Granturismo MC Trofeo - Road Registered

StuartW

StuartW

Member
Messages
9,320
Nighthawk said:
Hi Stuart,

Been tracking this thread with interest since I drove one last year in Italy with Maserati. We corresponded at the time. I do have a burning question, as I noted from your original project posts on this thread, that you discovered that the original ECU was programmed to just dump fuel into the injectors, with no finessing or thought given to emissions, efficiency, tuning or anything else for that matter. You also said that the chaps that were helping you get a road legal mapping together, did save a dump of that original mapping somewhere. Sound like you now have it on a separate ECU unit?

My question is twofold,

  1. If I obtained another ECU unit, could your chappie (or someone with the right stuff) upload that race mapping to the new ECU?
  2. If I then dropped that ECU into my 2008 GTS, assuming of course, that I'm at a track day, how would the car perform? Would the ECU accept that its dumping huge fuel loads into the engine, and thus expect the emission readings from the (for example) lamda sensors to be mental, or would the engine management system just start throwing loads of errors on the dash, becasue the air/fuel/exhaust readings were way out of step?
I guess I'm trying to understand if the ECU is monitoring its inputs/outputs based on what it knows its doing, or if something else is doing that and would be heavily confused on a road car with all its sensors, due to the crazy emissions resulting from the race mapping?

If it DID throw loads of errors, could they be cancelled with an ODBC connector for a few laps of the track, before swapping out back to the standard ECU for the drive home?

See where I'm coming from? The theory of doing this intrugues me. Eg, being able to keep a track day engine mapping based on the GT4MC on a separate ECU unit. Or am I talking ****?

Cheers,

James
Click to expand...

Hi James

I do still have the original Trofeo map but I don't believe that it would play ball on a road car. It would massively over-fuel and due to the safety measures on the road car, I would foresee an engine management light being thrown and the car going into limp mode before any damage is done. The lamdba sensors, the cats and air flow sensor would have a fit and be far from happy and none of these three components were present on the race car when the project started. They have all since been added and together with the firmware & ECU work, it now all works in harmony.

This ECU trickery is all a long way beyond me but from what I have learned over the the last 6 months, this is what I believe would be the case although this is probably more a question for Trev

I do know of another Trofeo car for sale right now in Switzerland however if you fancy doing what I have done? Here it is -

97108
Cheers
 
E

Ebenezer

Member
Messages
4,508
Do you know what's the actual difference in the engine performance between the race engine and race map and normal road going engine equivalent? Would be interesting to see the power / torque curves side by side. How much lighter is the race car? I can't help feeling that this has almost as much to do with the greater performance as the engine trickery.
Eb
 
midlifecrisis

midlifecrisis

Member
Messages
16,239
StuartW said:
Hi James

I do still have the original Trofeo map but I don't believe that it would play ball on a road car. It would massively over-fuel and due to the safety measures on the road car, I would foresee an engine management light being thrown and the car going into limp mode before any damage is done. The lamdba sensors, the cats and air flow sensor would have a fit and be far from happy and none of these three components were present on the race car when the project started. They have all since been added and together with the firmware & ECU work, it now all works in harmony.

This ECU trickery is all a long way beyond me but from what I have learned over the the last 6 months, this is what I believe would be the case although this is probably more a question for Trev

I do know of another Trofeo car for sale right now in Switzerland however if you fancy doing what I have done? Here it is -

View attachment 97108
Cheers
Click to expand...
That's got my name on it... literally.
 
Nighthawk

Nighthawk

Junior Member
Messages
84
StuartW said:
Hi James

I do still have the original Trofeo map but I don't believe that it would play ball on a road car. It would massively over-fuel and due to the safety measures on the road car, I would foresee an engine management light being thrown and the car going into limp mode before any damage is done. The lamdba sensors, the cats and air flow sensor would have a fit and be far from happy and none of these three components were present on the race car when the project started. They have all since been added and together with the firmware & ECU work, it now all works in harmony.

This ECU trickery is all a long way beyond me but from what I have learned over the the last 6 months, this is what I believe would be the case although this is probably more a question for Trev

I do know of another Trofeo car for sale right now in Switzerland however if you fancy doing what I have done? Here it is -

View attachment 97108
Cheers
Click to expand...
OMG I just died inside... that's my dream car and I know I don't have the money..... How much does he want for that? do you have a link? lol
 
StuartW

StuartW

Member
Messages
9,320
Ebenezer said:
Do you know what's the actual difference in the engine performance between the race engine and race map and normal road going engine equivalent? Would be interesting to see the power / torque curves side by side. How much lighter is the race car? I can't help feeling that this has almost as much to do with the greater performance as the engine trickery.
Eb
Click to expand...

There is very little difference between the race car numbers and the road car but for British GT, the BOP testing insisted on the power being reduced by around 40bhp with a restrictor fitted between the throttle body and the air filter. Needless to say, I removed it on mine.
The major gains as with all racing I guess, is the weight loss. The race car is under 1400kg so is almost 500kg lighter than a road GT which tells you everything!
 
Last edited:
Motorsport3

Motorsport3

Member
Messages
886
StuartW said:
There is very little difference between the race car numbers and the road car but for British GT, the BOP testing insisted on the power being reduced by around 40bhp with a restrictor fitted between the throttle body and the air filter. Needless to say, I removed it on mine.
The major gains as with all racing I guess, is the weight loss. The race car is under 1400kg so is almost 500kg lighter than a road GT which tells you everything!
Click to expand...

I wonder if someone wanted to get "practical" and start with standard GTS, remove seats, carpets, insulation. Replace engine, boot cover and bumpers with lighter material and glasses with transparent glass, how close to the real thing would it get?
 
StuartW

StuartW

Member
Messages
9,320
Motorsport3 said:
I wonder if someone wanted to get "practical" and start with standard GTS, remove seats, carpets, insulation. Replace engine, boot cover and bumpers with lighter material and glasses with transparent glass, how close to the real thing would it get?
Click to expand...

The engine is the same as a standard GTS 4.7 so that helps, but the gearbox, brakes, suspension, steering, torque tube, wheels, exhaust, manifolds, doors ... it's quite a list but do-able. Or you could buy another Trofeo car and register it like I have done, should take less than the 2+ years that I have been at it!
 
Nighthawk

Nighthawk

Junior Member
Messages
84
Motorsport3 said:
I wonder if someone wanted to get "practical" and start with standard GTS, remove seats, carpets, insulation. Replace engine, boot cover and bumpers with lighter material and glasses with transparent glass, how close to the real thing would it get?
Click to expand...

I’m working on that…. I will be able to give you an answer soon


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
360trev

360trev

New Member
Messages
3
Nighthawk said:
Hi Stuart,

Been tracking this thread with interest since I drove one last year in Italy with Maserati. We corresponded at the time. I do have a burning question, as I noted from your original project posts on this thread, that you discovered that the original ECU was programmed to just dump fuel into the injectors, with no finessing or thought given to emissions, efficiency, tuning or anything else for that matter. You also said that the chaps that were helping you get a road legal mapping together, did save a dump of that original mapping somewhere. Sound like you now have it on a separate ECU unit?

My question is twofold,

  1. If I obtained another ECU unit, could your chappie (or someone with the right stuff) upload that race mapping to the new ECU?
  2. If I then dropped that ECU into my 2008 GTS, assuming of course, that I'm at a track day, how would the car perform? Would the ECU accept that its dumping huge fuel loads into the engine, and thus expect the emission readings from the (for example) lamda sensors to be mental, or would the engine management system just start throwing loads of errors on the dash, becasue the air/fuel/exhaust readings were way out of step?
I guess I'm trying to understand if the ECU is monitoring its inputs/outputs based on what it knows its doing, or if something else is doing that and would be heavily confused on a road car with all its sensors, due to the crazy emissions resulting from the race mapping?

If it DID throw loads of errors, could they be cancelled with an ODBC connector for a few laps of the track, before swapping out back to the standard ECU for the drive home?

See where I'm coming from? The theory of doing this intrugues me. Eg, being able to keep a track day engine mapping based on the GT4MC on a separate ECU unit. Or am I talking ****?

Cheers,

James
Click to expand...

@Nighthawk


The Trofeo firmware is specific to the car but you wouldn't really want to use it anyway on anything but smooth flat circuit racing applications (detailed description on why below). Furthermore the firmware is not compatible with any other model as there are significant detailed changes made to the setup of the Trofeo including hardware differences like fuel pumps, etc. All this is managed by the firmware. Also be aware that stock Trofeo firmware runs "Alpha-N" strategy of operation, not "Closed Loop" you'd find on on a GTS.

...That is it doesn't use Primary O2 sensors or Air Flow Meters to adapt air/fuel ratio's as you would get in majority of road cars so as a result it rich "everywhere", if you ran it too much like this in non race conditions I would expect it wouldn't be good for the engine, you'd eventually maybe even get bore wash (waaay too much unburned fuel sloshing around in the engine) and so forth (not a problem on a race car which has frequent rebuilds). Alpha-N is often called fallback mode or “Throttle Position Sensor based static maps” because most road cars do this if their MAF fails. In this 'fallback mode' only the engine load (from your throttle pedal sensor) and RPM are used for determination of static fuel AFR lookup. This calibration needs to be done for the exact state of tune when the engine was built so any later modifications will need alter fueling/timing requirements [which are now in a static non adapting map so it would require a remap for every little change]. Fuel and timing requirements for the engine are expressed as a simple function of RPM (x-axis and load (or TPS) on the y-axis.

Its one of the reasons why so much time and energy was spent to convert this car back a more appropriate road going MAF (Mass Air Flow) and O2 setup so that it could indeed be used reliably on the road. The decision to go this route by Trofeo engineers I am sure was because in a race car your WOT (on a flat smooth circuit) and you want both consistency and reliability, no concern about failing MAF's etc.. Be aware however that Race car mapping, particularly Alpha-N isn't good for the road application. Alpha-N for example isn't ideal when driving up steep inclines or declines (i.e hills) as its not adapting for anything whereas with In closed loop mode, the engine listens to the lambda sensor to adjust fuel/air mixture. In open loop mode, in most Alpha-N implementations none of that adaption is happening (*technically some adaptions such as using an altitude meter and correcting for air temperature etc. could be done but again this isn't a consideration on a race car!). Anyway, final point is if you consider engine load increasing/decreasing but at a constant throttle position, temperature variations (impacting air density), altitude variations and just about anything else that you’d normally adapt for to make fueling more accurate and adpt for the conditions under which your driving. None of this matters in a racer where your basically at high rpm and wide open throttle for most of the racing.

sorry for all the technical detail. Hope this helps to clarify your understanding..
 
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