So then where are you seeing my AFRs if they aren't on my dyno plot?


:hs:

So essentially your spark map is completely untuned, as in it hasn't been personally optimized for your actual car on a dyno.

Timing is everything on these motors, until you've tuned that on a dyno I'd call it 'untuned'. Was 99mx5's spark table ever tuned on a dyno? Spent time tweaking != spent time tuning.

Yes, his spark map was tuned for his motor, it is not a base map by any means but it HAS NOT been adjusted for mine.

:facepalm:

the more details you finally disclose to us the worse you're making yourself look.

if it wasn't optimized for YOUR car, its not anything more than a base map. in fact, often times it can be worse than a base map. all the cons without the pros.

This is why tuning is important. This is why people pay big money for tuning. Because its optimized for a specific engine and setup.

Most people that post the "oh well it worked on a similar setup, therefore it should....." get ignored or dismissed here cause they're just too stupid to help.

You're actually getting treated nicely here believe it or not.

If you read through Emilio's thread about his CNC heads, he talks about how different the castings are from head to head. No 2 are exactly the same, therefore a tune on 1 will not perfectly translate to another.

First off, I'm not worried about how I'm getting treated... I know most of you on here truly know your shit and I appreciate the help either way, that's why the word "input" is in the thread title.

Secondly, neither myself or Ari are "tuners" and unfortunately there aren't any reputable ones local to me otherwise I'd have already given them my money. Ari's old NA setup on his 99 was I/H/E/COPs, my setup it I/H/E/COPs. I understand that there are variables (CR being one, thanks for that) but between a legit basemap (stock) and Ari's, we went with his.

Obviously I know the car needs to be tuned (tuned-tuned) but as I said, short of a 6hr round trip to Tuscon, that's not going to happen (for THIS setup.) Ari and I will continue to DIY but this thread has at least opened my eyes to the fact that the spark table could be the source of my frustration and it for sure needs to be addressed and ultimately, that's what this thread was all about - asking people who know more than I do for advice.

I appreciate it.

I see my problem. I was looking at your dyno, but when looking at the AFRs, I was only scrolling up far enough to see them, not far enough to see the "supermiata" logo. Whoops.

But our point about spark tuning stands. Any change, from the amount of stretch in your timing belt, to how much carbon is built up on your pistons, will require a much different tune from a ignition stand point.

You don't need to be expert tuners, lord knows I don't.

1. Schedule an hour at your local dyno (this one wasn't the one 6 hours away, was it?!).
2. Do a base pull
3. Select the top two rows of your timing map, from about 4000rpm on. Subtract 3 degrees in all cells
4. Do another pull
5a. If your power remains roughly the same, within 1-2hp, you know you were beyond MBT, and you should continue pulling 1-2 degrees of timing until you see a significant drop, raise it up a degree or two, and then find your reason for low power.
5b. Hopefully though, you will see a drop in power. That is good, you aren't above MBT! Raise those two rows of cells 5 degrees, aka: 2 degrees above where you started.
6. do a pull
7. Repeat these steps until power begins to level out, if you see less than 1hp change between runs with 1-2 degrees timing change, you've gone far enough and you're only risking your motor for minimal gains.
8. Win at life.

This all assumes you don't have a knock sensor. If you do, keep going up until knock is detected, then back off.

I see the light with the spark map for sure.

I was admittedly naive and figured that his would be "close enough" to use, given the similarity of our setups but I DID KNOW that eventually a full retune did need to happen. I had no idea that much power could be lost in an unoptimized spark table though so I think it's for sure worth booking this dyno for an hour or so and knocking it out.

Thanks guys.

Are you controlling VICS or is the IM gutted?

Post your spark map so we know for certain what NOT to do.

Still worth looking at the basic health of the engine (compression test/leakdown).

SAE correct your results. Based upon 100°F (or whatever your IAT actually was -- did you look?) plus the high altitude in Las Cruces, my guess is that you might actually be matching Emilio. Seriously. Your density altitude might be something ridiculous like 10,000'. If so, you're at about 65% of SL power.

If you're going to operate a car in the mountains, you need boost, always! (playing off your sig here, LOL).

OK, curiosity got the best of me.

Elevation of Las Cruces airport (KLRU) is 4,456.9'.

With an OAT of 100°F and assuming standard atmosphere pressure, your density altitude is about 8,200'. My rule of thumb as a pilot is that I would expect a normally aspirated piston engine to make about 75% of rated power at this altitude. So . . . 110HP/0.75 = 147HP!!! You're doing darn well my friend.

Post your spark map so we know WHAT to do! LOL.

VICs is not controlled nor gutted. Never got around to it and completely spaced on that, thank you for asking!!

I'll check the motor but I feel that the spark tables will be the key here and they'll be posted this evening. All of this is on Ari's laptop.

The 110/102 is corrected, uncorrected I did 94/88. :laugh:

I wish I would have taken photos of the dyno/locale, You'd then understand when I say I'm not sure I 100% trust the unit nor the operators but I'll continue to use this one since I've already "baselined" there and at least that can remain my constant. Plus, I could probably pay them with weed and Monster energy drinks.

No boost here, my next setup will be higher compression with ITBs and corn fuel and THAT's the motor I have every intention of getting to AZ since I'll know even less (lol) about ITB tuning nuances than I do my current setup.

Are you sure you did the SAE correction correctly? I get a lot more than 110 from 94 uncorrected based upon the elevation/temperature numbers you're reporting.

If you have doubts about the dyno, you might want to find a straight, flat road and confirm with a VD pull.

They did the correction with the software but, again, I put little faith in their competence.

I just checked weather.com and yesterday in El Paso at 3pm it says it was 95* and a quick Google shows EP at 3740' above sea level.

lol, just saw this. Added some info about temps and location.

The VICs is a pretty big help, isn't it? According to FM's dyno on their '99, it's worth 5ft/lbs. Not bad for an RPM switch and actuator. Not sure if your MS can control that or not.

It can and it will, just spaced on that entirely. :hs:

VICS would mostly help below 5200RPM though. Above that, OEM VICS is deenergized so it shouldn't matter. This is assuming your VICS butterflies are actually closed in the standard deenergized position and aren't stuck in some half-cocked position.

The main difference I see in the torque curves is that Emilio's takes off right around 3400RPM whereas yours stays remarkably flat. Hey, at least you have a flat torque curve, right? Suspect the difference in torque curve shape is related to spark advance.

If you refine the SAE correction (note that you want to try to capture the temperature of the air that the engine is actually breathing -- without good fans at the dyno this might be quite a bit higher than outside ambient) and work on the spark table, I think you'll end up pretty close to Emilio.

Datalogs
 

Here are the logs from both pulls.

Wide open throttle AFR is dipping into the high 10's and you are using a map designed for another car. On top of your coolant temps being in the 120's each pull. Get the car properly tuned and it'll make some better power. It looks like you are running around 32 degrees of advance up top already, this tune could use some serious work.

it took a LOT of effort to unstick the ones on the last car I was tuning.

BUT

you can tell it's locked in the high position because there's no bump at 3.5K and the RPMS don't plummet at 6K.

gains will be had between 3.5K and 5.5K once you activate it...Incredibly silly not to activate an actuator and leave 5-10rwtq off the table in that rpm-band.

what I DO suggest however, is actually waiting until your motor is warm, correctly tuning your warmup, ait, and barometric corrections and not inject an extra 22% of fuel during a dyno pull.