You should leave the Creader plugged in all the time and have the plugs gapped to .24 I have my Creader plugged in 24/7 for about a year now and never had problem.

 

Yep, with SMART you need to leave the C-reader plugged in at all times. When the Xede advances timing, the stock ECU gets VERY cranky without it.

 

joseph, plugs are not stock. they have been replaced with the vishnu recommendations. don't remember if it was the 7's or 8's. they were gapped to 25(I think). were replaced around nov. last year and only had maybe 2k miles on them, but most of that time included initially tuning the xede, so they might have been fouled from running too rich.
only code the car has ever thrown was a faulty o2 sensor(rear one) after I installed the helix cat. used 2 spacers and code went away. it has not ever thrown the pesky p0300 code...

just an fyi to make the troubleshooting process easier.

good luck and I hope you enjoy the tune

 

ooooohhhh, that helps a great deal Scott. I guess it is a better solution at this point to plug the Creader in and leave it. If I continue to have problems I will replace the ones that are there now. Scott, I seriously do not think they are fouled. The car ran pretty damn good before Shiv tuned it and even immediately after. I think it is just the SMART messing with things. I will leave the Creader in and see how it acts. FYI Scott, the car putt down a base* run of 266AWHP @ 7000rpm and 237ft lbs torque @ 4200rpm. Shiv squeezed a nice amount more out of it, not knocking your tuning job, but Shiv does amazing work on the dyno. He drives pretty well on the test drive too. I ended up w/ 295AWHP @ 6200rpm and 288ft lbs torque @ 4100rpm on Dyno4mance's DD.

 

awesome. don't feel bad about knocking my tuning job. all I did was take the base v390 map and make it "work" for that car. I knew that there was a ton left on the table, and that tune just shows it. anyone who thinks that you can tune a car with no experience and get it right in a short time is on drugs...
hopefully it feels a lot stronger than your first driving impression. only down side is that after a while, it will start to seem mundane and slow.(time for a stage 2 turbo )
might not be a bad idea to replace the plugs anyways. they're only $2 each at any auto store. cheap insurance. takes about 30 minutes to change and is really easy.

take care and enjoy..

 

Dustin,

While I am not doubting you, I do have a question. I just got done getting my new xede tuned by shiv for both pump and race. Andrew at Dyno4mance told me to gap my BR8ES to .27 not .24

Why go with .24?

I know you know your stuff, but so does Punchard. Just curious as to why the difference in opinion (not trying to make you mad or anything).

Please let me know.
Thanks,
Nathan

 

Just a little update and it is a good one. After plugging the Creader in and leaving it for a drive I noticed a complete difference. It felt exaclty like it did when Shiv took it off the dyno and we went for a test drive. Thanks for the help guys, I will keep everyone posted on the outcome.

 

Its the level of boost, Nathan. Sorry I haven't been able to call you; two fifteen hour days in a row tend to make a guy sleepy.
My plugs are gapped at .023.
.027 is just too much. Put them in to around .024 and be happy.
Andrew and I had to move every upgraded turbo car to .023 because they would misfire on the dyno on race gas.


Joseph's situation is that with SMART you have to have a creader full time because of the advance in the smart timing tables. My car was the exact same way.

 

Gotcha! Well sure enough my SES cam back. So, I am heading back out to the garage to regap them down to .024, then reset the ecu, then see what happens.

Dont worry about calling me back, i figured you were pretty pooped from the weekend. I am sure I will see you out an about soon enough.

Thanks,
Nathan

 

so he drove like that with you too huh?? all i could do was buckle up and hold.. shiv knows what he's doing..

 

I say 24 not 27, because there is no extra power to be afforded by opening the gap, and it just makes the ignition system work harder. We have done a bunch of testing to know that gapping the plugs all the way to 40 doesn't make any more power.

 

Well, a few spirited drives later with the Creader plugged in and whammy it frickin works great. Thanks for the advice everyone. Hopefully this will stay green.

 

Just remember that if you throw a different code, you won't know about it. That's the downside to leaving it plugged in.

 

Tuning Tech gapped my plugs to .25. I don't have an XEDE, but should I regap them to .24? I've never gotten the P0300 code (knock on wood).

-M

 

No problems = leave it alone