For your needs it’s not gonna do much. You’ll just have to learn the tuning software over again.

 

Side note, hit up Merlin and buy an XML from him. Even if you spend uncountable hours compiling your own XML from all the many threads on this forum it will still be lacking in some key areas. Getting an "almost fully defined" xml from him was a real game changer for me. Especially in the driving behavior department.

 

My plans are to get a tuned stock ecu for Red54 to be my smog check setup. Then switch to Infinity because I'm trying to understand turbos and have lots of pressure sensors to hook up and log a bunch of parameters. I also, want to find the best trade-offs for my turbos and figure out best median between efficiency and max power.

 

This post will probably be lost in the matrix since everything is going to facebook groups .. Has anyone addressed the fact that this guys knock sensor may be off and urging him to go do 20 road pulls may not be the best idea.

A dyno is very useful tool .

Have either of you used one for a period of time and tuned a car on it?

 

Good point, I better check my settings to make sure my knock sensor sensitivity wasn't turned down from the stock setting.

 

That's a pretty valid concern, there are a bunch of things that could be going on with his tune or the car itself that we would have no way of anticipating. If you want to survive using advice from the interwebs you have to develop some critical thinking skills and use* the advice, not rely on it. Could you blow up the car, absolutely. Does that make it more fun, exciting, and rewarding to do it, absolutely!** Cars blow up on the dyno all the time. Unless the entire build is done under one roof, you get a procession of finger pointing if you find yourself in that unfortunate situation. If you want something done right, do it yourself.

That all being said, I think dynos are fabulous tools. I would love to have one, and I would use it extensively if I did. All I am saying is you don't need/have to have one to tune the car. If your going to run a business tuning cars then it makes a lot of sense to use a dyno. Just like if you are going to set up suspensions it makes a lot of sense to have a laser alignment rack. I can't get to the level of accuracy with my strings and plates that an alignment rack can. You can't take an alignment rack with you to the track though, so being able / having the tools to do an alignment pretty much anywhere that is flat turns out to be more useful. I'll spare you the teach a man to fish argument, but having the skills translates to a broader knowledge that allows you to take a more holistic view of whats going on and leads to higher order improvements.

I have had my mustang dyno tuned twice. It was a complete mystery to me what was being done by the tuner at the time. I built the engine myself though and it was initially a blow through carb setup that I converted to E.F.I. . I did everything myself (minus the machine work) and I really didn't like not knowing what the tuner was doing and having the end result basically being a black box to me.

* or disregard. There is a ton of info on the internet, its up to you to pick out the gold from the bull ****.
** Obviously you have to be confident in yourself, and your understanding of what it is your doing. Sometimes you don't know what you don't know and in those situations your going to learn a lesson. Maybe an expensive one, the difference is are you going to get back on the horse or not.

 

FWIW - I will be helping him with the tuning since I am familiar with the Infinity. I have dealt with tuning the factory ecu and find AEMs software to be way easier to use. Mostly cause there really isnt anything to add to the rom.

 

And I'd run speed density with Infinity and we will try to tune for different ethanol mixtures.

 

Thats the easy part! Once the main tune is done, the whole flex fuel portion is super simple.

 

And I hope to simplify tuning when I test different turbos.

 

I have boost turned down on spoolup. I just need to log some runs.

 

Good point.
If I have issues with what I consider to be false knock I’ve always throw good race gas in the tank and proceeded from there. Had a snowmobile that would always knock randomly and found out the brand new sensor was bad. As far as dynos are concerned, all I was getting at was if you want to learn how to tune, you can get it close road tuning. Finish tune on the dyno, they are pricey to rent just sayin.

I have seen Evo tunes from supposed guru’s.....warned my buddy not to run it and boom motor lasted maybe 30 pulls. The guy had tuned many evo’s but nothing really big power wise, 6870 turbo, he had way to much timing at peak torque, no knock on e85.

 

 

 

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