Zeitronix WB Headaches and Triumphs

[Calan]

For those of you thinking about the Zeitronix WB, or having issues with it, I thought I would share some info that may be helpful. It's a bit long-winded, but maybe it will save somebody a bit of trouble.

First of all, their tech support is good and quick to respond, but the manual...well... it's basically a wiring diagram and nothing more. And the software has absolutely no help or documentation... zero... zilch... nadda.

So, after a few hours of searching and trial and error, I got mine working with the serial port laptop connection, logging WBO2 on my MMCd Palm IIIc, and using the narrowband simulated signal into my ECU. Preliminary results look promising, as my idle speed and timing are now rock steady, and the short untuned run I did already shows less knock.

Some issues:

1. The unit utilizes a serial connection (not USB, which all other modern hardware has for the last 2 years)... but here is where it gets interesting; from what I found, most people can't get the serial connection to work and end up having to get a serial to USB adapter. It seems that Zeitronix even recommends this somewhat... go figure . And contrary to the usual issues related to mismatched COM ports, mine wasn't working because of my Palm Sync Manager service, which had the COM1 port tied up. Of course there isn't a shred of literature about this, so that occupied at least two - three hours.

2. To make matters worse, there is no connection check or any indication in the software that you have a connection issue; it just doesn't display data. And there is no power LED on the controller, so I didn't even know if I had power to the box or not. After a few minutes of voltmeter fun, I followed a hunch by trying to set some hardware options, and got a "Device Not Found" error. I then searched that for a while and found another thread talking about the HotSync issue, and sure enough it started logging data once I manually stopped the service in Task Manager.

3. There are no options in the software for setting font sizes or graph/indicator colors (that I've found). This isn't really an issue, unless you happen to be one of MANY people who have trouble seeing red or green...against a black background no less. Major interface design oversight in my opinion, especially for such a simple programming task. If I've overlooked this option, I stand corrected.

Other than the very thorough lack of documention and the issues I described above, the unit is pretty easy to hook up. Just match the wires from the Zeitronix diagrams to the ECU pins. I temporarily used quick splices into the ECU connector wires, but I'll do it right and solder them once I'm finished with some optional wiring I'm looking into. (Kudos to Steve and others who helped with this in my other threads )

The wires I connected were Power, Ground, TPS, RPM, WB out (to EGRT on ECU), and simulated NB out (to the ECU O2 input). I'll try to post the exact pin-to-pin connections I used when I can, but it's really straight forward.

I'm not sure if it's because my stock O2 was about dead or not, but the simulated O2 signal is much more stable (consistent oscillation vs. the random "noise" of my stock sensor). I also think that because the same sensor is being used to provide both signals, the NB and WB signals seem to sync much better. NOTE: I made a couple of tests before I hooked up the NB signal, and compared the WB against the stock O2.

For those of you using MMCd... the EGRT/WBO2 option works like a charm. Just go into MMCd's options and set the EGRT to show WBO2. The EGRT label changes to "WBO2", and displays AFR as "14.7". Mine consistently read within .2 of the value shown on my laptop with the Zeitronix software. (I haven't synced and looked at transferred logs yet though).

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EDIT:

MMCdTools does not export the WBO2 correctly, but it's easy to fix. Just edit the template.xls file in the MMCdTools folder, and add a new column after the last one. Set the formula for the first (4th) row to "='Raw Data'!J4/10" and the format to "00.0". Then copy this cell to the entire column and change the title to "WBO2".

You can add any custom columns you want to this file to look at the raw data formatted in other ways. (For example, I also added some columns which are scaled differently, and created another sheet that is a pre-configured graph. Just be sure not to change the order or names of the origianl columns, as the MMCdTools program apparently is hardcoded to them!

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One thing to note about the TPS signal... It reads 0 when off the throttle, intsead of the 10.5% that my logger does. There is a setting for changing the TPS to "Calibrate data for plot range", but it had no affect on the displayed value. (I'm guessing it just vertically scales the value for graphs, but I didn't check it). It doesn't matter much to me as I'm not using their software for logging, but it is worth mentioning.

Overall, I think it is a good unit (although I'm a WB and tuning newbie.. so take that for what it's worth . I've yet to get down to any serious tuning (or as serious as I can get with a MAF-T), and I've still got a FMIC to install, but it looks promising so far.

I've still got a lot to learn and experiment with... And if anyone has any tips on tuning with the MAF-T, AFPR, tinfoil, whatever... I could use the help . I think I've read every document on the MAF-T that there is, and I'm still treading water.

Hope this helps someone!

 

[Echo5Zulu]

Very well written. Thank you for the heads up, tips and information as I am looking into buying a wbo2 here soon.