Hello all,
Some of you may be familiar with my Whipple build I have been doing the last couple months.
https://www.svtperformance.com/threads/2003cobra-2s-3-4-whipple-build.1182528/
A couple weeks ago I transitioned to the tuning phase of my project. I decided to use a remote tuner and have them dial in the car using SCT. I installed Live Link II on my pc, configured a config file with a Innovate MTXL Plus. The first few initial revisions were promising. Car started, idled OK, and was somewhat drivable. The short term fuel trims were showing that they were calling for fuel. So as the tuner added fuel to bring things in line the car started to run worse. Got to the point that it would start and idle ok but it would fall on it's face as soon as you tried to accelerate at all. After revision 20...no progress and car was not drivable. If I went back to say revision 6 the car was drivable but lean. He tried to fatten it up and ran terrible. I would have to imagine there is something just wrong in the tunning. I checked for vac leaks, and triple checked all connections. So I made the decision to cut ties and try on my own.
I've never tuned before but I feel I'm good enough with computers, electronics, and somewhat mechanically inclined....along with a burning diy spirit inside.
After poking around I came across Don Lasoota's website and whenever I ran across his name in Google searches the reviews were extremely positive of Don and how helpful he was. I called him, had a short good conversation and ordered up the SCT Pro Racer Software, his tuning book, and a base tune to get me pointed in the right direction. I decided to go SCT because I had a XCAL4 all ready and don't really care if I have to continually make changes and flash. I figured the SCT is the most friendly to get started.
As of right now, I have completed the SCT emissions class and survey. I called SCT and they give me the R&D access so I should have all the access I need to tune the car. I have received Don's tuning book and it is excellent. I'm still waiting on the USB dongle to arrive from SCT (should be here Monday). I asked Don to send me my base tune in a cef format so that I could flash it using my XCAL4 and device updater to at least get the base tune on the car to see how much work I have to do.
Installed the base tune, car fires up, then dies after about 5-7 seconds. I was able to datalog... I actually had to move my wideband to a different circuit that stays powered on during the cranking cycle so I could get A/F readings during the initial startup. The problem was because the sensor has a 30 second warmup it couldn't record the initial fire up. That's all fixed now. In livelink I saw that the initial fire up was right at about .82 lambda which i think is correct. After a couple seconds the idle starts to settle down and the wideband shows it goes lean as the car dies. Short term fuel trims are way less than 1 as well. I have a jlt high boost intake with the integrated maf which is much larger then the stock maf housing.
1st order of business will be adjusting the maf curve to call for a bit more fuel to get the car to idle. From there I will follow Don's book and use the open loop method utilizing my wideband 02 to dial in the MAF curve. After I'm happy with the idle and free revving ill get it on the dyno to dial in part throttle driving.
Ill be posting screens shots of my logs so you guys can check them out. Im really excited to try this out.....and i really hope i have very few mechanical issues lol. Here is the first screen shot of my initial first start up with the base tune. Here you can see engine rpm, and wideband.
Some of you may be familiar with my Whipple build I have been doing the last couple months.
https://www.svtperformance.com/threads/2003cobra-2s-3-4-whipple-build.1182528/
A couple weeks ago I transitioned to the tuning phase of my project. I decided to use a remote tuner and have them dial in the car using SCT. I installed Live Link II on my pc, configured a config file with a Innovate MTXL Plus. The first few initial revisions were promising. Car started, idled OK, and was somewhat drivable. The short term fuel trims were showing that they were calling for fuel. So as the tuner added fuel to bring things in line the car started to run worse. Got to the point that it would start and idle ok but it would fall on it's face as soon as you tried to accelerate at all. After revision 20...no progress and car was not drivable. If I went back to say revision 6 the car was drivable but lean. He tried to fatten it up and ran terrible. I would have to imagine there is something just wrong in the tunning. I checked for vac leaks, and triple checked all connections. So I made the decision to cut ties and try on my own.
I've never tuned before but I feel I'm good enough with computers, electronics, and somewhat mechanically inclined....along with a burning diy spirit inside.
After poking around I came across Don Lasoota's website and whenever I ran across his name in Google searches the reviews were extremely positive of Don and how helpful he was. I called him, had a short good conversation and ordered up the SCT Pro Racer Software, his tuning book, and a base tune to get me pointed in the right direction. I decided to go SCT because I had a XCAL4 all ready and don't really care if I have to continually make changes and flash. I figured the SCT is the most friendly to get started.
As of right now, I have completed the SCT emissions class and survey. I called SCT and they give me the R&D access so I should have all the access I need to tune the car. I have received Don's tuning book and it is excellent. I'm still waiting on the USB dongle to arrive from SCT (should be here Monday). I asked Don to send me my base tune in a cef format so that I could flash it using my XCAL4 and device updater to at least get the base tune on the car to see how much work I have to do.
Installed the base tune, car fires up, then dies after about 5-7 seconds. I was able to datalog... I actually had to move my wideband to a different circuit that stays powered on during the cranking cycle so I could get A/F readings during the initial startup. The problem was because the sensor has a 30 second warmup it couldn't record the initial fire up. That's all fixed now. In livelink I saw that the initial fire up was right at about .82 lambda which i think is correct. After a couple seconds the idle starts to settle down and the wideband shows it goes lean as the car dies. Short term fuel trims are way less than 1 as well. I have a jlt high boost intake with the integrated maf which is much larger then the stock maf housing.
1st order of business will be adjusting the maf curve to call for a bit more fuel to get the car to idle. From there I will follow Don's book and use the open loop method utilizing my wideband 02 to dial in the MAF curve. After I'm happy with the idle and free revving ill get it on the dyno to dial in part throttle driving.
Ill be posting screens shots of my logs so you guys can check them out. Im really excited to try this out.....and i really hope i have very few mechanical issues lol. Here is the first screen shot of my initial first start up with the base tune. Here you can see engine rpm, and wideband.
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