In the case of Ken's car I'd say he got a perfect tune. He's been to what, 4 dynos now? The tune Al did for him on the road was making good smooth power on every dyno he went on.

Ken DID make more power by turning up the boost another couple of pounds AND making some tweaks to the AFC. Well, I would hope he would.

Al has stated that the car had some knock activity when he tuned it and tuned the car as far as he could safely. The dyno charts which are posted here numerous times show the curve on HP and Torque were both good, no actaully great.

I don't see any arguement in this particular tune. Fact is the car worked well and Ken said he was happy with the power it made.

Ken also said he was not happy that Al did not want to turn up the boost further and try to make more.

I'd say in this case, unless there was some type of waiver for the customer to sign that stopping where the tuner felt was safe, was a GREAT idea.

I have tuned a few cars and decided enough was enough. Only twice has the customer actually asked me to take the care further. I then wrote this on his Dyno Waiver Form and them sign the waiver again. It basically said, "I feel tuning further is going to damage the engine and take no responsibility if it does." They signed. In their defense, nothing did happen

I had a car just yesterday I tuned. Stage 4, pump gas/alky. The car made 310 whp on our dyno. (Dynojet reads much higher and so do half the MD's). The car had pretty low knock count but the timing numbers that I was inputing were getting what I would consider to be very high. I could have relied on the knock count only but my instinct told me to just stop and be happy with the 310 whp. Hopefully when the customer picks up his car tomorrow he is happy with it.

Sometimes it's better to stop trying to get every last HP than it is to have a blown up or choppy running car by pushing the tune.

David Buschur
www.buschurracing.com

 

Not a problem, Shiv. I'm hoping Al will see the question soon because this will be the second time posting it. I'm pretty sure he's seen the issue but I don't know why he hasn't commented on it yet.


Maybe it needs to be a little larger?

Question for you, Al...
I'm not bashing you but I'm curious... Can you please let me know why the 7800 RPM rev limiter wasn't set? Thanks.




Hi there, Dave... the name is Kevin, not Ken.


Here is my reply to your PM.

I have highlighted my exact words to you. I said I was satisfied with Al's 23 psi tune, but didn't mention I was happy with it. I did say I would have been "happier" if he tried 25. Never did I mention that I was happy with the power the car made.

I would have agreed to sign a waiver to go up to 25 psi if that's the case... I have no issues with that.

I can only adjust the AFR since I have an S-AFC (and timing indirectly). I'm betting I can tune the car better than it's running now at 25 peak psi if I had the ability to adjust timing, but since I don't have a piggyback or standalone, that is not an option.

I've tuned other cars before but just not the Evo. I figured I would let someone that has experience with Evos tune it since I'm still at the learning stage with the car.

 

no man his tune was not perfect... for reference, i put down 285 on strait 91 at 20psi a few hours after his runs. cars on shivs dyno, with meth, put down 350 i think. even if his car has some knock issue, its not going to affect it by almost 70whp.

 

When I have access to my flashing equipment - Monday, I will post up about what rpm your rev limiter is set at. All I recall now is the confusion over which RPM you wanted. When I see the file I will know what you have now.

 

You don't even know what you're talking about. You're throwing around numbers that you aren't even sure of, yet that has nothing to do with the tune being perfect. We are talking about detailed, intricate tuning here...not just dyno numbers. Go look at the graphs, the safety margin, the AFRs, the power curves, etc. The tune was very good, and the difference in power was only due to cranking the boost up by 2.4psi, not from any lack of tuning.

 

Warrtalon,
Be nice. Leif speaks the truth. For years now, basic Stg 1+ cars have made 275-285whp on 91oct pump gas. His car did 285whp later that very same day. And this is with a free-flow cat, not a test pipe. And at 20psi peak, not 22psi. You can see his results here: https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=178969

Cars equivalent to Kevin's car (Stg 1+ with the addition of methanol inj, test-pipe, ebc, higher boost, etc,.) have all been tuned to make a repeatible and stable 330-350whp. If you want to defend a tune that yeilds anywhere between 275-285whp, that's cool. Whatever works for you. It's still a lot faster than stock and very enjoyable.

But my question is why you would tune a car to run on methanol when it can make the same power, just as safely, on regular pump gas? Especially considering what could (and most likely would) happen to the engine if the meth system were to ever fail. Seems to me like an unnecessary risk with no real upside. But that's just my take on the situation.

-shiv

 

im just simplifying it, not throwing around ratios and catch phrases from the past week.

 

Listen to you. You're incorrigible, really...

This car was tuned with safety in mind. It made great power on the other dynos relative to other cars on those same dynos without having to push the boost or the tune to the edge of what Al considered safe for that car (not every car) while using 91oct. The owner is willing to push those limits, which is his prerogative, but there's no reason for a tuner to do that and risk a blown motor.

If you're making equivalent power on 91oct with very little boost, then that's great. I barely make that much power on 93oct on a Dynojet and run 12.2s @ 110. Send those guys out and shows us how they fare. Otherwise, we just have questionable dyno numbers.

 

im sorry to say you'll never see a time from my car unless im dying of boredom one day... drag racin' ain't my thing to put it nicely.

 

I didn't think I was being incorrigible. Sorry if my post bothered you. I was just stating fact. You are entitled to your opinion as much as anyone else. My opinion is that I don't think that having to rely on methanol injection to get 275-285whp is the safest approach. I'd rather see that kind of power with a non-depletable fuel source that can't clog, run out, etc,. and melt my engine. And 91oct is down to $2.30/gallon now so that is cool.

Thanks! Been doing it for years

I don't know what you mean by questionable but most of the Stg 1+ cars we've tuned have run traps of 113-117mph , depending on octane (91, 93 or 100oct). On AWD dynojets, they make anywhere from 325-370whp, btw.

 

On Shiv's dyno, with Shiv's tuning, this is what I have seen by either personal experience or being reported:
WHP MPH
350 = 117
340 = 116
330 = 115
320 = 114
310 = 113
300 = 112
290 = 111
280 = 110
270 = 109

It is so predictable it is almost wierd. Sure their are variations, but this is what I have been seeing for two straight years. These trap speeds are always just average joes with nearly full weight evos.

 

Thanks for the reply. I asked about 8k but you recommended 7800 so we went with your suggestion. Please check your equipment when you get a chance to confirm. Thanks.

 

For the record, the car dynoed
236.6 whp and 230.4 tq
233.3 whp and 238.7 tq
241.7 whp and 234.3 tq
on Gruppe-S' dyno on 10/25/05
https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=166091


Then it dynoed
270.3 whp and 256.1 tq
272.8 whp and 262.7 tq
267.5 whp and 260.3 tq
on Gruppe-S' dyno on 11/19/05

Mods on 11/19 were:
- K&N drop-in panel filter
- Blitz SBC-iD boost controller
- GReddy Type RS blow off valve
- Buschur turbo-back
- HKS 272/272 cams
- Fidanza cam gears set at -4i/-1.5e
- Revolver valve springs and retainers
- APR head studs
- S-AFC II (zeroed out for baseline)
- Innovate LM-1 and XD-1 for monitoring but not set up at that time
https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=175814

I wasn't expecting a crazy AFR, so the Walbro pump wasn't installed before the runs... looks like the car needed it.

 

People reading this diatribe from Shiv lacking a critical mind possibly would reach the conlcusion that Shiv is the only tuner in the world who can xtract the maximum power and the ONLY way to make good power is with one of his Stage 1+ + - + + + kits and his tuning. Of course this kind of one sided and unreaslstic anaylsis was the enevitable result of this $25 dyno stunt from the start.

For the rest of us, lets be clear, it is hard to draw generalizations about the concept of methanol injection (which by the way has achived some amazing results on cars all over the USA) based upon the results of one car.

In 95% of cases the methanol injection has a far more significant effect on the knock activity than was the case in this one car.

IMHO the main reational for custom tuning in the first place is to quantify and test the subject vehcile to determine how it is reacting to operation in a real world condition.

In this case the PARTICULAR CAR in question was unsually knock prone.

There are several possible causes of this :

1 - What is registering as knock voltage on his knock sesnor may not be actual detonation but rather may be some other noise or vibration from his car (e.g. down pipe hitting etc). I feel it is detonation, however a difinative diagnosis would be reached through reading his spark plugs and the use of a knock ears head set to listen to the noise and make the difficult diagnosis of what the noise is.

2 - Poor spark or fouled plugs may be causing poor combustion which may lead to partially combusted gases remaining in the cylinder and triggering knock activity when you rasie the boost.

3 - Contaminated or poor quality alcohol or fuel may be a cause and must be rulled out through the use of A - B testing with alternate fuels.

4 - Some cars have been known to have burrs of other defects in the combustion chamber which act like mini glow plugs and trigger knock.

ALL I can say for sure was that this car was a bit more suspectable to knock that is usually the case and as a result in tuning the car I needed to quickly respond to this condition and this is why I recomended a conservative boost level and state of tune.

Frankly, I am not out to win any dyno wars or contests of power with my customer's cars the # priority is saftey.

What this car has shown me after reviewing all of this data is that tuning on the road I was able to very accurately find the threshold of knock and tune the car in such a manner that it would run safely under similar conditions and also make very acceptable power levels given the boost and fuel used.

300 plus whp is a very good number on a mustang dyno for any car with 91 octane and the stock air box.

Whats more important to me is that the car was now on two Mustang dynos and ran very well on both of them - making very good looking power curves in both instances.

What Shiv has shown with his SAFC tuning is that the knock threshold is very close to how I set up the car and trying to run the car harder only results in pulling of timimg.

As fo methanol injection, I have worked with David Buwschur and SMC to design a package that injects the minimum possible amount of alcohol to have a significant effect on tuning. In this manner - in the very unlikely event of a failure - the car will still be rich enough in the tun not to blow up. By running a conservative alcohol injection configuration like this we are seeing most of the benefits of the alcohol injection with almost no risk of engine damage should the kit fail.

The alcohol injedction is a tuning AIDE to help lower the intake charge temps and increase effective octane. It is not like turing your car into a alcohol dragster. Small amounts of alcohol are misted into the intake. In most cases the effect is that the customer can run 100 occtane tuning on 93 octane. In the case of this particular customer it seemed he could run 95 0r 96 octane tuning on 91 - still not a bad thing but he did not have a car which was like it was on full race gas. Again point of tuning is to find out what the car in question needs to run safe and smooth

In this case - the mission was accomplished

As far as Shiv's misleading and misguided comments in this thread about drawing conclusions regarding alcohol injection on this one car,

I made 622 whp on my Evo with PUMP gas with the SMC alcoohol kit

There are dozens of cars out there which can hold 28 psi of boost on pump gas with the same alcohol kit - its a system which can deliver significant power.

I personally saw it making well over 300 whp on the mustang dyno so I dont know where you get 275 - 280 whp figure from

BUT - then again - after the SPARCO incident with the air temp sesnor I have relilized that you lack any credability what so ever


BTW - the most recent car I tuned on Alcohol injection was able to max out the available boost 100% with zero knock - same exact kit - 93 octane fuel

[IMG]https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=82028
[/IMG]

As I said before - it all comes down to individualized tuning. Every car is different.

The car which was the subject of this thread - I did not sell him his parts nor wrench on his car. My job is simply to tune it safely so it can run on a dialy basis and run smoothly and get most of the available power. At $375 for a flash with the tuning and travel time and expenses included I feel i have provided a fairly priced service.

 

Fantastic. The excuse list grows longer.

Reasons for low power in road tuned cars:
1) Boost leak
2) Burrs inside combustion chamber
3) Downpipe vibrations
4) Contaminated gasoline
5) Low quality Methanol
6) Poor spark/fouled plugs

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you Al. I guess that it is possible that every road tuned car I've tested has one or more of these problems. The point is that no one will know for sure if their car has a problem until they get tested on a dyno. Did you notice any problem with the car when you road tuned it. Did you know that other Evos can make the same power without methanol? Probably not. No one's butt dyno is that sensitive.

So, that begs the question: Wouldn't it be better to actually have a dyno test/tune somewhere involved in the tuning process? Wouldn't this solve this problem completely? I'm sure the customers would be willing to pay $90 more to have their car tested before you actually leave town. Then you can solve problems like this when they are actually discovered. Not after the fact when your back in front of your keyboard at home and throwing out accusations and every excuse in the book.

Cheers,
shiv