I am having issues with my race car currently and went to take full advantage of the PDM for the first time since installation back in January. I am trying to figure out if there are additional options for viewing data logged information specifically in AMP draw from individual accessories. For example: MY car on the dyno was running excellent prior to the installation of the PDM, last night on the dyno the car was falling on its face with no real identifiable issues on engine management software. Our thought was that the coils were shutting off or cutting off around the 6,600 RPM range making the car fall on its face. Today we went to pull the log and were unable to locate the log from the dyno since there were only 4 or so logs in the que to select and none of them were the ones we needed, when trying to view live testing it was unclear on how to view the AMP draw from the coils. We did have a limit of 20 amps and have since removed that limit. We have yet to retest the car. In efforts of searching out data, I found that individual coil on plug AMP draw surge is roughly 6 AMPS (internet sourced, unknown facts), my car is a 6 cyl VW VR6 motor. Obviously not all the coils are firing at once so i'm not sure if that was indeed the issue or not. Any direction is appreciated.
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Ok understood, we will make the data logging more advanced in a future update. Thank you for the feedback it is appreciated. I would look at the current draw in the monitor tab when you next have the car on the dyno. Make sure the output trip mode is set to 'normal'. The PDM output is nothing more than a switch to battery, so it will provide your 12V unless the current exceeds the trip current, at which point it will turn off. If you monitor your output current and make sure that the output doesn't trip, the next thing to look at would be your coils or your spark plugs. Specifically the size of your coils and the spark plug gaps. These two factors can cause issues at high RPM. Also make sure that your wiring from the PDM to the coils is sound, check the crimps are good etc. If you send your config file to contact@hardwire-electronics.co.uk then i will have a look through it and check that nothing is configured wrong.
It felt like it was losing coil power completely, so when we went to check the log (not live) it was not clearly identifiable where the amp draw was or if it had tripped at any point. full disclosure I am new to the system. The car runs and idles great but on a dyno pull at 6600 rpms it lost everything.
Hi Matthew, I would suggest that you do some testing while plugged into the PDM and view the outputs in real time in the monitor tab. When you say that the car was falling on its face, do you mean that it was misfiring at higher RPMs, or was the engine just shutting off? If the engine was just misfiring, then the problem is likely not to do with the PDM output supplying the coils, if the output tripped then the coils would shut off and the engine would switch off. Misfiring would indicate a problem elsewhere.
Please make sure that for your coil output, you have the trip mode set to 'normal' and not 'instant'.