For a self-tuner...
- Thread starter Tom95gt
- Start date
Don 95Vert
Founding Member
Bout the same, except you might have to mess with different things in both in addition to the basics. In either, you'll need to calibrate the MAF transfer function first, because with both scenarios you'll need a new higher capacity (electronic) MAF. This assumes the HCI scenario makes enough power to peg the stock MAF.
Don
Don
i think turbo will be harder
i have a mild HCI combo and no tune n the car ran pretty well ( lol - i say ran because its in the shop due to a misfire i cant locate )
but minor tweeking with timing and fuel pressure will go a long way on an HCI car imo....
i have a mild HCI combo and no tune n the car ran pretty well ( lol - i say ran because its in the shop due to a misfire i cant locate )
but minor tweeking with timing and fuel pressure will go a long way on an HCI car imo....
any HCI combo that doesnt peg the stock meter should be pretty simple to tune .......you have to remember though that you cant tune out a mechnical problem so all your basics have to be fixed first , and fuel pressure and base timing set etc .......I have so many people come to me to tune their cars and everything is so out of whack its barely running when they pull in .....
I'd definitely rather start out with an H/C/I combo than a turbo combo. It's a lotttt easier to mess things up with a FI combo than a NA combo.
H/C/I combos are nothing to tune
I started with a supercharged combo w/ meth injection and somehow managed not to blow a headgasket...luck I s'pose. It's more critical to have the timing down in a FI combo
H/C/I combos are nothing to tune
I started with a supercharged combo w/ meth injection and somehow managed not to blow a headgasket...luck I s'pose. It's more critical to have the timing down in a FI combo
Yea i'm just asking because i decided to go turbo on my stock motor and was wondering if that would present more of a challenge... i'll most likely be getting it professionally done
there are enough guys like me and Grady , and Wes on here that can help you if you get a wideband , some 42lbs injectors and a Lightning MAF to help you get it tuned if you wanna do it yourself ......
I appreciate that...it's all still up in the air now but so far I have the 42# injectors... I plan on getting a Walbro 255lph High Volume fuel pump and a PMAS Blow-through Pro-Tube because I believe the Lightning MAF is better suited draw-through right?
Here's a link to it: PMAS Blow Through Aluminum Pro Tube Mustang
Here's a link to it: PMAS Blow Through Aluminum Pro Tube Mustang
I would say you've gotten some good info from many good sources 
I'll just touch on a few general thoughts about your plans
Like has been said ... a Forced combo is WAY less forgiving than NA
It would be much more simple for you to cut your self tuning teeth on NA
Now ... that don't mean you can't do a forced combo as you plan
You just gotta be REAL careful :Word:
Little spark ... Big fuel
Honestly ... as I've always seen it ......
WOT is cake
What I feel offers the greatest challenge is .....
Working out drivability issues
until you get a nice stable Closed Loop tune
that closely resembles a Little Stocker Stang
Like has been said ...............
You can start out with the timing pulled WAY back
and
The fuel setup pretty fat
Just go easy
Just go slow ... I'm talking about your tuning efforts here
Just make changes in tiny baby steps
And above all ... Go very easy on the skinny pedal at first :Word:
You can do it
with a bit of effort to learn how that little silver box does it's thing
Once you gain that bit of basic knowedge ... It will all fall in place
Grady
I'll just touch on a few general thoughts about your plans
Like has been said ... a Forced combo is WAY less forgiving than NA
It would be much more simple for you to cut your self tuning teeth on NA
Now ... that don't mean you can't do a forced combo as you plan
You just gotta be REAL careful :Word:
Little spark ... Big fuel
Honestly ... as I've always seen it ......
WOT is cake
What I feel offers the greatest challenge is .....
Working out drivability issues
until you get a nice stable Closed Loop tune
that closely resembles a Little Stocker Stang
Like has been said ...............
You can start out with the timing pulled WAY back
and
The fuel setup pretty fat
Just go easy
Just go slow ... I'm talking about your tuning efforts here
Just make changes in tiny baby steps
And above all ... Go very easy on the skinny pedal at first :Word:
You can do it
with a bit of effort to learn how that little silver box does it's thing
Once you gain that bit of basic knowedge ... It will all fall in place
Grady
hardest part of tuning is getting the MAF transfer function straightened out to make the car drive as good as possible , if you can go draw thru it will make your life alot easier LOL ....they just seem to take alot less time to smooth out from what I have seen in my experience .......
Don 95Vert
Founding Member
Have to disagree on the draw through MAF with a turbo. I have tuned a ton of turbo cars and we have two turbo vehicles ourselves. Blow through is the way to go. Too many times putting the MAF ahead of the turbo, you end up with MAF backwash issues, much worse than a comparable SC combo because the turbo continues to spin down longer. This can be cured by adding more air volume (longer tube) but then you get to the problem of the MAF being so far from the motor that there is a delay in the process plus finding room for the extra tubing can be impossible.
Some turbo kits have this problem right from the manufacturer - like they must not test them at all in real world conditions. Couple years ago we had a Gen 2 Lightning with a 76mm turbo and a commercial turbo kit on it. It stalled horribly. Logging showed a massive backwash problem - something you'd NEVER be able to tune around. The owner did not want to spend the $$ to convert to blow through. Luckily with a truck, you have tons of room to add things under the hood - so we fabbed up an extended 4" tube between the turbo and the MAF - we added like 2' of tubing. This added more air volume which buffered the backwash and cured the problem. Truck drove like stock and made 800/800. Your results may vary. The manufacturer go wind of what we did and modified their kits from then on. If this had been a Mustang, no way we could have added that much volume.
The really hot ticket nowadays is to use a slot style MAF in blow through. I use a PMAS HPX sensor in a 3" tube in blow through in my own Gen 1 Lightning and recommend it to people who want to make big power with a turbo - works well with SCs as well. Using blow through you can ditch recirculation and just use a BOV and dump to atmosphere. My Gen 1 drives like stock - the MAF signal is rock steady. Does take some tuning though. Our 700 RWHP Turbo '95 Mustang uses a different system - a custom 4" tube with a 90mm LMAF 'saddle TIG welded onto it with a SCT BA 2800 sensor and a MAF.ia, in draw through. It also drives like stock. This car originally was setup in draw through, but the turbo spinning down caused enough backwash to cause stalling, making us want to drive it off a cliff.
The PMAS blow through tubes that I have seen on the dyno are really decent. They are not perfect, you cannot plug and play, but they tune really well. That would work if you decide not to the slot style MAF.
FWIW, of the thousands of cars I have tuned some of the most difficult have been NA combos with HCI, it's usually easy to get any MAF transfer function correct, but to get the idle and other settings and spark curve reworked to work with the cam and the new heads sometimes takes a lot of time. On the other hand, some well setup turbo systems have been tuned in less than an hour. The bottom line is nothing can be relied upon to be easy all the time except a stock car, and sometimes they even have mechanical issues that create problems.
Hope this helps!
Don
Some turbo kits have this problem right from the manufacturer - like they must not test them at all in real world conditions. Couple years ago we had a Gen 2 Lightning with a 76mm turbo and a commercial turbo kit on it. It stalled horribly. Logging showed a massive backwash problem - something you'd NEVER be able to tune around. The owner did not want to spend the $$ to convert to blow through. Luckily with a truck, you have tons of room to add things under the hood - so we fabbed up an extended 4" tube between the turbo and the MAF - we added like 2' of tubing. This added more air volume which buffered the backwash and cured the problem. Truck drove like stock and made 800/800. Your results may vary. The manufacturer go wind of what we did and modified their kits from then on. If this had been a Mustang, no way we could have added that much volume.
The really hot ticket nowadays is to use a slot style MAF in blow through. I use a PMAS HPX sensor in a 3" tube in blow through in my own Gen 1 Lightning and recommend it to people who want to make big power with a turbo - works well with SCs as well. Using blow through you can ditch recirculation and just use a BOV and dump to atmosphere. My Gen 1 drives like stock - the MAF signal is rock steady. Does take some tuning though. Our 700 RWHP Turbo '95 Mustang uses a different system - a custom 4" tube with a 90mm LMAF 'saddle TIG welded onto it with a SCT BA 2800 sensor and a MAF.ia, in draw through. It also drives like stock. This car originally was setup in draw through, but the turbo spinning down caused enough backwash to cause stalling, making us want to drive it off a cliff.
The PMAS blow through tubes that I have seen on the dyno are really decent. They are not perfect, you cannot plug and play, but they tune really well. That would work if you decide not to the slot style MAF.
FWIW, of the thousands of cars I have tuned some of the most difficult have been NA combos with HCI, it's usually easy to get any MAF transfer function correct, but to get the idle and other settings and spark curve reworked to work with the cam and the new heads sometimes takes a lot of time. On the other hand, some well setup turbo systems have been tuned in less than an hour. The bottom line is nothing can be relied upon to be easy all the time except a stock car, and sometimes they even have mechanical issues that create problems.
Hope this helps!
Don
Good info Don , I have only tuned a couple turbo cars and they were all blow thru , I was just saying for a beginner draw thrus would usually be easier because there are more blower cars out there with good tunes on them that people are willing to share information on , so its easier for a beginner to get practice with something like that
I have only seen a handful of turbo cars ever that were draw-thru I was just talking about tuning in general a beginner would probably get overwhelmed if they arent patient ......
IMO I think the OP should stick to an NA combo to get his feet wet in the tuning and then graduate to a power adders ......but even if he goes turbo with a blow thru I am sure there are enough people around to help out as long as they are willing to put a little time into learning something new , like grady said , big fuel , low spark , until you get it running smooth , take small steps
By the way did you ever buy in with Sniper yet ?
I have only seen a handful of turbo cars ever that were draw-thru I was just talking about tuning in general a beginner would probably get overwhelmed if they arent patient ......
IMO I think the OP should stick to an NA combo to get his feet wet in the tuning and then graduate to a power adders ......but even if he goes turbo with a blow thru I am sure there are enough people around to help out as long as they are willing to put a little time into learning something new , like grady said , big fuel , low spark , until you get it running smooth , take small steps
By the way did you ever buy in with Sniper yet ?
I've always found it so enjoyable to see info from others who tune
especially those who have done lots of it
My small exposure to tuning as a hobby has shown me
I quickly learned
There was so much more to learn that I had not learned
Good Stuff Folks
Grady
especially those who have done lots of it
My small exposure to tuning as a hobby has shown me
I quickly learned
There was so much more to learn that I had not learned
Good Stuff Folks
Grady
Don 95Vert
Founding Member
Nope, I was meaning to, then got too busy, then the economy tanked. And no way I'm I going to try an expand with business as lousy as it is - on top of that winter is always kinda slow for us here. I hear quite a few big shops are in serious trouble, as well as some other 'players' in this field. With the Big 3 in trouble, no wonder. The shops that tune and do general repairs will be fine - but the performance only ones may be hurting. It'll be interesting to see how it all shakes out in a couple of years. I'll always be around because it's not my main source of income, well I'll be around until I get tired of it....
Don
I hear that , the economy is in the crapper , business is slowly picking back up for me , offering the Moates chips for a cheaper price helped that out alot , I do this on the side so like you its not my only source of income , I am about to get SCT's mustang only package so I can expand what I have on my website ........
Thanks guys good thing I have some time to think about this, it might even make it into a different car lol (Tradin Stangs in 94-95 Talk) ... what do I need to self-tune, that's if I want to go that route? A laptop, wideband, and the Tweecer R/T? I read that the tweecer is compatible with Windows XP but what about Vista?
Yea if you want to datalog and tune the Tweecer RT , Innovate wideband, is a good start along with an XP laptop , I dont think it will work with Vista that I have heard anyway ......
As for Tweecer tuning
I've always seen no need to get all that fancy with a laptop
I mean ... application does dictate two priorities if you ask me
1) You need a usb port
and
2) You need a good battery
About that usb port .........
You could go all the way back to Win 98SE
which btw
I've beeb using it on an old Toshiba laptop for years now ... Works Great
I do very little tuning in the car myself
Of course I datalog in the car
But I use my big desktop in the office to .........
analyze the data
make changes
write the file
Then ... I upload the new file to the pcm and see how it all worked out
Another thing ... If you think about it ........
You are constantly moving around in the car
and
Going back and fourth with the laptop
You got a good chance for something to happen to the laptop
I say ........
Just dig up an old laptop for 100 bux or less
and
Get a good battery for a few bux more
That way ... you ain't got much cash in the laptop
The good battery is a must :Word:
If you try to use something like a converter in the cig lighter ........
When you start the car the laptop will crash
When you want to go to the office to work with the data .......
You gotta shut down before you can work
then
You gotta restart the pc back in the office
About Vista ... I've seen a few say they got it to work
but
I know nothing about how they went about it
Grady
I've always seen no need to get all that fancy with a laptop
I mean ... application does dictate two priorities if you ask me
1) You need a usb port
and
2) You need a good battery
About that usb port .........
You could go all the way back to Win 98SE
which btw
I've beeb using it on an old Toshiba laptop for years now ... Works Great
I do very little tuning in the car myself
Of course I datalog in the car
But I use my big desktop in the office to .........
analyze the data
make changes
write the file
Then ... I upload the new file to the pcm and see how it all worked out
Another thing ... If you think about it ........
You are constantly moving around in the car
and
Going back and fourth with the laptop
You got a good chance for something to happen to the laptop
I say ........
Just dig up an old laptop for 100 bux or less
and
Get a good battery for a few bux more
That way ... you ain't got much cash in the laptop
The good battery is a must :Word:
If you try to use something like a converter in the cig lighter ........
When you start the car the laptop will crash
When you want to go to the office to work with the data .......
You gotta shut down before you can work
then
You gotta restart the pc back in the office
About Vista ... I've seen a few say they got it to work
but
I know nothing about how they went about it
Grady
Mustangless
Member
I have an old p2 laptop with xp on it. It runs really slow, and the screen flips over and breaks if I take a corner too fast, but it has worked for me over the years.
One night I could not get it to run, so I grabbed my newer laptop with vista. I started logging, but I forgot to save. Other than that, I think it will work with vista. You have to turn off user account control though.
I did not have much of a clue what I was doing when I tuned my turbo with tweecer. I used somebody elses tune and entered my stuff (maf, trans, etc). My biggest problem was my wideband giving me problems. It took me months to figure out how to work it. Finally I got a good look at it and it was lean (13.2). This was after over 2k miles including at least 5 passes at the track.
The problem was my maf transfer. I don't know if I entered it wrong, or if it was just wrong. I never blew anything though.
If you do tune yourself, make sure you got wideband readings before doing anything dangerous. Other than that, it is not too hard to figure out.
I have the same maf you listed above.
One night I could not get it to run, so I grabbed my newer laptop with vista. I started logging, but I forgot to save. Other than that, I think it will work with vista. You have to turn off user account control though.
I did not have much of a clue what I was doing when I tuned my turbo with tweecer. I used somebody elses tune and entered my stuff (maf, trans, etc). My biggest problem was my wideband giving me problems. It took me months to figure out how to work it. Finally I got a good look at it and it was lean (13.2). This was after over 2k miles including at least 5 passes at the track.
The problem was my maf transfer. I don't know if I entered it wrong, or if it was just wrong. I never blew anything though.
If you do tune yourself, make sure you got wideband readings before doing anything dangerous. Other than that, it is not too hard to figure out.
I have the same maf you listed above.
Black1987Stang
Active Member
As for Tweecer tuning
The good battery is a must :Word:
If you try to use something like a converter in the cig lighter ........
When you start the car the laptop will crash
Grady
I did the ol' converter in the cig lighter, and the past 2 times when I went to start it the fuse blew in the extension cord, since the converter doesnt fit in our recessed fox cig lighters
. Without the my battery would last max 15 minutes (like 3 years old )....so just ordered a 7200mah, 9 cell, 85whr battery 1 year warranty from an ebay store $61 shipped 
