do you get a good deal of satisfaction..

[grumpyvette]

do you get a good deal of satisfaction, from knowing how to check for detect and correct tuning issues on cars?
Ive got several guys in the neighborhood who have older muscle cars that stop by fairly consistently to B.S. most of the time but I find that they also come by consistently when they can,t seem to figure out some tuning issue.
I'm rather well known locally for being able to tune carbs and dual quad combos, but I freely admit I can struggle with some MPFI tunes
most of the younger crowd can make me look hopelessly outclassed when it comes to tweaking an injected engine where your required to modify data. to change the engines fuel air ratio or ignition timing curve. and they seem TOTALLY dependent on reading computer and sensor data on a laptop,
http://www.holley.com/data/Products/Tec ... 0242-2.pdf
when looking at something like this, I,m less comfortable, and spend more time checking reference material than with the older mechanical injection or carbs

and don,t seem to grasp the fact that there can be obvious indicators pointing to areas of concern, like adjusting the valves or looking for vacuum leaks that the sensors don,t directly point too!
but it seems like reading spark plugs,
viewtopic.php?f=70&t=202
viewtopic.php?f=70&t=3949
viewtopic.php?f=55&t=9665&p=35890&hilit=dual+quads#p35890
viewtopic.php?f=55&t=444&p=36070&hilit=dual+quads#p36070
viewtopic.php?f=55&t=1820&p=4706&hilit=1406#p4706
viewtopic.php?f=44&t=773&p=1309&hilit=1406#p1309

use of an infrared thermometer,
viewtopic.php?f=55&t=109&p=35788&hilit=INFRARED#p35788
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=9453&p=34627&hilit=INFRARED#p34627
viewtopic.php?f=44&t=579&p=19289&hilit=INFRARED#p19289
http://www.harborfreight.com/non-contac ... -8905.html
and use of a timing light ,
viewtopic.php?f=70&t=875
viewtopic.php?f=70&t=1015
viewtopic.php?f=70&t=4683
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=3110&p=21360&hilit=+multi+meter#p21360

fuel pressure gauge, multi meter,and vacuum gauge is an art form and science that's rapidly becoming a nearly prehistoric skill.

ID rather deal with mechanical injection or CARBS
the low rise inline typical of early muscle cars like the earlier corvettes

the cross ram like the Z28 race engines used

 

[grumpyvette]

now I posted that info above to allow guys reading thru the thread and links to hopefully easily access useful links to tune your car, but today I had BOB, and FRANK, stop by with that guys 428 cubic inch 1967 ford fairlane
(LINK TO PREVIOUS RELATED THREAD)
viewtopic.php?f=87&t=3234&p=22125&hilit=ford+fairlane#p22125

it was running like crap, but I soon located and cured the problem, the problem was simply that the linkage had gotten well out of adjustment, and the base gasket on the rear carburetor had gotten loose when the carburetor mount bolts had gotten a bit loose, finding and correcting simple issues makes me feel good, about my skills , and experience, and it tends to make me look good to the locals ,but it also makes me nostalgic for the older muscle cars when you never needed a lap top, to tune a car!
its simple stuff like that that experience teaches you to look for before you just assume its a huge issue!
while I was at it, I had them replace the air and fuel filters, and spark plugs, which showed they were filthy and needed to be replaced
frankly I enjoyed the break in routine , and enjoyed working on and helping out and sharing a few cups of coffee with the old geezers I used to hang out with occasionally, as lately I felt rather depressed.

viewtopic.php?f=44&t=4211&hilit=miss+muscle

viewtopic.php?f=46&t=4067&p=31960&hilit=firebird#p31960

 

[Indycars]

I sorta know how you feel. For the 10 years before I started the rebuild on
the engine, I could not afford to do anything with my TBucket. I didn't even
want to think about or plan anything to do with it, it was just depressing to
think about it.

 

[87vette81big]

We Have Phil around now for EFI Tuning & Turbos
I prefer old school Holley 4-bbls, Q-jets, & Tripower Poncho.

 

[philly]

We Have Phil around now for EFI Tuning & Turbos
I prefer old school Holley 4-bbls, Q-jets, & Tripower Poncho.

by the time i was old enough to care, there were no more carbureted cars in production. i learned everything i know about carbs on chevy cars with holley carbs. other much less relevant information i picked up later on using SU and WEBER and MIKUNI SOLEX side drafts on the Z cars. ive turbocharged carbureted motors, infact theres an 81 turbo trans am pace car at the shop thats been on the back burner forever (we always joke that my buddies daughter (whos one year old) is gonna be the one to bring it back to life.

grumpy i am with you however, i hate those huge number tables and frankly i think the shit is built like that so that people get intimidated. i dont open a laptop on an efi car untill ive gone through all the same basic steps you would in a carb application. with turbo cars the number one culprit for a sudden change in behavior is a vaccum leak. with pressurized intakes its easy to blow a line off somewhere and not notice. once thats done if the cars still tripping and it has a distributor i break out the timing light and see if maybe its a simple matter of distributor sabotage. if that pans out i work my way in checking the wires then the plugs. once a car is set up on efi and tuned correctly, its not like a carb... you can literally leave it on the shelf for years and then start it up and it should run exactly the same. any sudden change in performance is usually a mechanical issue not a tuning issue.

there are, however, tuning softwares on the market that dont look like a sea of numbers... i used Haltech standalone systems in the past and most recently have gotten on the Go Tech systems whos fuel and timing "maps" look like this:



the bar graph is infinitely easier to use... each bar is a value that you can raise and lower with the up and down arrows, and each bar is either at 100,300,or500 rpm increments so if theres a hiccup in a certain spot in the powerband you can quickly and easily visualize the changes you make on the screen right in front of you.

its very easy to use and i prefer this type of setup to the holley/aem setups with thoose tables. not that i cant use the table, it just seems so stupid in the face of the graph, its like they made it hard on purpose so people wouldnt try to do anything themselves, and i feel kind of resentful if thats true of why they make the tables so complicated.

 

[philly]

for instance that holley table you posted, why would they use KPA as a measure for map? who the hell uses that? even BAR is really unpopular in the united states... PSI is basically the standard, its whats on your gauge and what your wastegate springs are rated at, so when you go to use a dumb ass table like that you have to go to onlineconversion.com and see what the hell they are even asking you when you have 215kpa? its ludicrous by design and i dont like it. :evil:

 

[philly]

if i was at the local street races and someone told me they were running 350 KPA in their honda K series or mitsu 4g63 i would slap them

 

[87vette81big]

Thanks Phil for your EFI Insight.

That 1981 Turbo Trans Am has a special 800 CFM Q-Jet.
The Secondary Metering Rods are DX If I recall correct.
Super Rich AFR on a 301 with Boost.
Some guys have had them in 11's. Stock Cam.
Not sure what they did to the Turbo.
Distributor has ESC, Knock Sensor. Ancient GM System.
Computer located behind the Map pocket of the center console.
If boost gets too high, the crankshaft is known to break in 2.

 

[philly]

Thanks Phil for your EFI Insight.

That 1981 Turbo Trans Am has a special 800 CFM Q-Jet.
The Secondary Metering Rods are DX If I recall correct.
Super Rich AFR on a 301 with Boost.
Some guys have had them in 11's. Stock Cam.
Not sure what they did to the Turbo.
Distributor has ESC, Knock Sensor. Ancient GM System.
Computer located behind the Map pocket of the center console.
If boost gets too high, the crankshaft is known to break in 2.

good to know... right now its doing its duty as an awkward shelf nicely... i'd love to bring it back out on the street... beautiful bird

 

[grumpyvette]

yes a bar graph controlled table like that would make things FAR faster and easier and more logical to deal with, you could start at about 14:1 at idle,as a base, to allow fairly easy starting, slowly transition to about 14.7:1 slowly at 1200rpm-thru 2300rpm, to keep the plugs clean at lower rpms like driving in traffic, and then as the loads and rpms rather rapidly but smoothly increase the fuel ratio too further transition smoothly to about 12.7:1 at 6000rpm on most street engines

 

[philly]

exactly, and some computers will base themselves off of throttle position so part throttle and cruising can have a totally different timing and fuel curves than WOT. the newest thing out now is self learning computers who make minor adjustments several hundred times per second to maintain whatever target Air Fuel ratio you want. my only beef with that is, if your o2 sensor goes bad, there goes your motor before you can even say "WTF just happened?" i use the wideband o2 on everything, carb, efi, na, turbo, supercharged, nitrous, e85, pump, q16... everything. without the wideband you are really just guessing...


i also like the haltech and gotech software because you can tune on the fly while you ride in the car, no stopping, reflashing, ignitioin closing, saving, bs you get with flash tuners and handhelds... live tuning allows you to make the process much much faster and get better results in my opinion.