[Saleen554]

Hello everyone who's interested... I didn't find an introduce yourself section so I figured I'd go ahead and jump right in here with my situation. Let me first say I've read the forum instructions and will adhere to them as best I can and if I'm doing something wrong or posting incorrectly, respectfully let me know.

I'm new to in depth tuning through the EEC and in the past, I've only used hand held tuners and had a guy in the local area tune my stuff with excellent results. With that being said, I don't plan on dumping my tuner altogether as he's really great at what he does and has taught me quite a bit just through conversations and a little hands on learning but nothing terribly in depth. My main reason for going this route was to be able to data log but certainly the idea of tuning the entire computer is intriguing as well.

My project is about as complex as they come in terms of my engines build at least in my mind so I'm sure this will be a long learning curve for me. I have a 1988 Ford Mustang LX Saleen. I was originally a 5.0 speed density car but the entire drive train was yanked in lieu of more inches and forced induction. I'm running a 383 inch 351 windsor with 20cc dish pistons "forged". It's got 9.3-1 compression with trick flow 205 heads. I have outfitted it with BBK 1 3/4 long tubes and 3" header back pipes with Flowmaster 44's. The cam is a .580 lift roller on a 1.6 rocker with a 114 LCA. I have a Vortech Z-Trim centri supercharger with a 3.5" pulley slated to make about 10-12 psi on the current upper/lower pulley combo. Everything internally is forged, the stroke is 3.75" and the bore is 4.030. I have a trick flow R-series upper intake and a trick flow lower with a phenolic spacer. I'm running a 90mm accufab throttle body, egr delete, smog pump delete and a/c delete. The injectors are siemens deka 83 lb/hr and I have trick flow rails with AN/10 and AN/8 braided lines with a Weldon Regulator. I have an 1100A Weldon fuel pump and a sumped tank. The induction systems is all 3 1/2" from the d/c of the blower past a vortech 1,300 CFM blow off valve and through a 3 1/2" X 20" custom air to air intercooler to the throttle body and air is metered by a HPX PMAS MAF. It's the 05 and up style harness with 6 wires instead of 4 and of course, I've done the Mass air conversion from speed density and I'm using an X3Z cobra comuter with a GUFB strategy and downloaded the stock X3Z bin which I know is no where close to where I need to be. I'll be running 93 octane fuel which is E10 around here. I'm not terrible sure where 100% gasoline is sold around my area but either way, I will be running it 99% of the time on the street and using only 93 octane or higher grade fuel....

I know that's a huge mouthful and perhaps a bit heavy to digest but I guess I needed to start somewhere. I understand how to set my data logging windows on what I would like to view and log as well as several other basics but my question is, quite simply, bearing all this in mind, what pointers can you give me to get me going even further? What kinds of things should I look out for and how can I learn about this to become very proficient? Thanks for all the help in advance and I hope this forum grown enormously or I'm forwarded to one that's already incredibly insightful. I'll post some pictures of my build below as well.... Bill

[cgrey8]

Hello everyone who's interested... I didn't find an introduce yourself section so I figured I'd go ahead and jump right in here with my situation. Let me first say I've read the forum instructions and will adhere to them as best I can and if I'm doing something wrong or posting incorrectly, respectfully let me know...

The first thing wrong is your post title. It doesn't tell me what specifically you are wanting to know. The additional info is great backup info to lead into a question or series of very related questions. But I can't just read the title and know what issue you are having.

Reading on through your post, it's an impressive build, but when detailing the cam, you have to either list a model number or list ALL the specs (lift, all duration numbers, and LSA). You only gave us about 1/2 the picture.

Once I read to the end, it doesn't appear you have a specific question and instead are looking for direction for how to start. The better place to post this is the lounge. There are some things that just have to be done like entering your MAF curve, turning off the controls you don't have like EGR, and entering your injector parameters. And if you are running the booster now, then rescaling your tune to accommodate for the boost pressures you'll be encountering. But beyond that, you run the engine and learn to listen and observe the engine behavior as well as learn to read the datalogs to know what the engine isn't getting that it needs...or is getting too much of.

But ultimately a better place for such a broad topic like this is the lounge. Reserve this forum and the others for more specific questions.

Now as for pointers, start with reading through the FAQ topics. Particularly pay attention to the Scaling Function topic (I know the pictures are still broken but at least there's still a video). Also read through the Glossary of Terms. Some terms are things you already know, but there are a LOT that may be new to you and are worth reading about. Also keep in mind that some terms don't make sense until you understand other terms that are to follow so don't give up on reading through that stuff too soon.

Finally, the things that will help you out specifically as it relates to EA would be the helpfiles. Unlike many other softwares (even BE's help), EA's helpfiles contain more than just how to use the software. It goes into some in-depth tuning concepts then explains how the tool fits in with those concepts. There's also not a single help in EA. There are a number of help buttons all over. Clint was implementing context-sensitive help in EA such that the help button that launches the relevant info is near where you would want to know about that info. So again, unlike a lot of other softwares you might have dealt with, EA's help is right where you need it. However if you are just wanting to peruse over the help to read what's there, context-sensitive help sends you all over the user interface to do that...even so far as clicking buttons in the UI to reveal a pop-up window which likely has a help button.

[Saleen554]

Excellent, this is exactly what I needed. As for my cam profile, it's a custom ground comp so there's no part number that I know of but all the specs are as follows... .580 lift, 114 LSA & 230 IN - 240 EX at .050....

[cgrey8]

What's the .006" duration? A swag guess...290/300ish. If the numbers are smaller, that's actually better for boosted.

This is just my opinion, but that's a tad aggressive for a boosted engine. Boosted engines don't need nearly as "big" of a cam particularly if you have aftermarket good-flowing heads. You can get away with a much much milder, low-rpm torque cam without sacrificing that much HP at the top end. Big cams are far more necessary for high RPM HP on NA engines because you only have atmosphere to push the air into the engine. But boosted engines don't tend to care as much because they shove air into the engine. And in fact, big cams with narrow LSAs can actually cost you HP at the lower RPMs by wasting some of your air/fuel due to the overlap...literally pushing part of your air & fuel right into the exhaust. On NA engines, this tends to happen up to about 1500-2000RPMs, so once you are into the RPM range where you care about performance, it's a moot issue. But under boost, that can extend much higher into the RPM range...the higher the boost, the higher into the RPM range this can happen.

The good news for you is the LSA of your cam is 114 which is fairly wide for a "big" cam. If this was a custom grind where they knew it was going on a boosted engine, THAT is the reason they went with 114, not 108-110 like they would've on a NA engine. But if the cam's bought-n-paid for, engine built, and everything installed, it's really too late to do anything about it. And who knows, it might be just fine for your purposes with the engine. And I also admit I tend to think more conservatively about cams. IMO, the average person always oversizes cams and carbs. But then again, I don't race nor own a performance car. I'm more fuel economy and low RPM torque oriented in my thinking. I sometimes forget that's not other people's priorities. So take what I say about cams with a grain of salt.

[Saleen554]

Your points regarding my cam are well received and I agree wholly. The cam was free and was in a 8.2 deck 306 engine so the guy pulled it out after just a few hundred miles and gave it to me so I figured I'd use it. Yes, I could have gone with something much more suitable for my build per se but free is free and it was adequate. I've have the car dynoed and torque comes in at 400ft almost immediately and tops at about 640ft long before I even need to shift. I have my limiter set at 6,000 to preserve engine life but these numbers were from about 2 months ago. I was having some insane maf readings due to the shortness of the pipe coming off the discharge of the blower and looping straight around to the intake. Apparently, according to Clint Garrity, the reason for the flukey maf voltage was due to the turbulence of air backing up at the throttle blade and essentially coming back past the meter. Long story short, I added an intercooler and about 10' of pipe to hopefully tame that air down. My tuner was throwing it into speed density mode at low speed just to get it run it was so bad and now we're in the process of tuning with the new piping installed..

[Paulie]

My tuner was throwing it into speed density mode at low speed just to get it run it was so bad and now we're in the process of tuning with the new piping installed..

I didn't think it was possible for the X3Z EEC to run in speed density mode. Do you have a MAP sensor?

[cgrey8]

No, GUFB doesn't have an SD-mode. It does have a failed MAF table which supplies the fueling calculations with an estimated MAF air flow based on TPS and RPM. That's the closest to SD that I know the strategy can get since the EEC doesn't have an engine vacuum monitor.

[Saleen554]

Hey Paulie, exactly as cgrey8 specified. You're right, there is no speed density in an X3Z. Before I had my intercooler and tubing installed, my voltage oscillation was like 7/10's of a volt and after making some pulls today with the addition of the extra length of tubing, intercooler and positioning my meter in a better area at the end of a 15" straight run, my oscillations are only about 6-7/100's of a volt which is vastly improved. As a side not, my intake temps are MUCH cooler at 130F on idle and about 115-117F under load whereas before it was much much higher although I don't remember the exact figure, I'd have to look at my logs again.