tuning methods
 

After a 6 month sabattical from my car I have found my interest in it renewed. I have been some retuning and will be installing the cops soon. I reread Jeremy's tips on tuning in the link ecu manual and one thing he said struck me as being counter to what I thought was the general consensus.


"however with a stock Miata motor we should limit this to a safe 180kPa. This means that ignition must be addressed first for peak
power, and then look at the proper fueling to support it. Basically, timing should be advanced as far as it can be without knock, and next determine the proper amount of fuel to control EGT's & knock. This means starting with too much fuel. A good turbine inlet temperature at full boost is 600F. Forget about an "optimal A/F ratio" for boost if you are looking to maximize
power."

Now I guess I need to state that he is referring to a stock motor and limiting it to 180kpa (11.5psi). Now I'm not a scholar when it comes to tuning but I have read a couple of articles and spent a night or two in a Holiday Inn Express. My thought has always been to tune the fuel to a desired A/F ratio and then address the timing with some possible tweaks to the timing for some of the more knock sensitive zones. An article on Innovates site talks about max power levels and leaner ratios. I would like for others to share any tuning philosophies they have.

I would have placed this in a Link Ecu sub forum but there isn't one.

Man this forum sure has changed alot in the last 4 to 6 months.

Shiv from Vishnu tuning had some writeups on tuning the TEC2/3 back in the day. His philosophy seemed to be get your target AFR first and then tweak ignition for MTBT -- minimum timing for best torque.

I tuned AFR first on a very conservative spark map. Then I went back and added timing on the dyno.

After timing was adjusted the AFRs had to be tweaked again, but that's normal.

when they wrote that, 12psi to them meant like 180-200rwhp. There are plenty of us stock internal 1.6L guys running well over 12psi and well over 230rwhp.