[kpgubert]

Hey all,
So with my tax return this year I plan on (finally) investing in a Moates Quarterhorse and Binary Editor. First a little history. A year from now I will graduate with a BS in mechanical engineering, so I'm not completely new to working with digital systems. I have a '94 Mustang GT which currently has a very mild 306: Ported GT40 heads, ported GT40 intake, etc etc. I have had it dyno tuned in the past, but I really would like to learn how to do it myself. I don't expect to gain any horsepower by doing this, I just want to learn how to do it myself. In the future I have plans to build a 408 motor for this car, so at that point I would like to be quite familiar with tuning (using my current motor as a guinea pig). Here I go, please forgive me if these questions have been answered in any other areas. I did I brief search and didn't turn up anything specific.

1. What else to I need to buy?
I plan on getting the Moates Quarterhorse, Binary Editor, and a wideband. I have a fairly new laptop (actually a netbook), Is there anything else I will need?

2. What wideband to use?
I'm pretty lost here. From what I have read, I can do without a wideband, but it is very helpful to have one. Do I need to have an actual wideband gauge, or just a wideband sensor which is wired into the laptop/program? If I do need a gauge, could I use this one?:

Auto Meter wideband - Summit

I would like to use that one if possible because I have a few other Auto Meter Ultra Lite gauges in the car already.

3. Can I start with the current tune I'm running?
I could start with the stock tune, but it would probably be easier to start with what the car is running right now. Is there is any way to have the chip I have in it right now (SCT chip) read and use that as a starting point?

4. Once I develop a tune I like on my own, can I burn my own chip?
If I want to use the Quarterhorse in another car, could I burn a chip myself from the tune I created? What additional hardware/software would I need?

5. Can the Quarterhorse be used in another car?
I also have a '97 Taurus SHO I would also like to change some things with someday tune wise. This may be a question better answered by a call to Moates, but I thought I would ask here. What else would I need to buy if I took the Quarterhorse from the Mustang to use it in the SHO?

Sorry for all the questions. As I said I am brand new to this, but I am very willing to learn. Thanks to anyone who might be able to help me out!

[cgrey8]

...1. What else to I need to buy?
I plan on getting the Moates Quarterhorse, Binary Editor, and a wideband. I have a fairly new laptop (actually a netbook), Is there anything else I will need?...

A netbook will work, but ideally you'll want a better processor than an Atom to do high speed datalogging and analysis work on big datalogs. It's not required as there are people here also using them, but it is a nice luxury. But if I had to choose between better laptop or other toys, I'd say run what you got until you determine it isn't going to work for you. The catch is you may end up having to pay $25 to get an additional license for BE to move to the new computer. I've heard rumor that there's a move utility to let you move a license from one computer to another, but I've never used it so I can't say 100% that it exists. If this is a concern, you could buy a hardware dongle then you know it'll work wherever you got the dongle.

As for other things you'll need, I always recommend newbies get EEC Analyzer. While it isn't an absolute requirement to tune with, practically speaking it is worth every penny particularly for a newbie to begin learning how to make heads-or-tails of datalogs that have massive amounts of data that don't "speak" to you unless you know exactly what you are looking for. Although once you become an expert at looking at datalogs, you'll find you need EA less and less. There are other recent threads around here that talk in more detail about this...one I wrote in just a day or two ago. I think Soul was the user that started the thread in the Tuning the EEC... forum.

...2. What wideband to use?
I'm pretty lost here. From what I have read, I can do without a wideband, but it is very helpful to have one. Do I need to have an actual wideband gauge, or just a wideband sensor which is wired into the laptop/program? If I do need a gauge, could I use this one?:

Auto Meter wideband - Summit

I would like to use that one if possible because I have a few other Auto Meter Ultra Lite gauges in the car already...

I've had great luck with my Innovate LC-1, purchased off eBay new for $160ish including shipping. I did NOT get the meter, just the sensor and controller (bare minimum). If you want a visual meter, add another $30-50ish. Others recommend other WBs, but there are PLENTY of "Best WB" threads around here. Search will be your friend here, but I think there's a fairly recent thread.

...3. Can I start with the current tune I'm running?
I could start with the stock tune, but it would probably be easier to start with what the car is running right now. Is there is any way to have the chip I have in it right now (SCT chip) read and use that as a starting point?...

SCT chips can be read, but they require the hardware to do it. If you are for sure replacing the chip with a QH, you can send the chip off to someone with the hardware to have it read and they'll mail you the tune they extracted to you. Often "payment" is they keep the chip so they can reburn it for use on some other project or customer's vehicle. Work that out with whomever volunteers that service. Feel free to start a thread asking for that assistance/service. This isn't a newly asked question so I have to believe there's someone out there that's doing this.

...4. Once I develop a tune I like on my own, can I burn my own chip?
If I want to use the Quarterhorse in another car, could I burn a chip myself from the tune I created? What additional hardware/software would I need?...

Yes, a tune developed on the QH can be written to a chip using BE. If this is your intention, then it would be worth it for you to invest in the hardware to do chip burning. Moates also sells the hardware to do this. This would save you having to mail your chip off AND from what I understand, the Moates hardware will write tunes to SCT chips just as well as it writes to Moates chips. I think the licensing under BE for Moates is for any/all Moates hardware so the same license that works for the QH would also work for reading/writing chips using Moates chip readers & burners. I can't remember the official name Moates names their products.

...5. Can the Quarterhorse be used in another car?
I also have a '97 Taurus SHO I would also like to change some things with someday tune wise. This may be a question better answered by a call to Moates, but I thought I would ask here. What else would I need to buy if I took the Quarterhorse from the Mustang to use it in the SHO?...

Yes. You can develop a tune on the QH. Burn that tune to a chip. Swap the QH for the chip. Then use the QH to tune another vehicle. The catch is the other vehicle may require additional def file licensing. Not all def files in BE are free for use. All the GUFx (89-93 Mustang 5.0L) defs are open sourced, so you can use them all you want. But most of the other Ford strats require licensing from their developers.

...Sorry for all the questions. As I said I am brand new to this, but I am very willing to learn. Thanks to anyone who might be able to help me out!

Since you posted in the lounge, I'll let it slide that you asked multiple questions but they were somewhat related, so I won't bust your ß@!!$ too badly this time. But in the future, try to break up your questions into different threads. The topic of your thread should be descriptive of what you want to discuss. Re-read the Best Practices thread at the top of every forum for more details on this. And good luck with the tuning.

[kpgubert]

Thank you very much for the quick response, that completely answers all my questions. Now I feel like I have some basic knowledge to start with.

I am sorry for not following the Best Practices guidelines, I will definitely do so in the future. This won't happen again!