For all you guys that tune your own car,
how did you learn how to tune ??

Besides buying wideband and datalogit
or what ever..What process did you take??

and to be a good tuner.. would you have to
pop a few motors tuning to really know
how to tune properly???

 

I dont think at least any of the pro's are going to give away any of their secrets, thats what brings in the money for them.

 

Thos greeeeedy bastards..

So anyone with any tips or advice on how to start
tuning your own car, Wide band recommendations
and etc???

 

1. Keep leaning out the maps until motor pings and blows.

2. Blame customer. Have customer replace motor.

3. Run new motor slightly richer this time.

4. If new motor blows, go to (2).

5. Hand over to customer, blame bad rebuild(s) and/or customer's work. Change phone number/buisness name to avoid lawsuits.


I charge $500 a session.

 

i watched others tune and learn but still didnt try to tune mine myself! (yet)

 

LOOL!!

 

1. set the timing to reach the desired maximum.

2. Tune afr on low boost until desired afr is reached.

3. turn up boost to desired boost level.

Their is no tuning to the edge with rx7's (unless you can afford rebuilds) you tune to what you know the car should be able to hold and accept the power that it makes. (race gas is a slightly different story)

 

and you can get a pretty good guesstimate of how much power your making by watching your IDC's and afr.. (if you know what your doing) so the g-tech is not needed

 

pay 60 bucks for a dyno session with wideband and start tuning it until you get the AFR you want. i've heard pull 1* timing for each pound of boost you run over stock....but im no tuner.

 

Sounds about right to me!

 

Sounds about right to me!,lol

 

I'm still learning. But here's what I did/am doing. I bought my Datalogit and Wideband O2(TE2.0). I got it all hooked up correctly with help from the "regulars" on the PFC Forum(Wargasm, Jeff48, hyperion etc -thanks guys), And then I spend the afternoon with antoher forum member to get a crash course in dataloging/ tuning 101.

Oh yeah, search and read everything you can find on tuning.

Next I added a a butt-load of fuel to my fuel maps so that I was running pig-rich and started practicing tuning my engine by leaning out the cells under vacuum. That way I could "practice" removing fuel and datalogging to see the results without much risk of popping my new motor. Once got the hang of adjusting fuel in the vacuum cells I then took baby steps toward leaning out under boost.

BTW, This is over the course of many weeks of tweaking and driving and actually living with the car and watching the AFR's as I drove around, I have the TE display. Being new to the PFC, I constantly monitored how th car ran by checking the MY peak knockreadings under boost. Each FD is different and my knockreadings are going to different than yours. But over time I got to know that my car's knockreadings usually peaks at no more than 39 while dringin around town and are usually below 10 under WOT. I know that the FD Knock sensor is not a reliable way to monitor against detonation, but I watch it just the same.

Here's what I've been able to do so far. 316 rwhp & 260 ft/lbs:


Here's a link to some maps, Datalogit s/w, & my datalog files. Don't blame me if they don't work for your car and you pop your motor using them...

 

I'll second jpandes; read and inform yourself, hook up with a knowledgable or intelligent 7 owner, gameplan your approach and take notes, look at as many maps as you can get your hands on and compare them, read and try to understand how each setting in the ECU is used, datalog many runs to familiarize yourself with the software and ensure the data is good before making changes, look for signs of misfire and correct ignition or harness issues before taking out fuel, then start making small changes to fuel delivery and watch for AFR changes ... takes time to get comfortable. You may find the AFR not responding to fuel changes, look out for marginal fuel systems and ingition problems. Don't get discouraged if you find several issues that keep you from tuning right out of the box, many cars have several issues that are not apparent until you start running the **** out of the car while tuning (mainly ignition misfire, high knock, fuel pressure falloff, and boost control).

 

Geeesh, seems really complicated.

OK any particular wideband O2 sensor that you guys would recommend??

Correct me if I am wrong. but Apex stop making the
dataloggit?? and If they did. Where can I get my hands
on one??

 

yes it is complicated. made worse by people who don't wtf they are talking about giving bad advice so take what you read with some degree of skeptism. jpandes has a grasp of things.

as for wideband - i think most get the techedge or fjo. do a search as there have been many threads about it. if you go to a dyno, you can use their wideband.

Apex doesn't make the datalogit. These guys do http://www.fc-datalogit.co.nz/

You have a pretty good tuner not too far from you - RotorDee is his screen name IIRC. Do a search and you'll see.

 

Tune an FD till it pings and you're going to be buying a new motor. You sound like the F-body guys at my local dyno day.

 

I cannot do much, but i learn it by watching my machanic fixing my car.

 

 

Hush, I'm drunk.

 

Well back to the thread topic.

Many hours of searching, many stupid questions with some flames behind them, lots of listening and learning. Use much caution and do things very little and slowly.

By the way I am still doing all of those things I mentioned.

 

Also spend some time reading through posts in the PowerFC forum. There are some good ones in there if you read and search enough.

 

Thanks everyone..

This thread turned out to be pretty entertaining.

BUT after all the $$$$ i put into my FD.
I not gonna tinker with it, and leave it to the
professionals, so I can sleep at night.