From: rodder@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Jon D. Rodder)
Newsgroups: rec.autos.tech
Subject: Re: Electromotive Inc.: STAY AWAY
Keywords: Engine management
Date: 11 Dec 92 21:45:52 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX

In article <ch!r!9b@dixie.com> jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond) writes:
>rodder@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Jon D. Rodder) writes:
>
>>First, the part about the EPA making them take something off the market is
>>total BS.  
>
>Wrong.  Any non-stock, non-CARBed component that can affect emissions
>may not be sold for street use.  EPA determines "sold for street use"
>by looking at the device and looking at how and where it is marketed.
>An ignition unit with vacuum advance is obviously aimed at the street
>market because "everyone knows racers don't use vacuum advance".
>I quote that to denote that I don't necessarily agree with it.
>The digital system's ignition map is a) probably over the head of
>more EPA field inspectors and b) uses vacuum as the indication of
>load, a necessary input for ignition mapping regardless of the use
>environment.

I still don't see why they EPA would bar them from selling it as a
non-street use or pre-emissions item.  By your reasoning, I shouldn't
be able to buy an aftermarket distributor with a vacuum advance.

>>Minor changes
>>in air gap made huge differences in sensor output.  Runout maade very
>>little difference percentage wise.  Alexander Long insisted the problem
>>was too much runout in the trigger wheel (had .003 in at the time).
>
>I have to ask, with all these many hours of troubleshooting, why didn't
>you take a good engineering approach - or even a good technician approach -
>and put the device on the bench in the lab under controlled conditions
>and determine the input and output paramaters and limitations?  A few
>hours on the bench would have saved a LOT of time.

In retrospect I probably should have.  I tried to control to all
conditions during on engine testing and vary only the crank trigger
signal.  I made a big mistake in assuming that the trigger supplied
by electromotive would work when installed to their specs, and believing
them  when they reassured me that it would.  

>I've seen a lot of bad press come from the utexas NGV team.  If I didn't
>know some of the people involved, I'd swear someone didn't know what
>was going on.  I have a lot of experience with several installations
>of the TEC engine management system (which incorporates the HPV3
>functionality) including the one we used on Rutgers' Formula SAE vehicle.  
>I've never had any problems dealing with
>the guys at Electromotive and after replacing the crank pickup with
>something more suitable, have never had any problems.  Until recently
>they had the most functional engine management system on the market.
>I don't like the 60 tooth encoder wheel scheme -  a bit more sophistication
>in the firmware would have allowed it to use a conventional racing crank
>pickup or even a distributor signal - but I could live with it.
>I do wish they'd quit wasting time and money machining the enclosure
>and use something commercial.  BTW, RTV potting is an accepted 
>method of encapsulation.  I'd rather they do it a bit neater but nothing
>wrong with the concept.

To my knowledge, all of the bad press has come from me.  They sold me
something that didn't work, and were totally unhelpful in troubleshooting
advice. I asked them how to troubleshoot the crank trigger, and all they
would give me was machining advice.  I followed their machining advice
(which accounted for some of the troubleshooting time) and no luck.
If Electromotive had ever suggested that another type of crank trigger
might be more effective for my application, then I probably wouldn't
be typing this now.  I feel like I spent a lot of time troubleshooting
their pickup soley because they did not want to admit that it was
inadequate.  My primary complaint about electromotive is not
necessarily their products, but their very lousy technical support.

>Relate your bad experiences but don't use a sample-of-one to condemn
>the whole produce line.

Maybe I am out of line.  But I spent $1100 for a product that did not
work, the manufacturer gave no useful assistance in getting it to work,
and they wouldn't take the product back, and feel that I owe them
something in return.

>John
>
>-- 
>John De Armond, WD4OQC               |Interested in high performance mobility?  
>Performance Engineering Magazine(TM) | Interested in high tech and computers? 
>Marietta, Ga                         | Send ur snail-mail address to 
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