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How the R32 ATTESA ETS works to make you look good

17K views 78 replies 14 participants last post by  Mr.Carnage  
#1 ·
A Skyline GTR is pretty good at making you look like a better driver than you really are without ruining all your fun! In fact I've a few people get out of the car on track days and ask "Are you sure it's four wheel drive?"

I've been looking at data logs to understand exactly how it does it. Essentially: RWD normally, moving to around 25% to 30% front drive to help manage "mildly fruity" moments and finally 50/50 split for high speed stability.

This matches what I've read over the years and the feedback you feel in the car, so it's nice to confirm that all with real data and be able to show it in practice.

Here's 30 seconds of data, three corners and a straight at Silverstone to demonstrate these basics.


This example is a 32 but the 33 and 34 are fairly similar in basic operation. Apparently the ATTESA ETS intervenes quicker and more intelligently in the newer cars but the basic principles are the same. What you do see on my logs is the 250ms-500ms the 32 system takes to build pressure at the transfer case and bring in the front wheel drive, doesn't sounds long but you can get quite sideways in half a second:runaway:
 
#6 · (Edited)
Yes still on the AD08Rs, they are 18mths old now I think, only done a few dry trackdays on them though. Seemed to rain every time I went on track last year!

The figures look good but they were a bit more noisy than the RSRs and no longer have the grip levels of the A048Rs which they pretty much had when brand new.

Lots of raw footage from the 19th not much edited yet. Just the geakery above and this sport with an amusingly driven 991 Turbo.
 
#12 ·
Hehe I couldn't tell either. I saw some of your onboard though, looked great, 620 is a nice number, interesting you've detuned a bit, I've also turned down the wick, I was running 1.2bar and have managed 2:32 fairly consistent with a 2:30 fluke once in 2014. Now only 1bar but with much better response after Mark at Abbey dialed in the closed loop boost on the Link using the data we sent back and for in the course of the day at Silverstone. I get full boost after a gear change a full second sooner now. The result is around 450-470fwhp I guess which is pretty nice. I've also taken out the ABS and not yet got to grips with that so I'm afair bit slower over a lap, where I was getting 1.2g on the brakes I now squeak 0.9g and you see it in the logs killing the lap times, best I managed in decent conditions was a 2:36 on the 19th. Not all about lap times though and its really lovely to drive now. I was temped to switch back to high boost when I cpuldn't quite pass that Turbo on the straight though.:chuckle:
 
#13 ·
The old style ATTESA doesn't have any data output really so I fitted a pressure sensor into the transfer case itself and fed that into a gauge and then into an analog input on the link ecu. In due course I will output that onto the CAN bus and log it on my race technology video 4 logger which is already reading everything else from the Link CAN bus output, but for now its just logged in the Link ECU.

On an R35 no doubt it will all be on the bus so it may just a question of getting the CAN ids for your logger. The race technology logger can input box is configurable so if you know the can stream/frame details you can add it yourself which is very handy.
 
#21 ·
Really interesting thread Alex. As discussed on the phone the other day it's really useful to be able to compare as I was convinced my 4wd was in too much when I'm seeing almost full 4wd on a try straight on hot tyres and therefore had a problem. However, it would appear that is exactly how it's supposed to work.

So that's good then, it's not broken again :eek:)
 
#23 ·
Pulled some interesting data from the logs from Snetterton on Wednesday running in some very mixed conditions. Especially looking at the effect of the Skylab. I wish I'd been more methodical, I even forgot to turn on my main data logger so only got data from the Link ECU. That said, there is enough here to make for some interesting investigations next time:

Can anyone guess what happened around 8:15?

Image
 
#25 · (Edited)
Turned the Skylab down ... or up... wish I could remember :) You can see the attesa goes from being mildly active most of the time, changing to cutting in dramatically but less frequently.

The data above is basically two full laps at the start of the second lap I changed the setting because of changing track conditions, I just can't remember if it was getting wetter or dryer at this point lol.

The white plot is attesa pressure again btw. I've sorted out the scale in the link, nearly, the numbers are PSI but the label says kPa.
 
#33 · (Edited)
#37 ·
I feel that these test are very good, as by understand how the attessa works, and how skylab can adjust the system, we are able to adjust according to the tracks.
I use my 32 for 3 different tracks, so having an idea how all this works help me in deciding how much to turn the knobs
***128077;

Sent from my SM-N910G using Tapatalk
 
#38 ·
I didn't realize it would kick in for higher speed acceleration like at the end of your video. Is this behavior standard? Is there any amount of wheel spin it is detecting?
 
#41 ·
Very interesting, didn't know about the high speed stability 50/50
I'd also never heard of this, was surprised to see it and suspected some fault in my system, although at least one other person has reported seeing the same on the factory gauge so may be standard after all.

I dont have a reliable way of logging wheel speed unfortunately, the link can't handle the signals from the factory abs/ets wheel sensors; too high frequency and too high voltage at speed.