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CISe system q's [Answers - long]



GREAT post.  That is the best explanation I've ever seen for CIS-E.  That one's
going in the save file, the garage wall, the glove compartment etc ;)

If we included the correct MA readings for the DPR I think it would be a great
addition to the tech section of scirocco.org and the FAQ on vwvortex.com.

If I get around to looking it up in the Bentley I'll resend it w/ the correct
MA numbers, a must have reference!

Thanks Jason!!!

Matt Coates

--- Jason <jason@scirocco.org> wrote:
> At 12:58 PM 7/24/2003, Ryan H wrote:
> >Well, if your car was running limp-mode, you'd really notice it, cause 
> >you'd have NO power.  None.
> 
> She actually was -- I saw the 10mA reading.
> Whether the car will actually run like shizzynit is going to be a factor of 
> where the mixture is set.  I'll explain in a minute.
> 
> 
> 
> >The connector on the back of the fuel block is what you measured (DPR) 
> >that read 10mA.  Not exactly sure how this unit works, though.  A reading 
> >that is stuck usually means a dead O2 sensor, but I was under the 
> >impression by others that the reading would be 20mA in such a case, not 10.
> 
> Actually, I've seen it read 0 mA with a dead O2 sensor, too.  As O2 sensors 
> age, they put less and less voltage out, which causes the computer to think 
> the car is becoming increasingly lean.  It'll compensate for it by 
> richening the mixture (reducing the DPR current, eventually to 0).  At some 
> point, the sensor will be totally dead, and then the computer will go into 
> limp-home mode.  (More below).
> 
> 
> >   And the sensor on the front really has nothing to do with the CIS-E 
> > loop - it's an airflow sensor that is only used when you first start the 
> > car - it supplies additional fuel when you hit the throttle for the first 
> > 30 seconds or so after starting it.  If you were to unplug it then blip 
> > the throttle right after starting, the car would bog nicely because of 
> > the missing signal.  HTH.
> 
> It actually works all the time -- not just the first 30 seconds.  It's a 
> potentiometer that measures rate of change of the airflow meter.  It will 
> respond by richening the mixture under any quick throttle 
> transitions.  Unplug it, and you'll feel no big difference under 
> steady-state cruising.  But any time you make a sudden downward movement of 
> that pedal, the engine will bog for a second until the mixture catches 
> up.  There are a lot of reasons why you want a richer mixture under 
> transitional throttle, but one of the big reasons this device is used is to 
> compensate for the time it takes for the air flow plate to move and to 
> actually supply extra fuel to the injectors when the throttle is suddenly 
> opened.
> 
> Julie, I recommend getting the Bosch Injection book.  I'm going to look to 
> see if I have it on CD-ROM (or at least parts of it) for you to 
> download.  It's a great resource and explains everything in great 
> detail.  It's very technical, but I know you'll have no problem 
> understanding it.
> 
> Here's the long and short of it:  CIS-E meters fuel by measuring airflow 
> with a plate.  As the plate moves further upward in response to more air 
> travelling past it, it opens 4 valves in the fuel distributor which 
> increase the amount of fuel going to the injectors.  It's a brilliantly 
> simple system.
> 
> Certain situations call for a mixture leaner or richer than the baseline 
> level (somewhere around 'Stoich') [cold starting and running, overheating 
> engine, throttle transitions, full throttle, fuel cutoff, 
> etc].  Furthermore, using feedback from the O2 sensor, it can determine the 
> *actual* mixture, and make very fast continual adjustments to even more 
> precisely control mixture.  The CIS-E computer sends signals to the DPR, 
> which allows it to make these corrections to the mixture.
> 
> There are two "halves" of the fuel distributor on CIS-E cars.  The lower 
> chamber is fuel pressurized by the fuel pump and sitting there waiting to 
> be fed to the injectors.  The upper chambers are fuel that is on its way to 
> the injectors.  There are two ways that fuel can pass from the lower 
> chamber to the upper chambers:
>          (1) Through one of the 4 valves that are opened by the airflow 
> plate, and
>          (2) The differential pressure regulator (DPR).
> 
> If your engine is perfectly tuned, you can disconnect all of the 
> electronics from a CIS-E car and it will run fine.  (Mine runs 
> fantastically when it's warm with no CIS-E computer hooked up to it at 
> all).  It will meter fuel on a purely mechanical basis (i.e. through those 
> 4 valves controlled by the airflow plate), and you'll lose all the 
> electronic babysitting services that the "E" added to CIS-E:  It'll start 
> hard, since it won't have cold-start enrichment.  It'll run rough when cold 
> because it won't have cold-running enrichment.  It will lose some power 
> under full-throttle because it can't richen the mixture.  Your injectors 
> won't shut off when coasting under no throttle, causing a slight backfiring 
> and a reduction of fuel mileage.  Your emissions will be higher because the 
> computer can't adjust mixture based on O2-sensor feedback.  Some CIS-E 
> systems (like Mercedes CIS-E systems, for example) will richen the mixture 
> at high engine temps to cool the motor down, or use an altitude-sensor to 
> compensate for high altitudes...
> 
> The computer does all of these neat little tricks by using the DPR.  The 
> DPR is a connection between the lower chamber of the fuel distributor and 
> the upper chambers of the fuel distributor.  It uses an electro-magnetic 
> membrane that acts as a valve to allow additional fuel to 'sneak' past the 
> other 4 valves and supply more fuel to the injectors.
> 
> When no current is supplied to the DPR, the valve is like half closed.  The 
> fuel getting to the injectors is the fuel that passes by the 4 fuel 
> distributor valves and through the DPR.  The more current that is supplied 
> to the DPR, the more fuel it allows to pass through it.  (So the mixture 
> will be richer for any given position of the air flow plate).  Likewise, 
> the less current that goes to the DPR, the less fuel that is allowed to 
> pass through it, and correspondingly, less fuel is delivered to the 
> injectors for any given position of the plate.
> 
> If you watch what happens to the DPR after you start the car, you can see 
> that it gets a high current from the computer, richening up the mixture at 
> first.  This value then drops to the "baseline" value, which is usually 
> around 10mA.  (Don't quote me on some of these numbers, every system is 
> different and I never remember which is which -- Mercedes, for example, 
> uses Volts instead of Amps as a measurement for the DPR).  This value is 
> the limp-home mode.... it's the default value that the computer picks if it 
> can't figure out what else to do.
> 
> If you blip the throttle, you'll see the current jump up, and then drop 
> down to a negative value for a split second, and then return.  What's 
> happening here is that the potentiometer I mentioned earlier is seeing a 
> quick change in air flow, and signaling the computer to fatten (=richen) up 
> the mixture temporarily.  Then, the computer sees the idle switch being 
> activated, which means your foot is completely off the gas.  So it turns 
> the injectors off completely by closing the DPR's valve as much as it 
> can.  Once it returns to like 1300rpm, the fuel is switched back on, and 
> the value returns to "normal".
> 
> Once the O2 sensor begins to provide feedback, the DPR current will start 
> to fluctuate.  You'll see it rise and sink, rise and sink.  This is the 
> computer continually (over)compensating for the mixture.  It'll go a little 
> too lean, then a little too rich, then a little too lean, and so on.  Any 
> of the other factors we mentioned before (like fuel cutoff or cold-engine 
> enrichment) will vary that current by a certain amount.  So, for example, 
> the DPR current (calculated based on O2-sensor feedback) will be reduced by 
> a few mA to richen the mixture when the car is still a little cold.
> 
> At full throttle, the computer completely ignores the O2 sensor and goes 
> into a fixed enrichment mode... I can't remember what it is, but say 8mA.
> 
> Remember, this current reading isn't the "mixture" reading, it's a 
> *modifier.*  The real mixture is determined by the air-flow plate and its 
> subsequent opening of those 4 valves.  The DPR current tells us how much 
> the computer is MODIFYING the metering that the air-flow plate is giving us.
> 
> Thus a reading of 0Ma shows is that the airflow plate is giving the engine 
> too much fuel, and that the computer is telling the DPR to close its valve 
> to help lean out the mixture.  Likewise, a DPR current of 35mA would mean 
> that the mechanical metering was giving the engine far too little fuel, and 
> the computer was trying to compensate for that by letting lots of fuel flow 
> through the DPR to richen the mixture.
> 
> So when we look at the DPR current reading on a healthy system, we should 
> see a value of something like 5mA.  (Don't quote me on the numbers, 
> remember).  This number corresponds to the point where the 
> mechanically-metered mixture is as close to "dead on" as it can get, and 
> allows the DPR enough room to compensate in both directions (i.e. it can 
> sufficiently LEAN or RICHEN the mixture).  If you set the mixture too lean 
> with the screw (mechanically), you risk having the DPR be out of range:  It 
> can't provide enough fuel to compensate, and even doing all it can, you'll 
> still be too lean.
> 
> The CIS-E box has a bunch of inputs that it relies on to determine what the 
> mixture compensation (DPR current) should be.  I don't remember them all 
> off the top of my head, but some of them are:  The idle switch, the 
> full-throttle switch, the coolant temperature sensor, the thermo-time 
> switch, the Oxygen sensor, the airflow plate potentiometer, and some kind 
> of RPM sensor.  If the computer is getting an invalid reading (or no 
> reading at all) from one or more of the sensors, it will go into limp-home 
> mode.  Obviously, the O2 sensor is one of the most important sensors -- 
> without it, the mixture compensation can't happen at all -- only the 
> "special" cases - like cold running, full-throttle, etc, are dealt with.
> 
> If your DPR current never moves or changes, there's something causing your 
> computer to just give up.  You need to check that all of the input signals 
> are actually getting to the computer... and that all of the things the 
> computer controls (DPR, aux air bypass valve, etc) are functioning 
> properly.  If I remember correctly, the computer will throw in the towel if 
> the aux air bypass valve is disconnected, for example.  (My Mercedes CIS-E 
> did...)
> 
> And that's it. :)
> 
> Good luck and HTH!
> Jason
> 
> PS:  If you know how the aux air bypass valve works, (or the Idle 
> Stabilizer Valve, ISV, as it's been called), you'll recognize that the DPR 
> works in a similar way.  The only 2 ways for air to enter the engine 
> through a closed throttle are (a) through the idle bypass, which is 
> adjusted by that screw, and (b) through the ISV.  If the screw is set 
> properly, the ISV will be at the mid-point of its duty cycle, which means 
> that it's half open.  This way it has maximum flexibility to raise idle (by 
> opening all the way), or reduce idle (by closing the rest of the way).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > >
> > > From: "Julie Macfarlane" <juliemac57@hotmail.com>
> > > Date: 2003/07/24 Thu AM 07:10:59 EDT
> > > To: scirocco-l@scirocco.org
> 
=== message truncated ===


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