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| bell-auto-services Member Since: 08 Jul 2007 Location: North Yorkshire Posts: 2232   
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As a result of recent events on the forum, I was prompted to look back in to my Puma development archives for some data-logged information I needed, of which I made way back in April 2007 when I very first started the Puma development.
Whilst looking for what I needed, my memory was refreshed and alive again remembering all the hard work and effort made at that time, which made me think! I thought it about time I shared some of this development work information on open forums as so many of you are very interested in how your puma works as a car. Also, and importantly, how we at BAS got to where we are today with the tuning and deep understanding of it and what makes the thing tick. It may also help show how some of today’s performance products were initially made way back at the prototype stage when in original development. And, of course I would like to share it with you if you are interested in reading about it. I have quite a lot of pictures taken at the time of development that are only collecting dust, so to speak, locked away on my pc, so I’ll try to include them as I go. I will try and write it as it happened in the correct order but it’s been quite some time since the project was originally started and many things have happened since. So here goes nothing, lol. Back in January 2007, myself at BAS and Andrew at Allisport were talking on and off for quite some time about the new Puma that was going to become available soon and what we could do with it in respect of tuning. We spoke a lot about the new type engine which was going to be used for the first time in a LandRover Defender and, more to the point it was from another brand of car manufacturer that both of us really knew little about in respect of tuning it. Naturally we were both really unsure and very sceptical of what achievements could be made to it, if any at all. After all, it was basically a brand new MK7 Transit engine which no one had done any previous tuning development to it, as it was also new in the Transit itself let alone in a LandRover. We were going into “no man’s land” in respect of the information already available as we still knew very little about the new setup and its engine management system at this point. After much talking and firing ideas back-and-forth to each other we both decided a vehicle was needed to work on, so with credit to Allisport for the offer, Andrew went out and bought one to work on and regardless of ifs-and-buts as to how things would work out, we would just work through it until we cracked it - no matter how long it took. I feel this was a very big sacrifice for him to make bearing in mind that on DAY 1 we would be voiding its warranty and if things did not work out things could all go pear shaped very fast resulting in a lot of money being lost but this did not deter him so we got started straight away. This, I think is a real credit to Andy for being so trusting in me and also in us working together as a team trying to develop such a new model of car before anyone else has even attempted it. So that was that, Andy collected his car in April 2007 and within 300 miles of taking delivery of his brand new and very expensive Defender he was up at my workshop where we commenced the development work. Below are a couple of pictures of Andy’s 1 week old car at the side of my mate’s 2 day old car. Andy already had a prototype intercooler in mind when the car had only done just 52 miles and had started to prep the installation kit for the sensors we were going to be adding to the car during our development. This was the first Puma Defender sold in Gloucestershire! 
Take a note of the miles covered while remembering, Andy has just driven over 200 of them to arrive at my workshop.
Within about 30 mins of Andy arriving at my workshop, and after us both drooling over his new shiny car, out came the tools as it was time to void the warranty on his very expensive investment or what could become a very big paperweight hehe, and of course, I did my best to keep reminding him of this, like you do, whilst at the same time stating to him we are both crazy doing this to a new car that nobody has ever messed with before lol. First we added some sensors and gauges that would help me with the tuning and Andy with intercooler efficiency calculations. We started on the standard car measuring things like boost pressure and inlet temperatures along with things like exhaust gas temperature measurements under various working, and non working conditions, until we had collected enough data and we were at a stage to start modification of the car itself. These sensors and measurements are a must when starting anything new, as the unknown is only round the corner and these will prove to be very valuable later on in development of the car.
We then removed the old standard sized intercooler in order to fit the new massive performance intercooler which was designed by Allisport. We then had to start again with the sensor measurements and effects of fitting the new intercooler vs. the measurements taken when the car was standard. Of course the effects are well known today from the many people who have fitted the Allisport intercooler to their own vehicles.
After this, we then moved onto finding out what ECU the new Defender was running, and we found out within about 5 mins that this was a new Visteon ECU produced by FoMoCo (which is basically Ford) and I was certain no one had ever tuned it before. These are held in the car with security bolts to stop people like us tampering with them, but we were committed at this point and out came the die grinder! So after opening it and seeing the 144 pin PQFP processor inside and knowing there was nothing on the market that could already ODB tune this ECU, I set it to one side for now and ordered some parts for my chip programmer to help me connect the processor. I then sent Andy on his way as quickly as I could, as what I was about to do next to his pride and joy was not for the faint hearted lol and it was best for my personal health that he didn’t see what I was about to do . Of course, we were always in constant communication passing information and ideas between each other about the progress. Out then came the Instrument cluster for reverse engineering work to be started on the speed limiter, this seemed the best place to start since road speed and the ipac are directly related. I soon had it open to view the PCB inside looking for its programmable memory of which you can see in the picture below.
After removing a 35080 8 pin chip from the pcb an reading its contents I proceeded to add a means for fast read/write access so that when I made changes to the code these changes could be made in a few seconds without having to resolder the chip on and off many times. So I externally mounted the chip into a quickly removable socket.
Cut the rear cover of the ipac so it could be fitted back to the car leaving the memory chip external to the dash for easy access.
With this done it was now time for me to sit down and disassemble the program code read from the instrument cluster to work out what its doing and why etc. You will see in the picture below some of the obvious information that was instantly available in the code like the cars chassis number, ECU assembly number and programming dates. However this was not what I needed to start progress on the speed limiter removal and was not much use. It was now a case of starting at the top and working down the code until every byte was understood and its code algorithms were mastered. The very top 2 lines are an incremental part of the chip where value can only be added, this is where the cars distance covered is shown in binary but calculated in KMH. From this a calculation is made to show what you would see on the screen of the dash and shown in most cases in Miles. Moving further down the data is the EUCD information block and stores the build information of the car including things like Tyre circumference, Vehicle type, Transmission type and more to the point that interests me the Speed limiter ! After the disassembly was completed I started making tests to remove the speed limiter from the car via modification of the data held in the chip. This was short lived as it was soon very apparent that the instrument cluster was not actually “the true master” in the system for speed limiter but a shared master and also a communications converter from the speed sensor on the gearbox converting its speed signals from a standard pulse to a CAN message which was then sent onward to the engine ECU of which controlled the Vmax speed internally. Below is a picture of my Oscilloscope connected the speed sensor of Andy’s Puma where I was measuring the output from the sensor for my next move in the battle of the limiter.
From these measurements I decided to make a very basic test circuit that would interrupt the speed signal sent from the gearbox to the instrument cluster, this would help me understand what part of the car was affecting another in relation to the speed limit. I knocked up the circuit below using some very basic and widely available components and fitted it to the car so I could start interrupting the speed signals sent out from the gearbox.
The result were exactly as id planned and resulted in the 82Mph or 132Kmh being masked by the new added circuit and before you know it we were the first to break the speed limit on the Puma ON PRIVATE ROADS Click image to enlarge More to follow soon, my fingers are hurting from typing lol. Pete Last edited by bell-auto-services on 26th Oct 2012 9:29am. Edited 3 times in total |
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19th Feb 2011 4:18pm |
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| bell-auto-services Member Since: 08 Jul 2007 Location: North Yorkshire Posts: 2232
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The next stage of the development I decided to do was the De-cat and centre exhaust removal, This from what I now commonly see every day on the market available from various places in and out of the UK seems to have made the first “Blue Print” shape to the commonly known Puma De-cat! Quite nice to look at an exhaust and know I made the characteristic shape for the very first one and many other companies used it, even if it were only for the base shape to copy from
This was going to be a process where I had to hand make a De-cat pipe with no flexible components yet still make it fit without rattling. This is needed for most prototype exhausts as it’s then used to produce a “Jig” of which many more can be reproduced at a cost effective price while maintaining the fitting shape of the first prototype. In some respects its also one of the hardest parts and is very time consuming to build by hand because it’s a job that when made it generally does not fit first time and the exhaust has to be taken on and off quite a few times for adjustments and fine tuning. I have an exhaust pipe bender which I use for prototyping many exhausts as I always find it easer to produce something how I want it rather than how a main stream exhaust manufacturer does. I use a machine that is made in the USA called BendPak, it’s a semi-automatic bending machine that does not take up much space in the workshop and is ideal for “One Offs”, repairs and general light use. It’s a compression bending machine rather than a mandrel bender of which are far better than the compression benders at producing smooth bends without crushing the walls of the tube. But for small work especially prototyping the BenkPak machine is a perfect choice and takes no programming and complex setting up to use. http://www.bendpak.com/benders/pipe-benders/1502BAS-202.aspx Click image to enlarge So it began, I pulled the Puma on the ramp and started taking apart the brand new still shiny car, while I had it on the ramp the gearbox came out to address the what is normally a problem Duel Mass flywheel, BUT to my amazement it didn’t use the old type TD5 flywheel and clutch but instead LandRover had moved over to a single solid flywheel when the 6spd gear box was introduced.
I didn’t take many pictures at this time as my hands were full of gearbox and tools lol and I wanted to get cracking on the De-cat prototype. I took off the original Landrover exhaust and did some measurements and basic CAD drawings for my profile cutter who would cut me some flanges for the turbo end of the exhaust and the end that fastens to the centre box. Below are a couple of pictures of those flanges after id added the 4 studs needed for the turbo end attachment.
I continued on to test fit the flanges to the car before it was time to start bending some stainless, The flanges were exactly what I needed and fitted perfectly so it was on to the pipe work, after many hrs messing cutting welding etc id managed to build the very first puma De-cat that was going now to be used to build the jigging tool for thousands more to come. As you can see in the picture of it below it was not the best or sexiest looking thing in the world and the bends were no where near as good and smoothly done as a mandrel bent exhaust but for sure it was a fantastic first attempt of which im very proud of doing.
I did fit this to the car of which Andy used for quite a while at the same time various tests, measurements and calculations were made before it was then sent away for duplication from an exhaust manufacturer. The calculations and tests made at the time would be needed later on when it came to tuning the ecu for performance and was a crucial part of the process. Interestingly these calculations were going to be used again over 3 years later down the line when landrover made yet again some new software updates, at the time this would have never crossed my mind. This was where is had to recently remake a copy of my original EGT and Exhaust back pressure test kit to try and work out some issues related to tuning the new LR software versions. Last week i had an interesting day with a forum member doing some tests on a standard car and a performance exhaust car and would show yet more work is due again in 2011 to address the related things correctly.
This is a remade version of the original test kit i used, Guages would be attached to the end on the K-Type thermocouple and pigs tail coil pressure outlet. This setup was also used to take measurements for the EGR shut to minimium mapping to ensure we were not generating to much heat amongst other things. Im sure others will use very simlar methods of measurement in future developement work as it progresses. Last edited by bell-auto-services on 28th Feb 2011 8:09pm. Edited 12 times in total |
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19th Feb 2011 4:18pm |
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| bell-auto-services Member Since: 08 Jul 2007 Location: North Yorkshire Posts: 2232
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I was then onto what at this point what seemed totally impossibile as i had no one to look to for information or advise or even ideas for tuning because it simply didnt exist for the Puma or even the MK7 transit what used the same lump.
OBD flash programming at this point was only a dream as no tool manafacturer at this time could help me read or write the ecu diagnosticly, this was going to be a one man mission as i had no where to turn to for help 
After i opend the ECU for the very first time on the first day of developement i was faced with this ! which was the smallest finest pitched chip with that many legs id ever needed to deal with in all my life.
A 144 pin STMicroelectronics processor only 20mmx20mm that was only 1.4mm thick and consisted of 4 sides with of which had pins sooo small you could hardly see the gap between them without magnifying it using a jewlers eye glass. I was now thiking this is going to get tricky 
This as you see from the picture above and below where the chip is removed, it wasnt going to stop me even though I was advised by STMicroelectronics as being only possibile with a 20K heat oven dedicated for PCB manafacturer. I was now thinking cleverly with a little attitude to be honest to prove them wrong more than anything as what do they know lol, they only make the thing for people with 20k spare to buy a flash trick PCB oven but i was not listerning to "that is the only way sir" its a complex chip and can only be done like this and that. Little do they know that I ended up takeing the chip off and on in my office many many times with a 500 quid hot air station and they wernt going to stop me with frights about 20k machines needed for the job. 
Once i got the thing off it was into my bench top Elnec programmer for a full content read in non encripted form  The content read out was quite nice to see to be honest, and below you can see again mirrord from the IPAC i first read the Vin number and some other stuff arround it i aint speaking about
As this was in un encrypted "raw" form and i could read 100% of the chip content at will by just removing the chip reading it and replacinig it, i went onto programming the car with IDS/SSD dealer tool and stopping at every point of the ECU upgrade removing reading and replacing the chip to get a full understanding of what the dealer tool writes to the ECU and more to the point in what location. I also at the same time was dissasembeling the code at every point of programming the software update to work out how the ecu was addressed in respect of data block size etc etc. It also showed me the flash programming record history of which has been spoken about on this forum many times, date programmed, and things like the pilot correction which is done to the car after a dealer update as part of the setup. This for now was the only way i could program/tune the car, so it was going to be a slow slow process but would prove very rewarding when the OBD developement started with one of the words leading tuning tool manafacturers. Last edited by bell-auto-services on 28th Feb 2011 9:14pm. Edited 12 times in total |
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19th Feb 2011 4:19pm |
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| bell-auto-services Member Since: 08 Jul 2007 Location: North Yorkshire Posts: 2232
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Part 4 will go here.
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19th Feb 2011 4:21pm |
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| TC Member Since: 21 Nov 2010 Location: Gloucestershire Posts: 715
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Keep it coming Pete - excellent stuff. Almost tempted to buy a Puma
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19th Feb 2011 4:32pm |
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| WarPig Member Since: 04 Dec 2009 Location: Sheffield Posts: 1748  
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Truly amazing stuff
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19th Feb 2011 8:49pm |
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| szracer Member Since: 10 Oct 2010 Location: Cotswolds Posts: 356 
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And I thought your remaps were achieved with just a simple 99p capacitor in a fancy box.
Only joking, Pete!
2010 110 XS USW (the slow one) 1960 Alfa Romeo Giulietta SZ (the fast one) 2005 Ducati ST3 1954 Sunbeam S8 |
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19th Feb 2011 9:39pm |
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| bell-auto-services Member Since: 08 Jul 2007 Location: North Yorkshire Posts: 2232
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LOL, quite a bit more to it than that as you know
I just posted part 2, probabally loads of typos in it but ill have a re read my self and edit as needed. Looking at the info ive collected i should have made it 10 parts  Also looking at the pics and info saved i think to my self, ohh ive quite a few very, very interesting stories i could tell everyone about the puma developement ive done but i think the typing may get the better of me so it looking like a cut down version. ill see how i get on lol
Pete Last edited by bell-auto-services on 20th Feb 2011 7:21pm. Edited 1 time in total |
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19th Feb 2011 10:10pm |
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| dgardel Member Since: 30 Nov 2008 Location: Veneto (Heart & Head) Posts: 3586 
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Great Pete!!!!! Discovery 5 td6 HSE Stornoway Gray Outback Engineering Limited Edition
IID Pro MV License |
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19th Feb 2011 11:02pm |
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| MrFlips Member Since: 27 May 2009 Location: Cardiff Posts: 682  
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Excellent post Pete.
Looking forward to part 3.  Peter
2008 SWB Truck Cab 1952 80" Soft top |
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19th Feb 2011 11:16pm |
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| noworries4x4 Member Since: 24 Dec 2010 Location: Newton Abbot Devon Posts: 1195
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This superb reading just wish your workshops were much closer, i think my 90 would be in much better shape if i could be picking your brains instead of the dealer that wants to tell you nothing at all as if its the biggest secret in the world but the answer is they dont know either If everything is under control you are not going fast enough.
Every Day 16 MY Discovery 4 Commercial Workshop and Escort Vehicle Weekends 07MY L322 TDV8 Vogue SE Series 1 80" 3ltr 6cyl with overdrive No Worries 4X4 |
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20th Feb 2011 11:43am |
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| dm_td5 Member Since: 20 Jul 2008 Location: Arnhem Land Posts: 609  
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21st Feb 2011 8:26pm |
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| nicks Member Since: 21 Aug 2008 Location: south coast Posts: 469 
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Hi Pete,
good work - just a thought on the catless downpipe - would it not need a flex in it? |
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22nd Feb 2011 11:37pm |
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| bell-auto-services Member Since: 08 Jul 2007 Location: North Yorkshire Posts: 2232
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Yes final production pipes do, but you cant make a "jig" from a bendy pipe it needs to be solid
Pete |
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23rd Feb 2011 9:13am |
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