Just another thought that gave me a chuckle--

When you buy a standalone, you aren't buying performance, you're buying 'the ability to tune your car'. So why would you buy it if you weren't fully planning to do some tuning?

If you don't, you're not going to get what you want out of the car. If you do, you might just be amazed.

Either way, the box is still pretty ;)

That's a good way to put it. ;)

Oh no, I had considered the tuning aspect of it. I guess I just wasn't aware of how necessary it is to really have a dyno available to make it all come together (though I should have been obviously).

I guess I'm too used to people going at it via road runs and logging. I used to have a GN back in the day and the GN guys had a bunch of different things they did to get things dialed in, but unless you were going for serious power you didn't hear about dyno tuning all that much. I'm sure that has changed, especially since I assume the MS has made it's way over there as well.

what were their tricks?

It depends on your setup if a dyno is needed or not as the base map is already dyno tuned on an N/A car. N/A, the base map for ignition is right on and VE is right on for a stock car, and you can use a wideband to fine tune the fuel map without dyno time. Forced induction, dyno time is needed.

And the 'tricks' that people use to dial cars in on the street are basically good for WOT only, and they're a compromise at that. Twisting distributors and adjusting fuel pressure and timing WOT runs. You don't do any of that with a standalone and you need to tune more than that to get the most out of a standalone. Or some choose to settle for less, they're ok with a tune the bucks like a mule at part throttle, gets crappy mileage, and stumbles when you tip-in, as long as it's feels fast at WOT. And you know what makes a car feel fast at WOT? Having a car that runs like crap everywhere else and only pulls good there....

They had software that hooked into the stock ECU to allow data logging, but there were also some standalone ECU monitoring tools that would log things like knock retard and fueling so you could make some guesses as to how the car was running and adjust accordingly. One was a box with an LED readout called a Scanmaster that would give you real-time info on about ten different things the ECU was logging. A lot of guys would just use that to get a generally good running state with the bolt-ons they would add to the car.

It's a bit different too since the car was built as a turbo car from the factory.

You're right, it was a compromise for the most part and generally the GN guys got away with it as it was almost impossible to blow up those engines. They came with a factory knock sensor even back in 86-87 which kept you from doing horrible things to it right off the bat. You kind of had to work at it to mess the car up.

if the car is running lean at idle, why is it spitting fuel out of the exhaust.

Well.. you said the car is misfiring right? Misfire=unburnt fuel spewing out into the exhaust... eventually that comes out the back.


Here's the bottom line-- you unplugged your aftermarket FPR and it smoothed out alot right? So doesn't that tell you that there's something funky being introduced by your fuel pressure? Like it's either low or high at idle?

You're both emailing me and posting the same questions out here at the same times, so I'm having to double post the same info--

As a quick test though, with you FPR hooked back up like
normal, try adjusting your REQ_FUEL setting higher and lower. You
engine is either needed more or less fuel, and you need to figure out
which it is. If you lower REQ_FUEL the net effect is if you leaned out
your entire fuel table. Similarly if you raise REQ_FUEL then it's the
same net effect as richening up your entire fuel table. NOTE-- this is
NOT the right way to tune, this is just a test, and a 'quick test' at
that. Once you know what you need to adjust you should set your
REQ_FUEL back to the proper value that you calculated for your injector
size, and then tune this out in your VE table.