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Mudge

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Posts posted by Mudge

    93 LT1 computer tuning.....

    in Gen I & II Chevy V8 Tech Board

    Posted

    DOS is stable, Winblows... well.

     

    Look for at least a P200, with 64-128MB RAM (its cheap to buy), 1GB+ hard drive (dont need much unless you are running 2k, then go for 2GB minimum). 3.5" drive will help greatly I think, CDROM would be nice simply for installing things if nothing else. Try to find one with a battery and charger, they are expensive new, unless you can find them on eBay for a reasonable price.

     

    My last setup was a PII 366 and was more than enough for logging, viewing stuff in Excel etc, instead of having to go home to a faster computer with more resoultion, I had a 15" screen so I had plenty of view space. I bought the battery new for I think $30, but again its all going to depend on luck and laptop model etc

     

    Surf eBay, laptops are cheap now - You can snag a P3 deal for $500 or so if you watch. Feel free to surf the MFG site to learn about the laptop in question, sometimes people dont know much so they aren't able to tell you alot about the laptop. I ended up with a Gateway 9300, for several reasons. On board video capture, and a known CPU socket type making for an easy upgrade path (MMC-2), almost no MFG will tell you the socket type in thier FAQ so the Gateway was friendly to me in that regard.

     

    You can also get a 2.5" HDD to 3.5" HDD adapter, in case you can't find one with a floppy and CDROM, so you can install anything you need onto your formatted drive, and install from there. Only thing is, to get things to and fro the laptop thereafter, your going to need a NIC, or pull that drive every single time, or get a floppy down the road - or setup a serial cable communication setup, or a modem - yada yada yada.

    Best way till TDC

    in 6 Cylinder Z Forums

    Posted

    It could, because if there are only say 12 teeth thats 30º! Just as an example. It may not run if its off by as much as say 10º or so, dunno.

     

    On my F54 its impossible to put on incorrectly, because there is an obstruction which guides it in, or else it wont go in.

    EFI vs. Triple webers

    in Fuel Delivery

    Posted

    Plus you don't have that dumb door on the nissan afm in the way either.

     

    AFM doesn't get used with an aftermarket setup, and since the stock setup + work is fairly limited, big HP guys are not going to use it, so no AFM. As for the MAF, yeah people complain about that and the little TB on the LT1s too, but they are running 9s in the quarter, so I think the MAF argument, especially boosted is a bunch of hooey.

    pricing for stand alone engine management

    in Fuel Delivery

    Posted

    (Megasquirt comes with a programmed chip. You only need the Willette programmer - boutght that too - if you need to totally reflash the chip with a software update that isn't able to be loaded with the bootloader.)

     

    Right, but since he made his own board - does he have access to the pre programed chip or would that be a special request, that was what I'm not sure of.

     

    Simple Digital Systems unit is neat and fairly cheap. But I really WANT laptop control.

     

    Heck yeah, I'm not programming maps on a fiddly diddly LCD screen with arrows.

    pricing for stand alone engine management

    in Fuel Delivery

    Posted

    Holley system I've bought for my Z and the Tweecer I bought for the Mustang is that I can hook a laptop in, hook the laptop up to my network and modem and allow a tech to SEE what I'm doing to the car, or better yet LET HIM TUNE IT REMOTELY for me!

     

    Nice! But you can do that with VNC or PC Anywhere also :)

    93 LT1 computer tuning.....

    in Gen I & II Chevy V8 Tech Board

    Posted

    Some people swear by datamaster, I honestly dont like it much - the export SUCKS. I hate having to clean it up so that I can play with it in Excel, its strongest feature is the real time display. You can test it for 20 runs to see if you like it.

     

    I prefer Freescan (its free!) and Excel together, great combo.

     

    Tunercat will work on 93s actually, but you need a bunch of PROMs and a PROM burner of course :) so you spend another $100+, and then have to keep buying chips if you keep burning. I read about an L98 Vette that had the older PROM setup computer, and in summary they said "It took 200 burns to make the car run well, it took 400 to make it perfect."

     

    Everyones programming abilities are different and yada yada, but I like the flexibility of being able to program again adn again, without yanking the computer, the freaking cover, and then having to deal with the time and expense of the PROM setup. Just as I can't imagine dealing with a carb on the dyno, ripping the top end of the carb off to get to the jets (Weber downdrafts), no way José.

    Does anyone here provide 2JZ's?

    in 6 Cylinder Z Forums

    Posted

    V8 is as tried and true as anything in the Z car save the L6.

     

    As for carburated setups, I'm anti-carb without a doubt. I saw an average of 17-19 MPG daily driving working in SF, on trips I imagine I would have pulled somewhere over 20 MPG, dont really know or just dont remember. Since he is going turbo anyway though, the requirement for a huge high RPM cam isn't there, and anything under 3k RPM or whatever he chooses, can be his "daily driver" area.

    93 LT1 computer tuning.....

    in Gen I & II Chevy V8 Tech Board

    Posted

    Well, there was always the boot disk option, or what I had was simply dual boot 98/2k on my laptop - that way I just used F8 at bootup with Win98 for my DOS.

     

    I'm wary of using Windows for flashing, but I will give it a shot sometime. You need the $69 Tunercat program, and the $20 $EE definition file. They have other software, but its not required.

    93 LT1 computer tuning.....

    in Gen I & II Chevy V8 Tech Board

    Posted

    Not too hard, I spent about a week reading up on techniques and such, just takes a little practice and its going to take some flashes anyway, same as trying to find the perfect carb jetting.

     

    One of the easiest rules, tune where its weak, pay attention to that zone, look at the sensors. Start out with low end, then midrange, then work on your WOT stuff - to me WOT belongs on the dyno because of fuel concerns. After your dyno stuff leave the fuel alone and work timing any more if needed (like low throttle).

     

    Fuel tuning other than closed loop low throttle, really belongs on the dyno, but there are ways to coming close with a little math. LJs site has info on that, I need to look for it myself. Since your going to stay speed density, VE tables are what you play with to get your BLMs close to 128, if they are close right now you can use VEMaster to help finish em off.

     

    Timing I play with in small chunks, especially low throttle stuff. Its not like writing computer code or anything like that, but its not so simple that you just input lift/duration etc, you basically just need to learn to adjust the numbers to get your sensory output to where you want it.

     

    Low map during cruise = high vacuum = good, so work timing to improve MAP, when it degrades go back to previous setting. If the car is idling rough, alot of that can be timing, can be fuel (overlap funktifying the O2 readings, or lean) overlap with the Hotcam should not be a concern. Some people run open loop 1200 RPM and below, you shouldn't need to. The tuning primers will help get you going on any concepts that may be confusing.

     

    Usually I'd say its the larger cam stuff that gets kind of tough to tune down low, down low timing is either where people fail or work magic, or somewhere in between, mail order stuff for me (attempting to use as a baseline) was a sorry failure, the car was weak, very weak, timing sucked big time. So for me I used a tune off a friends car somewhat close to my setup, timing was almost spot on, tried playing down low to get more torque off idle (had amazing power down low but would run into ping :( ), 91 Craptane MTBE gas wasn't helping my cause, if only I had Texas gas. So your starting out with a good setup to learn on, great example baseline tunes to start with and a moderate cam profile should be fairly easy to work with and very forgivable especially down low. My own setup was my first dyno tune and really the first car I tuned with a computer setup, and I was almost done on the dyno by my 3rd pull, because I didn't really find any power playing with fuel much (well the ignition miss didnt help :( ), and didn't have enough time to get into much timing work, I was confident in my WOT timing and my down low is all street tuned.

     

    I dont know how much spare time you have but the LT1 Edit list is great to jump on, I was on for probably over a year, thought about hopping back on but it would be yet another mailing list to consume the time that I already waste so well. You can set your subscription for web mail, or digest mode, so you dont have to recieve 100 emails a day, traffic varies from almost none to alot per day.

    93 LT1 computer tuning.....

    in Gen I & II Chevy V8 Tech Board

    Posted

    Tunercat has a Windows flash utility now, for those afraid of DOS and its stability :D I only use the DOS version myself, but I will try the Winders version again sometime just due to speed on the dyno (no reboots).

     

    They both achieve the same end results, I prefer Tunercat, I think it looks better - LT1 Edit last I saw looked like it was written in VB3, but like anything its a stupid bias.

     

    The LT1 Edit layout may be better, I dunno. You can change the menu layout of Tunercat a bit (I have mine so 3rd column is A4 tables which I ignore), so for me it works perfectly. To remove tables you dont use altogether, you'd have to edit the $EE file and I've never gotten around to that.

     

    http://www.wotelectronics.com to get a cable, then you just need the software.

     

    LT1 Edit is $200, plus you still have to buy the cable.

     

    I also like the idea of Tunercat being useable on other cars with other definition files, also it is not Vin locked like EDIT is, unless you pay $2000 for the pro tuner version. Anywho, you really have to decide for yourself, its clear to me - much of my bias is just on price alone, they both get the job done if you know how the engine works, thats the key. What is this sensor, how does it act with the other, what do these numbers mean, etc

     

    This is not a programming tutorial, but I like it for giving an overview of the sensors:

    http://members.aol.com/InjuneerZZ/ScanMast.htm

     

    For hex editors Tunercat has the neat, automatic checksum calculator. One important thing to keep in mind, is that Tunercat/Edit do NOT store the T & M chip data in the same order, one has M/T the other is T/M, so you must open in Tunercat and save as LT1 before flashing, or use the free utility on the net ( http://www.carprogrammer.com has it somewhere ).

    You know you've got too much HP when...

    in Non Tech Board

    Posted

    No such thing as to much HP, if you ask me.

     

    I dont know how long you've been running 12s, and thats certainly respectable, but unless taken in small jumps then I would call it too much horsepower.

     

    Every driver is different, some once in a blue moon are naturals, stick most anyone in a race car though - and voila, too much power and car for the driver.

    pricing for stand alone engine management

    in Fuel Delivery

    Posted

    Check the FAQ, I've posted some links in one of the forums, if you buy the board from them some of it is already assembled. If you look at the board its very simple soldering, the AVR however made me nervous because the CPU is not socketed and has very fine pins, like a video card GPU practically, tiny and physically fragile and probably sensative to heat. Socketed rules.

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