My what a year this has turned out to be. As a result of the current state of things, I’ve been able to dedicate some more time to the M3. I was finally able to track down what was causing the issue with the SMG cog (error) light, and now it’s gone. There are some subtlties which still need to be worked out with respect to gear changes, because of the way the gearbox does torque requests. So the main concept is there, but the calibration table needs some tweaking before it is ready. Otherwise the car drives pretty well, and I am starting to polish things up for a release happening very soon.

Current state of the S54 package:

  • Torque model based off MSS54 and my own simplifications where possible.
  • Idle control works well, but will likely change in the future. Transitioning off idle is harder than it looks, and what is there works relatively well, so I’m leaving it like that for now.
  • SMG Support - SMG cars do work with this package. There are some refinements that still need to occur, but it works. The only other company I know of that got near here is my good friend Daniel Elias of Calibrated Performance in Australia. Please see him for your Lotus or VW needs!
  • Multiple methods of load calculation are possible:
    • Speed Density - with automatic ambient pressure correction. The correction is a purely linear one, and it is unclear to me why this is not part of standard GPR. This is not recommended for the M3. It does not produce enough vacuum at partial throttle.
    • MAF - Mass Air Flow meter - supports two banks (in general, not applicable with the M3).
    • Modeled Speed Density - The MAP sensor is used for fuel pressure calculation only. The manifold pressure is entered into a table with “Total Throttle Area” and Engine Speed. Total Throttle Area represents both the idle controller and main throttle body.
    • Estimated Engine Load - Direct load in milligrams is entered into a table of “Total Throttle Area” vs Engine Speed.
  • Direct choices over primary and secondary load calculation. For example, you can choose MAF as a primary, and Estimated Engine Load as a secondary if the MAF sensor failed.
  • Speed Density Efficency Table allows for “Total Throttle Area” as an option in addition to Manifold Pressure
  • Speed Density Efficiency Table allows for a boost compensation factor for those turbo or supercharging their M3.
  • VANOS is controlled similarly to stock, and wired the same. No switching to ground-based control. Utilizes half-bridges built into the M150.
  • VANOS / Cam control tables allow for either “Total Throttle Area” or “Engine Load Normalized” as an axis along with Engine Speed.
  • Fuel target is based on Engine Load Normalized instead of MAP.
  • Fuel film main table is based on Engine Load instead of MAP.
  • Instrument cluster lights shows either Oil Temp warmup, or the currently active Engine Speed Limit. SMG shift lights not yet implemented, but will be in a future update (which will be free of charge).
  • Engine Oil Level and Temperature is supported. The gauge on the M3 works correctly.
  • Steering wheel controls are not supported at this time, but will be via additional hardware in the future. The protocol used by the cruise control part of the steering wheel is from the 80s, and is somewhat simple, but hard for it to be decoded on the MoTeC. We will build a box which will convert it to CAN data, and at that point we will add cruise control into the package.

I will announce here when the package is ready for sale.