Hess—- yes please! If the aftermarket ecu plugs into the stock location….. just keep the stock ecu for resale. With only a few thousand 360’s is there not enough volume to make this effort worthwhile??
I've spent the best part of 3 years analyzing the firmware inside Bosch Engine management ECUs and I can tell you right now the complexity and software features are staggeringly ahead of any modern aftermarket ecu. They invested thousands upon thousands of Man hours on these ecus but on the software and diagnostics. CPU horsepower may be lacking but its more than made for with efficiency. They may be dinosaurs from a hardware performance perspective but they are very very thoroughly engineered. Over 3,100 calibrations and maps with hundreds of Man hours of engine Dyno testing in all different driving conditions. More than half of the code is on fault finding which just isn't the case in the aftermarket arena. The only way to get even close to the drivability of factory ECU is to migrate to another later ECU from say a F430 which is possible. I could transplant all the calibrations over. Sent from my CPH2145 using Tapatalk
I'll take a wack at this. A separate throttle body driver module interfaced via CANBUS with programming support on the ECU.
Unfortunately, that's not going to happen for CA owners like myself. They've just implemented ECU checksum validation in order to pass smog.
+1. Car interiors also can get very hot. Greenhouse effect. I worry more about voltage spikes. I have an ordinary stereo head unit with no external amps or wiring to minimize that possibility. Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat
I’m pretty sure that engine compartment goes way above the interior temps but this is all bench wrenching as nothing will be done and we will just have to take our chances w sourcing a working slave ecu in 2-20 yrs it was an interesting mental exercise
Actually your assessment is a very logical one to make and I completely agree about jump starts (just don't ever be tempted to do it, EVER), however there are a few "ticking" time bombs you may be unaware of which may change the picture somewhat with regards to heat management issues. Ferrari and Bosch also assumed a stock exhaust in their testing strategy but most aftermarket systems are multiple times louder with subsequently higher levels of excessive heat, noise and vibration being diverted back into the engine bay. I'm sure that isn't helping either. As the Bosch EV4 Throttle Bodies "age" they tend consume more power to drive the throttle body to the same position as before. In other words more resistance to movement requires more voltage and power to compensate, to drive them to the same points as when new, or in other words more "push" to reach the same throttle angles as the programming demands. More voltage consumes more amps, more amps in turn generates more heat that needs to be dissipated. You starting to see the issue? It gets worse with age and we've actually measured the temps on a 360 Spider and in these failure conditions and they are way beyond the working tolerances expected of such an ECU. On the 360 Spider, particularly on the RHS ecu it gets so bad that the heat soak around the area (doesn't help that a big rad is right under the ecu too) in combination with the extra heat generated by the Throttle body IC (a chip which can consume up to 5 Amps in continuous operation and a worst case scenario of a short circuit can generate output currents over 8A (!) takes the original die substrate PCB soldered components over the "edge" and what actually happens is the solder de-laminates (the solder melts!) specific components off the PCB resulting in an intermittent connection and ultimately ticking throttle body failed ecus. Critical mass is starting to occur as all these TB's start to reach their end of life before requiring replacement. Even if you replace the ECU after failure it can happen again within 2 years unless you solve the problem of the TB's. Either heat shield the RHS ecu OR replace the RHS Throttle body with a new one, ideally both.
I'v looked, its actually not impossible to relocate it to somewhere that's not close to the heat, WITHOUT having to extend the oem harness. Plus some vibration damper insulation, we could have a simpler solution let me try it in a month or two
Image Unavailable, Please Login A few years ago I saw a 2009 Gallardo with ITBs and running by a Link Thunder G4 Management system. Owner told me it was so modern (Knock sensors, Sequential etc) and that it had more inputs that you can imagine. Hence, my suggestion. On the other hand keep up the good work. I'm enjoying your tune on my car and I drive it with confidence.
I think in reality, most people use aftermarket ecu’s not because the oem ones are technically inferior (usually the opposite), but because the means to modify them isn’t readily available or at all well understood by all but a small minority of tuners. Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat
Robin you just described the 360 ECUs. In the entire world there was only 1 guy who really understood how it worked and able to re-write it to suit some of us (me included). And we all know who that 1 guy is. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Yup, not disagreeing at all. And that one person only has so many hours in a day. I completely get why there is a market for non-oem ecu’s, I’m just saying that even the best ones won’t have nearly the same development hours in them as a bog standard Bosch ecu. Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat
Cool thread. I saw Sam Crac's video too. You may remember I made some heat shields for my Spider "small panels" right above the headers. I am also thinking of adding some to the main body heat shields beside the headers. You have to remove bolts above and below so I will look at it when I have the underpanel off for the oil change. Let me look to find the pics. Maybe it was just on Facebook? Single layer header tape. if you weave a matt, you get double layer. Lock together with staples then cover with foil tape. Mount with screw holes.
Boom, found em. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login So these are single layer, using only the tape adhesive to keep the strips of header tape together, both sides. I did weave a matt for a proper header blanket for my Miata. It also conceals the 4-2-1 header beneath it These insulator layers will mount with the stock screw hardware. Just make sure your holes are big enough for the screws to fit through. It doubles as insulation for the fuel pump and capote area as well on the Spider. And the sweet engine detail pic: Image Unavailable, Please Login "Heat is the enemy" Cheers!
Not to denigrate your efforts, but does this really improve the existing shield's ability to lower temps around the ECUs?
What about a solid state cooling chip? They have a hot side and a cold side and run on electricity. The cost is modest and they can be programmed to maintain a specific temperature. They have no moving parts and are quite small and thin. Just throwing this out as an idea...
Understandable question. My thinking was, it started as a heat shield, now it's a better heat shield. Fair enough? Air flow is what we really want so a pair of PC fans would be pretty cool, especially under the beauty panels where the exhaust ecus and F1 pump sit. Anything to move air under the panels and push it out the rear challenge grill or vent holes in the panels. Even more so when sitting in traffic. The header tape is a layer of woven fiberglass that is actual insulation. It has small voids in the weave that forms air pockets like any other type of insulation. It conducts heat more slowly than the cast/rolled aluminum panels they now line. The shiny layer now reflects radiant heat better than the painted/rough aluminum.
What about servicing the throttle bodies to reduce the drag in the mechanism? This will reduce the current demand and hopefully prevent the specific high current/high temperature event in the first place. I believe the ecu measures the current demand, so it’s presumably possible to pull this data out directly, so you could see if the service was having any improvement. Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat
Good idea. it was interesting to see inside of them. I remember seeing inside an old Maserati actuator on the show Wheeler Dealers I think it was? The dragging contacts design can be troublesome, whether it is metal on metal, or carbon or some other variation. The stripped gear I saw in another video (above?) could have been a simple fix.
A simple test would be to place a thermometer in the engine bay…. For simplicity just install it on the rear window and monitor driving , sitting in traffic. Etc….
This simple bracket with heat shield material was fabricated from sheet aluminum at AV Engineering in UK for a Spider customer who had an ECU failure. After testing heat including some heat soak (sitting in traffic) situations the net reduction was from 79 measured on the surface down to 64.9. Basically a 15 degree reduction. More testing underway but it looks like this could definitely help Spider owners... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Sent from my CPH2145 using Tapatalk
If that al plate is purely radiant heat shield then I’d isolate the ecu from the highly conductive aluminum mount. Might be more gains to be had. if some how that al plate is s heat sink there are conductive silicone stick on sheets you can place between the ecu case and al plate to draw heat from the ecu. this is a complex heat transfer problem which changes dep on idle, cruise or high speed….. and ambient temps.
Silicone Heat Press Pad Mat 12"x15" 0.33Inch Thickest for Heat Transfer Machine for Cricut Easypress Replacement https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08LZGP8RP/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_SAMDZS490CSBC91ZH2TD
