Tuning questions (chip vs. Tweecer and other ?'s)

[final5-0]

or you could forego the dyno tune w/tweecer and buy a stand-alone. the pcm is complicated even the company that makes tweecer says that right on thier web-site. why learn the pcm if you could just easily replace it with a more user friendly modern alternative? Accel, AEM, FAST, SDS.

I think it is a good thing to keep in mind that not everybody has a prob with wanting to learn how the pcm does it thing and why it no longer works correctly after one bolts all those hot rod parts on their car. Some folks just like to understand stuff about their car. Some don't. Its all good for either kind!

Again, if one has just a basic understanding of the pcm ..................
All the Tweecer does is allow them to adjust its values based on that knowledge and the data they have at their disposal from the data logs.

I totally agree with you about the more user friendly & modern tuning interfaces like you have listed and they are great for those who just don't want to get involved in the pcm that much. So YES, with a doubt, If one thinks that might describe them ............ The Tweecer is most likely not for them.

For that user friendly advantage ... you are gonna have to pay a good bit more for that convenience.

And if we are gonna have an apples to apples comparison .......................
you have to include the datalogging option to those other tuning interfaces which drives their price even higher.

You will always need a dyno tune no matter how you control the drivetrain. I would either go with a traditional dyno tune ar a real stand alone system. I mean are you really going to visit a dyno every time you make a change in the tweecer? If you a "guessing" while tuning then i would say it is even dangerous to buy a tweecer. JMHO.

I could be misunderstanding what you are trying to say here ...........
but from my point of view..............

Your perception of what it is like to self tune with the Tweecer is nothing like what I have found from using mine to tune my car.

Lets just focus on wot tuning.

If you got a wb then you should be able to tune your af ratio without a dyno no matter which tuning interface you use.

As for going to the dyno for verification every time you make a change.......
Thats what the data logs are for.

As for guessing while tuning ..............
IMHO, Thats one of the best things about using a Tweecer to self tune!!!
The data logs are what makes it possible to not have the unknowns.

If you get a wide band to go along with it you have a pretty complete self tuning package and you should be able to have your combo tuned to ... lets say about 98% BEFORE you go to the dyno. I know several guys who use it and have never been to the dyno.

Hey don't get me wrong................
The Tweecer is not without its probs and I don't think its the ONLY way.

I do think that for the money spent ...... it gives a lot of value but you do have to be willing to gain a bit of knowledge to go along with it.

I think this would be an example to show the Tweecer is effective..........

Take a look at my sig ...... My numbers are not the highest on this site for sure ...... but without the Tweecer ...... the numbers & curves you see in the pull would not have been possible because I was using the stock tb, maf, & catback. Don't forget to notice that I was using 30lb inj's also.

Another benefit I enjoy from using the Tweecer to self tune is.................
except for cam lope........my car behaves like a stocker.

Later
Grady

 

[nmcgrawj]

I run the older PMS(02 year) in mine with my h/c/i combo and now or soon to be with the 351w combo. On my h/c/i it was a breeze to tune it. Now i got the Innovative Motorsports xd-1/lc-1 wideband and it will be a walk in the park im sure again.

The PMS will get the same tune quality and get you down the track as fast as a chip or tweecer. The tweecer just lets you change some of the "luxuries" as i call them like turning off the EGR (which can be tricked without it) and adjusting for long tubes but thats not always needed.

If you want to make the changes yourself than the PMS is a great beginner. I was thinking about switching to the tweecer to try it out but i decided to keep it simple for now. When i have the time to read and read and read to figure out how to tune, i will get the tweecer. But for now i will just go out, drive around, hit a couple buttons and get a nice tune for my car. With the wideband, i have no need for the dyno but others who dond have one will most likely need one for WOT tuning.

You dont have to get the $800 PMS from AFM, you can get a pre-04 model like did for $400 shipped and use it. The pre-04 just has less "windows" for tuning than the 04 and a couple other things. But you can upgrade later when u want to for $200 or so.

Let me know if u have any specific questions about the PMS. I will be more than happy to answer them.

 

[db1994]

Everyone here is giving you pretty accurate advice.

I have the tweecerRT myself, and while it has some quirks, and does take a reasonable amount of time to get aquainted with in order to make it do the things you want - there are couple functionalities of it that make it invaluable to me personally as opposed to the other tuning solutions.

1) Turning off the EGR. and thermactor.
2) Turning off the driver side o2 sensor, and using a widebands simulated narrowband output to the PCM for my o2 sensor reading.

All in all, I have no doubt that an SCT tune could probly get more power and be more convienent, or that a PMS is easier to use.

But for my intended use, the tweecer was the only way to go. Just like most mustang mods, you just have to decide up front which direction you want to go with it

-Jason

 

[CManT1914]

I run the older PMS(02 year) in mine with my h/c/i combo and now or soon to be with the 351w combo. On my h/c/i it was a breeze to tune it. Now i got the Innovative Motorsports xd-1/lc-1 wideband and it will be a walk in the park im sure again.

The PMS will get the same tune quality and get you down the track as fast as a chip or tweecer. The tweecer just lets you change some of the "luxuries" as i call them like turning off the EGR (which can be tricked without it) and adjusting for long tubes but thats not always needed.

If you want to make the changes yourself than the PMS is a great beginner. I was thinking about switching to the tweecer to try it out but i decided to keep it simple for now. When i have the time to read and read and read to figure out how to tune, i will get the tweecer. But for now i will just go out, drive around, hit a couple buttons and get a nice tune for my car. With the wideband, i have no need for the dyno but others who dond have one will most likely need one for WOT tuning.

You dont have to get the $800 PMS from AFM, you can get a pre-04 model like did for $400 shipped and use it. The pre-04 just has less "windows" for tuning than the 04 and a couple other things. But you can upgrade later when u want to for $200 or so.

Let me know if u have any specific questions about the PMS. I will be more than happy to answer them.

Where can you get the older model for $400??

Everyone here is giving you pretty accurate advice.

I have the tweecerRT myself, and while it has some quirks, and does take a reasonable amount of time to get aquainted with in order to make it do the things you want - there are couple functionalities of it that make it invaluable to me personally as opposed to the other tuning solutions.

1) Turning off the EGR. and thermactor.
2) Turning off the driver side o2 sensor, and using a widebands simulated narrowband output to the PCM for my o2 sensor reading.

All in all, I have no doubt that an SCT tune could probly get more power and be more convienent, or that a PMS is easier to use.

But for my intended use, the tweecer was the only way to go. Just like most mustang mods, you just have to decide up front which direction you want to go with it

-Jason

I like the fact that you can turn off the EGR via the tweecer since I'm probably gonna have to take mine off. Why would you turn off the driver side O2?

 

[final5-0]

Everyone here is giving you pretty accurate advice.

I have the tweecerRT myself, and while it has some quirks, and does take a reasonable amount of time to get aquainted with in order to make it do the things you want - there are couple functionalities of it that make it invaluable to me personally as opposed to the other tuning solutions.

1) Turning off the EGR. and thermactor.
2) Turning off the driver side o2 sensor, and using a widebands simulated narrowband output to the PCM for my o2 sensor reading.

All in all, I have no doubt that an SCT tune could probly get more power and be more convienent, or that a PMS is easier to use.

But for my intended use, the tweecer was the only way to go. Just like most mustang mods, you just have to decide up front which direction you want to go with it

-Jason

Jason

I agree with everyting you have said .........................

except

Why do you think a SCT chip would yield more power for your combo than your Tweecer?

Later
Grady

 

[final5-0]

I run the older PMS(02 year) in mine with my h/c/i combo and now or soon to be with the 351w combo. On my h/c/i it was a breeze to tune it. Now i got the Innovative Motorsports xd-1/lc-1 wideband and it will be a walk in the park im sure again.

The PMS will get the same tune quality and get you down the track as fast as a chip or tweecer. The tweecer just lets you change some of the "luxuries" as i call them like turning off the EGR (which can be tricked without it) and adjusting for long tubes but thats not always needed.

If you want to make the changes yourself than the PMS is a great beginner. I was thinking about switching to the tweecer to try it out but i decided to keep it simple for now. When i have the time to read and read and read to figure out how to tune, i will get the tweecer. But for now i will just go out, drive around, hit a couple buttons and get a nice tune for my car. With the wideband, i have no need for the dyno but others who dond have one will most likely need one for WOT tuning.

You dont have to get the $800 PMS from AFM, you can get a pre-04 model like did for $400 shipped and use it. The pre-04 just has less "windows" for tuning than the 04 and a couple other things. But you can upgrade later when u want to for $200 or so.

Let me know if u have any specific questions about the PMS. I will be more than happy to answer them.

Good info Nate

From time to time, somebody will put up a few screen shots of the PMS on the various sites and from what I've seen, it looks pretty cool.

Another thing about the PMS (dont' ya just hate that name ) is you don't see too many peeps say bad things about it.

This tuning stuff is like everything else ..................

More than one way to skin a cat

Later
Grady

 

[5.0_GT_kid]

Thanks guys for all the info. I'd still like some screen shots of the tweecer though

My question now is, what is a good Wide Band to use and what kind of money I am looking at for that?

 

[db1994]

Jason

I agree with everyting you have said .........................

except

Why do you think a SCT chip would yield more power for your combo than your Tweecer?

Later
Grady

Because I think consistent back to back dyno runs and a high end wideband will probably yield a flatter AFR curve in the hands of an experienced tuner in a given 2 hour window, than me making WOT passes on the street in front of my house while datalogging on my 10lb laptop attached to a 500watt inverter

The tweecer _can_ give you exactly the tune as the SCT if you have a wideband to go along with it. I guess my comment was made from the standpoint of "Can I tune my car as well as someone with 20x more experience doing so than myself in a reasonably similar timeframe"

As far as why I disabled my driver side O2 - I am installing a turbo kit, and saw no reason to run 2 identical narrowbands in the same downpipe right next to each other, requiring me to weld 2 more bungs in the same area for the EGT and Wideband sensors, when I could turn off one of the sensors in the PCM, redirect the PCM to only look for the pasenger side sensor which would be attached to the narrowband output of the wideband for AFR calculations, and then just use the second O2 bung for the EGT sensor.

So, long story short - efficiency - and to see if I could make it work

-Jason

 

[sociopath5.0]

Innovate Motorsports, Western Motorsports, AEM, are just a few of the companies offering wideband 02 kits which include the sensor, wires, software and user interface modules. Innovate's kit is about $350 shipped, and it's what I have.

 

[Rootus]

My question now is, what is a good Wide Band to use and what kind of money I am looking at for that?

I use the Dynojet Wideband Commander. It has a module that sits under the dash, a Bosch wideband sensor, the bung you need to have welded in, a 2 1/4 inch autometer analog gauge, and all the wiring to connect everything. $399 from here. You can datalog with it two ways -- real time to a laptop, or you can install a switch that will tell it to start datalogging to its own memory, which can be downloaded later with a laptop (it comes with a USB cable). Also, you can use the software to program the wideband to activate a warning light on the gauge (or an external warning light of your own choosing) based on any combination of A/F ratio, RPM, and throttle position -- I have mine set to warn me if I'm over 12:1 A/F, over 3000 RPM, and over 75% throttle (this is on my Cobra). Very handy to have.

Dave

 

[5.0_GT_kid]

So I'm looking at $350 to $400 for a wideband?

 

[5.0_GT_kid]

bump...still looking for info on cheap wideband sensor.

 

[final5-0]

So I'm looking at $350 to $400 for a wideband?

I believe some of the guys paid closer to $250 but you need to search a little to see.

Search this site or the Corral or http://eectuning.org/forums/
I'm certain there are wb threads on all of them that will help you gather some more specific info if you don't get what you want from this thread.

I use one made by FJO from back in the days when they were much higher in price and I don't wanna talk any more about it or I'll get mad, lol.

Later
Grady

 

[final5-0]

Thanks guys for all the info. I'd still like some screen shots of the tweecer though

My question now is, what is a good Wide Band to use and what kind of money I am looking at for that?

You can go to the Tweecer site and download the software and see anything you want ...... but you can't tune.

I'd be willing to bet some of the other friendly Tweecer guys on this site would even email you a dlog or two so you can play with it in CalCon which is the data logging part of the Tweecer System.

I'd send you some dlogs myself but you'd have to dl V1.20 and most noobs want to have the latest & greatest version.

Later
Grady

 

[5.0_GT_kid]

Thanks (again) for the link and info Grady. You and everyone else has been a great help in this thread and answered all my questions...much appreciation to you and the rest who helped!

I'll look around and see what I can come up with...I really wanna do the Tweecer R/T

 

[Rootus]

Because I think consistent back to back dyno runs and a high end wideband will probably yield a flatter AFR curve in the hands of an experienced tuner in a given 2 hour window, than me making WOT passes on the street in front of my house while datalogging on my 10lb laptop attached to a 500watt inverter

There are other ways to tune . I only did driveability tuning using my laptop, and I didn't do any WOT runs -- I was only interested in closed loop operation, which requires a lot of cruising and some light acceleration. For WOT I did just what you would do (presumably) with an SCT -- I took it to the dyno. 12 passes later, I had the A/F curve I wanted, and the timing curve I wanted. And 310 rwhp, which is a good amount more than the first pull of the day .

The tweecer _can_ give you exactly the tune as the SCT if you have a wideband to go along with it. I guess my comment was made from the standpoint of "Can I tune my car as well as someone with 20x more experience doing so than myself in a reasonably similar timeframe"

Does the SCT do something special that enables you to tune without wideband feedback?

Dave

 

[5.0_GT_kid]

Ttt

 

[final5-0]

Thanks guys for all the info. I'd still like some screen shots of the tweecer though

My question now is, what is a good Wide Band to use and what kind of money I am looking at for that?

Eric

I put up some shots of a Tweecer datalog that has been modified by an optional program for a more precise display.

You may want to take a look. I thought I would mention it to you in this thread just in case you did not see that other thread.

btw ...... the thread title is ...... Datalog Screen Shots

Later
Grady

 

[5.0_GT_kid]

Thanks Grady, I'll go check that out now!

 

[5.0_GT_kid]

Well just thought I'd let everyone know that the decision has been made to go with the Tweecer R/T Despite the fact I've heard horror stories about the learning curve, after looking at some screen shots and knowing my own ability and learning things, I have confidence I will do well with this tool.

Thanks again to Grady and everyone else for your help, I'm sure I'll be asking many more questions regarding this topic in the near future!