Learning the ropes of self tuning

[Bruisbe]

Hello everyone,

I am new to the website, however not new to the mustang. I have a 2003 Mach 1 for the past 4 years and within the past few months, I have started running into some extra money that is allowing me to do the upgrades to it that I have always wanted to do.

Having said all of that, I currently have a SCT X4 handheld tuner that I got from American Muscle with some BAMA tunes for the mods that I have done to the car.

In an effort to learn more about how the car functions, I decided to drop the $350 bucks on the PRP with dongle. I received the dongle and everything works fine, however, as expected, BAMA won't give me the files that can be read in Advantage III. This is not surprising to me, however leaves me really stranded on where to begin.

I have been searching for some guides or reference material that will help explain what the different fields do and what adjusting a specific field will do in terms of how the car performs.

Any advice and or direction would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in Advance.

 

[oxfordgt]

There are files in advantage you can load to get you started with your base tune. Don losota's book and dvd have a good amount of info.

 

[Bruisbe]

Thanks for the info...I just bought the downloadable PDF from Lasota and read the first chapter and it already seems nice and indepth...

 

[RacerXHG]

LaSota's book is a great start. Greg Banish has a couple of really good books. Engine Management Advanced Tuning and High Performance Fuel Injection Systems. Within the SCT (Derive) Advantage program itself, you can find a lot of info if you just look. Go to the top bar, click on Help, in the contents, click on Ford Tuning and you will find a lot of helpful info. If you highlight individual parameters within the tune, down at the bottom, there is a light description of what the item does and give you minimum/maximum values.

 

[decipha]

you should never use a tuner that will not give you unlimited access to your tune, its your tune you paid for not theirs

that absolutely bothers me to no end

 

[Bruisbe]

LaSota's book is a great start. Greg Banish has a couple of really good books. Engine Management Advanced Tuning and High Performance Fuel Injection Systems. Within the SCT (Derive) Advantage program itself, you can find a lot of info if you just look. Go to the top bar, click on Help, in the contents, click on Ford Tuning and you will find a lot of helpful info. If you highlight individual parameters within the tune, down at the bottom, there is a light description of what the item does and give you minimum/maximum values.

Awesome, thank you very much for the information, I will take a closer look at both resources later tonight and this weekend. I have been going through LaSota's books and want to get through it all before I really start messing with it cause from what I seem to gather, every little things seems to have an effect on something else. Which makes sense.

you should never use a tuner that will not give you unlimited access to your tune, its your tune you paid for not theirs

that absolutely bothers me to no end

Yeah I totally see both sides. While I agree that they should allow me to see the full tune, It was provided to me under their "Free Tunes For Life" program since I bought the X4 from them. Had I paid 100 bucks or whatever for that specific tune, then I probably would have made a bigger scene about it.

 

[15PSI]

If you had the HPtuners VCM hardware and software, you could possibly read the tune that is in your car. I say possibly as many tuners these days lock their tunes and they can't be read with VCM. I am also using both of Don's cookbooks along with PRP and VCM to further my education. One thing you might consider is purchasing one of Don's editable tunes for Advantage. He will send you a base file and through a series of datalogs, you end up with a great calibration for your car and since it is a Mako file, you can view all of the changes that Don makes as he revises each tune. The cost is $250 which is a great deal.

 

[Bruisbe]

If you had the HPtuners VCM hardware and software, you could possibly read the tune that is in your car. I say possibly as many tuners these days lock their tunes and they can't be read with VCM. I am also using both of Don's cookbooks along with PRP and VCM to further my education. One thing you might consider is purchasing one of Don's editable tunes for Advantage. He will send you a base file and through a series of datalogs, you end up with a great calibration for your car and since it is a Mako file, you can view all of the changes that Don makes as he revises each tune. The cost is $250 which is a great deal.

That is def something that I may be interested in doing as I wrap my head around what some of these different options in the software do. I really appreciate everyone helping me out...

 

[oxfordgt]

I almost paid Don to do email tunes for me when I was really getting stuck. But I kept researching and asking questions on here and other sites. Learning to EFI tune is not an overnight process so keep that in mind. I know it's tempting to just give up and ask someone else to do it for you but you will be much more satisfied when you figure it out and get your car running great.

Some very helpful reading
http://efidynotuning.com/

 

[RacerXHG]

Some very helpful reading
http://efidynotuning.com/

I neglected to mention that bountiful harvest of information! You can thank the gentleman above, Decipha, for all that.

 

[Bruisbe]

Thank you all for the information. I have looked at it all and bookmarked it in my browser. I also was able to load some of the value tunes as well to get me started. All of a sudden things are looking a little less daunting for me in figuring out how all of this works together....No doubt that there will still be some daunting tasks ahead of me, however you all have eased my fears a little bit. Thanks again.

 

[CJK440]

Whats done to your car? My first DIY tune with PRP and Lasota's book was a 97 Cobra with a stroker 5.0 with C heads and early cobra cams. So it wasn't a very drastic change, loading many 99/01 cobra parameters into my tune helped getting to where I need to be.

My next attempt with my latest car was to tune a stock 2V with a saleen Eaton. I ended up throwing in the towel and paying Don to email tunes. I'm glad I did because the base tune he sent me was drastically different then the base I built.

 

[Bruisbe]

Whats done to your car? My first DIY tune with PRP and Lasota's book was a 97 Cobra with a stroker 5.0 with C heads and early cobra cams. So it wasn't a very drastic change, loading many 99/01 cobra parameters into my tune helped getting to where I need to be.

My next attempt with my latest car was to tune a stock 2V with a saleen Eaton. I ended up throwing in the towel and paying Don to email tunes. I'm glad I did because the base tune he sent me was drastically different then the base I built.

Currently I have:
JLT RAI
BBK 65MM throttle body
Bassani catted X-pipe
Bassani cat-back
Steeda Underdrive pulleys
Running on 93 Octane Fuel

Those are the mods that I have that would affect the airflow and A/F ratio. Everything else is suspension related.

 

[01yellercobra]

Honestly, with your mod list I wouldn't normally bother with a tune. I ran a JLT CAI, Bassani catted X, and a Mac catback on my 01 and the A/F was fine. But since you have the software you can optimize what you have. Since you have the stock MAF and injectors you probably won't have to do much, if anything to dial in the part throttle. When I had my stock MAF in my 04 I don't think I touched part throttle. All tuning was dialing in the WOT A/F and spark.

 

[oxfordgt]

Stock wot base fuel is usually .816 change it to .857, change idle to 1. Change the stoich to 14.1 since most gas has 10% ethanol. Copy the MBT spark table over to the borderline knock table. That will be a good starting point.

 

[decipha]

the borderline knock table is multiplied significiantly, be sure you adjust all the modifiers so they make sense

too bad you didnt do your homework first and bought a quarterhorse instead, then you would have unlimited tune access and would be able to very easily makes tune changes on the fly with the engine running, theres no other way to get a perfect tune otherwise