DAM dropped. Weird values

I’ve had my AP for about 2 months now. I’m stage 1 ots.

Mods:

Catback

Lwfw

I’ve never seen my DAM drop below 1 before. I was out and saw an unplowed parking lot, ripped a single donut in 2nd gear. Came nowhere near redline or hitting any significant boost. Car caught traction and I probably wall wet it a little bit getting the tires to break loose again. I glance down and my DAM is at 0.

Drove my car home, ran perfectly fine. On the drive home id hit the gas and see values of +5 and as low as -7 while starting from a red light. I’m very very confused. Fine knock learn is at 0 and the only knock I get is when I start from a stop. I’m beginning to think that my exedy lwfw is causing false knock readings as randomly I’ll see as high as 4 during avergage driving. I’ll see up to 8 while starting from a stop.

What should I do? Reset the ECU? The engine seems to be completely fine.

First, you should stop doing donuts attempting to drift in a AWD car. You’re going to blow your center diff into pieces and not to mention the safety issues. But to each his own I suppose.

Second, what parameter values are you seeing at +5/-7? You can try to reset the ECU and see if it comes back. Post a csv log of starting from a stop. Any knock during boost or after shifts? How about in neutral revving the car?

First, you should stop doing donuts attempting to drift in a AWD car. You’re going to blow your center diff into pieces and not to mention the safety issues. But to each his own I suppose.

 

Second, what parameter values are you seeing at +5/-7? You can try to reset the ECU and see if it comes back. Post a csv log of starting from a stop. Any knock during boost or after shifts? How about in neutral revving the car?

Drifting in the snow is the greatest joy of driving a Subaru. Done it thousands of times, never had a diff problem.

Echo the rest.

Drifting in the snow is the greatest joy of driving a Subaru. Done it thousands of times, never had a diff problem.

 

Echo the rest.

To be honest I missed the word “unplowed” when reading the original post. My bad. Donuts in the snow do not put excessive strain on the center diff since all four wheels are still spinning the same speed, ABS could kick in though.

I just recently had a conversation online with a kid who sent me videos of him “drifting” his Legacy on dry pavement using the E-brake to spin the tires. And he wonders why he’s had to replace 4 front axles in the year he’s had it

I’d just reset the ECU. You likely hit some load points outside where you are in normal operation and had some knock (some bad knock I might add, if it went to 0).

I’m going to reset the ECU today before I go out. I think what likely happened was wall wetting. I was probably about 50% throttle at 2,000 rpm for a second when I caught traction.

First, you should stop doing donuts attempting to drift in a AWD car. You’re going to blow your center diff into pieces and not to mention the safety issues. But to each his own I suppose.

 

Second, what parameter values are you seeing at +5/-7? You can try to reset the ECU and see if it comes back. Post a csv log of starting from a stop. Any knock during boost or after shifts? How about in neutral revving the car?

Those were DAM values. This is what caused my concern. I’ve never even heard of damn values above 1 or below 0. I thought it went in decimal increments going down from 1 as it pulled timing

I just recently had a conversation online with a kid who sent me videos of him “drifting” his Legacy on dry pavement using the E-brake to spin the tires. And he wonders why he’s had to replace 4 front axles in the year he’s had it

Well yeah, that's dumb.

I’m going to reset the ECU today before I go out. I think what likely happened was wall wetting. I was probably about 50% throttle at 2,000 rpm for a second when I caught traction.

It was knock (likely) or false knock (less likely), plain and simple. At 2000rpm you may or may not be in an area where the advance multiplier can even be adjusted. Only way to know is look at the calibration file.

I think you should do a little homework to understand how the multiplier works. Once you understand that you likely will understand why I suggested just resetting the ECU. It may take a long time to get the multiplier back to 1 by just driving it.

Another thing, with the multiplier at 0 you are likely on the failsafe/engine protection maps. Do you know if the tuner left those stock or adjusted them? And how did he adjust them? Are they just a copy and paste of the normal maps? You may not be doing your engine any favors that way either.

Those were DAM values. This is what caused my concern. I’ve never even heard of damn values above 1 or below 0. I thought it went in decimal increments going down from 1 as it pulled timing

Are you sure you didn’t look look down at a different parameter in the time of concern? I’ve never heard of DAM going below 0 or above 1 either. It was either a glitch in the AP or you were looking at feedback knock. I’ve heard of the 02-05 WRX having values between 1-16 but that’s a different tune and AP.

Send us a log whenever you can.

It was knock (likely) or false knock (less likely), plain and simple. At 2000rpm you may or may not be in an area where the advance multiplier can even be adjusted. Only way to know is look at the calibration file.

 

I think you should do a little homework to understand how the multiplier works. Once you understand that you likely will understand why I suggested just resetting the ECU. It may take a long time to get the multiplier back to 1 by just driving it.

 

Another thing, with the multiplier at 0 you are likely on the failsafe/engine protection maps. Do you know if the tuner left those stock or adjusted them? And how did he adjust them? Are they just a copy and paste of the normal maps? You may not be doing your engine any favors that way either.

He’s on Cobb’s OTS map and I’m fairly certain they don’t adjust protection maps as the stock maps are probably conservative enough. Wouldn’t he also be in limp mode if that’s the case?

He’s on Cobb’s OTS map and I’m fairly certain they don’t adjust protection maps as the stock maps are probably conservative enough. Wouldn’t he also be in limp mode if that’s the case?

Im no expert but the tunes I’ve worked on simply look like it switches tables when the advance multiplier gets low enough, and I haven’t seen any evidence of limp mode when I’ve had the multiplier go low enough to switch to protection tables.

I’d agree he probably is ok assuming the protection maps weren’t touched but nobody here knows absolutely for sure. Safeties are often eliminated when tunes other than stock are used and the OP hasn’t given enough information to really work with.

LOL....did you leave the parking lights on with the switch above the steering wheel too?

Glad you figured it out.