cloudnine

I'm thinking about it as one of my projects for next spring. Has anyone installed one in an manual SC300?

vipsoarer

i dont recall anyone here using the system on their sc3 but i may be wrong. i do know on a buddy's rx7 it worked great except for in snowy weather. the system would still let too much power to the wheels even though the 7 was only making 250 wheel. its a good unit, dont get me wrong but if you are looking for a cure for winter driving i would be weary

cloudnine

Not for snow, no, but I think it would help the traction on an SC300 which, as you know, was never offered with it (at least the 5 speed version). Especially a boosted SC300. I know a few high-horsepower Turbo Supras are running around with the Race Logic, which is even described as a lifesaver in some instances. Come to think of it, it should be possible to retrofit a factory traction control system to an SC that didn't come with it, shouldn't it?

gadgetSC

I have the racelogic in my auto. You shouldnt have any problems installing it on your manual. I replaced the stock TC with it.



gadgetSC-t

cloudnine

Thanks, Gadget, that's good to know. The racelogic.co.uk website offers no technical data. Is there a writeup somewhere about how it operates? I've heard that it uses the ABS sensors, but does it need to know what gear the car is in, and how does it find that out? (I have a getrag in the SC300).

deruvian

Understanding the functionality of the RaceLogic system would be much easier if one understands the basics about ABS sensors and traction control systems.

ABS sensors simply check how many times the wheel is rotating per second (or how many times per half-second, etc). When you slam on the brakes at 60mph, but suddenly the wheel starts spinning 0 times per second, the ABS computer knows to reduce hydraulic brake pressure to that wheel. This can also be used for traction control systems, because it doesn't usually make much sense for one wheel to be spinning at a drastically different rate than the others.

A lot of OEM traction control systems will reduce the duty cycle of the injectors and/or (if properly equipped) reduce the throttle position. Better ones will pull/cut timing. This simply reduces power output of the engine, which gives the wheels a chance to "grip" again.

The RaceLogic system simply monitors wheel speeds, and when slippage occurs, timing is cut momentarily. It obviously compares one wheel to all the others, and most likely the the speedometer as well, and "decides" if the percentage difference is large enough to require a cut in timing. This percentage is adjustable, and is really the only thing being measured by the system.

In other words, your transmission doesn't have a d*mn thing to do with it.

cloudnine

Hmmm...Apparently at least one traction control system needs to know what the transmission is doing. Here's a quote from supraforums about the (buggy ) traction control function that's built into the AEM box:

"One thing I'd point out about Trac Control - there's a bug in it. Since the Supra (stick anyway) has no outputs to indicate what gear your in you must set up the Gear Table. This is fairly easy to do. You have the option of telling the AEM to use a calculated gear via the table you've setup or an input - we must use the table. Unfortunatly right now it appears that the function doesn't recognize that you have told it to use the table and still looks for the input. This will be fixed, AEM knows about it. So far as I know I'm the only person that has fooled with Trac Control outside of the AEM engineers and maybe a few of the tuners. The extreme acceleration rate of the Supra also presents some tuning challenges with regards to the Trac Control.

That said - the technology is sound. MSD uses it in one of their boxes that was originally designed for drag boats - it was then banned from NHRA competition in many classes. NASCAR guys use this type of technology to cheat too

For now I'm going RaceLogic as it's just easier right now. In the future I WILL work on the AEM stuff but folks ought to be aware of this before purchasing one. AEM promised us this feature before the box came out and are working to deliver it for us, I already know it's working on at least one Mustang and a Viper for AEM"

gadgetSC

Just so your clear...The Racelogic uses a fuel cut to reduce power. It doesnt control timing.
The AEM TC does use timing to reduce wheel spin. I have only heard of a couple of Supra users being able to get it to work.



gadgetSC-t

deruvian

Yes, but this is a thread regarding the RaceLogic system. I read that post on supraforums, and I think everyone (for now) would be smart to avoid the AEM TC system. I haven't heard anything about that "bug" being fixed ( I'd like to be wrong about that, though).

deruvian

Ahhh, sorry bout that. Apparently I switched the methods of the two.

cloudnine

Right. I'm asking about the RL because I don't want to use the AEM EMS that's already in the car. My point was that there is at least one type of traction control that needs something from the transmission.

deruvian

Gotcha. Well, as far as I've been informed, you don't need to worry about it with RL.

BTW - Have you read this yet?

cloudnine

Deruvian, thanks for the link. I couldn't find it before (old age?). I also found this install how-to link for a Supra: http://www.mkiv.com/techarticles/rac...all/index.html. For an SC300 that was born Trac-less, I can see that there would be some differences in the setup. The RL looks fabulous though; it should work far better than the factory Trac.