[BIGDATOWN]

Hey guys, I just ordered my qh, be, and the 4 way switch.I hope to have it installed sometime this weekend and am very unsure of what to expect. My ultimate goal is to tune the car two ways. 1. best fuel economy and great street manners. 2.Outright full potential at the track!

I have a 95 mustang gt 5.0 5 speed. As of right now I have a c&l 76mm complete kit cal for 19# injectors. I already have a 95 cobra upper and lower intake, not yet installed. And I am purchasing a set of mac long tube headers, with either x pipe or pro chamber, and a 2 1/2 magnaflow exhaust. stock gears, which I believe to be 3.08.

Any tips as to what I should also put on the car to make it its fullest potential other than heads is appreciated.

[cgrey8]

If heads are not in the budget, then I assume turbo/supercharger and bottom end upgrades aren't either.

But what about injectors, roller rockers, cam, adjustable timing set? If you are looking at pushing the HP above 300hp, then the 19s will just barely be keeping you afloat. An upgrade of injectors AND MAF to at least 24s will be necessary. Although if you are looking to keep things sub 300hp, then the 19lb stuff will be just fine.

As for your tune, WOT and cruise are two different functions and I don't see why you can't make the tunes one in the same. There's nothing I can think of that you'd do at cruise that would affect WOT in any meaningful way that I can think of right-off.

[BIGDATOWN]

How much power is capable with what I have is the main thing? And how much power to cost will the rr's yield. Plan on keeping the stock cam for now, as it is already a pretty decent cam!

[cgrey8]

The benefit in RRs is related to what cam you have. If you already have a decent cam, then the upgrade form 1.6 to 1.7RRs may not be that useful. But if you have a stock cam, the upgrade is 2-fold. The 1.7s will effectively increase the duration while increasing the lift. On aftermarket cams, the duration and lift should be enough that any extra you get from the 1.7s will probably not be enough to warrant the upgrade.

As for how much power stock parts can make, I'm not sure. Are you ONLY interested in max power or are you looking for max street-ability (max avg power and torque, not necessarily Max HP)?

[BIGDATOWN]

I am looking for the max usable power. I'm looking for the best real world power. I could honestly care less if my dyno sheet says 200hp as long as the car is in the 8's (1/8th mile) You get what i'm saying?

[cgrey8]

Umm, 8 seconds with 19lb injectors, stock heads, stock bottom end, no blower? Sure. And if you believe that, I have a beach front property in Arizona to sell you too.

[BIGDATOWN]

Not trying to be a smart ass but whats the hang up on injector size? And and 8 sec mostly stock sn95 mustang is not crazy, with stock heads and bottom end. Its mainly called driver

[decipha]

tip: throw the 4 way switch in that closet that you never open somewhere you won't remember it as you don't need it and i highly recommend you don't use it as it may cause problems

theres no point in more than 1 tune anyway, unless your doing something very far beyond the norm like running different fuels and what not at any given time

the sn intake is a restriction so the cobra should help unleash some of its potential, expect no more than a 20hp gain, the exhaust will help out as well, expect no more than 15hp from it

i would expect you to be somewhere in the ~225hp range with those mods, add under drive pulleys and you can be in the mid 230's

8*1.564=12.51 (1/4 mile et)


the fastest i ever heard of anyone running was a 13.6 1/4 mile et which would be around an ~8.7 in the 1/8th, in a stock sn95 5spd beating the crap out of it trying to destroy it, that was with it at 14 degrees base timing on slicks

24lb injectors are good for 270 n/a

might want to step your game up to some 80s and be done with it

[cgrey8]

Ok, we got some miscommunication. I thought he was talking 8sec in 1/4 mile. Nevermind. But as decipha said, 8.0sec in the 1/8th is still a lot to ask of a near-stock engine.

If the fuel pressure is upped, the 19s will deliver 22lbs@43.5PSI (what they are rated for from the mfg). So it isn't impossible to reuse them for near 300hp. I've never heard of 24s only being good to 270hp though. That's a bit low from what I understand.

So for this build, are you going to port the heads? If they are E7TEs, they really benefit from a decent porting, pocket porting, and 3-angle valve job. Even if you don't 3-angle them, the porting will help. Head and lower GT40 intake porting will likely get you into the 240s with a stock cam. With an aftermarket cam to lift the valves and hold them open a little longer, you have some HP potential to get another 15-20hp depending on how radical you go.

If the piston deck clearance is a crappy as it was on my 97 Explorer 5.0L, then you'll have no quench working for you to reduce detonation. But any higher performance cam is going to lower your dynamic compression ratio anyway so you shouldn't be detonation-limited. That'll help if you are looking to boost. But a lower DCR is going to reduce fuel economy. But it doesn't sound like you care about fuel economy, just max power and max strip performance.

At this point, I'm no good to help with how to squeeze out more from this engine without a blower or turbo. From what VERY little I know about building for HP, a centrifugal would give you a decent PSI and increase power...and probably the most economical hp increase. Once you start talking 300+HP, you gotta start shelling out $ for things like heads, bottom end upgrades, machine work, screw/turbo/intercooler, larger MAF/injectors, larger fuel pump, etc etc. At least that's the way I understand it.

[BIGDATOWN]

I actually do care about fuel economy. Which is why I ordered the 4 way switch, so I can make two different tunes. Mainly one probably more aggressive on the timing and maybe like having the fan switch set to a lower temp to cool the engine off more. I do plan on keeping the stock cam for now. they are pretty good until over 500 hp. great for torque also. I AM talking to a engine builder right now about working a set of heads and my intake for me for the best performance. I have been high 7's in the 1/8th on stock e7 heads also. It was also carbed tho. Umm I already have a 76mm maf and I have a 70mm tb in the box waiting to go on with the intake. The car should easily break into the mid 8 second club with just these mods and a aggressive tune!

[cgrey8]

But I still say if you tune correctly, you can tune for fuel economy at cruising RPM/Loads and tune for max HP at WOT. I'm confused by what you expect from a HP tune to do differently from a fuel economy tune at non-WOT conditions. Tinkering with fan setpts may change when the fan comes on and for how long, but the T-stat is really what controls the engine temp. I don't know that you are going to get anything useful/meaningful from playing with fan temp setpts. You might, but I'm doubtful.

Otherwise, it sounds like you got it all figured out. So what's the question?

As for the 4-position switch, I do find it useful but not for HP vs fuel economy tunes. I like having "safe" tunes and experimental tunes. The switch lets me switch back to a known good tune real quick if my experimental tune isn't working out. Early on in the tuning experience, there were a few times when the tune misbehaved in the middle of traffic and caused me some stalls at very bad times. And when I was experimenting with E85, I loaded up the switch positions for tunes with different ethanol concentrations, each with different degrees of spark timing aggressiveness. I even experimented with different amounts of EGR and found that E85 actually liked EGR for fuel economy. I had it in my head that it wouldn't.

[BIGDATOWN]

I am a newb to the whole tuning thing. I went ahead and ordered the switch for when and if I ever one nitrous I can have a nitrous tune with just a tune. You very well be correct on the economy/ wot tune for max hp. IDK on that part. BUT My friend was telling me that there is a neutral rev limiter setting. Can you set that up to be used as a two step in a 5 speed car?

[cgrey8]

I know there's a rev limiter hack for the GUFB strategy that's based on MPH. While sitting still, you can setup a rev-limit to stage the engine while holding the throttle wide open. Then as soon as you drop the clutch (manual) or let off the brake (auto), full fuel is restored. It didn't garner much interest, and my own testing of it seemed like it was working. But my truck isn't really setup to be a race truck. So while it seemed to work just fine for me, a pro racer might not find it as useful. But until someone tests it, it's real effectiveness isn't really known.

BTW, fuel cuts in the tune are not running the engine lean. It's simply selectively misfiring injectors. But when the injectors that do fire are fired, they deliver full fuel and don't run that cylinder lean.

[BIGDATOWN]

Does it have to be WOT to make this work? Just thought it would be something cool to play with on a bored rainy day or something lol

[cgrey8]

No, I didn't test it at WOT. I just pushed the throttle down a bit just to verify the RPM rev limit was being held. Then I eased the clutch out and noticed that as soon as I got a .5MPH reading, the power shot up. I quickly let off the gas and pushed the clutch back in. That was the extent of my test.

One thing I did glean from the testing is that you want the division between when the engine cuts to 1/2 fuel a distance away from when it cuts all fuel. Even on 1/2 fuel, the engine has more than enough power to reline itself. And when 1/2 fuel is restored, it produces a significant increase in RPMs above the no-fuel RPM, then the RPMs drop back down. And as soon as fuel is returned, the RPMs jump back up again. This pattern continues until you take your foot off the gas or you allow forward movement to restore full fuel. My point is during this bouncing of the RPMs between 1/2 fuel and no fuel, you don't want full fuel getting into the mix shooting the RPMs even higher. So the RPM to enter 1/2 fuel and no fuel cuts needs to be a fair distance away. For my test, I think I put 1/2 fuel cut at something like 1000 RPMs with full fuel cut around 2500RPMs. Then I raised the RPMs up to 2500 and watched the RPMs bounce harder and harder as I gave it more and more throttle.

I realized that if this were a more "professional" grade stager, a 1/4 fuel cut or even 1/8th fuel cut would probably be more in order. 1/2 fuel even on my stock engine is just too much and causes the RPM bounce to be pretty noticeable. Perhaps if the RPM limits were put up higher around 4000, that wouldn't be the case. But I didn't test there.

[BIGDATOWN]

I have def got to test that out. Your average two step is through ignition not fuel. This is with aftermarket piece of course. But is there anyway to do that with the tuner or will I have to do the limiting with fuel?

[cgrey8]

The EEC doesn't have direct control over spark. It uses a secondary ignition module such as a TFI module or the EDIS module to directly control and handle spark advance timing to the coil(s). The only thing the EEC does is calculate how much spark advance should be applied and communicates that down to the ignition module to make happen. If the ignition module doesn't get a signal from the EEC, it always assumes a 10° advance. When you pull the SPOUT jumper to set timing, that's all you are doing is severing the EEC's connection with the ignition module.

So spark RPM control via these older EECs is simply not possible. The only option available is fuel cut control. Newer EECs where the ignition module is integrated onto the EEC may be different, but if my understanding of them is correct, it's purely an integration of the EEC and ignition module onto the circuitboard but logically the EEC processor is no more in control than when the two were separated. People more familiar with the newer EECs can chime in if that's not correct.

[BIGDATOWN]

Hmm, thats good to know. My car is also running a 160 thermostat in it. Im pretty sure I will have to tune for that also. My tuning stuff should be here today also, and hopefuuly can have the be registered and everything figured out by this weekend :gears:

[BIGDATOWN]

Ok I got everything in today and am now just waiting for my registration code for be. I do not understand anything of what I am looking at! lol Its alot to take in at once. I believe once I get started and can write atleast one tune I will start understanding alot better!

[cgrey8]

Before you install the QH, make sure you can write to the QH while it is in stand-alone mode. If you can't communicate to it sitting on your desk/table, then there's no reason in taking the time to install it into the EEC yet. And when you write your 1st tune, make sure you write your tune to ALL 8 tune positions using Mode 2. That'll avoid a known issue the QH has where the tune position chosen under very specific circumstances isn't the tune actually being served to the EEC. Writing to all 8 positions somehow fixes that. Clint knows more about how that works than I do. But there is a thread about it that annoyingly hasn't gotten any attention here recently by either Clint or Craig. I was really hoping the QH would get a new CPLD firmware update. But that hasn't happened yet. The good news is this is a fairly easy issue to monitor and work around. The QH is still lightyears better than the TwEECer.

[decipha]

the understanding comes with time, play with it, change values to see how it manipulates the ecu and read up on cgrey8s post


in regard to eds comment, that's usually only a problem when folks use more than 1 tune position on the qh, i recommend wiping the qh's memory and only using 1 tune position, set it one time and there's no need to go back to the qh config tab EVER

[BIGDATOWN]

I cant even figure out how to write a tune lol

[cgrey8]

That's where reading the BE helpfiles comes in. Both BE and EA helpfiles are excellent reads, not just for teaching you how to use the tune, but to explain the tuning concepts needed for using the tool.

[BIGDATOWN]

Should I have ordered EA also?

[cgrey8]

It depends on how much you value your time. Everything that EA does can be done in other ways, but not nearly as user-friendly. I certainly wouldn't have attempted tuning without EA.

So to answer your question, TECHNICALLY you can do everything you need without. But practically speaking, yes you need a license for EA too. It'll mean the difference between making a run, loading up that datalog, and immediately getting feedback vs analyzing the datalog for hours to do what you need to do in Excel or some other tool you concoct.

[BIGDATOWN]

What do you usually do to make a pull? go from second gear and pull it to redline at full throttle? And I might have to end up getting the EA if I start having that many problems

[cgrey8]

Lemme put it this way, back when I 1st started tuning using the TwEECer and CalEdit (BE didn't exist), I had to buy EA in order to make any kinds of progress with tuning. Later I learned what a POS program CalEdit was and started using TunerPro. While that was an improvement, it wasn't ideal which is about when Clint, developer of EA, developed BE to basically replace TunerPro for us Ford guys. Just like EA grew and matured, so did BE.

But the fact of EA's usefulness still hasn't changed. It's gotten more mature through additional features and bug fixes since the days I forked over my license money for it. So IMO, it is just as crucial to a new DIY tuner as the hardware itself.

[BIGDATOWN]

Very noted. And I would assume the EA has to be downloaded and paid for the same way as BE? And how do you do your pulls to log data?

[cgrey8]

Most of my tuning is done for non-WOT issues. WOT's easy. It's the non-WOT transient conditions and idle that generally consume the vast majorty of DIY tuners time. So basically drive the way you normally drive. And attack issues as you find them. If you are EARLY in the tuning and barely have a driveable tune, then you'll again want to drive it easy and get things smoother until you try to romp on it, particularly if you are boosted. Non boosted applications will be more forgiving of WOTting the engine with a 15:1 AFR as long as you don't hold it that way for multiple seconds.

[BIGDATOWN]

I'll just have to wait until I get my buddy down here to get me kick started on how everthing works. Driveability is another issues as my car sounds as if it has a cam in it at idle and the throttle is a lil twitchy.