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Its been raining for days anyways. That and it looks like theyre cancelling all the big usual events for the first half of the season.
Which isnt all bad but I would like to get some use out of these fresh RS4's -_-
Plenty of time to learn tuning... after figuring out the laptop thing that is
I guess the move these days is to ebay a business class laptop rather than buy a new consumer class laptop. Ill have to give that a go.
Maybe a Thinkpad if I can find something recent enough.
I'm a big Thinkpad fan (they're more rugged than most PCs and the keyboards have a great tactile feel) and agree that a 2nd hand laptop is ideal for tuning, you don't need much grunt and want it to be cheap and tough (as opposed to light and flimsy).
Mine is a 2nd-hand eBay Core i5 Thinkpad T430s (2012 vintage) with a SSD and 14" 1600x900 display (which means I don't have to scroll the screen to see the full TS display - VERY IMPORTANT, scrolling is annoying).
I replaced the original 1600x900 display with an Alienware one because I wasn't really happy with its brightness when I started using it more as my personal laptop (I still don't feel the need to upgrade it to a newer model).
Dell make decent laptops too, their displays are usually the best available but they're not quite as rugged as Thinkpads.
I've found that HPs have flimsy display hinges which you don't want because when you're drive-testing, you'll find that the laptop takes a bit more physical punishment than in an office environment (unless it's Karen's laptop, which got thrown into a wall when it crashed once too often - RIP).
For tuning, I found touchscreens a pain in the **** due to fat fingers and high resolutions of the touchscreens.
Touchscreens are more expensive too so save yourself some $$$ by avoiding them for your tuning laptop.
14" 1600x900 display is the smallest I'd recommend for readability and to avoid scrolling of the TS app - most laptops of this size don't have a keypad which helps keep them smaller than those with larger screens.
As always, check out the reviews of any laptop you're thinking about purchasing, paying attention to ruggedness and the quality of the display - don't over-spec it to keep costs down.
Build a DIY-kitted miata and nearly everyone turns a cheek but mention a used thinkpad and the turbros passion becomes ignited lol
Jk, jk, thanks for all the feedback fellas. I got the old laptop up and running on W10 now and it runs better than it ever did on W7. With the exception of having no sound. Pretty sure the sound card isnt compatible. Not an issue for the task at hand.
I use a Thinkpad T480 for work and really really wouldnt mind having one for the car/personal as well. I think Ive finally grown out of wanting a laptop thats capable of running shitty games Ill never play... that said, the Thinkpad X series is pretty nifty.
If I can find a decent T series or recent yoga for sub 500 I think Ill have to pull the trigger.
That X1 yoga I linked is still floating around the $400 mark. No OS but if you're still paying for windows in the this day and age...
Man I was just looking at that. Gonna have to keep that tab open.
I have to drop like ~1k on Audi maint stuff this week(parts only -_- ) so a laptop isnt really in the cards at any price point but its good to know something like that is in the realm of possibility.
Im gonna guess 650 for final bid. Wanna throw a WoF guess out as well?
Been a pretty rotten few days in the garage. Murphy's law kind of days. I wont belly ache too much about it but we're all famoliar with it.
Car slipping off the pinch weld while jacking it up and bending the body work, garage flooded a bit due to a faulty oring on the hose inside the garage , banged my elbows/knees/face on just about everything. Went under to solve the DP rattling issue and found that I forgot to tighten the furthest rear brace bolts and lost a couple, reputable HID kit fried a ballast on the first start up and the company is really dragging their feet about helping... to dry the rug that got soaked in the garage flood I hung it over the deck to dry and now its pouring out... heh... gotta chuckle at it I spose.
Some good news, after nearly four months of shipping and customs quarantine, I recieved my cappuccino washer bottle. Install didnt go as nice as Id have liked. It should hold though.
I also got my idle figured out and it runs on the proper pulsewidth inputs. Warm-up enrichment was part of the problem too. I went through the base tune and my tune and reverted a lot of things. Didnt tpuch timing or fuel targets. I actually ended up using the idle VE auto tune to smooth it out and it worked great. Otherwise autotuning fuel has gone gotten it pretty safe to drive around on. Makes 10 pounds on the 6-8 IWG spring i have in there. I have the 10-12 spring on standby but I wanto be in a better place before going there.
I really want to get tuning timing. Need to see how tuner studio records knock events. Or if it even does. I assume so being the car has a knock sensor... Im running the timing map I was tuned for in N/A config. I know its likely I need to take a little timing out.... more to learn there.
Journal/rant session over.
Washer bottle pics. Loaded from mobile so probably hugely oversized.
Been a while. Spent ~60 hours last week between maint on the daily Audi, coilovers for the daily Audi and helping a local FB-group kid with his his reroute and water pump/timing job. What a nightmare that was. Not sure how but it took us ~17 hours total. What a waste of a furlough lol.... I spose you could say most of it was time well spent though as well.
Miata is still running great. Isnt leaking anything. Still on the N/A spark map. Im going to try the trubokitty base map and see if that carries power to the top of the revs. Its hugely different than what is loaded now. *yelp*
I may have access to a local hub dyno. I feel like the theory behind tuning spark is straight forward enough... need to dig in there before I go begging to use their dyno.
I dont have a pic of the Brain map but heres whats loaded now.
Kinda happy with how the daily looks now.
Its definitely too low and I need to raise it up a bit... but... Ill pretend to be a stance boi for a couple days.
Been a while since Ive updated. This is more or less for my own benefit of looking back someday and Ive been slacking.
Things have been pretty solid. I was battling a coolant overflow issue for a while. Still not sure if it's been resolved. On the track(very small, almost no prolonged straights, bad for heat), I was getting coolant pushing past the cap and out of the overflow. I replaced the cap with a Stant 20 PSI and it hasn't happened since but it is still getting out of the overflow tank somehow. On track temps have not exceeded ~250. ( I need to address ducting as priority #1 over the winter)
We've pressure tested the coolant system from the cap, all good. We tested the coolant for exhaust gasses while running, all good. Leak down test is good, Compression test was ~150 across all 4 cylinders....
Im left to believe its literally just sloshing around/out of of the overflow under repeated hard braking/turning/accelerating. I'm open to other opinions as well. Either way I ebayed a replacement tank and it arrived appearing to be in worse shape than the one I had but Im giving it a go. Not sure what else to do. Track day Friday at the same place.
All that said, I turned the boost up to ~13 PSI with the use of a MBC. The MBC either wants to give 11-13 and just a smidge of a turn more and it wants to give it 20. No thnx, I was hoping to get to 15, set boost cut to 16 and the MBC still surged it to 20 for a split second. This is the 6-8psi spring with the MBC. I have the 12-14 PSI spring on standby too but I was hoping the MBC would manipulate the boost down the RPM range a bit while making the same amount of boost as the big spring. Makes sense, right? .... right? Im also afraid the 12-14 spring will surge to 16-18 as the 6-8 spring surges to 10.
Heres a recent photo of me doing lead/follow instructing for a RHD Toyota.
05-18-2020, 10:18 PM
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