problems downloading program to ECU from laptop

[hitz]

This is not a ECU problem but a computer problem. It downloads programs from an old windows 98 desk top booted up in DOS correctly but a used Panasonic tuff book I purchased locks up when I try to program the Tech II. I've looked in networking help but haven't found anything that helped.  This is a no budget project so buying a new ECU or anything else is out of the question. Speedweek took care of any loose change I had. I love this old Tec II but the old Toshiba computers seem to lose the floppy drives after a trip to the salt flats. I was hoping the tuff book could stand up to the salt air. Any help out there enabling the programing? Thinking about a magneto and 4 Mikuni's.

Hitz

[robfrey]

I might have V8 Tech II that I would let go really cheap. You can use it on a four cylinder. Actually works better.

[hitz]

No problems with the Tech II so not what I need. Why would a Tech II for a V8 work better on a four cylinder than than one that was made for the four??

hitz

[robfrey]

You can get rid of the waste spark. This is critical under boosted applications.

[hitz]

no boost here. Thanks for the offer.

hitz

[dieselgeek]

You can get rid of the waste spark. This is critical under boosted applications.

eh, what's wrong with wasted spark in boosted applications?  I've got one running 6hp per cube on wasted spark, about 40psi, on gasoline.  No problems.

[robfrey]

Every once in while, if you have an efficient combustion chamber, higher boost, and a turbo that make more boost than back pressure, the waste spark can light the intake track on fire while the intake valve is open. Took us a year to figure out what the heck was happening. What happens is the pressurized intake charge starts to enter the chamber before the waste spark then BANG! We bent up some stuff  and embarrassed ourselves many times before we figured it out. We finally figured it out by adding more timing and retarding the camshaft and problem went away.

[dieselgeek]

Every once in while, if you have an efficient combustion chamber, higher boost, and a turbo that make more boost than back pressure, the waste spark can light the intake track on fire while the intake valve is open. Took us a year to figure out what the heck was happening. What happens is the pressurized intake charge starts to enter the chamber before the waste spark then BANG! We bent up some stuff  and embarrassed ourselves many times before we figured it out. We finally figured it out by adding more timing and retarding the camshaft and problem went away.

I had that problem once, but only on an engine where the intake valve opening event happens before the waste spark.  This would be on a very aggressively cammed N/A engine...  IVO would have to happen well before, say, 20 BTDC.   I've only seen a couple cams ever, that are that aggressive.  You guys must run some pretty crazy cam combos in your turbo engines?

[robfrey]

Not really, it was just that we got some bad advise about tuning and we were down to 16 degrees of spark advance at the bigger boost numbers. When we put 8 degrees more timing in it, the problem went away but at that stage we decided that it was time to ditch the inductive style waste spark ignition, then low and behold, all problems went away and we were FAST!