating Monty's CAN system free of charge to try and get the ECU working with the car’s warning lights and gauges. Knowing a full refund would just force me back to the old Visteon I went with option two, I delivered the car to Ecumaster and their chief engineer Greg set about the task of 'sniffing' the CAN as the process is referred to in the industry. I was aware that Greg had completed this CAN sniffing process on much more modern vehicles with way more complex CAN systems than my Morgan, but while I'm experienced with aftermarket ECUs, CAN was somewhat of a mystery to me so all I could do was keep my fingers crossed.

When Greg called to say it was all sorted I have to say I was mighty impressed, he even kindly gave me an ST150 calibration to get me started as part of his free of charge service which really sweetened the deal. I now have a true PnP EMU Black ECU for my Morgan Plus 4 and I'm no longer locked out from tuning the car and tied to paying large sums of cash to a company miles from my home who can work with the venerable old Visteon/Ford ECU.





I’m pleased to confirm Monty now goes like a stabbed rat on the EMU Black, the ST150 calibration supplied FOC by the UK Ecumaster importer also turned out to work way better than expected, so in the end the whole project has proved to be a great success.

Finally, I must say I received outstanding service from Greg, he's clearly a very talented engine management engineer with good experience in sniffing CAN systems. I can't recommend his services and this PnP EMU Black istall enough to anyone else looking to tune their Duratec Plus 4, or even just those looking for an ECU update for their mid 2000's era Trad morgan

Good result Dave Now time to put Monty to the test on a rolling road maybe?

Hi all, thanks for your interest, I'll try to answer your questions

Firstly the mapping/calibration situation is somewhat easier in the case of the Morgan Plus 4, because for years now Ecumaster in the UK have been selling a Plug & Play (PnP) ECU for the Mk6 Fiesta ST150, a car that runs the same 2.0 Ford Duratec engine as used by Morgan in their Plus 4. This means there are quite a few good calibrations out there on file, many held by Ecumaster themselves, Greg even discovered Morgan used the same protocol as the Mk6 Ford Fiesta when he was sniffing Monty's CAN, this actually makes a lot of sense to me given the Ford sourced engine Morgan used.

The only real difference is the ST150 runs a Drive By Wire (DBW) throttle, whereas Morgan uses a cable throttle. Obviously DBW removes the need for an Idle Air Control Valve (IACV), but as the Morgan has a cable throttle and so an IACV the calibration will need the addition of a IACV table to any ST150 map applied on the Morgan platform. However, this is very simple to do, there's even a drop down in the EMU Black software with all the common idle valves offered so you simply select the correct working Hz, one hertz being equal to one cycle per second, and a cycle being one complete wave of alternating current or voltage.

Idle valve operation is really 95% about cold start and warm up idle management, with a little bit of closed loop idle management thrown in when the engine is up to operating temperature, although for this I always prefer to use ignition timing (Scatter Spark) as its way faster responding and far less prone to the AFR changes you'll find an idle valve will induce, this is why any decent ECU software will give you an enrichment correction table based on idle valve duty.

I must say most people fitting a PnP EMU Black to their ST150 will almost certainly be doing so because they're turbocharging, supercharging or fitting throttle bodies to their Fiesta. If an ST150 owner was just fitting an exhaust, and inlet manifold and even cams as per my recipe for Monty there are plenty of people out there who can map the stock Ford ST150 ECU for such changes. Sadly the ST150 uses a different ECU to the simpler Visteon deployed by Morgan, had we been given an ST150 ECU I likely would have stuck with that as its been universally hacked, unlike the old Visteon there are even cheap calibrations you can buy and easily flash to the ECU that are designed around the same engine changes I've made/am making.

All this meant that Greg at Ecumaster UK could only come up with a calibration designed for an ST150 on ITBs, but that's not an issue really as you can still use the Alpha-N strategy on a plenum/single throttle body setup like Monty, what you can't do is run an engine on individual throttle bodies using a calibration built using the Speed Density strategy because with ITBs there simply isn't a stable enough vacuum signal to run a MAP sensor. Anyway, despite Speed Density being the way you'd normally choose to map an engine on a plenum/single throttle body setup, it turns out Greg's ST150 Alpha-N calibration is actually rather good.

However, while I was waiting for the CAN to be sniffed I did sit down and build a Speed Density calibration from the ground up, I found all the sensor calibration data and applied it along with the correct injector size Monty runs (220cc), then using the Volumetric Efficiency (VE) method I was able to create a good base calibration. Although I have to say it again, Greg's Alpha-N calibration is working brilliantly and one advantage of Alpha-N is typically enhanced throttle response, this is because you're using a TPS vs engine speed table rather that manifold pressure vs engine speed so you tend to find transient enrichments are really good straight out of the box.

In terms of putting the car on the rollers, this will happen, but only after I've fitted the cams and even then only to give a final polish to my own street tune, I've street tuned plenty of cars running various aftermarket ECUs from Canems to Haltech and a few others in between and all with good results. To assist in this process one of the great things about the EMU Black is that it comes with two excellent tools to help the enthusiast build a really good calibration without going to the considerable expense of putting the car on the rolling road.


1. AutoTune

This feature allows you to apply suggested changes based on the logs you've taken over hundreds of miles to get the base fuel table as close to perfect in relation to your predefined target Lambda table, logs are recorded on an pre-formatted SD card you insert in the EDL-1 data logger.



The more you drive, and specifically the more you drive under different speed and load conditions, the more samples are taken by the logging software, the EMU Black actually shows you the number of samples taken in each cell which ensures you're covering all bases. Better still the Ecumaster EDL-1 data logger is also a Bluetooth transmitter, using Ecumaster's own app you can now use your phone or tablet to view a huge number of data streams across four pages of user predefined sensor feedback.

Here's one I made earlier:



It'll even give you a series of engine management lights to replace the MIL light that's now missing as we're no longer using the factory OBD system.




2. Ecumaster's inbuilt virtual dyno

Obviously the Autotune feature only allows you to refine your fuel table, it does nothing to help you build a good ignition table, so Ecumaster came up with their 'Virtual Dyno' feature. To use this feature the user starts by inputting various data elements such as vehicle weight and drag coefficient, this gives a fixed known resistance that can be used to find optimum peak ignition advance.

By completing a series of pulls in the car and increasing the ignition timing each time, the software will then compare accelerometer data on each run against your fixed known resistance number and tell you where best power/peak torque was made. Obviously this is a virtual dyno but it is a pretty cool way to build an ignition table on the road, and obviously you still have knock control to save you from disaster.


Here's a short video that briefly explains both features.



Given I've spent five years mapping cars on the road and using various far less sophisticated systems than the EMU Black, I feel I should be able to get Monty reaching his full potential without a rolling road, although I must say a dyno is still the ultimate tuning tool and nothing will ever change that.

I was thinking along the lines of rolling road to provide hp/torque figures rather than tuning Dave. A group of us are booked with Revivals near Duxford to see just that next month.

Thanks for the heads up Richard, if you go to Revivals every year I’ should be ready to join you on your 2024 visit.

Being honest, a power run just to get a number isn't my focus right now, and I prefer to view a rolling road dynamometer as a sophisticated tuning tool that allows for safe and controlled engine load based fuel and ignition timing calibration, rather than a number generator. So my first session on the rollers will be all about tuning and mostly ignition tuning at that, the way I see it the time to get my final numbers is the same day I give my calibration the last polish, and this will be after fitting the Newman Phase 2 cams as this is the last stage of Monty's engine development.

I will keep street tuning even post cams, when I'm 100% happy I've reached the limit of the EMU Black 'Autotune' and 'Virtual Dyno' features, only then will I hit the rollers. As we know, the 2.0 Duratec has a knock sensor and the PnP install ensures my EMU Black is automatically all wired up to it, admittedly I've not used it yet but once calibrated correctly the EMU Black knock control feature does look very good indeed:


However, I'll be sense checking my on street calibrated knock management with a stand alone knock kit the day I finally put Monty on the rollers, my thinking being it's good to compare the onset of detonation with a separate system while wearing a set of det cans to make sure I'm genuinely running peak advance. My friend has just upgraded his dyno from a rolling road to a far superior hub dyno, which is great unless you happen to have splined hubs, so I'll probably have to use Surrey Rolling Road.

Obviously I do have ultimate torque and horsepower targets I'm working to, so I will need confirmation I've achieved my goals.

To be honest, I really should have put Monty on the rollers before I started my tuning journey to get a good base number, but here are the figures taken directly from Ford's DHE Engine manual so while we often see 143 hp quoted for the Duratec Morgan Plus 4 I'm confident Ford's own numbers are the best starting point to work from.

Base:

* 145.48 hp @ 6,000rpm

* 140.13 lb/ft @ 4,500 rpm

Expectations for Monty following the cams upgrade (final stage):

* 205.48 hp @ 7,200rpm

* 180.13 lb/ft @ 4,800 rpm

* 150.00 lb/ft @ 2,350 rpm

In my personal opinion while peak numbers are all well and good for pub bragging rights, for me it's that last torque figure I'd be most proud of if I can indeed deliver it?

If I can achieve 150 lb/ft at just 2,350 rpm rising to a peak torque figure of 180 lb/ft at 4,800 rpm Monty will be a devastating little 877kg vintage looking club racer, and especially if his engine keeps making horsepower all the way to 7,200 rpm.



Watch this space chaps

I love what you're doing, Montegue. I'm glad I found someone who will do it for me re my Elise.

Heinz, the Ecumaster EMU Black is a fantastic ECU, you chose well

But it's only as good as the guy calibrating it, so I'm really pleased to hear you've found someone good to map your Lotus. To be honest the original people who couldn't get it right must have been amateurs learning on the job at your cost, the EMU Black software is excellent and very easy to navigate but you do need to have experience calibrating aftermarket engine management systems to get the best from it.

I'm still recording logs for the 'Autotune' feature and I haven't calibrated the ‘Virtual Dyno’ yet either, but I have to say the Fiesta ST150 base calibration the UK Ecumaster agent Greg at Road, Race & Rally gave me free of charge is already excellent. To understand it better and to help me learn the software I've been reviewing & deconstructing Greg's calibration, I’ve been doing this systematically feature by feature and setting by setting over the last few days, a calibration autopsy if you will.

To support my learning further I discovered there's a wonderfully helpful feature in the EMU Black software that allows you to directly compare calibrations side by side, it even highlights the differences between the two calibrations in a table format. I’ve used this to compare my own speed density calibration with Greg’s which immediately pinpointed some minor errors in my own work, “every day is a school day” as they say.

It's not often these days you get more than you were promised, normally it's the other way around, but in this case Greg at RRR has exceeded all my expectations. Initially he told me he was giving me a basic adaptation of a calibration designed for Mk6 Ford Fiesta ST150 running on individual throttle bodies, however now I've forensically deconstructed the calibrating it's obvious he must have spent quite a bit of time creating something way better.

What he gave me for free is clearly a bespoke Speed Density calibration for Monty with a VE table that's already driving minimal lambda correction, literally the only issue I had after collecting the car was a propensity for the engine to stall at junctions, but only after a rapid 'brake to a junction' deceleration event.

I initially fixed this with a small adjustment to the base idle on the throttle body but have now built a new calibration using the software using the multiple features within 'Idle Tuning'. As an example of just how good the EMU Black software is, the range of options just within 'Idle Tuning' is outstanding, in addition to the normal IACV duty table for warm up correction, and operating temp idle target we would all expect as a minimum.



There's a lot more than that, for example there's 'Vehicle Speed Correction' to lift the idle above a defined road speed, and even an option to increase IACV duty based on IAT which is really helpful for hot starts and improving idle stability on a heat soaked engine, because as we all know the density of air decreases as the temperature of that air increases so dialing in some extra IACV duty vs IAT is a super useful feature to have.



In terms of value for money the EMU Black PnP scores again, with any other aftermarket ECU you’re looking at spending at least 20% more on the ECU alone, typically you’re then into paying for the loom on top of that, finally when it’s all installed you’re looking at £600 for someone to build you a half decent base calibration so the whole exercise could easily cost you £2,500 - £3,000.

By comparison, I paid £1,250 for my Plug & Play EMU Black including the Bluetooth EDL-1 Logger and the latest Bosch LSU 4.9 wideband lambda sensor, the installation literally took 10 minutes and required no additional loom, Greg then threw in his excellent base calibration for free to sweeten the already excellent deal. The whole thing worked out at least half the cost of any other aftermarket ECU I looked at, and best of all the installation leaves any Morgan looking indistinguishable from how the car left Pickersleigh Road when it was built.




Overall, and admittedly as an early review of my Morgan Plus 4 PnP EMU Black, I really couldn't recommend it highly enough, the service I received from Greg at Road Race & Rally has also been fantastic, most importantly though the results are a wonderfully smooth driving and powerful engine.

Just 12 months on from buying Monty at auction he's now a massively improved Morgan with sorted handling, improved backdated cosmetics, and a noticeable increase in performance too, with a nice WW1 leather trunk strapped to his rack and with just one week to go, Monty is more than ready for his second Le Mans adventure.

On my old Peugeot 504 I tuned the idle RPM with a small screwdriver. What an improvement!

Like the old leather suitcase. Lathering it with saddle soap might add to its further longevity.

Thank goodness there are a few more horses now available to pull that case! Just need to pump iron now to be able to carry it when full.🏋️‍♀️