Is it really necessary to "attack the messenger" and not "the message" (the issue)?

That's exactly why I started this thread. I wanted to understand why cars fitted with our units feel better on the road.

Manfred from Germany bought one of our units for his 2.2S last September, here is what he said upon fitment.

Hi jonny

today it was the day… to put a long story short: it took less than an hour to get the car running with cdi+!

what we did: revised injection had been installed and ignition was set up properly. drivng the car made a huge difference due to the revised mfi - great progress. next was unplugging the original hkz (or cdi as you call it) and plugging in the cdi+ unit. turning the key… running! adjusting the rotor of distributor to get the same engine characteristic / zero point at idle as before.

next plugging in the computer gave immediate signal and we played around with some settings… but engine run was so perfect with zero-adjust, that we are now considering a dyno run. due to limited time, i just had a very short test-drive with zero adjust wich was even smoother than before - esp. in the tricky range of 2-3t rpm.


Then , I got this email last month:


thanks a lot for your ongoing updates for the cdi unit - just today i ran my 2.2s since the weater wasn’t too bad at all: after more than two month not driving the car it started immediately and on the 70 km trip for getting someone to the airport düsseldorf it was immediate love again. car is running so smooth and kind of modern (until you start using the breaks).

so i wish i could tell you anything new about your unit - but maybe it is good that i can’t. simply perfect, looking forward to some time later this year. think there will be a longer trip ahead.

have a nice evening and kind regards
manfred

At least one other upgrade simultaneously, so there's no way to say the CDI+ made any difference whatsoever. Best that can be said is that the CDI+ provided equal capability.

No, if you read it properly, he says that the installation of a new MFI pump made the first difference running with the original HKZ (Bosch unti).

He goes on to say that the CDI+ made a further improvement 'even smoother' and that it resolved a hesitancy issue between 2000 and 3000 RPM without changing the timing.

I am happy to answer technical questions but the 'nitpicking' is getting tiresome. Why are you so desperately trying to find a hole in our design? I said before that the timing has been independently validated on an engine dyno at B.S.Motorsport.

'Ongoing updates' refer to the fact that our units can have their firmware upgraded. We recently released an update that can operate the MFI fuel pump cut off in place of the original 'speed sensor' which is another common to fail component. We release firmware updates through our website. We can do custom and special request firmware too.

Please, let us post up our dyno plots here as was the intention of this thread!

Light throttle and less than 3000 rpm equals quiet car in the morning.

Lugging is when you pull a long hill in too high of a gear with lots of throttle.

Not everyone wants to be that straight-pipe Harley guy. Sometimes low rpm drivability is very useful.

Some things don't show on a standard rolling road power run as the speed is brought up slowly for the plot. You can't easily plot improvements to throttle stabs for example.

When we get back on the engine dyno, we are hoping to show/prove the better engine 'pickup'. Setup of this test on the dyno is beyond my knowledge but Neil Bainbridge at B.S.Motorsport says he can setup a particular type of run to show it.

That's the whole point of working with these guys, they know their onions!

done in the US? the land of optimistic dyno sheets? please..

Like you Aussies are any better?

Who cares how optimistic, or pessimistic for that matter, the dyno is as long as the same dyno is used. What we care about here is the difference, not the final number.

SmileWavy

Any aftermarket ignition that can provide electronic advance works by 'holding off' the spark with relation to the trigger. As we are triggering from the orignal points/VR this requires that the trigger point be brought forward in time. Since time travel is not yet possible, the way this is achieved is by rotating the distributor more in the advance direction. You are not altering the timing, you are just moving the trigger point. E.g. If you move the trigger point forward 10 degs and then hold off for 10 degs of time, you get zero advance.

There is another reason for having an 'early' trigger point. It allows us to calibrate the timing by compensating for any delay caused by the input trigger circuit . The compensation factor can be adjusted to dial in the timing. The Bosch CDI cannot do this which causes the timing accuracy to decrease with RPM.

Why anyone would regard being able to download features via firmware as a bad thing is a complete puzzle to me? Ever bought a smartphone?

As I said before the end to end timing has been validated on an engine dyno with a completely separate set of timing sensors.

Over the last couple of days, Neil Bainbridge at BS Motorsport has run back to back tests of a Bosch CDI vs our CDI+. The tests have been conducted on a full engine test cell in a controlled environment. The test cell is the same one used by the Hyundai WRC team.

I will be posting the test report up soon but we are very pleased with the results.

Just to add a couple of positive points in Johnny's favour, Neil Bainbridge of BS Motorsport is a particularly well regarded 911 engine builder over this side of the pond. He wouldn't use this tech if it didn't give some advantage. The same can be said for Historika, Google them and see the quality of what they build and race. Neither of these would use anything with a hint of snake oil and given that the product is being taken up by well regarded organisations over your side I guess there must be something in this.

No affiliation here

Ian

Our current list of partners:

UK:

BS Motorsport

Canford Classics - Classic Porsche Restoration & Parts Refurbishment

Porsche Sales - Historika

http://www.parr-uk.co.uk

Paul Stephens | Leading Porsche Specialists

US: (tbc - at evaluation stage)

TRE Motorsports

Home Page 911 Design - 911 Design

Why do you expect that additional dyno testing will yield any more information above those already posted...?

Johnny H,

I have no affiliation with you but want to congratulate you on laying bare in this forum the journey undertaken with your products for our old cars and for your patience in dealing with the constant naysayers attempts to undermine you.

I have personaly dealt with three of the partners you list above and have read very good things about the rest. These partners represent some of the most most respected and experienced companies in the UK today!

Wwest, you are infamous in this board for your constant attacks against those you choose to disagree with. Please give us all a break and move on! Or better still seeing as you are such an expert, spend the time, money and energy on building a better product and lay it all bare in here too!

Cheers
Bill

Ok, my patience is wearing a bit thin but I will attempt explain, again, why we move the input trigger point.

Mr West is describing a 'predictive timing' scheme whereby the ECU tries to 'guess' when the next spark should occur. At the most simplistic level, this is done by making an assumption that the next spark will occur in the same time interval as the last timing gap measured. More complex systems, use a predictive algorithm which needs to be 'tuned' as most are based on a (sort of) PID contoller.

Predictive systems cannot cope well with rapid changes in RPM. They tend to lag and then overshoot. They also do not work very well if there are not a sufficient number of triggers in the engine rotation to calculate the time interval and that is why these systems typically require the use of a toothed timing wheel (more triggers per rotation). As our system uses the points/VR, we have only six trigger points. We have tried out a predictive scheme but the results were poor. The engine idle was unsteady and the pickup was unresponsive.

The only way to guarantee that the timing is accurate is to move the trigger point forward in time so you are always calculating a hold off ahead of the cylinder you want to fire. It isn't adjusting changing the ignition timing, it's moving the trigger point. This is no different in fact to fitting a Pertronix where you have to re-time the engine.

The timing compensation is primarily concerned with dialing out any delay caused by input filtering. Nothing to do with the microprocessor.

The firmware updates are about adding features. Since the product was launched we have added:

1) Tacho smoothing
2) Distributor input smoothing
3) MFI fuel pump cut-off control
4) Configuration of interval between dual sparks
5) Configurable number of triggers before first spark
6) Programmable output / shift light control. Inversion etc.

None of those affect the main operation of the unit and many customers are still on version 1.0.

We are looking at being able to read a MAP sensor from an input and also driving an additional fuel injector from an output.

Firmware = software. Got it! British = US language thing.

Seems like the cdi+ is a lot more than just a Bosch cdi replacement. It is being developed further, to do more. All the while being plug and play compatible and looks original.

Still can't figure out why this product is controversial. Price is what a small specialty company needs to charge to make the product available, feed their families, and put some profits in the bank.

No, not really. The British and Americans are on the same page in regards to what is firmware and what is software. Look here:

Difference Between Software and Firmware | Difference Between | Software vs Firmware

Let's clear a few things up:

'Firmware' is generally used to describe code that is 'embedded' in a device, but yes at the end of the day it is still software :)

Things may be cheaper in the US but in the UK right now (all prices before tax and shipping):

Permatune. £494
MSD 6AL-2 + blaster coil . £505
Original Bosch (used). £400 - 600
Classic Retrofit. £795 - £995
Elf ignition. £900 - 1200
Porsche Original OEM Bosch. £2400

All our units are made in the UK, hand assembled, soak tested and setup per customer requirements in house.

Back in the day firmware was software burned into fusible link PROMs. To change it you took the chip out , threw it away and put another one in.

Today the definition is pretty nebulous.

EDIT: Downloading into a micro controllers flash memory isn't a feature that requires extra work, it is just the way it is done nowadays.

Ok. Now I understand. Thanks!