Track’n’road 420r remap?

[MTW]

I have the textbook cold start issues with my 420r, also had running issues when hot after hard driving with full throttle, the car would hunt and kangaroo at low speed etc (although this seems to have been solved by replacing the lambda sensor).

I would really like to get it running properly and mapped right, it's a stock 420r. From what I gather track n' road are the guys to go to, and they are able to map the stock "locked" ecu?

has anyone else had a stock engine/ecu mapped by them? Can it be done, and is it worthwhile etc?

I do plan on going to throttle bodies in the future, but for now I would love to get the car mapped properly as it is, without having to buy a new ecu!

[ChrisC]

If the time is spent, it is possible to get a stock 420r running without hesitation or cold start problems.   I am in the process of creating a blog post, but I am waiting for a stock unmodified TPS. 

[Geoff Brown]

The 'Two Steves' can unlock the ECU. From what I know it is well worth it but will cost you a whole day & biscuits !

Throttle body upgrade on a stock ECU is a cure for most if not all of the woes experienced with the standard intake system. Of course the upgrade is far more expensive than a re map which is circa £400 or so. 

[Nigel B]

I had a set of roller barrel throttle bodies fitted to my 420R last year by Luke Stevens. Steve Greenald of Track N Road fame did the mapping. I'm delighted with the result.

Before, the car would idle lumpily & cut out for the first five minutes or so. It would also turn over on the starter motor for a fair while before firing up from cold.

Now it fires the instant you thumb the starter button & ticks over super smoothly without any tendency to cut out. It's smooth & docile around town, but also feels more muscular in the mid range & wild at the top end! (I was shocked, the first time I revved it out!)

I'm sure Track N Road could improve matters, even with the standard intake fitted, but if you're ultimately thinking of fitting roller barrels, given mapping the car isn't a cheap process, perhaps it would be better to live with it until you're ready to get the throttle bodies fitted? (Or wait for Chris C's blog post)

Good luck with whatever decision you make, they really are fabulous cars when they're properly sorted.

[ScottR400D]

Steve did mine too, and it's sounds like it runs just like yours Nigel. He did mine when Luke fitted my RBTBs. 

Mine was done about 6000 miles ago and so far it's not missed a beat. 

Fired it up for the first time on Monday since October, took it for MOT. The first drive of the year is always refreshing. 

[John Vine]

Steve G mapped my R400D (plenum at the time) and transformed the driveability.  He actually said, after the session, to try the car out -- no improvement, no charge.  He knew perfectly well he was on a winner!  (Oh, and McVitie's Hobnobs are the biscuit of choice.)

I had roller-barrels fitted a few years later.  As Geoff said in #3, that upgrade sorts out most of the common running problems at a stroke -- instant starting, immediate steady idle etc.  I'm still using the CC-supplied RB map, and have been told by those that know that this generic map is a pretty good one.

JV

 

[MTW]

"If the time is spent, it is possible to get a stock 420r running without hesitation or cold start problems.   I am in the process of creating a blog post, but I am waiting for a stock unmodified TPS. 

My detailed build blog

https://caterham420detailedbuildblog.co.uk/"

 

Ah good to hear!

yes I was planning on having a go myself, but the cable is out of stock at SBD!

I did try and get Caterham to do it, but they were pretty reluctant and stated stuff like it's a "race" ecu in the 420r so it can't be adjusted like with the sigma, but I insisted they try, but this morning on start up the cold start issue is still there. 

 

[MTW]

"Steve G mapped my R400D (plenum at the time) and transformed the driveability.  He actually said, after the session, to try the car out -- no improvement, no charge.  He knew perfectly well he was on a winner!  (Oh, and McVitie's Hobnobs are the biscuit of choice.)

I had roller-barrels fitted a few years later.  As Geoff said in #3, that upgrade sorts out most of the common running problems at a stroke -- instant starting, immediate steady idle etc.  I'm still using the CC-supplied RB map, and have been told by those that know that this generic map is a pretty good one.

JV"

 

Ah glad to hear it made a difference even with the plenum, how much was it for the mapping session?

I do want to try and enjoy the car without throttle bodies for a while, and fit them later once I am used to the stock car a bit more! So the map with stock plenium sounds good for the short term!

[MTW]

"I had a set of roller barrel throttle bodies fitted to my 420R last year by Luke Stevens. Steve Greenald of Track N Road fame did the mapping. I'm delighted with the result.

Before, the car would idle lumpily & cut out for the first five minutes or so. It would also turn over on the starter motor for a fair while before firing up from cold.

Now it fires the instant you thumb the starter button & ticks over super smoothly without any tendency to cut out. It's smooth & docile around town, but also feels more muscular in the mid range & wild at the top end! (I was shocked, the first time I revved it out!)

I'm sure Track N Road could improve matters, even with the standard intake fitted, but if you're ultimately thinking of fitting roller barrels, given mapping the car isn't a cheap process, perhaps it would be better to live with it until you're ready to get the throttle bodies fitted? (Or wait for Chris C's blog post)

Good luck with whatever decision you make, they really are fabulous cars when they're properly sorted."

 

 

Ah nice, yes that was the route I would like to go down, have the throttle bodies fitted then take it to track n road for mapping.

did you just fit throttle bodies, or did you fit different cars and injectors also?

[John Vine]

My Steve G mapping session cost me £450 in 2010.  I don't know what the current prices are.

CC fitted my RBs in 2014.  The upgrade package included green injectors (39E156A), injector sub-loom (39L073A), Titan backplate (PR6872) and air filter (73433).  Uprated valve springs (double?) were optional.  No change of cams.

JV

[ChrisC]

Without doubt a 420R can be made to run in stock form without major issues, mine does.  It was perfect before the decat at 1000 miles, no cold start issues, no hesitation.  Once it was decat was fitted I started getting minor cold idle problems, when the coolant temp was below 15c. Since my garage is rarely in that temperature range (its attached to the house and is the location for my boiler) it was such a mild inconvenience letting the car idle, which it does unaided, for 10 - 20 seconds before the coolant has time to heat I didn't fix it.  
Since it's such a frequent topic, and I suspect I am going to make matter worse when fitting the K&N panel filter, I thought it would be good to run a series of comparisons, and create a definitive setup guide, much like the Sigma 150 sweet spot.  To do this I have to revert back to a un-modified TPS because that's what most owners will have.(arrived yesterday from Caterham Parts).

I won't be getting my stock map modified at any well known tuners because next year I plan a RBTB conversion, so see little point, assuming all goes well.  The conversation will be done for the right reason, enjoyment, not to resolve problems.

What I am concerned about is rumours of a version 2 map introduced in 2021, so I might need volunteers at some stage.

[aerobod - near CYYC]

What I found in terms of the mapping deficiencies on my 2012 R400D (running the 992 ECU) was a general poor mapping when running anywhere away from ideal atmospheric conditions (20C at sea level).

At startup in cold temperatures fuel was too lean, causing the ECU to try to maintain the set idle speed by adding fuel, but then oscillating in RPM until coolant was up to about 20C with the risk of it stalling as revs dropped into the 700RPM range instead of being at a minimum in the high 800RPM range. During open loop operation from coolant temps of 20 to 60C it would generally have about the right mixture.

At high ambient temperatures when warmed up the car would hunt at idle due to being too rich and the adaptive fuel being too far away from the set injection value, so it would oscillate the RPM in tune with the swings in Lambda either side of 1.00.

At high throttle outputs in open loop operation I would also have the issue of extreme richness due to my altitude (Lambda values below 0.70) which would foul the plugs, this should be less of a problem close to sea level.

A bit of fiddling with the throttle screw at idle and the small rotation of the TPS that is possible can mask some of the issues, but overall the base map is just not very good for operation away from ideal atmospheric conditions. With the stock locked ECU and Easimap you can see this by monitoring the idle RPM dropping below the set RPM when not fully warmed up and by looking for excessive adaptive map compensation values (more than +/- 5%) when operating in closed loop Lambda mode.

[Nigel B]

#8   Luke fitted a set of green injectiors & different plugs, to suit the RBTBs. Steve Greenald does a lot of mapping for Luke, so it's essentially a one stop shop, if you go there, with no need to visit Track N Road separately.
 

As a bonus, there was all manner of tasty machinery in the workshop, including an original Lister Jaguar, a Caterham Levante & an Elan 26R. It's worth visiting, just to have a mooch around! 

[ChrisC]

Hi James, it sounds like our experiences are broadly the same, except I am not experiencing any hot issues, and it's your comments on other posts which has made me take a more scientific approach.   Fingers crossed there is a sweet spot. 

[aerobod - near CYYC]

Hi Chris, I think with the stock map and adjustment of the throttle screw and rotation of the TPS that you should be able to get it to idle cleanly at normal operating conditions (engine warm, ambient temperature in the 15 to 25C range). The iterative process of adjusting the throttle screw then moving the TPS should give a stable idle (+/-20RPM from the set idle value) with the throttle site in the 0.0 to 0.4 range, together with fuel trim (adaptive map) staying in the +/-5% range.

The hot idle hunting problem I had occurred with ambient temps above 30C and in slow moving traffic where the radiator fan is on most of the time. Trying to pull away in those conditions had to be done carefully to avoid stalling and fouling the plugs on restart due to over fueling.

Before I went to an unlocked 9A4 ECU, I used to apply about 20% of throttle when starting the car and hold it at about 2000RPM for a minute or so to overcome the cold start idle issue, where cold starting for me was down to -5C.

[Geoff Brown]

My R400D has a late 2012 stock RBTB ECU program & I have never experienced any problems with starting or running in any normal UK temperatures.

In general from cold it has started on the button & runs smoothly but obviously enriched. As temperature increases & rpm drops there was a slight 'flutter' in tick over as enrichment decreased. But this was early in warm up between 40c & 60c.

Over 30c ambient the tickover can become a bit lumpy & at times the engine has stalled.  But this was France, July, traffic jam in 30c + with rising water temp to fan cut in.

Never had the need to adjust RBTBs or TPS. It is a well behaved motor. Thats done it, stand by for trouble !!

Now the car is running on E5 99 octane instead of supermarket E5 95 octane I can say that with the stock RBTB ECU program it starts better, does not have the tickover flutter during warm up, responds to throttle input even more & seems to accelerate even better.

As mentioned previously just converting to RBTBs seems to cure most R400/420 ills.

 

[aerobod - near CYYC]

The plenum system also works flawlessly with the proper mapping, Geoff. There is also more power available up-top (above 5000RPM) with the plenum system if the stock overfuelled 0.78 or so Lambda values are adjusted to the optimum power output at 0.86-0.87. With my altitude not being accounted for in open loop full throttle running, I had Lambda values of 0.69 approaching the red line (would correlate to 0.78 at sea level compared with my 1250m altitude).

In general the stock map may also have sub-standard timing, but I'm using an SBD provided timing map from another 2.0 Duratec that seems to be more optimum than the Caterham system, typically hitting 49 degrees advance where appropriate and typically just over 30 degrees at full throttle at the red line. I also have a knock sensor warning system that hasn't shown any issues yet.

In terms of other recommended changes for a reasonable price on a plenum system, switching to wide-band fast-reacting lambda system and ditching the MAP pressure-based mapping for Alpha-N throttle-based mapping, also make it a lot more predictable, linear and rev happy engine that bounces off the rev limiter a lot more easily than the relatively lumpy power profile from the stock Caterham mapping.

The plenum system also comes alive with the optimum mapping.

[John Vine]

...ditching the MAP pressure-based mapping for......throttle-based mapping...

I think that's the key point if you want to achieve good results with the plenum.  It was Steve G's first move when mapping my car (on plenum at the time).

JV

[aerobod - near CYYC]

I agree John that is the biggest single recommended change. It is also effectively "free" if you are getting a remap done on the original locked ECU, it is just a configuration exercise, as all the firmware and hardware are already in place.

For anyone with either locked or unlocked ECU, plenum or RBTBs I would also highly recommend using an auxiliary wide band system plugged into the original or unlocked ECU (it needs config changes in the ECU, so isn't a direct replacement if a remap isn't being done). I use the Innovate LC-2 system, which is available with a new Lambda sensor for under £200, for example from Demon Tweeks With this system you can either log via Easimap or via the LC-2 unit itself your accurate Lambda values on the road, to look for anomolies and driveability issues in the installed map. You can use the existing wiring from the 4-pin Lambda sensor plug to power the LC-2 unit and connect the signal line back into the ECU on pin 29, as opposed modifying the wiring, the LC-2 then directly connects to the new Bosch wideband sensor.

[K7 VCT]

Northampton Motorsport can probably help mapping too ?

[Grant_7]

I had my 420R (on RBTBs) mapped at Northampton Motorsport last year.

What a difference!!! The car starts, runs and drives beautifully now. I even have multiple maps for different exhaust and airbox configurations (and a flame-spitting pop & bang map, as I'm a child).

It cost more as I had to have a new (unlocked) ECU, but it was well worth the cost.

Also for reference, Northampton Motorsport is where all the Premier Power fettled cars are mapped. And you never hear anyone with a PP conversion saying anything other than fantastic driveability of their newly upgraded cars.

[Toughie]

I asked if Caterham would map my CRS.  hey wouldn't and don't do mapping (yet only fit locked ECUs)!.

Northampton Motorsport mapped my CSR for me.  Troy is brilliant at it and has a really good wingman who also does it.  As others have said, many of the performance dealers go there to have cars mapped.  It did, however, require me buying a new ECU.

What I have recently found out is that Luke Stevens (Team Leos), can map a standard, Caterham ECU, and his team is damned good.  And you can sit in his cafe style room and watch your car on the rolling road, which he has recently had upgraded to a four-wheel drive dyno.

[ScottR400D]

#22 Luke works closely with Steve G but, as you say, he has a great RR set up. 

Anything I can't or don't want to do, Luke does for me. As good as it gets IME. 

[7Up]

My stock 420R was mapped by Northampton MS and perfected by PGM by adding some fuel control thing. Brilliant result. Any tech questions, I cant help, sure Andy at PGM can! 

[Shortshift]

Replying to #22

You're right, Alan - and if you take your car to Luke's impressive premises, it will be Steve G who does the mapping.  He is one of two people (as I understand it) who has the right equipment to map the locked and encrypted MBE ECUs that Caterham Cars fit as standard. 

Have always - without exception - had brilliant outcomes from Steve's work, whether carried out down at R&T or when he's working at Luke's emporium.

James