Hey guys .... I recently had my car tuned by a well known Tuner on these forums(not naming names) ... and have to come to find out from a local tuner that both my Low-octane and Hi-Octane Maps are identical. I'm by no means an expert in tuning, so wanted to get your opinions on having identical maps ... is this standard practice??

Thanks,
Nick

 

it says dynoflash on your sig.

 

LOL

 

Well, there are 2 answers to your question ...

Yes, it is standard practice for SOME tuners.

No, it's not the best idea in the world. It's a pretty lazy way to go about it IMHO.

 

Oh well ... so any opinions??

 

It is a very bad idea and should not be done. I cannot believe that Al still does this. The low octane fuel map is there as a safeguard. If for whatever reason your car knokcs the ECU will look for the low octane fuel map and makes the AFR richer to save your engine. If they are both the same, then your ECU will continue to use the same high octane fuel map and your car will keep on knocking.

I wonder if he made the high octane and low octane ignition maps the same?

 

My low octane map is my high octame map richened up by about .4 AFR. I have no idea if that's good or not though ... sorry. Also, check out your timing maps and make sure you still have a low octane map there. If not, I used my stock high octane map (#1 on IX) for my tuned low octane map. It is about 4* retarted from my tuned high octane map in most areas.

 

You say "Still does this" ... can I assume this is a common issue with Al's tunes??

Checking with my local guy on this one ... I don't have the maps in front of me.

 

Yes, Al has been known to do this. When we tell him not to do it, he starts claiming how he has tuned 50000000000000000000 Evos and nothing has happened to them.

It is just a bad tuning practice. IMO, the low octane ignition and fuel map should NOT be touched. They are there as a safety net for your engine,

 

As nj said, its a bad idea to collapse the hi/low octane maps, esp the ignition map. It greatly hampers the ECU's ability to deal with bad gas. You should get this fixed.

 

Sometimes they need to be altered and there is no way around it. Well the fuel map at least. For those on stock injectors sure you should leave yours alone but anyone that has properly scaled injectors and leaves the low octane map stock is not firing on all thrusters. Case in point, stock map has a bunch of high 8's and 9's for fuel. After getting my 750's (and it seems to be somewhat constant all the way up to 1000's) the fuel map indicates 11.5 and the AFR is 11.3. What would happen if you knocked yourself onto the low octane map? SO MUCH FUEL the car would drown out and cause more collateral damage (plugs, O2, etc.).

Ignition is somewhat of a different matter. IF you have a good tune with 0-2 counts especially when its scattered knock and not in the same rpm at the same load (which indicates a tune that needs changed) you could run your low octane map the same as your high octane map with 4-5* taken out vs. high octane map.

Sometimes you need to run cloned maps in order to keep the car running the timing you want it to. Not all cars need it, no car should have a low octane map identical to the high octane map as that is retarded. However sometimes you need to have your start up map the same as the standard running map as well as the trouble map (CEL map or #3). How do you know if this is you? You get numbers that occur nowhere in any of your maps that correspond to 2 byte load data and rpm axis'.

For the record I do not clone my maps, all the maps are different. I did however think that some clarification could help.

JB

 

with a proper tune you shouldn't be hitting the other maps but it's always a good idea to have a more conservative low octane fuel and timing map for a bit of safety in my opinion.

 

In most cases it can be left stock. For larger injectors as indicated above and in cases of phantom knock, you would want them closer to the high octane programming as JohnBradley stated.

 

I have seen three types of tuners here:

one that does what you have mentioned above,

those that endlessly bash this practice (or any other person that tunes an evo for that matter),

and others that remain neutral and keep negative comments about fellow tuning practices to themselves.

They all have reports of impressive track times, ironically, especially the first. So I wouldn't know where to steer someone looking for a tuner because based on character, approach, and respect for other humans there is little tuning to find

 

Agree, 100%

The only reason I can think of someone wanted to copy the High to the Low is if they know it will occassionally knock itself down there, and they don't care about the potential danger.

Better to tune safely and know that there's almost no chance of it knocking down to low, and if it does, you should be able to feel the difference (or see it in your wideband), that way you know you have a problem.