Flashpro and evap shut valve

FlashPro Manager software
Hybrid_Hatch
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Joined: Sun Oct 06, 2002 1:46 am

Flashpro and evap shut valve

Post by Hybrid_Hatch »

Hello all. I think I may have stumbled upon a major flaw that is causing me some issues.

Car: 08 civic si
Flashpro manager 1.5.3 (but been doing it long before this version)

sense I have added flashpro to the car (almost a year ago) I have noticed that every morning as the car is warming up after a few minutes I get this loud "thud" sound coming from the rear of the car, well finally on my day off I went thru the car and think I have found the problem, the EVAP purge valve is never being turned to duty control with the flashpro map cal on the car, if I return the car to stock the evap purge valve comes on (has power) while the car is warming up and after the car reaches 150 degrees the ecu kicks the valve to duty control and allows the fuel tank to vent. but with flashpro the valve never shuts off causing the tank to get a hard vacuum drawn on it causing the plastic tank to collapse to where I can stick 2 fingers between the tanks mounting strap and the tank. I have found that the fuel tank builds up enough vacuum that after a while the fuel cap will give in and allow the tank to equalize and thats where the thud comes from. I have also found that this is where the "flashpro gas gauge fluctuation" comes from as the tank builds up vacuum it gets smaller causing the gauge to read higher. I have tested the purge valve with flashpro map cal running on the ecu and it reads 13.97 volts the hole time the car is running, and only reads voltage on the stock ecu while warming up then kicks to duty voltage. For the time being I have disabled the "purge/evap" in flashpro and unplugged the evap shut valve (at the canister to keep it open/vented), please let me know how I can go about fixing this, if this is causing tanks to "suck in" due to heavy vacuum, this is also robbing power and causing undo stress on the fuel tank.
Last edited by Hybrid_Hatch on Sun May 19, 2013 1:47 am, edited 4 times in total.
Hybrid_Hatch
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Joined: Sun Oct 06, 2002 1:46 am

Re: Flashpro and evap shut valve

Post by Hybrid_Hatch »

A little update.

I had a friend come over and I tested his car as well. his car does the same thing on flashpro, however his fuel cap is not giving in and allowing pressure to equalize and the tank is staying sucked in (collapsed) the whole time the engine is running, turn the car off and the tank expands right back to stock form. His car also does not do this with ecu returned to stock and running, his evap purge valve is reading voltage non stop on flashpro map cal and duty voltage with ecu in stock form (when warmed up).
Last edited by Hybrid_Hatch on Sun May 19, 2013 1:23 am, edited 2 times in total.
Hybrid_Hatch
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Joined: Sun Oct 06, 2002 1:46 am

Re: Flashpro and evap shut valve

Post by Hybrid_Hatch »

*update*

I made a new "hybrid" calibration and made sure every sector from my "map based" tune was copied over that I could and the fuel tank now vents and works as it should and the car picked up a good amount of low end and throttle response, I am in process of converting my friends cal to see if his does the same.
Hybrid_Hatch
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Joined: Sun Oct 06, 2002 1:46 am

Re: Flashpro and evap shut valve

Post by Hybrid_Hatch »

another update.

I need to correct where I worded things wrong. the evap shut valve (which I stated above) is supposed to come on with the ignition on 2 but the evap purge valve (which is what I meant but typed out evap shut valve) is supposed to have battery voltage till it warms up to 150 degrees then the ecu is to take over and "duty control" it, what is happening is when you start the car the ecu turns on the evap shut valve (valve is normally open so the ecu closes it) and also turns the evap purge valve on and never turns off the evap purge valve under "map/race" cal's, I fixed 4 cars today by converting there tuned map calibrations to AFM hybrid cal's using the RBB S2 based cal's and "importing from calibration" from there tuned map cal's to the new hybrid cal and disabling the AFM,using map tables and disabling map to low and also mass or volume check boxes. my car stayed the same on A/F at wot (maybe due to leaky gas cap) but the other 3 cars went richer on A/F, one of which went from a tuned 13.2 a/f to a 10.99 after the vacuum was gone in the tank and the fuel pump didnt need to fight it to send fuel to the injectors. also all the cars start up faster, have better throttle response and pull harder, and most important, the fuel tank is no longer collapsing.
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Hondata
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Re: Flashpro and evap shut valve

Post by Hondata »

You have not said, but I assume that you were using the race calibration. We do not recommend using race calibrations in street cars.
Hondata
Hybrid_Hatch
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Re: Flashpro and evap shut valve

Post by Hybrid_Hatch »

Hondata wrote:You have not said, but I assume that you were using the race calibration. We do not recommend using race calibrations in street cars.
Yes I did, you can see I refer to "map" calibrations in most of the post, and I fixed it by converting to a "hybrid" cal.
ajpturbopittsburgh
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Re: Flashpro and evap shut valve

Post by ajpturbopittsburgh »

Hondata wrote:You have not said, but I assume that you were using the race calibration. We do not recommend using race calibrations in street cars.

Even if everyone using race cals don't use the vehicle for street use, which is completely ridiculous, because everyone except a select few do use and tune these cars for street use, is this still a normal or acceptable symptom?

I'm saying even if you were only using the car off road would you still want the vacuum in the tank?
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Hondata
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Re: Flashpro and evap shut valve

Post by Hondata »

There's only one race class I know off where the emission equipment is retained, and that class does not allow the ECU to be altered.
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Hybrid_Hatch
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Re: Flashpro and evap shut valve

Post by Hybrid_Hatch »

So are you saying its only acceptable to use a map based tune if its a full blown race car which has fuel tank venting mods and never sees street use? Would have been nice to know this before I took the risk of running one on a street car that sees track time on the weekends.
mucter
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Re: Flashpro and evap shut valve

Post by mucter »

Hondata wrote:You have not said, but I assume that you were using the race calibration. We do not recommend using race calibrations in street cars.
I love you guys, but come on, you know this response is nuts.

Everyone uses race cals on the street and has for almost 4 years now. Numerous people have complained about this behavior with no solution. You also know that I tried switching to the hybrid cal style late last year but it was no good for boost. I see that you've added more features to the hybrid cals now, but you didn't advertise it. Either way, this seems like an issue that really should be fixed in the race cals. There are thousands of people driving around on race cals with gas tank issues, they are certainly not going to pay their tuners to retune on the hybrid logic (and shouldn't have to).
VitViper
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Re: Flashpro and evap shut valve

Post by VitViper »

Hondata wrote:You have not said, but I assume that you were using the race calibration. We do not recommend using race calibrations in street cars.
You know, it's fine and dandy that the AFM Cals have been getting more attention and being developed while the MAP cals are being left behind -- but for a couple years we only had the option of using the Race cals, especially on F/I cars (didn't have the ability to use MAP to determine WOT in the AFM cals for a long while -- it's there now, but no changelog noted it). So what am I supposed to do with the HUNDREDS of customers that are on MAP cals? Retune them all for free? Yeah I don't believe that to be a realistic solution.

I realize you prefer the AFM/Hybrid cals -- I like them too, but dumping MAP cals after YEARS of use and your own recommendation we use them when FlashPro first came out is just a terrible move.

Not to mention it would be nice to have features like "flash alternator light when TC is active" on the Race cals since my black Civic only uses the race cals -- it has no emissions equipment and I have no motivation to switch calibration types -- but I WOULD like to use the new TC features.
nunoctr
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Re: Flashpro and evap shut valve

Post by nunoctr »

Hondata wrote:You have not said, but I assume that you were using the race calibration. We do not recommend using race calibrations in street cars.
I think you should review this movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2fLKOtchso

So, what are the problems that can be caused by running a MAP (race) tune on street car?
ajpturbopittsburgh
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Re: Flashpro and evap shut valve

Post by ajpturbopittsburgh »

Do return style fuel systems on boosted applications experience the high vacuum condition in the fuel tank?

I still didn't see an answer on if that condition on MAP tune is acceptable...Seems to me that you don't want this to happen even if you are using a MAP tune on an off road/race vehicle
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Spunkster
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Re: Flashpro and evap shut valve

Post by Spunkster »

This is why we created map based tuning within the AFM calibrations. This will eliminate these issues. Basically the race calibrations are no longer needed in 99% of cases and you should just use an AFM calibration and tune via map within that calibration.
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Hondata
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Re: Flashpro and evap shut valve

Post by Hondata »

mucter, VitViper; I've only ever had one report of this issue here (who did not follow through), so I do not think it affects thousands of users. I'll look into this if you're willing to narrow down the source of the problem.
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