Desire to Understand - Tuning

[PIKE5.0]

Where I'm coming from below, skip to the bold for the main point of this post.

First car quick car I owned 03 Termi.. I payed for everyones knowledge and skill. Never understood a thing, just loved the car and loved driving. Then it broke, I grew frustrated, scared of whats next... etc

ANYWAY

Had this 5.0 2 years now.. Made myself pay it off before going full retard. With that process starting now, I'm trying to diy or at least "get" everything I'm doing. Already installed adjustable suspension (learning all that now), upgraded parts of the brembos/swapped rear brakes, even attempting paint correction. I'm loving it, although M-F suit job just leaves the weekends.

Tuning falls into the "get" category. I won't be tuning it, but I will be running a combo of twins boost + n2o(at times) on E85. This is all very scary at my level of knowledge. And I won't just 100% trust someone else, I'm not loaded and can't afford catastropic failure.

Where/what is the best resource to begin teaching myself or at least understand the basics of tuning our motors. Because the old pull a few degrees timing out for n2o is about all I've done lol

I'm afraid there may not be anything, but wanted to ask!

Thanks to everyone to read all and chimes in! Very much appreciated!

 

[Witt]

You can start by buying Pro Racer Pack and Lasota Racing's tuning guide. If you are just bolt ons, you won't have too much trouble tweaking things. Public info on tuning 2011+ cars is a little scarce but his tuning guide touches on the major functions you'll need to know.

There's a few items in most ford tuning manuals and forums that won't apply to coyote cars such as "Load with Failed MAF", "Returnless Fuel Pump", and most Open Loop tuning.

If you have a basic understanding of how injectors, oxygen sensors, and MAF sensors work, its not too hard to learn, just takes time and experience.

 

[badbiach]

What he said ^^^

 

[92fiveohfox]

What all does that software allow you to do? I'm assuming its not the same full blown stuff the shop tuners use?

 

[SID297]

Take a look at our article on the SCT Pro-Racer Package:

http://www.svtperformance.com/forum...vtp-tackles-tuning-sct-pro-racer-package.html

 

[Witt]

What all does that software allow you to do? I'm assuming its not the same full blown stuff the shop tuners use?

Its a single license version of what the pros use. It will limit you from being able to mess with variable cam timing and drive by wire parameters but a phone call to SCT Tech Support with a request for access to those tables will fix that.

 

[PIKE5.0]

Exactly the direction I was looking for!! Thanks

 

[Aaron@JPCRacing]

Check out this book. It'll help tech you the basics

Engine Management: Advanced Tuning (Performance How-To Series) by Greg Banish | Barnes & Noble

 

[92fiveohfox]

Can you open/edit other people's tunes with this? I.e. I buy a vmp tune and want to change the shift points or something.

 

[downwardspiral]

Can you open/edit other people's tunes with this? I.e. I buy a vmp tune and want to change the shift points or something.

Nope.. I bought the software thinking that you can and they wouldn't let me return it because it is licensed to me. I also can't sell it to anybody for that reason. Long story short I spent $300 on a USB drive I don't have a use for. I wanted to start with the vortech tune and get a better throttle feel out of it. You can't edit all the parameters that you can in the professional version of the software (I believe you need to take a class for ~$1000 to upgrade your license). I would have started from scratch if I could edit the driver demand table, because that is what I am having a problem with. This table is pretty much pedal position vs airflow. In all fairness the car can drive itself if you do the wrong thing in this table and jack up the values, but I just wanted to make minor bumps here and there. You can't edit driver demand, variable valve timing, and some other things I can't recall. All the info on the product is on their forums, which you cannot view until you purchase the software.