So here is the thing, I am tired of driving my car untuned, I do Have a fast chip from Ed Wright and I am not saying that the chip isn't good but my 383 is pinking as hell, hard To start when hot, and I can Feel it's not making the power it should!! There are no one local that could tune my car, Every speed shop are either LS oriented...I called fast chip and Ed says he is semi-retired. He still burn chips but doesn't have a dyno anymore so he says he could not take me in for a real on site tune! After speaking with my Tech, I ended up calling Lingenfelter today. Since I am running their cam intake heads, pretty much their combinatination, I tought I would benefit from getting them to fine tune my engine! I remenber reading a post of someone that had his car tuned at their location and ended up with the reward of something close to 50hp and 40lbs torque! But best of all, running is 383 like a stock engine.

But Guess What? The technician told me that they don't have the software anymore to tune our tpi engine! I then said but don't you have a dyno? He then said yes but I am sorry there is nothing much I can do to help you in order to fine tune your car sir.

I was really surprised and shocked to hear this, I am now starting to realize that my car is old technology and I should swap to an LS engine instead of spending all that stupid money in this superram setup, rotating assembly etc. I mean I love my car to death but I can't enjoy it as in the past years when it was pretty much stock...

 

Swap it to new tech that someone can tune or learn to tune it yourself. That's basically your two options.

 

Scott Hansen does mail tuning, you could probably work with him back and forth and get it dialed in. Few dyno runs and some datalogging, back and forth. Not ideal for your situation but an option?

www.scotthansen.net

 

X2 thats about it now a days

 

yeah I have been thinking about switching it to a newer tech...my friend who is my tech keep telling me to sell my car and buy a 5th gen instead. He then proposed me some options such as Fi Tech, plain carburator, or a First injection intake...I then said I Will look for an Accel DFI and he replied that I Will still run an old technology setup that can be diagnose with a tech 1. THE other option about self learning would be the best option for sure! But I am not computer oriented at all and I am not handy with software tools neither... I was kind of desperate when I wrote this post yesterday but after reading other discussion, It seems I forgot Tpis. They are 18 hours drive from me but if (and I believe they can) fix my problems and fine tune the engine, it will well worth the trip! I Will call them and plan a little getaway soon!

thanks for your suggestions

 

Did you try TPIS?

 

9 hrs from me, i would tune it if you could get it here

 

Sounds like Ed gave you some very consevative timing. As for the hard starting when hot, if it wasn't always like that then you have a mechanical issue which happened over time, more than likely your ICM. Get yourself an EBL-P4 and never worry about having someone tuning your engine for you again...

 

I have to give a plug for Rbob and his P4 Flash ECM. Friend of mine with a TPIS setup in his 86 Vette (383, AFR heads, TPIS MiniRam, cam - unknown to me) had a really rich idle and not so good driveability with the TPIS tune. Now, I don't know if this tune was done at TPIS or somewhere else, but the car ran like crap with a TPIS chip (how the chip was obtained I can't say). I told him about the EBL setup that I had read about so many times on these forums and he agreed that it was a good option. A couple of e-mails to Rbob and the ECM was shipped out fast. A couple of days repining his wire harness and wiring in a MAP sensor, the car started immediately and even idled better without tweaking the suggested bin. A few VE learns and he is very happy with the differences in the engines performance. It's far from perfect but you will never get a perfect mail-order tune either. So, for the time it takes to datalog 1 trip, remove and mail the chip or e-mail your bin and have it tuned and sent back, you can get an EBL sent to you, install it and have it up and running. Now, any further tweaks can be done in les time it would take to remove the chip. Just another option for you to consider. HTH!

 

You could take some time to haul it to TPIS in Chaska Mn. Jim at TPIS does a wonderful job. Or learn yourself or find a tuner friend and rent a dyno. Some places will rent their dyno to customers for so much an hour.

 

eh thanks for all your suggestions! like I mentionned in my previous post I am highly considering TPIS as an ultimate solution... But orr89RocZ, where are you located? Do you have access To a dyno? Here, there are barely 1 or 2 dyno in the area and the speed shop that I contacted last week, wants me to get at least 3 runs at 145$ the 1st and 125$/ea for the 2 other..


what is the P4 flash ecm? I need To look into this too

for now we are only able To play with the timing fpr and get the air fuel ratio via a wideband. other than that we can't really do nothing!

As for the extra-hard starting problem when hot, Ed told me To change the coolant sensor and the connector. Apparently tpi has a lot of problem with this sensor indicating a wrong temperature to the ecm without giving any check engine code...I Will change them this afternoon and we'll see...

 

I'm in near pittsburgh. I have access to many dynos lol but i mainly use the one through fj performance in export pa, which is east of pittsburgh bout 40 min

 

Find somebody to email tune you through logs. It's quite easy. You don't need a dyno, the tuner should be able to view AFR and pulse width and be able to tell if you're moving more air. A dyno is only necessary if you feel the need to spend triple the price for 3 more hp.

 

It all depends. If tuner has experience with the exact combo or similar, tuning to a known air fuel can work well. If not the dyno will show you whats best and especially what timing works. I have seen 5-30 hp on a dyno tune depending on the setup. And thats not necessarily peak but over the curve in some spots

Part throttle and idle is best done on street and in person imo

 

Of course a dyno can show gains, but the tuner can use airflow to determine power. More air typically means more power.

 

That's not quite true. When you have someone that is familiar with third gen tunes and runs the car through many different scenarios on the dyno, and uses a couple of different computer monitors and reflashes the chip after every pull, you get some huge gaines. I went 2 months data logging and all i got was a run a round. When TPIS got finished i had gained a solid 120hp over the 'through the mail" chip tuner.

 

A mail order tune is crap. An email tune based off datalogs is VERY powerful.
Gaining 120hp sounds like a high hp application and not some magic third gen specific dyno tune.

 

It all depends on the combo

I did a car a few weeks ago. dyno'd then Gutted maf sensor and saw a few more g/s but redyno it made same numbers. Nothing to note there even if it wasnt truly a back to back test on same day. Same dyno tho, a week apart

If you have a map car, you dont get a air flow reading so then what?

On the maf cars i find some milder combos to be "close" to stock tune that it can get by. The car i did above was heads cam stock bottom L98 with upgraded tpi. Stock tune was able to run but it was rich.

My 383 stealth ram motor that made 392 whp heat soaked on 10th pull went 11.47 @ 119 mph all motor also started up and drove ok on stock maf tables. However idle was **** and needed alot of work, and wot was 16-17:1 out the box with 20% added in the pe vs rpm enrichment table to start with as a base

In that setup it maxed out maf at 3800-4000 rpm. It pulled to 6800. That motor needed so much fuel added over stock. No doubt it would have been 50-100 hp gain on dyno if it survived a pull at 16's:1 airfuel on the first bin

For what this guy wants, being map sensor, i would invest in hands on tuning. Logs for sure with wideband. Dyno can be optional if he wants to know the numbers but generally if you tune near 12.8 : 1 air fuel on pump 93, its most likely safe and not gonna show alot of power either way up or down from there

 

I am not deliberately calling you on this statement, so don't throw a tantrum, but I find this hard to believe. The "through the mail chip" would have to have been so off in terms of timing and fueling to be restricting an additional 120 horsepower you would be lucky to even get the engine started, so unless that was a number you just felt like throwing out there to make a point, I would have to disagree. Perhaps TPIS corrected the detent cable being out of whack (if equipped) and added additional timing...

 

If it was like my 383 the part throttle and starting could be close enough to drive fine but wot be so far off it makes no power and can be dangerous for the motor

120 sounds pretty high but i can see it if the base bin is that far off in wot

 

I understand your discrepancies, but it really was that bad. When I first started the motor, beyond the black smoke and rough running, it then settled into a rich condition so bad your eyes would water and you would get a headache if you were in the garage with all the doors open for more than a few minutes. After being told to adjust the IAC a few times, then it was on to adjusting the timing, all the while I'm data logging and sending emails back and forth. When i had finally had enough, thinking this was going to ruin my motor, I took it to TPIS ( 1 1/2 hour away from me) When I got there, Jim started the car and just looked at the data, and said, "we need to start over" He took out the chip and threw it away, because it's not the chip that they use that can be reflashed immediately. I am not kidding on the HP gain. If you seen how poorly my engine run before, you know I'm not B.Sing about it. I kept telling my chip burner, that he needs to reflash the chip, but he kept telling me it was my "bad injectors" or my IAC was not adjusted properly, or i needed more timing. After a while i said enough is enough.

 

I ran into an issue similar to yours at my local Dyno shop. They are supposed dynamic efi dealer, and I bought it from them under the impression try would do the final tune. Boy was I wrong. I got the car running good enough to drive and break in the new engine, but its far from perfect. I've tried numerous times and can't get a callback or email return. I've stopped by in person and they basically said they weren't interested anymore. This is after I bought the EBL from them. It seems if you don't own a new Vette or Viper, they aren't interested. So now I'm searching for someone in the northeast will accept my green money for this particular service. You are not alone

 

Hang in there '98, there plenty of tuners these days as it's a industry onto itself. If you Google tuner schools you will find plenty of them putting out new stundent and trained tuners by the thousands each year. No most won't have much experience with TunerPro or even Tuner Cats but they will know how to optimize the blocks for timing and mixture using the dyno as tool.

You just need to get connected. Try contacting some of those schools for contacts. EFI University is for real and should help you out getting in contact with tuners even though they won't tune your car at their school.

Good luck and let us know what you find out. Good night.

 

Friend of mine had his almost stock 78 TA gain 65 wheel horse power after a dyno tune. Car started at 150 rwhp and ended at 215 rwhp. So there are exceptions to that. Both of us were pretty amazed.

 

I hvae a 94 gt which when I bought it made 150 rwhp 275ftlbs on the dyno. It ran ok but I was curious to see what it made. Had other issues but when the tuner was done with the sct tune it made 315hp and 310ftlbs. So yes it was worth it. Dyno is a tool. If the combo is simaler fine but every car is different. Mail order is close but it isnt anything like a dyno tune.

 

Where you located

 

My previous 350 with the fast chip was running without any detonation but too rich and was burning the spark plugs...I ended up stroking it so I sent the chip back to Ed for a reflash with my new specs but since then the car came accross numerous problems such as the detonations starting at 2000rpm around 80mph, when we set the timing at 10degre it seemed better but was still pinging even with 94 octane with a NOS 104 additive! The compression ratio is at 10.7@1 the timing is now at 6degre the fpr is at 50 and the air/fuel on the wideband is at 13.4 .1

the spark plugs keeps burning and one even splitted!!! the car is hard to start when hot, I must press the gas pedal to the floor and every time I am scared to ruin the starter. I already broke a powermaster high torque starter I am now running an LT1 starter...Even when cold, I must open the throttle body a little in order to help it otherwise it will crank forever. Everything is new optima yellow , ignition, sensors, starter, positive & negative wires and terminals, fuel pump, so it has to be the chip

 

The chip should be setup with a specific base timing in mind. If he tells you the base timing needs to be set to 10, then set to 10 and dont touch it.

Seems odd for that to be detonating/pinging at low rpm loads

 

In order to have an exception you have to have something remotely comparable.

Most of you people here "disproving me" aren't talking about a competent custom road tune vs dyno tune.

Convoluted conversation. Unsubscribed.

 

Upstate NY. About 20-30 minutes north of albany

 

I know he went and unsubscribed, but geez, 2 months data logging and emailing data got me know where. What else could i do? The dyno that TPIS uses, does support driving conditions also, not just WOT.

 

I'm still here, just not much. As far as what you could have done, you go back to step one: Get someone who can tune.

You clearly stated that the email "guy" wasn't tuning your car.
You cannot compare a road tune to a dyno tune as you never received a road tune.

You want to compare a mail-order tune to a dyno tune which I agree will net you huge gains, but usually not nearly as much as you saw.

Had your dyno tuner done a road tune prior to the dyno, you'd see a very minimal power increase from the dyno 99 times out of 100.

Competent road tune vs competent dyno tune will be within a handful of hp more often than not. And the road tune will be better everywhere else beyond WOT.

 

I see what your saying, but where I live there aren't too many third gens let alone someone that can tune. I could have took up the self tuning gig and was even thinking about it. I had been dealing with my tuner guy since 2010 and always had a good re pore with him until I built my motor and got it running this spring. I took a chance and thought he could help me out, but I would never recommend that again. I am lucky in the fact TPIS is only 1 1/2 hr's away. After my tuning session, all I can say is that motor has really woken up now. It use to backfire through the intake and through the exhaust all the time before. I would have welcomed anyone to come here and drive tune it, I even started a new thread back months ago if someone would be willing to look at my data logs for advice, got no one to respond. So with time a wasting, I hauled it to Mn. Here was my thread; https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/diy-...-data-log.html

 

Bring it to pittsburgh

 

I may have to. We bring equipment out there all the time. Not generally enough room left for my car though. Do you have your own shop? Pm me some info. Pricing and such. I may entertain that idea

 

I did have a mail order chip.After the tuning session the tuner told me there numerous cars that come in with issues like this. Chip way off and things people are not touching on, the car having just basic operating issues. Bad ignition, bad o2,faulty maf,wrong ignition timing etc. On a stock car yes a mail order might work. But there are so many variables when you start modding stuff. Hardly anyone tunes these cars anymore so there is a problem right there .

 

Everyone goes carb or lsx anymore

 

Or bigblock...lol

 

Very compareable, he felt he had one of those "killer street tunes" and didn't need a dyno session. I nagged him to dyno the car. Dyno's are tools, I think they are worth using YMMV. In anycase. 25 minutes later his car gained 65 rwhp for the amazing cost of $125 for the time.

Of course it does cost a little bit of $$$ but why cheap out given what's at stake?

 

What afr did they tune to on the street?
What did they use to datalog this 1978 car?
Who gave him the killer street tune?
Who gave him the dyno tune?

 

Back in the heyday, LPE didn't write their own tunes, anyways. A friend with an LPE 406 has found out his calibration wasn't done by them, but rather a guy in Tampa, FL area, who's passed-on (Jim F.).

AZ S&M has Z Industries do their chips. Very few back then wrote their own.

 

I have the same exact issue. 383 TPI motor. stock 1165 ecm with a tune from Scott Hansen. Motor starts up and runs good on idle and under light load but drops off after partial throttle. There is no shops around here willing to try to tune it. Kind of at a loss.

Orr89RocZ you still open to tuning an iroc if it's brought your way?

 

did you contact scott to help fix it?