I found a very reputable guy that can tune my car. His price is $350 and uses a wideband O2 to get the a/f correct. For $350, I could buy my very own wideband O2 setup that logs. My cam is too big to try and tune in closed loop, which makes the tuning much easier, and I was wondering if I should buy the wideband setup and tune it myself (with help from you guys of course), or let him tune it and be happy with it? He also tunes the MAF out of the equation (SD), which I do not know how to do. I'm afraid to try and tune with my Granetelli MAF sensor, because I've read that people have had hard times tuning with aftermarket MAF sensors. I thought that the SD mode would be perfect and would eliminate my problem. What do you guys think?
Just some fyi, I'm familar with what TunerCat does and can do and I'm currently trying to fine tune my skills, but it's hard to make any major changes without getting the car to the right a/f.

 

I have no personal experience with tuning, but I have heard that if you are going to use SD instead of MAF then you need to get a really good dyno tune from someone who knows what they are doing. MAF is fairly forgiving when tuning from what I understand. Also tuning with a wide band is obviously a great idea, but they only way to do it real world is for you to log while you drive and tune from the log which can be difficult if you don't know what you are looking for.

 

I appreciate the reply. Some of these posts go lost in the archives w/out ever being answered. I don't necessarily want to go to SD, but I'm afraid I'll have trouble with the Granetelli MAF. I will be using logs to fine tune the car.

 

There isn't really anything wrong per say with the Granetelli MAF if you are going to tune it because you can adjust the A/F ratio to compensate for your set-up. I don't exactly remember what the Granetelli MAF does but I don't think it would be a problem with a tune. I think the MAF works by fooling the computer into thinking there is more air than there really is making the computer add fuel. It's either that or the other way around to lean it out, I can't remember exactly.

 

I'm pretty sure that it IS letting more air in or fools the computer, making it run richer. I thought that would be the case for tuning with that MAF, but I wouldn't see why tuners would have such a problem, or so I've heard, tuning with an aftermarket MAF.

Another thing for me to consider is that I put more miles on my car last weekend, than I have in the last 2 years. I've been working and working trying to get this combo lined out and I'm becoming unpatient with the tune being off. If I do it myself, it would be a while (until I fully learn) before I could get the car running as well as it should.

 

Tuning an aftermarket MAF is usually just a crapshoot. It will normally (on a stock car) lean you out so that you think you are making more power because of it. Really, it's just the richness of the factory tune.

I've tuned a big Joe O cammed car that ran pretty good in closed loop. I wasn't extremely happy with the idle, but it was rock solid and didn't surge or anything like that. You could do it. Especially if you have access to a wideband and you make it idle in either open loop or "in" pe mode.

If you want to tune it yourself, I way get the wideband and go for it.
If you wouldn't feel comfortable doing it, then you may be better off paying someone to do it. Just make sure whoever you get to do it is reputable and will be available afterwards to help with any issues that may come up, cause if you have a datalogger and know a little bit about tuning you will find issues with it.

 

How did you get the Joe O cam to tune well in closed loop? I'm having bad surging problems until I give it enough throttle for it to start reading off of the PE tables. I read that a cam with a "larger" amount of overlap (similar to a gm847) will forever make the car run rich because the O2's see all of the unburned oxygen and add more fuel. This, in turn, richens the long-term fuel trims and makes the car run even richer at WOT. Is there anyway you can explain how to get around this? Maybe in a PM? I have done 99% of the work on my car and I hate having others do things for me, especially things that I can't do. I would love to learn and I figured that buying the wideband setup would force me to learn. I'm also not sure if I would be able to hook my laptop up to the car and the wideband at the same time. I only have one com port and one usb port, but I'm not even sure if the usb port works. Would one of these be what I'm looking for? I'm pretty sure both of them having logging capabilities.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/AEM-G...QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Innov...QQcmdZViewItem

Thanks guys for helping me through this tough decision.

 

I don't know, we never had any problems with it. I believe the cam was like 246/252-ish maybe. I know I spent a ton of time with the car in speed density mode tuning the ve tables. I really think that might be key for you. And it's actually very easy to do if you use Joe Georger's VEMaster. I did, works nice.
We just got the ve good, and flipped it back into maf mode and never looked back. I think we had to do a slight bit of tweaking to the maf tables, but that was rather easy too.

Don't even bother with the wideband yet. If you want to give it a shot tuning it as is let me know and I can try and walk you through what I did with this other car. If you don't like it for any reason then you can go get it professionally done.

If you have the patience to struggle and learn, you can do this yourself. I really believe that about anyone...you just gotta try.

As far as not being able to run the wideband at the same time as you're datalogging...I never had that problem cause I just used my LM-1 and while someone else was driving the car I could watch the computer and wideband output. Pretty easy, really.

 

Yes, I want to tune it for myself, the best I can. I just figured the wideband was needed to really tune on the car. My a/f is the biggest problem, I believe. I have the patience and am very interested in doing it myself. How do you want to do the walk through? PM, phone, thread, etc??

It is sounding like this is the easier way. This being versus the tapping into another 0-5V source and converting the tables over.

 

As I just got done posting in the other guys post, you can do USB & serial at the same time and get a lot of data...

My setup runs separate from the PCM and it's a pain because I have to run two softwares simultaneously, but it works. For wideband, I have a DIY/Techedge setup which I built from a kit for cheap - they give you everything, but you better know how to solder - not a beginner kit (or they have finished, tested kits as well). Inexpensive, and it has wideband, 0-5v output, narrowband simulation, 3 aux inputs besides rpm (boost, water injection, whatever), and 3 TC inputs for temps and an onboard logger if you don't want to hook up to a pc. Then I also run Datamaster or PCM Log as well. It's not ideal, but you get a lot of data that way. I also have a Innovate LC1 gauge which I need to still hookup, but I'm trying to find a way to build it into a 2 5/8" Autometer gauge housing and stick it in my 3rd middle AC eyeball vent next to the FP & Boost gauges. Gotta get busy & get er done.

 

So, I could run the com aldl cable and a usb for the O2 wideband simultaneously? I guess you just have to hit start on both ones at about the same time and then log the car? Do they log in the same time increments? That wouldn't be too bad, but it would definitely be more convenient log everthing into the same program. I appreciate everyones' replies. I still have a hard decision to make.

 

Yeah, it works but it's not convenient. You have to do it in such a way that you can organize, correlate, and analyze the data. That's why I have RPM and boost going into the wideband. I can look at DM and Wideband graphs and they look the same so I know where I'm at. I save both files under a date directory where the tune file is. That way it all stays together and you know what tune goes with which logs.