Thanks Mike
If you recall, this LSAS came to life from your earlier converstations about FAS for CVT Insights....The MT has some advantages over the CVT of things that you can do to keep AutoStop going (as 02Insight pointed out) even if you don't exceed 8MPH again....Also, from my understanding (since I don't own one), the MT can go into AS at 19MPH.....CVT's only go into AS at just below 5MPH and only if you are in Drive mode (non-sport mode).....Once you are in AS, you can switch to Neutral and the car will not start back up. If you switch back to any other gear from Neutral, the car will start back up.....
Also, AS will only happen in a CVT when you slow down to just below 5MPH with your foot on the brake....Once you take your foot off the brake (I think even if you put it in Neutral before doing so), the car will start back up....
I think the thing I fear that could be a problem with higher speed FAS on a CVT has to to do with pulley ratio position at the time of FAS and also start clutch wear and tear.
Normally, as you slow down, the CVT is changing the pulley positions so that the metal belt is in the proper ratio when you start back up. Let's say if you were able to trick the CVT into a FAS at 25MPH and that it would also disengage the start clutch (so it would be more free wheeling like being neutral). So if you keep the engine off all the way to the stop, at this point, the CVT belt is in a very bad / wrong ratio and the belt pulleys can not allow a ratio change until the engine is spinning again. The Transmission Control Module probably knows that belt is now in the wrong ratio by a large factor but can't do anything about it. When you start off again, the pulleys may try to put the belt in the proper ratio while you are trying to drive away. That may put a lot of inital stess on the belt, cause more start clutch slippage and possibly make initial driveability takeoff difficult......
Basically, over the long term, repeated action may damage the internals of the CVT and that costs mega bucks to repair.....
All I am doing right now is a split second after the engine starts back up, a fake 9MPH is sent to the ECM VSS wire (the speedometer, climate control, and IMA system still get the real VSS). It sends the 9MPH for about 2.5 seconds and that is enough to trick the ECM into "thinking" that you drove beyond that magical 8MPH threshold so slowing back down will allow for another AS. That next AS happens immediately if you reach 4MPH and put your foot on the brake.....Those are the coolest...But if you only reach like 2MPH for real then stop again and keep your foot on the brake, it will take about 10 seconds of idle, then shut off.....You always have to keep the foot on the brake though.
So actually, this mod does not change what happens to the car while approaching AS and the actual AS itself the way Honda designed it.....It just tells the ECM after immediately coming out of an AS that it is OK to go ahead and do another one even though you never really reached that 8MPH threshold and it will keep on doing it over and over....
There are some rules for continued AS success if you don't exceed 4MPH....You should not just take your foot off the brake and "creep forward" like normal automatics do. The CVT allows this but the ECM wants to see you press on the gas pedal a bit while that fake signal is being sent. You just need slight pedal pressure so the TPS voltage changes enough.....If you don't do that then you get no AS when you come to a stop.....Also in order for the LSAS to work...you always have to come out of an AS first.....(It only knows to reset itself from the change in voltage from the ENGRDY wire - the one that tells your instrument gauge to blink the Idle stop light).....
Anyway....I am rambling on.....I want to build another set of these boards again sometime in the next few months. I want to try the photo etching PCB method instead of manually making solder traces (takes a long time per board)....I already have designed a layout. If I get the hang of it, the boards could be made much quicker so they would cost a lot less to make.....I just want to learn to do the etching anyway and if I do sell one, it would look much nicer and be less expensive
Anyway, if I was able to make like a very small batch of them like 5-10, it would be helpful to see how it would work in an MT Insight....I know it works in 4 CVT Insights so far.
So Mike, I can swing by one day and if you are willing to install one then check it out to see if it works for you, and if it does, its yours and it will only cost you a soda
It is the least I can do with all of the hard work you have done with MIMA, IMA battery stuff and other ideas that you bring to this forum.
JoeCVT = Just your average CVT owner
