Searched this topic and no one really talks about it. I was thinking, since the datalogit is on a laptop, couldn't you get your tuner to remote tune via remote assistance on windows xp? Say your tuner is on the eastcoast and you're on the westcoast...you can give his computer permission to take over your laptop from a remote location. He can then make all the tuning adjustments from his computer. He can even do it after hours at his home, make a few extra bucks. Save you a trip to the shop. Is there a reason that I'm not seeing that people aren't doing this now?

 

most tuners want to SEE and HEAR the engine as they are tuning it, If you can trust the sensors and you have enough data there is no reason that tuning can't be done remote. There is a big problem if there is a problem and the tuner is not there to witness it and you don't have enough experience to be able to tell him what is actually happening.

~Ian.

 

Biggest issue, it takes multiple adjustments run after run to dial it in. If you wanted to do this it would take some time.

 

I see your point, I thought about that, wouldn't a good video conference set-up allow the tuner to hear and see. He just instructs the car owner to adjust whatever he needs on the engine. Of course this isn't a good alternative to having the tuner there. It just seems that a lot of people are tuning the cars in their own garage, figured if they were going to do that...at least have a tuner do it from a remote location. Just pray that your internet connection doesn't die durring a critical moment!

 

The tuner may not want to tell the person the changes he is making and why, these could be near and dear secrets to them.

But great idea, I would definitely let Steve Kan tune mine remotely.

 

You can't tune your car in your garage, unless you are tuning your idle! Tuning yourself requires either access to a dyno shop or street tuning. I fail to see how you could do remote tuning during street tuning.

 

I discussed this with another person a few years ago. The problem is that when problem occurs, tuner won't be able to diagnose the problem in real time making it time consuming to tune. Also, if the car started to run lean and/or breaking up, who is there to tell the operator to shut off before anything could hurt the engine? There's about a 0.3-0.5s delay between phones due to RF multi/demultiplexing, (CBSC switches), full duplex feedback etc... and that could easily translate to a broken engine before any actions take place.

just my .02

Steve

 

Tuning in your garage was more or less a term like a DIY/Shady tree mechanic. I realize that you can't get a truly accurate tune without the proper equipment. It sounds like a lot of people are tuning on their own without a dyno. I figure that if they don't have access to that kind of resource at least a good tuner will have a better chance of performing the tune better than your regular joe.

 

I have been doing some "remote tuning" for a friend of mine. His car was running pretty crappy. 850 cc primaries, wouldn't idle for crap, rich everywhere. I helped him fix the idle, and made sure he was not dangerously lean anywhere. He is an old school car guy. He has some car skills, and knows what AFR's are dangerous, what lean and rich means, knows what knocking and missfiring is, but was not very PC savy. I showed him how to log map watch data from his wideband. He goes out and runs some logs, then sends them to me. I tweek his file for him and send him an update based on his logs. He loads them in and goes for another tuning run. Gradually worked the boost a little higher and higher taking out fuel, and he has the AFR running pretty nice now.

Its safe to start rich and then lean it out. he was also running some mild timing, so i wasn't worried about knock. I made him some other files with slightly more agressive timing and sent them to him to run logs on it. Told him to watch the knock values.

it's not as good as having a dyno and steve-k but it's working. I always tell him exactly what I did and the effect it should have on his car. no "secrets", this way he will understand look for the desired change and eventually be able to do it on his own. - Justin

 

Getting accurate data and adjusting fuel maps is good and I have done that on many occasions, the problems come up when there is incorrect data. like, If the engine misfires then the Lambda AFR will show leaner and if it was because you were too rich you need to see the exhaust at the same time to see this. I have had to fix tunes for people where things happened where the engine was running cold and the tuner tuned the engine but it had "cold start trim" was adding fuel and the customer drove the car when the weather got hotter and the car ran lean. You need to be able to see what trims are activated at the time the data was collected or in real time. I was watching a V8 telemetry at a race track one day and the team had just installed a new engine and the 2 lambda's were both incorect, one lambda was getting leaner and the other was getting richer. I got the team to bring the car in to the pits and we checked and the lambda sensors and they were in the wrong exhaust banks, with closed loop lambda active the ECU was trying to tune it self from the wrong sensor.

~Ian.

 

Yeah it's important to train them how to log data properly. Make sure its warmed up, then start the logging. I got the idle and cold start stuff worked out mostly by sending him a map with P5 - N5 and cold start data from another map that i did. it was real close, so there hasn't been much back and forth for the idle since them. I have met up with him for a tuning session or 2 and seen the car in person, so i know there isn't anything seriously wrong with his setup.

Errors in the data can be filtered out in the map watch looking for bad data points from engine braking, or missfires.

I generally delete the idle data, (if it's good don't mess with it) then I delete P3 and under to remove the engine braking. Then I look at the number of data points recorded in the map. if there are cells with strange numbers and only a few data points for that particular cell then I delete them.

Next I run my AFR calculator to get a new correction map. I look for any large changes in the map, anything more than 10% throws a flag up to check it.

next I modify the inj map. recalculate the base map. Then i export the map to excel so i can look at the curves as line graphs. i then smooth the line graphs to make sure there are no real crazy jumpy spots in the data.

All around i think it's a decent process. I try to involve my friend in many of the steps so he will learn it on his own. If you think about it this is mostly how you road tune a car anyways. Go out for a log, collect data, make sure there are no danger zones. Then go back and crunch the data - update the map and repeat. If you have someone who can log decent data, and understands what dangerous behavior is and your a good number cruncher/engineer then you creat a file from the data. It doesn't matter if your next door, or 100 miles away.

 

That's what I'm talking about. Your friend probably would have tried to tune it on his own and possibly damage the motor. I'd rather take a chance with someone that knows what they are doing, even if they are in another state. Hey, what do you mean by "engine braking"? I hear/feel what seems like a missfire usually at idle and lower rpm, it happens for a fraction of a second. Feels almost like a hiccup from the engine.

 

engine braking is when you lift the throttle and use the engine to slow the car down. What happens is the engine just pumps air at this point and the wideband reads a lean mixture. it's not really lean, so if you keep adding fuel there you can run into problems. I just delete this bogus data

your hiccup is probably a lean spot.

 

Ok, that's what I thought. So many different terminology, just wanted to verify what people are actually talking about. How do you delete data? What would that do? Also, what would you suggest I do for the "hiccup"?

 

I delete data when I am processing the data in MS excel. by deleting it, no corrections are made in the cells that correspond with that data.

For your hiccup I suggest soem logging with a wideband to see what the AFR looks like in that area.

here is a tutorial I wrote for tuning with LM1 wideband and map tracer. I can send the excel file to you if you send me an e-mail. baltruckij@netscape.net

http://www.innovatemotorsports.com/r...1_Tutorial.pdf