Fun Times with Tuning

[SID297]

Anyone have any fun or interesting stories about tuning your own vehicle? Ever solve a difficult problem, screw something up so bad you thought there was no going back, drop to your knees in tears of astonishment that something you never thought to try actually worked? There's got to be a few good stories out there.

 

[01yellercobra]

I think my experience is more comical then anything. Back when I first started using PRP you could save the tune as a seperate file like what the pros do. I was trying to adjust my MAF transfer. I kept datalogging, then I'd go in and make a change, datalog again. I was getting pretty frustrated because the fuel trims weren't adjusting. After the 4th or 5th time it finally hit me. I was saving the changes to the tune file, but I wasn't putting them on the Xcal. Not sure how I missed that one. Once I realized what I had done I loaded the tune onto the Xcal, but it was so far off that the car wouldn't start. I had to start all over.

 

[boosted2000si]

My fun times with tuning always resulted in a melted piston.

 

[SID297]

I think my experience is more comical then anything. Back when I first started using PRP you could save the tune as a seperate file like what the pros do. I was trying to adjust my MAF transfer. I kept datalogging, then I'd go in and make a change, datalog again. I was getting pretty frustrated because the fuel trims weren't adjusting. After the 4th or 5th time it finally hit me. I was saving the changes to the tune file, but I wasn't putting them on the Xcal. Not sure how I missed that one. Once I realized what I had done I loaded the tune onto the Xcal, but it was so far off that the car wouldn't start. I had to start all over.

I've had derrrrr moments like that before.

My fun times with tuning always resulted in a melted piston.

I have a few of those sitting in my garage.:nonono:

 

[01yellercobra]

My fun times with tuning always resulted in a melted piston.

Ouch. I still get a little scared when doing the WOT stuff. I'm always afraid I'm going to miss something.

 

[SID297]

Just start overly conservative and move on slowly from there.

 

[01yellercobra]

I'm keeping everything conservative anyway. My A/F is 11.5 and my timing is a whopping 12 degrees. I want the motor to last.

 

[boosted2000si]

I ruined my tunes in a very in dept ignition setup I had installed where I had to tell the computer when to fire specific coils. I always had the 4th cyc a few teeth off and melted 3 pistons the same way. After my 3 $4k rebuild I said screw it and stopped messing it it.

That was on my old Honda civic with AEM EMS though. I had to pin the harness to drive my MSD DIS box to fire the CBR 954 coils I had. I was trying to eliminate the distributor but was never successful.

I was told the SCT is a little easier to work with, but yet I am not familiar with MAF tunes so I leave it to the pros with my past results hahaha.

 

[harvboi05]

I was dialing in the MAF transfer function doing some WOT pulls making sure the AFR was safe before taking it to the dyno the next day, trying to save on dyno time. before doing so i pulled 4* out of the BK table to keep it from detonating. everything went fine, got the AFR solid. tuning is easy, right?

later that night when i was looking thru the cal and datalogs, i noticed my load axis was only scaled to .79 like stock, when i was actually achieving load values of 1.29. my heart sunk when i realized it was commanding like 32* of timing or something ridiculous! i never turned the knock sensors off so it only saw like 22* of timing, phew.

i spent the ENTIRE next day at work, sneaking my lap top in and out of my desk rescaling the load axis and interpolating all the Ign values in the BK table whenever i could so i didnt have to cancel the dyno appt. haha. oddly enough, later that summer i discovered cylinder 6 is about 80% low on compression, ha.

still cant believe i didnt totally explode every ounce of my rotating assembly after the first pull. it pulled hard, ha.

 

[SPoole]

I have my Honda story also. I had a Civic using eCtune that was great to work with for a new guy. But being my first tuning adventure I didnt fully understand the repercusions of my actions. I did my street tuning using WOT pulls at about 10lbs of boost. All was well until I started meesing with the boost controller. I strated upping the boost until the car was spinning in 4th. I was watching my data logs and thought i was being carefull not to max my injectors but didnt realize that 99% was bad, until I happened to zoom in to one of my points on the log and see that my A/F was going lean for brief moments. When I took it to the dyno I made 473whp but almost emidiately started getting large amounts of blow-by from my valve covers. I pulled the head and could see the piston rings in all 4 cylinders. that was my first and last set of pistons I will give to my lack of self control.
This time with my Turbo Cobra I put a 15lb spring in the wastegate, ran no boost controller and am taking it to a tuner.
I learned my lesson.