MADMAN Engine Monitoring System

[ChristoSlang]

Strictly speaking this is not a complete DIY project, but here goes any way...

It is generally accepted that excessive exhaust gas temperatures is the bane of a turbo-charged diesel motor. Because i intend to keep my Patrol for a looooong time, I decided to invest in an EGT monitor. After the bad luck that has befallen some of the diesel Patrol owners on the forum, I thought that it would be a good idea to share this information with everybody.

Just after I purchased Chuck last year, I did some research and realised that it's much more cost effective to invest in an electronic unit that allows one to monitor a number of other functions in addition to EGT only. Being a patriotic sort of chap I opted for the MADMAN system that's manufactured in Cape Town and sold up here in Gauteng (see http://www.madman.co.za for more info).

Because I was (one of?) the first 4.2 Patrol owners to purchase all the sensors, they offered to fit all the sensors free of (labour) charges so that they could build a kit for other Patrol owners. The system consists of an electronic monitoring unit (two variants available for flush or surface mount) that is mounted inside your vehicle. This monitoring unit is connected to any number of sensors (or none) in the engine bay:
1x coolant temperature
1x coolant level
1x oil/turbo pressure sensor (only one pressure sender at a time)
1x EGT temperature sensor
1x existing oil level switch

The unit itself contains a built-in inclinometer, voltage sensor and service interval timer (no need to purchase any senders here). All readouts have an adjustable low/high warning points, as well as a memory to retain maximum/minimum values. There's a visible (red LED) & (barely) audible beeper alarm to alert one when any of the senders exceed their preset low/high values. There's also a configurable (either for alarm output or temperature switched) that is used to drive a relay. The principle behind the temperature switching is that it can delay the connection of a secondary battery to the alternator, or be used to turn on an additional radiator or an inter-cooler fan (this is what mine does).

I stuck (double-sided tape) my monitor unit onto two bent aluminium strips that are pop-riveted to the bottom of my centre console. The rivets are hidden by the unit, and the angle of the bracket itself allows me to place my cell phone underneath it whilst I am driving:

MADMAN EMS 1

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It "boots up" when I start the engine, and delays all warnings by one minute after initialisation. This is very useful to prevent oil pressure and battery voltage alarms when you're waiting for glow plugs to warm up!

[ChristoSlang]

The wiring goes to the engine bay via that big, rubber grommet in the centre of the firewall. I asked the MADMAN folks to fit all available sender units so that I could do the wiring myself, and this is what I ended up with. First off we have the oil-related sensors:

Oil senders

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The silver thingy is a VDO oil pressure sender, and it is mounted on one end of a brass T-piece with the existing oil pressure switch on the other end. It measures from 0-10 bar, and I've seen just over 5 bar from it during cold weather starts. Once the motor is warm and running at normal revs, it lives at around 3 bar. When the engine is very hot and the revs are low, it drops down to about 1.3 bar, so I've set the low alarm on 1.0 bar and the high on 6 bar. You may opt for a 5 bar oil pressure sender and get better resolution, but then you'll lose the ability to receive a warming when your oli pressure becomes too high (due to blocked release valves, oil filters, etc.)

The yellow wire at the top comes from the original Nissan oil switch (an on/off switch) mentioned above. This allows the EMS 1 to give an additional warning that corresponds to the red oil warning light on the dashboard. This is a standard EMS feature if you do not intend buying another oil pressure sender, and protects you in case the oil warning bulb on the dash should fail. For folks with the VDO sender like I have, it is a secondary line of defense..

Two notable points at this stage:
1. There is no oil temperature sender in my system yet. MADMAN was waiting for stock when I last spoke to them, and I have not heard back from them yet. This sender will be screwed into a new oil drain plug in the sump once it arrives.
2. Why did I opt for the oil pressure instead of the turbo boost sender (remember - only one of these can be active at a time)? Brian Cotton from MADMAN summed it up best: "A turbo failure is irritating, but an oil pressure failure is catastrophic!"

[ChristoSlang]

Next up we have the coolant senders. There are two of them - the one on the left is the coolant level sender and is basically just a pipe that is inserted into a radiator hose. An electrical signal is pulsed into this and the return signal is measured via the unit's earth. The highest hose is selected to pick any decrease in water level ASAP. The monitoring unit also allows you to set a short delay before it activates the low level alarm. I understand that this is intended for serious off-roading where the coolant in a reservoir tank may slosh around, but there is no air where this sender is mounted on my engine!

Coolant senders

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The coolant temperature sender on the right fits neatly into a blanking plug on the thermostat housing. This was apparently intended as a bleed screw, but I've never needed it when refilling my radiator. This sender can again be calibrated for low/high alarms. I've seen mine go up to about 116 C (the sender only measures up to 120!), and this corresponds to just under the red zone on the normal engine temp gauge. At that stage the air-con compressor disables itself via a sender unit underneath the radiator to ensure that the engine's radiator does not receive pre-heated air from the air-con radiator and the temperature does not increase further. This has only occurred to me once before whilst driving slowly up a mountain pass in >35 C temperatures with a fully laden vehicle. According to Nissan themselves & other Patrol forums this is acceptable, as long as the temperature does not go into the red zone.

[ChristoSlang]

Finally we have the very important EGT sender unit. My Patrol has an after-market turbo fitted, so I really wanted to make sure that all was well w.r.t. exhaust gas temperatures. Shortly after I bought the vehicle, it received new injectors and a dyno tune. The guy doing the dyno told me that there was already a spot tapped into the manifold where he could insert an EGT sender whilst performing the dyno and that the engine was "really very cool" under strain. This was obviously not good enough for a fussy bloke like me, so here's a more accurate sender unit mounted in the exhaust manifold:

Exhaust gas temperatures

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I've had the system in for almost a year now, and can report that the exhaust gas temperature has never exceeded 580 degrees. Bear in mind that this is measured straight out of the engine and BEFORE the turbo. This is really the only alternative if you want to do it properly. By the time the exhaust gases have passed through the turbo the readings will be substantially lower...

[ChristoSlang]

A few last bits of info:

The system measures engine's running time and has a user adjustable alarm when it reaches a preset number of hours. This can be useful information when it comes to servicing vehicles that often do a lot of short trips (like mine).

It also monitors the alternator's output voltage "out of the box" (with the standard high/low alarm as for all other sender), helpful to catch charging issues early on. Batteries are expensive and don't like to be under- or over-charged.

The EMS can be set to cycle through the screens that have sensors connected to them (I prefer this mode), or to remain on a specific screen until manually moved to a next. Even when a screen is not shown, the alarms associated with that screen remain active. It has both large digits & a linear readout for every sender that's connected, plus adjustable contrast and back-lighting.

Given the cost and flexibility of the system I can strongly recommend it to all diesel Patrol owners on the basis of the EGT monitoring, as well as to the petrol engined Patrol owners because of the extensibility of the solution...

[KOOS BEST]

Christo
You have now invested in the best accesory any diesel powered engine owner can buy, for me its the most important , after this the other stuff can follow.
I would like the madman system myself , especially the extras it gives you like the coolant loss alarm.

[Saltman]

Dankie Christo

Lekker artikel en ek het al self na die stelsel begin kyk vir die Disco en tot die gevolgtrekking gekom dis die antwoord!
Het jy 'n kort uiteensetting wat die komponente jou gekos het?

Ek stem ook vir oliedruk ipv turbo boost! Watter temp probe het jy ingesit in die exhaust manifold?

Hoe hard raas die alarm? My diesel is beslis nie stil nie, so ek sal darem die ding wil hoor, ek kyk mos nie elke sekonde op die gauge nie!

[ChristoSlang]

That audible alarm is quite useless I'm using the external alarm wire to switch my intercooler fan on & off, so I can't use it to connect an external beeper any more. But I do at least find that the blinking LED attracts my attention...

Cost was more or less as follows:

• EMS 1 = R2000
  wiring harness for for EMS 1 = R50
  EGT thermocouple = R300
  EGT temperature adapter (tapped into manifold) = R60
  oil pressure sender = R500
  oil pressure sender's T-adapter (to retain existing pressure switch) = R60
  coolant temperature sender = R140
  coolant loss aluminium adapter = R80

Because the coolant loss function is already built into the EMS 1, you are welcome to do follow the "boer maak 'n plan" route to connect the brown wire into a water pipe leading from the engine block. I chose to go with MADMAN aluminium adapter to simplify matters. If I remember correctly I ended up with the shorter (40cm) of the two K type thermocouples and the longer wiring harness.

I am still waiting for stock on the sump plug adapter (R50) so that I can add the oil temperature sender (R140) to have a complete system. That reminds me to give them a call - it's been a long time since I last enquired!

[OB1]

Good day all. My first post on patrol4x4. More on why I joined later, but so here goes.

I own a Land Rover Defender Tdi, and ordered the Madman EMS kit from Landyonline.co.za. My monitor is the EMS2, half the size, same capacity as the one mentioned by Christo. Does all the same functions. The Landy kit and the senders comes with an instructions, so DIY fitment is easy. Just remember to drain oil BEFORE fitting the oil pressure sender, oil taste

It changed my whole driving style. I was nto in a hurry before, but now I am baie meer rustig. My EGT sender is at the exit port of one of the pistons. Readigns up to 650 degC can be achieved very easily
It gives realtime reading of oil pressure, temps, EGT, coolant temp. A lot more accurate than standard temp gauge. For the life of me I can not fathom why Tdiesels does not come with this standard

At R3200 last year money very well spent. Keeps my Landy out of trouble. Saved my motor once, warned about coolant level. But the leak was my fault after installing the coolant temp probe

[JG Shields]

Hi OB1,

Welcome to the forum!

Yes, we do not know why the diesels does not come out with these instruments fitted. However, imagine yourself the sales figures of diesel vehicles if the salesman's discussion with the new customer goes more or less as follows:

Customer: I heard this is a very powerful diesel vehicle that goes like any high powered petrol car with similar capacity. (both very exited - the sale is looming!)
Salesman: Yes, it even outperforms many petrol cars of similar capacity on the road, especially on an uphill when pulling a trailer. The torque in great!
Customer: Why all these monitors in the vehicle?
Salesman: To prevent you from overheating on your EGT reading etc...etc... (customer dumb struck by the technical terms)
Customer: Explain to me in BOERETAAL what that mean.
Salesman: You cannot just go up a hill while towing a trailor alongside a similar capacity petrol car and stay in 5th gear. As soon as you see the temp goes above ...bla...bla...bla, you have to gear back to 4th gear. When it stays or go bach high, gear further down and come back with your foot from the pedal. Ignore the petrol car that went past you. He is just a windgat anyway! Bla...bla...bla...He goes on by telling the customer that his wife cannot just start, stop, swith-off, shop, strat as she wants to. She has to wait for a while to let the turbo & oil cool down. His wife is now standing at the bigscreen down the hall watching the highlights of last nights cricket. The salesman lost her completely.
Customer: Are you telling me that the car has all this performance but I can't use it? I am here to buy it for it's advertised performance!

Laaste sien van die blik kantien!!! It is my view that the manufacturers lives a lie and we are funding it.