DIY Tuning - how to begin?

[TheDarkMajestic]

Where do i start about this black art?

[TT350chevelle]

Try here:
http://www.megasquirt.info/manual/mtabcon.htm

Look under the "Tuning Your MegaSquirt" section.

Brad J.

[efahl]

lance wrote:

> As you work at it, though, two things will happen:

Lance,

Your forgot the third thing:

- You become obsessed with tuning, and diagnose every little quirk
in driveability in every car you ride in, even the ones you can't
change ("I wonder why they didn't richen the cold AE on this thing
a bit to get rid of that stumble?").

Eric

--
Eric Fahlgren http://www.not2fast.com/

[Enthalpy]

Yeah definitely, Eric!!

And you may find yourself changing things (manifolds, cams, etc.) on your car just SO you can do some tuning.

Ahh, life is rich!

Lance.

LOL...SO FREAKING TRUE!! I found myself changing my base pressure under the excuse of "better atomization" (which turned out to be true). I really did it so I could retune everything.

Majestic - I think you have an MR2 because there's someone with your name on our board. I'm "flyboy" on the MR2 board (Enthalpy was taken).

Welcome to the aftermarket EMS world! You will love it!

I have tuned a bit now. If you have MR2-specific questions, feel free to drop me a line! damon.becker@comcast.net.

[Enthalpy]

Actually, I transitioned away from MS when I realized knock would be a serious problem on my setup. *hangs head in shame* I did, however build one awhile ago.

I might go back if MSII supports knock sensing. If it supports ion sensing, then I'll DEFINITELY go back!

[T3Bunny]

I might go back if MSII supports knock sensing. If it supports ion sensing, then I'll DEFINITELY go back!

MS 1 supports knock sensing! Look at this:
http://megasquirt.sourceforge.net/extra/knock.html

Sure, its "expirimental" (but then so is the whole MS project...) but there are a lot of people out there with this working. And you can get a knock sensor kit out of the products and services section.

[Enthalpy]

That's very interesting! I didn't know this existed.

[T3Bunny]

There SO MUCH hidden in plain view (and sometimes just hidden) that its easy to miss stuff. I just wanted to post that link since this has become a sticky and I felt its vital that people know there is always more options.

[84ae]

Yeah, the only thing I would add is that tuning is a skill.

If you are new to tuning, it will seem difficult at first and your engine probably won't run quite the way you want it to. As you work at it, though, two things will happen:

- you'll narrow in on the optimum settings for your engine,
- you'll learn the skill of manipulating the various parameters, to get them to work together to produce performance, economy, driveability, etc.

So read all you can, then give it a try. And don't give up if you don't get it running perfectly in a half an hour. Like any skill, it takes practice. Keep working at it, and you'll eventually get the skill perfected, and not only will you be thrilled with how your engine runs, but you'll be happy to have a new (and quite rare) skill!

Lance.

Exactly.

Starting out new I learned how the various variables (pun?) all contributed and to what degree towards power/torque, a/f, etc.

It's just learning those, and learning to identify when to change one over the other.

It helps a damn lot to work at a dyno shop, but I'm still a relative newb, though, really. I suck at figuring out timing.

[dragbike1300]

OR....

You could work on it for months and still not figure out why it won't start.

[T3Bunny]

If you have been working on it for months without it running, something is definatly wrong in your setup. If it were my project, I would start with testing the MegaSquirt per the build instructions. Then move on to a detailed test of the harness pretenting you have never seen it before.

I once (YEARS AGO...) spent hundreds of dollars trying to fix my Fiat. I had the distributer 90 degrees out or something. I had checked it a dozen times too, but had it in my head that it was right. When I went back to basics with a cleared head and pretended I knew nothing, I FINALLY saw it.

If your harness checks out, make sure your fuel pump is running and you have fuel. Then see if the injectors are pulsing. Then check for ignition. Take it one step at a time like you have never done it before, and likely you will find the issue.

[drmatera]

dragbike- i feel your pain. I tore out the factory wiring on my mustang and wired in the MS1. No spark, checked over my wiring job, no spark.... went back over it everyday for a week pulling my hair out, no spark! finally had enough and since my 8# sledge hammer was not here at the shop i grabbed my snips and cut out the MS harness. We had a brand new harness for my buddies car here so i started from scratch again. But since after reviewing it several hundred thousand times i knew my wiring job was correct with the last harness. so i rewired it exactly how it was before. twisted the key and she purred like a kitten. i almost fell over.

So i can't stress enough how important it is to CHECK your wiring.

[niner11]

That's funny....I did pretty much the same thing. Thinking it must be a MSII problem, can't be my wiring. I rewired my setup and all of my problems went away. Also, I big improvement in the elimination of "noise" was the magnecor plug wires I bought. Much cleaner even on the datalogs.

[obxer]

I've just recently got my EFI and DIS conversion running for the first time and I'm just starting to work on tuning. (THANKS BRUCE AND AL!!) I'm starting from scratch - I don't have any tables to use from another engine etc. And I'm a complete noob. The overall general question I’m wondering at this point – should I just work on getting decent VE and spark tables setup now to get it running decently first or should I try to configure all the detailed parameters as I think I’ll want them to be in the end before I start tuning? In other words should I consider my first efforts here a test/learning exercise that will get scrapped and redone later?

I’m wondering if I should do things like change my MAP bins, RPM bins, and temperature bins now. I’m sure I’ll never try to operate the car at anything below 10-20 Fahrenheit and I doubt I’ll ever get the kPa down much lower than 40 (running ITBs with individual MAPs and the diode board). Is it worth the effort to change all these parameters in the very beginning or should I just get the car drivable first? After running it in the driveway a few times, I've got it to the point now that I can putter around the neighborhood at very low speed and RPM using very small gentle throttle inputs and keep it running and keep the AFR within the scale of my WB - most of the time. Should I go back now and work on bins etc or continue working on getting it tuned well enough to run at highway speeds, in traffic, etc?

Along this same line of thought - should I try to setup X-Tau now if I think that is the way I’ll go? Or just use basic TPS enrichment in the beginning for simplicity and switch to X-Tau later?

TIA for any suggestions!!

[NMRAcer]

I'm wondering if there is a good resource for learning the finer secrets to the magic of EFI operation and tuning? I would like to fully (or at least partially) understand the theory behind EFI and IC engines before I get myself too deeply into this and potentially screw something up. Are there any sources you guys would recommend to get a solid foundation? I discovered a school called EFI University (efi101.com) but am not entirely sure how much I would glean from their course.

[royal]

Hi mate,
I'm new to all this as well. There are plenty of books out there that are well worth reading before jumping in with both feet. My ideas are that you need a good idea of engines before you get stuck into tuning. Check amazon. A few I've just read are (excuse the paste from another forum):

Street Turbocharging: Design, Fabrication, Installation, and Tuning of High-Performance Street Turbocharger Systems

Brilliant guide to everything turbocharged. Includes practical examples and covers all aspects of the subject including how to choose the turbo and theory etc. Small section on management that was a good intro for me after reading the guides on the forum here and a few other places.

Forced Induction Performance Tuning
by A.Graham Bell

This is the only engine book I've had for a few years but until a few months back its always been too far over my head. After reading a few more basic books over the last month I finally got around to reading it and this is now my bible.

Four-stroke Performance Tuning: A Practical Guide [Hardcover]
By: A.Graham Bell

I bought this one as it goes more in depth into some of the more N/A related subjects such as porting covered in his other book. Its also excellent although I've only read parts of it at the moment.

Engine Management - Advanced tuning, Greg Banish

Excellent book. By this point I was feeling pretty confident I knew a bit about the whole engine and building cars thing and wanted to start concentrating on engine management. Its says advanced in the title but its basically a very thorough book on everyting tuning related. I read the other books I listed above and this has been the icing on the cake. I've got a chapter of two left to read but feel fairly confident I could actually tune a car now!!This is the one to cover stuff for MS. I find there's so much support info here on the forum that its a bit mind boggling and you need a good basis that covers the subject.

This one I havn't read yet but it looks good and is the only dyno specific book I've seen for sale:

Dyno Testing and Tuning
By: Bill Hancock

I've also got the Haynes Competition Electrics and Competition Composites if my brain hasn't melted after the others!

[Jordan_person]

hey im new to MS.. heres my info
Im running an Old MS-1 V2.2 I dont have the tuning cable yet
i just bought it from a friend, it was mapped for the same setup im running right now (high-comp 4age with ITBs) only thing different is our header setup.
I swaped the new motor and everything in and it all plugged right in as a direct replacedment for the stock ECU, we got the car started and ran, although the idle was a bit low(500RPM) for about 15 minutes very minimal bogging when i reved it up to about 4000-4500 (about 8000 redline) didnt go any higher than that.
I was wondering where i could start for the fine tunning, cause my MS is somewhat tuned already for this motor and set-up. Any help would be really apreciated!!
thanks in advanced

Jordan

[charlhey]

well i read you all about tuning and fun it is...
as soon
wish i can get my motor running soon... 2 year...

[msiddalingaiah]

I've been working on my motorcycle FI conversion for about 3 months. I tested everything I could with the stock carburetor. I verified every sensor, measured carburetor fuel flow rate, measured injector flow rate, calculated expected pulse widths etc. Last Wednesday was the big day. I pulled the carb out for the last time (hopefully), swapped in the throttle body, started logging, and started kicking. It took a bit of trial and error, but in 20 minutes it was showing signs of life. After some warmup and VE tuning, it was thumping beautifully. I cannot express in words how awesome it felt to get my engine running FI for the first time. I studied the logs and the pulse widths were almost exactly what I had predicted with my carb flow rate measurements.

Do you need to do all the testing and calculation that I did? Probably not, but it gave me confidence to know that it should work. Once you get one FI engine working, you get a feel for what an engine needs. You learn what's important and what's not so important. Now I could probably start just about any FI engine in a couple of hours. It's really not that hard, just follow the steps, make sure you have fuel pressure, reasonable MAP and temp values, decent tach signal, and it will start. I would say, just be careful, don't do anything stupid, and go for it. Have a friend look over your shoulder as you explain the setup. Even if your friend has no clue about FI, he will notice things that you might overlook. At the minimum, you will some moral support.

I still have a lot of tuning to do, but that's mostly point and click. Good luck!