Joey's Totally Predictable DD

[GregF]

Im pretty sure a blown DV wouldnt let you boost as high. Maybe you bought a stage 1 car? Even then, you would only hit about 19 or 20 at peak and thats on the high side. My guess is its miscalculating. Something to figure out is if it reads requested numbers from the OBD2 (like my P3 does) or if its actually calculating. I thought boost would just be a read value, not a calculated one.

[.RJ]

Its not that its broken, its that its not broken enough. Figure out how to make MAX BOOST ALL THE TIME.

I know, I am not helping here. I have to live vicariously.

[D_Eclipse9916]

Boost spikes can occur from many different things, but I bet the combination of estimated value and volkswagen electronics are either telling you the wrong thing or the solenoids don't anticipate the boost pike and just let it happen. You won't really know unless you have a real boost gauge. I don't trust VWs at all.

Broken diverter valve would see spikes at throttle plate closure if it was broken closed (very unlikely), and would boost low/flutter at constant boost. Do a third gear pull log and see what you get.

[Maengelito]

volkswagen electronics

This.

[BLINGMW]

the boost reading is calculated? ...from what? :evileye:

[D_Eclipse9916]

the boost reading is calculated? ...from what? :evileye:

How many CELs it currently has on.

[Ken]

I wouldn't stress too much; you're relying on a grand total of $80 worth of measuring tools. It is a slightly terrifying feeling seeing that number though isn't it? I almost lost it when my Cobb read 29.

On a related note, removed that tune, tried it again this year and they have a new version so i'm safely hitting 25-25.5. Phew.

[SlimKlim]

Its definitely not a stage 1 car, far too pokey for that.

Aside from this weird little phenomenon everything else seems completely normal in the car, in higher gears it spikes to 10-11psi and tapers to 8-9, boost comes on a little below 2500rpms and there are no weird sounds or hesitations. Its got to be some sort of false reading from the gauge.

The App has 3 settings for the "Boost Calculation Method" MAP, MAF, and ALT. The description says "Select the method used for reading boost (for when the MAP sensor can't read full boost, or when MAF/MAP are not available)" Not sure what that means, its currently set on MAP which seems like it would be the most accurate. :dunno: I think its only happened going WOT in 1st gear, this morning I beat on it in 2nd a few times and it never spiked above 15.

I'll turn on the logging on my way home tonight, are there any specific parameters I should log? Right now I just have Boost, RPM, throttle position, speed, and AFR.

I might also give my shop a call, my buddy is a VW crackhead and might have some ideas. I'm still leaning towards a false reading but who knows, it is a VW. Maybe its just trying to tune itself...

[D_Eclipse9916]

Its definitely not a stage 1 car, far too pokey for that.

Aside from this weird little phenomenon everything else seems completely normal in the car, in higher gears it spikes to 10-11psi and tapers to 8-9, boost comes on a little below 2500rpms and there are no weird sounds or hesitations. Its got to be some sort of false reading from the gauge.

The App has 3 settings for the "Boost Calculation Method" MAP, MAF, and ALT. The description says "Select the method used for reading boost (for when the MAP sensor can't read full boost, or when MAF/MAP are not available)" Not sure what that means, its currently set on MAP which seems like it would be the most accurate. :dunno: I think its only happened going WOT in 1st gear, this morning I beat on it in 2nd a few times and it never spiked above 15.

I'll turn on the logging on my way home tonight, are there any specific parameters I should log? Right now I just have Boost, RPM, throttle position, speed, and AFR.

I might also give my shop a call, my buddy is a VW crackhead and might have some ideas. I'm still leaning towards a false reading but who knows, it is a VW. Maybe its just trying to tune itself...

Leaning towrds the "its spiking and the ECU isnt smart enough to control it" when it is in lower gears. The AVC-R had a learning feature to help with spiking as after a few pulls it would learn how to bleed off boost before hitting full boost so the turbo didnt spike. I wouldnt worry about it.

[SlimKlim]

Talked to Jarred at my shop and he doesn't think the car could spike that bad without having noticeable issues in other gears. His theory is the app reads requested boost, not actual boost, which would account for some discrepancy.

I did a little googling and attempted to find tune the vehicle profile, changed engine displacement from 2.0 to 1.984, entered a boost adjustment of -14.4 to account for elevation (I'm skeptical of the logic on this but other people on a VW forum swear it dialed it in, then again its a VW forum), and changed volumetric efficiency to 90% according to the same thread.

If that doesn't seem to help I'll dig deeper into that atmospheric adjustment thing. Its set at 0 out of the box, and people at sea level were adjusting to -14.7 to zero out the atmospheric pressure. However, its not like the app reads 14.4psi (what should be the atmospheric pressure of Fairfax) when the engine is off. :dunno:

I can also try using the MAF setting which apparently uses a bunch of other OBD parameters to calculate boost and is pretty accurate, if a bit slow.

[SlimKlim]

I didn't run a log on the way home, but the tweaks in the vehicle profile seemed to get it much more accurate. Its still reading ~24-25in/Hg of vacuum at idle, and 1st gear boost spike is ~15psi. It holds ~10psi in lower gears, and ~8psi in higher ones.

I don't think I can get it more accurate than that without logging via vag-com and fine tuning it from there. I have a friend that has it, so maybe if I feel like it I'll run some logs and try to hone it in even further.

[SlimKlim]

The boost reading is definitely more accurate now, it will still spike to 17+ in 1st gear only, so at some point I need to nab my friend Laurens' VCDS and run a few logs to see what's actually happening.

I also moved the mount location from the windshield to the dash to get it closer to the instrument cluster, and I have the gauge face set up how I want it.





The two biggest issues preventing this from being a completely seamless "install" are:

1.) Something is bricking up when the car sits, I don't know if its the Torque app or the Bluetooth dongle, but I suspect its the dongle because I have to unplug and replug it, then reboot the application to unstick it. It probably happens about 60% of the time going back to the car. I can attempt to set up a macro to open and close the application when it sees the Bluetooth signal from the device, but that will only help if its the app that's causing it to freeze. There's also a setting in the application to sleep the dongle after its been inactive for 90 seconds, which I believe is turned on, but I probably need to find that menu again and check it while the car is on and connected.

I'm not very optimistic with that one, I think I'm just going to have to get used to unplugging the dongle somewhat frequently. Maybe I can reassign one of the external buttons to bounce the application and make it a little easier.

2.) The bigger issue is the phone is idling away its battery faster than the ~1 hour of driving/day charges it back up, it currently lasts about 3 days before I have to take it in and charge it for realz. Not sure how to proceed with this one. I can get an extended battery for it for $25 that allegedly gives you ~18 hours of use, but I don't know if that will fix the problem, it may just eventually bleed itself all the way down regardless of the standby time.

I was thinking I could find a constant 12v power source to tap the charge into (and get the ugly thing out of my center console. My thinking is that it will keep the thing topped off, and then switch into a trickle mode when its completely full, which shouldn't really affect the electrical system of the car. I just don't want to end up killing the car battery faster than it should because I'm always drawing power from it to charge the phone.

Any ideas?

[JustinG]

how old is the phone?

My bet is the phone battery is about shot.

My S3 will keep a charge while running Maps and Bluetooth on my 1a cigg charger.

[SlimKlim]

how old is the phone?

My bet is the phone battery is about shot.

My S3 will keep a charge while running Maps and Bluetooth on my 1a cigg charger.

Couple years, I was thinking I could just throw a new standard sized battery in it and see if that helped, I just don't want to do it if that will eventually end up bleeding down too.

[Apoc]

I would be surprised if it's a battery issue, since it's really just a power in vs. power out. 2.1a provides more power than Maps and Pandora can suck up (for me), so you're probably not getting enough juice.

Some cables only charge as USB, even if you have a 2.1a cigarette lighter adapter. Check the battery status in the settings and make sure it says AC (not USB) when charging. If it says USB, try a different cable.

[JustinG]

FYI, this is the charger I am using. Did you buy some cheap $ .99 ebay charger or a known brand?

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.amazon.com/Griffin-Powerjolt-Universal-Micro-Colors/dp/B0042B9U8Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369937038&sr=8-1&keywords=griffin+dual+usb+car+charger">http://www.amazon.com/Griffin-Powerjolt ... ar+charger</a><!-- m -->

[SlimKlim]

I would be surprised if it's a battery issue, since it's really just a power in vs. power out. 2.1a provides more power than Maps and Pandora can suck up (for me), so you're probably not getting enough juice.

Some cables only charge as USB, even if you have a 2.1a cigarette lighter adapter. Check the battery status in the settings and make sure it says AC (not USB) when charging. If it says USB, try a different cable.

Ugh. I bought the 2.1a charger but I don't know if I have the right kind of cable. I'll check the settings when i get back to the car after work.

[SlimKlim]

Ok in Battery Status it says AC when its plugged into the car. Looking at the battery consumption, "Cell Standby" is taking 42%, closely followed by "Phone Idle" at 41%. Idk why it is constantly looking for a cell signal, its not activated and I have everything I can turn off turned off in settings. I wish there was some way to put it in airplane mode but override the bluetooth.

So you guys think I should just replace the battery?

[davej]

maybe this?
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or
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wparam.airsettings&hl=en">https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... ings&hl=en</a><!-- m -->

[SlimKlim]

Oh sweet, I'll try one of those, maybe that coupled with a brand new battery will give it enough standby time to keep from dying on me.