Performance car mapping Andy F style??

[Guest]

any idea of anyone who may do courses on performance car mapping????

been looking into this for a while as their seems to be a severe lack of lets say sought after mappers!!

any ideas of all the kind of kit involved??

[andrew_forrest]

"Mapper" is an awful word ! it suggests that someone just needs to know how to work a laptop and alter a map to be a mapper.

In effect you need to be a tuner, to be a tuner ideally you need to have an engineering background with sound foundations in materials, thermodynamics, mechanical and electrical engineering. A few years of 'hands on' engine specific tuning will also come in handy for when you push a key on the laptop...... and the expected doesn't happen !

It is possible to short circuit this route however if you are dedicated enough to do the considerable amount of research required and then buy a car to experiment on yourself, then build it up to be something with impressive performance and excellent reliability. Initially offer your services to friends for free and produce more machines with impressive performance and reliability. Then business will come your way.

 

Andy

 

ps, Just doing a 'course' is not the way forward

[Guest]

i appologise for the insult andy []

i have a fairly limited limited experience in engineering as you put it

currently work offshore and have couple of HNC's one in mechatronics and another in electronics so know a thing or 2.

due to my job im not realy involved in mapping as such but alot of different types of logics some programming and i feel i would probably have the correct kind of though process needed.

i would be willing to spend time and money in order to learn more and gain further experience i realise it could take years to become experienced.

i realise a course would not teach me everything but would it not be a good place to start????

i realise i would need to experiment on cars of my own rather than other peoples before i was possibly compitent

any other tips from a god like figure of car performance enhancment as yourself??? []

[andrew_forrest]

I didn't mean to sound patronising Ciaran, perhaps my 30 years in the car tuning game is too long []

I tend consider it more of a trade or perhaps even an art, rather than something you just take a course in, which of course is still some way from being "god like" [:$] []

Bottom line is if you're keen enough you can do almost anything.

Mona Lisa.... I could do that []

[thewelsho]

Andy

I have a 4 or 5 month old 2.5 WRX Impreza MY06. I understand a remap would invalidate the warranty, is there anyway to get a remap and still keep the warranty? Also, is it true that a remap actually improves fuel consumption (while driving sensibly)? And if so, is their a rough precentage?

Thanks

J

[AlanG]

Mona Lisa.... I could do that []

 

I'd be thinking more along the likes of Kelly Brook, but whatever floats your boat. []

[andrew_lally]

andy.....you are f@kin god!!!......or at least that wee graham kelly has told me hahaha

mona lisa......i would do her........i hear she was one hell of a prostitute....lol

kelly brook......i could do that

but seriously andy f.....trying to get into a wee bit of mapping too mate.....and use my 2 scoobs to experiment!!!

i blow them up at least every 6 months so i feel it would come in handy.....lol

i own a scrapyard and all we seem to do is fix our own blow-ups lol

i have an electronics background and have been blowing cars and bikes up for 17 years now....im getting fairly good at it!!!

lol lol lol.....so you could say i have a vast experiance in making piston sized holes in the side of blocks!!!

if you could give my any pointers on where to start....what i need etc i would be forever in your debt!!!

and of course you would go fairly high up on my christmas card list haha

maybe a start would be for you to book me in for a apexi fc ecu....and a remap.....at which point i could soak up as much of your knowledge as humanly possible!!!

with your vast knowledge, i know im not going to be able to soak up much in an hour, but its a start!!!

right......thats more than than enough brown nosing for one day!!!!

 pm me andy if you can book me in!!!

apologies for the thread hijaking!!!

  regards andy

 

[andrew_forrest]

A bit of light reading here

http://www.motorbase.com/shop/profiles/by-id/1204/

and here

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ze_w0i3...result&cd=2

also here

http://www.ecutek.com/tuning/

You are where a certain Aberdeen music teacher was a few years ago, I recomended one of these books to him back then when I mapped his Impreza on an Apexi ........ now they tell me how its done []

The thing to remember is that "mapping" is simply adjusting parameters to where you want them to be, it is just a tool. A bit like the screwdriver  you would use to change jets or tweek distributor springs in years gone by. You need to know what you want to adjust and why, what the effects are on the engine components such as bearings/pistons/valve temperatures/turbine speed/exhaust backpressure/charge temperature and so on. Also how to recognise when you have gone in the wrong direction or over the edge in the right direction.

Finally you need to set safety margins that you have found through experience to be appropriate to the standard of engine build and level of power produced.

Andy

[Guest]

cheers for the links andy although the second one needs member status

a few books will be getting purchased shortly.

i realise it's not as simple a just adjusting parameters as u will need to know as u say how this will effect various other engine components. i do this sort of thing in my everday at work being an instrumentation technician which involves such things as adjustments to the likes of rolls royce engines amongst other things.

in your 30 years how many years u been dealing with plug and play type stuff???

oh and your not a god andy more of a legend []

[Robertio]

Andy forgot to mention that you have to be of a trusting persuasion: unless you can afford your own dyno setup you are going to end up mapping peoples cars while they are driving them.  I have huge problems with public transport, or even getting a lift from someone I don't know, so mapping someone's car from the passenger seat at xxx mph is a hugely uncomfortable situation for me.

 

I couldn't even think of anyone to drive my own car at full boost, so ended up doing the map and driving it which is certainly not ideal, but when the wheels are breaking traction at 130mph in the damp conditions you have to really trust the nutter behind the wheel.

 

Also, best start wording your "it's not my fault if it blows up" form now []

[harvey_smith]

There will be many competant tuners who will not make it as mappers. It requires a number of skills and thorough understanding of  many complex issues.

I think you will never stop learning but the learning process is strewn with failures for some mappers. A small error or oversight on the part of a mapper could be terminal for the engine being worked on. The mappers I know are self taught, having started on their own vehicles and developed from there. 

Maybe, mappers are born not taught.  

[gogsie]

Mona Lisa.... I could do that []

 

I'd be thinking more along the likes of Kelly Brook, but whatever floats your boat. []

Aye Kelly would get it [Y]

[andrew_forrest]

 in your 30 years how many years u been dealing with plug and play type stuff???

 

Approx 10 yrs, my cossy was probably the first serious turbo car I done, I didn't have ECU access initially but tweeked things like fuel pressure, injectors, moving crank pick ups and porting turbos and modified boost control manually etc. Seemed to work ok as it won the 95 Scottish saloon car championship at Knockhill with 14 wins out of 15 races []

Andy

[col666]

I remember you Andy! White 3 door,looked completely standard with no sponsors but blew everybody away?

Had momo wheels on it?

[andrew_forrest]

Guilty [] Falkland bought that car and still use it I believe.

Andy

[Guest]

well if i were to learn to map it would most likely be through a buisness and it will have a rolling road facility in order to check the car as i went along.

long way off as yet though need to do a fair bit of research and gain alot of experience on cars of my own before i dared touch anybody elses!

[Johnny50]

 in your 30 years how many years u been dealing with plug and play type stuff???

 

Approx 10 yrs, my cossy was probably the first serious turbo car I done.

What about your old Renault 11 turbo Andy ? []

Seem to recall it flying along the coast road back in the days. []

Was even blue with gold wheels...ha ha.

[andrew_forrest]

True [] that was a quick car by the way ! Or at least it seemed like it at the time !

[higgy]

Andy is the spec C coming out to play on the 7th October at Knockhill??

 

Higgy