TOYOTA YARIS ENGINE

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Oupa-G
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Re: TOYOTA YARIS ENGINE

Postby Oupa-G » Tue Jan 19, 2010 12:59 pm

In the chase for economy they cut of one cyl and came up with three cyl. It makes sense in a car production line with big numbers. Aviation will always be small numbers. The weight penalty is very little for the 4 cyl . Because we operate at various altitudes the extra oomph is always welcome.




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Re: TOYOTA YARIS ENGINE

Postby tandemtod » Tue Jan 26, 2010 5:28 pm

Dear Boet
The three cylinder Yaris engine seems to offer some advantages in terms of weight, size and availability over it's four cylinder counterpart, but as I understand it, the problem appears to be the lack of a suitable aftermarket ECU. I am not in favour of using the car ECU as it has features programmed into it that are undesireable in an aircraft environment such as the "limp home condition" If certain sensors fail, then the engine may well shut down altogether to protect the engine and personally, when I am flying, I want to be able to decide for myself whether to run the engine to destruction or shut it down if conditions allow. Getting back to the three cylinder ECU issue, here is my stupid question for the day. We can buy an ECU that is suitable for 1 cyl, 2cyl 4 cyl 6cyl 8cyl and I am told that Gotech now produce one for a 5 cyl engine. But no three cylinder unit is available. If it were my problem, then I would buy an ECU to run a six cylinder engine and batch fire the injectors and let the three missing injectors remain a figment of the ECU's imagination. So my stupid question is "will it work"??? You could also fit six small injectors if you wanted to and re - map accordingly.
Daisy chaining three ECU's I think is silly apart from the cost involved, the potential for failure becomes a multiple.
The ignition system can de "stand alone" and not connected to the ECU which makes it simpler to program. You may have to fit a centrifugal advance to the distributor as I don't know whether the Yaris is mapped or mechanical. The valve timing is not an issue as ther is onle one of them so the standard aftermarket ECU will switch it with no problem.
Give it some thought and let me know the error of my ways
Good luck with your progress on this project as I think we need this engine.
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Re: TOYOTA YARIS ENGINE

Postby jpage » Tue Jan 26, 2010 8:19 pm

I don't know if it has been mentioned before, but the MegaSquirt does 3 cylinders

"A MegaSquirt® EFI Controller will provide fuel control on one to 16 or more injectors, of high or low impedance, and for any number of cylinders, even three and five cylinder engines and odd-fire engines. If you have MegaSquirt-II, electronic control of number of ignition systems are supported, including: 7 or 8-pin HEI from General Motors, EDIS from Ford, TFI from Ford, or you can control a single coil directly. For fuel only control, you can trigger off the coil's negative terminal."

I was looking at this for a project some years back - see http://www.megamanual.com/index.html
it is a DIY system, but is available as a kit with lots of online backup and forums.

Regards

James
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Re: TOYOTA YARIS ENGINE

Postby grostek » Tue Jan 26, 2010 8:37 pm

As I understand it, all aftermarket ECU are designed with road going vehicles in mind.

On the other hand the E-Boxi has been designed as a dedicated aviation system with muliple redundancy.
Daisy chain although expensive for 3 cylinder, will still give the original multiple redundancy.

Oupa G made a remark in one of his post something to the effect that if running an auto aftermarket ecu in an aircraft application and you happen to turn on your VOR or something (cant remember exactly) and said auto aftermarket ECU goes on the blink due to interference ...... Not a happy situation to have on takeoff or at any height above 10ft.

Will wait and see if Oupa and his team have something up their sleeve.
At least something from them is designed specifically for aviation by people that understand aviation requirements.

If I am mistaken on any of the above please feel free to correct me.

Just my 2c worth.

Kind regards

Gunter Rostek.
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Re: TOYOTA YARIS ENGINE

Postby jpage » Tue Jan 26, 2010 9:19 pm

Hi Gunter

That makes perfect sense, but seeing that all the MegaSquirt stuff is open source, and the 3 cylinder seems to be a problem, maybe there is something that can be learned in there. I really don't understand any of it anyway. Far too complicated :?

Regards

James
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Re: TOYOTA YARIS ENGINE

Postby justin.schoeman » Wed Jan 27, 2010 12:32 pm

Just saw this one:

http://www.eggenfellneraircraft.com/Hon ... gines.html

Seems to be based on a Honda L15A1 engine, which should be widely available in SA. 4 cylinder aluminium engine. 110hp carburetted, or 120hp injected. Seems a bit heavy though. Don't know if that 199lb is installed or bare. If it is installed, then it is not bad at all?

Edit: It seems installed FWF weight is 230lbs, which may be a bit heavy for many installations...
Last edited by justin.schoeman on Wed Jan 27, 2010 2:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: TOYOTA YARIS ENGINE

Postby tandemtod » Wed Jan 27, 2010 2:17 pm

As I understand it, EFI ECU,s are designed to operate and control fuel injectors, it just so happens that there are more cars than planes so we benefit from technology derived from some of the largest companies on earth. And the EFI doesn't much care whether it is on the ground or in the air. If your attitude is "made for aviation by people who understand, then I don't have to point out that you need to stay with Lycoming and forget all about the Yaris.
As far as redundency is concerned, all of these ECU's will take the required information for correct operation from multiple sources (sensors) so it is up to the installer how much perceived redundency he wants to build in. There is still only one ECU no matter how many you daisy chain, as a Yaris won't fly on two cylinders and the extra cost is ludicrous.
As far as radiated frenquency (RF) can and will effect ECU's, if you want to mount your computer control up by your right ear and then pick up your handheld transceiver and key the mike... well you deserve everything that will undoubtably follow, but be advised that as soon as you stop keying the mike, everything will return to normal. This scenario applies to all small signal electronics regardless of who makes it. The potential for RF interference was brought to the attention of Gotech some years ago when they were helping Kobus develop the Cubby injection and they managed to stop an injection system from operating with a handheld radio. Steps were taken to resolve this issue but it still has to be installed correctly. All small signal wires have to be correctly shielded whethe it is in your car, boat or plane. If this wasn,t done, you would be able to switch your car off with a cell phone signal.
I don't much care who's ECU he eventually uses as they are all very good units
A VOR, ADF nor a GPS has the capability to affect your ECU. Only a powerful transmitter like a tranceiver can do it. If the antennae is mounted outboard and the coax is not tied to the ECU harness then you won't have a problem.
I am certain that a six cylinder configured ECU will run the Yaris reliably and I hope Boet does the required research into this possible solution and if he has questions, I hope he posts them here because there are a lot of us out there with a lot of answes
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Re: TOYOTA YARIS ENGINE

Postby justin.schoeman » Wed Jan 27, 2010 2:57 pm

There are some differences between automotive and aircraft ECUs - mainly around robustness and error handling.

For example, a Merc W123 ECU will not restart after glitching. You physically need to disconnect the battery, wait a few minutes, and reconnect it, before the car will start again. Obviously this is not ideal with an aircraft engine... (This one was discovered while driving on the CSIR campus during a radar test...)

The same with the early Gotech units - when they glitched, you had to turn off their power completely before the engine would restart - it wasn't just a case of stopping transmitting.

ECUs designed for aviation use have watchdogs that force a hard reboot if the unit stop producing injection pulses for a time.

In terms of redundancy, this is where ECUs really suffer. Of all the failed injection systems I have repaired (automotive), the most common failure was the mass airflow sensor, followed by fuel pump relay, fuel pump, and finally ECU (only ever seen one ECU fail). Making a truely redundant EFI is a fairly non-trivial task...
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Re: TOYOTA YARIS ENGINE

Postby tandemtod » Wed Jan 27, 2010 8:45 pm

As I said in my first post, I am not in favour of using OEM ECU,s for the same reasons as you state. As far as the Gotech unit is concerned, when Kobus first fitted one to a Cubby, I was the first person to isolate a RF problem and I spent many hours with the Gotech technitions identifying and curing the problem but at no time did we ever have to interupt the power supply for a reboot- hard or soft so if it installed correctly then there is no problem. And yes I agree that an ECU designed specifically for aviation use undoubtably has advantages the least of which is the price, so again if you are going to advocate aviation equipment then stick with your Lycoming and stop trying to put the rest of us off from trying new things.
We crazy people sometimes pass the benefits of cost and reliability on to those not able to do the R and D and it usually assists them financially and ultimately allows them entrance to a passtime that otherwise they would never be able to participate in. I think thats why it's called EXPERIMENTAL. And if we keep harping on the potential downfalls then nobody is going to develop anything because we will all be too scared.
And as far as building a redundant EFI, this conversation is about ECU's How many did you say you have had fail? The only ECU"s that I have seen fail was as a result of poor installation, and in the final analysis I still take my hat off to them beause at least they TRIED.
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Re: TOYOTA YARIS ENGINE

Postby Boet » Wed Jan 27, 2010 9:18 pm

FOR SALE, one good condition 3 cyl 1000cc Yaris engine, complete with starter and alternator. I am still looking for a 1NR-FE Corolla engine. As I have more pressing projects on my agenda, I am shelving it for the time being. I have handed the reigns to a friend in Vredenburg. He have the machines and knowledge to make this work. I will try to get him involved in this thread. Meanwhile I purchased a BMW 1100S engine from Oupa G, so that I can get my aerie where it belongs. Up THERE!!
Fly safe. vhpy vhpy
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Re: TOYOTA YARIS ENGINE

Postby Boet » Wed Jan 27, 2010 9:26 pm

Just spaken unto my friend from Vredenburg. Will not yet get involved in this thread, but I will still keep you posted. The guys from Ecoyota is coming to SA in middle February.
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Re: TOYOTA YARIS ENGINE

Postby Stephan van Tonder » Wed Jan 27, 2010 10:23 pm

Perfectpower xms4 will happily run any odd cylinder angine - be it 3 or 5 cyl.
http://www.perfectpower.com/products/xms4A_Group.asp
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Re: TOYOTA YARIS ENGINE

Postby smallfly » Thu Jan 28, 2010 3:45 am

I see the BMW k 75s uses a bosch jettronic ,and yes , it has three cylinders.

I think the honda vfr 750f is a good candidate as well, compact v4 capable of high revs if you want to go with a redrive.
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Re: TOYOTA YARIS ENGINE

Postby ystervark7 » Sat Jan 30, 2010 12:29 pm

A few word on the ECU's.

Justin, grostek and tandemtod have made very valid comments about the difference between a car ECU and what you would like in an airplane: cars ECU's are designed to protect the engine while plane ECU's must be designed to fly until it die(s).

Regarding the Gotech: we have tried 3 different ones on the BMW in 2004 and all of them were unreliable. They just stopped at unpredictable times and you definitely had to switch them off before you could restart. We have tried to fix the problem by shielding all sensor wires and I have even opened it and add more caps but to no avail. On the other hand I know of several people who are using them on planes without any problems. I am also sure that they have improved it by now.

Regarding the MegaSquirt, it is a very good design. A lot of what I know I have in fact learned from them. The code is open source and you can definitely make this a very reliable ECU for use on planes with very few changes. In general their software code is aimed at performance and flexibility and not so much on protecting the engine. It is much more flexable than the eBoxi and can be used on a 3 cylinder engine. (you might ask why I did not use a Megasquirt? Well maybe I just wanted to do my own thing. It was easier for me to use a processor that I know and it did allow me to make some improvements such as a better power supply and some parallel circuits for redundancy.)

Perfectpower looks fine and affordable but I have no experience with it.

The Germans use the Silent-hectic on the BMW but it is expensive.

Now what should be different on a ECU designed for planes?
1) Should handle power variations. Two things should be considered: power dips, preferably down to 5V, and power spikes up to at least 30V for short periods. You do not expect the power to drop to 5V volt but it does happen on startup of the BMW 1200 GS and it is probably worse on a 1200RT. The reason is because of the high compression of the engine and the relatively small battery.
2) Should handle sensor failures. Sensor failures are probably the most common failure in cars. Modern engines needs a lot of sensor information to run optimally. Some times there are some tolerance to sensor failure and the engine will go into limp mode in which case you can drive home at 20 km/h (unfortunately this won't get you home in a plane)
3) Should not shut down does not matter what happens (normally not a problem on 3rd party ECU')
4) Very quick restarts. Things can and most likely will go wrong sometime. If it does happen you want the ECU to be able to restart extremely quickly, in fact it should restart before the pilot even notices it. (The eBoxi will restart in milli seconds and takes at most two rounds to sync and run again. This has been tested and in most cases you can not even hear when the ECU resets, I only know it because the software registered the reset.)
5) Graceful failure. This is closely related to the sensor failures. As sensors fail the performance should degrade but should still give you enough power to stay in the air.
6) Redundancy. This is mainly a hardware issue. Ultimately the ideal is to have 2 independent system. You can not have 2 engines on a microlight but you can have 2 ECU's with duel fuel systems and ignition systems which is the way we did it with Vliegvark en Bosvark (and the way I will do it with the Ystervark). Some redundancy can also be build into the electronic design such as parallel resistors and capacitors and critical components. Where each person draw the line on redundancy will be different and some even argue that redundancy is not really necessary because you have only one engine and one set of wings. I do not have very strong opinions on this but if you do have a backup you better make sure that it does work on a regular basis.

In the case of the eBoxi the price you have to pay is that you do not get maximum power and the fuel consumption also suffers. Obviously it is possible to make the system just as efficient as BMW but for that you need their budget as well. If you install 2 systems you also have a much more complicated installation.

The ideal I think would be to have the engines original ECU running as the main system and another reliable system as backup. This we have done on the BMW 1150. Unfortunately it is not that easy on a 1200GS. The 1200GS have a CAN bus network in the bike and the ECU wants to check every thing before it starts. So, if your bike is in gear or the key transponder does not work or if the 2 switches (yes, 2!) for the side stand is not correct , or if the alarm, instrument panel, etc. does not respond correctly, the engine refuses to run! Now imagine if your side stand pops out in turbulence :? . Having said all this I am still working on getting the 1200GS to work standalone one day with the help of Stephan at Hex.

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Re: TOYOTA YARIS ENGINE

Postby Oupa-G » Sat Jan 30, 2010 12:56 pm

I love the Eboxi with all our experimenting we have never had a failure of an Eboxi . For the amount we fly at this stage the fuel consumption must bow to reliability. The Eboxi will have the ability to ad a Lambda sensor in cruise Ystervark has been uttering this quietly. I trust Ystervark's rumblings.


Cheers Oupa-G

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