Technical Paper
On the Use of a Honda 600cc 4-Cylinder Engine for Formula SAE Competition
2005-04-11
2005-01-0025
The Formula SAE® rules require the use of a 20mm intake restrictor. The presence of the restrictor necessitates the design or retuning of fuel and spark strategies that, in turn require the use of a programmable engine control unit (ECU). This paper describes a process used to establish the fuel and spark strategies for a standard production motorcycle engine operating with a restricted air intake. Honda 600cc engines were controlled by three different ECUs: a Haltech, DTA and an “in-house” ECU. Simple calculations of injection duration are suggested to provide a baseline fuel map from which the engine could be started, and then fuel maps are tuned by experiment. Similar baseline numbers for ignition timing are given.
