Back to normal, well kind of. Once again the parts store gave me a 44mm thermostat when I needed a 48mm thermostat. Of course it's bypassing now. What temp do you have warm-up enrichment turning off at Dave?

Good thing I got it down to a 10 minute job without removing the throttle body or intake manifold.

 

im pretty sure its at 160*

go get urself a 160* stat i can lower the warmup enrich if needed , u will want the 160 with the turbo, it keeps everything cooler , along with the trans fluid

 

If I go with a 160 the fan will probably never come on, I think the lowest the fan control goes is right around 180. I had it set to go on at 195-200ish.

I've heard many differing and mixed opinions on going with a thermostat that low. What's the truth?

I know GM wanted these cars to run in the 195-210 range(more or less), but why? I've had a 180° t-stat for awhile now and honestly I feel these engines like to run cooler(to a point) from what I have experienced. I want to know the skinny on t-stats in our 60s.

 

because in some of the stock ecms they wont go in to closed loop @ 160*

with the ms it dont matter u could get that engine to run at 120* if u wanted and it would be just fine

i ran a 160* stat in mine for years when it was stock ecm n/a with high compression and cammed , long before i was a member here back in like 2000( dont think i signed up till like 2003) , never had an issues with it and it ran great

 

That was exactly my though, that it would only be a problem with the stock ecm, and being I don't have it anymore I'll grab a 160.

Hey fast, that would lower the delta-t correct? Which would mean better trans cooling using the stock cooler and the aftermarket cooler I have correct?

Hey Dave, would I go in the settings.ini, or the msq a to drop the temp on the WE?

 

u just go into the WE page and set 160 column to 0 , it will still show WE active in datalogs but any temp colum set to 0 will not add extra fuel for WE

if u want disable it at 150* as well

 

Im going to leave it be for now. I could only find a 180 at napa, advance or autzone. Ill have to get one online.

 

I don't understand why you guys want to run your engines so cold. The oil needs to be up to a proper operating temp to provide adequate lubrication, as well as the metals up to temp to run within physical tolerances.

 

Because I would assume cooler is better, to a point. I wouldn't go as far as to say 140 or even 150 is better. But is the motor oil at the same temp as the coolant depending on the thermostat? Warm always travels to cold, cold NEVER travels to warm. If it did, then that would be a violation of the laws of thermodynamics. I can't remember if it's thermodynamics, but I'm sure it is.

Which means that the oil temperature, and metal temperature will always be hotter than coolant temperature, otherwise the "cooling" system wouldn't work as designed. If the stock ecm runs closed loop at a coolant temp of 160°, then I would assume that anything lower than 160°, would be "detrimental" (not quite the term I was looking for but I'm sure it gives you an idea).

I don't know it all, but that's how it all works in my head. Your thoughts may be different than mine but that's fine.

I have had a 180 in my car for over 2 years, and its run better with the 180 then it ever did with a 195.

I'm pretty sure(but not 100%), that if your coolant temp is 160°, your oil temp isn't 160, your trans temp isn't 160, and your metal temp isn't 160 either.

 

160* is well warm enough for proper lubrication , i wouldnt run much colder then that though

gm ran the engines hot mostly for emissions purposes, i specifically like the colder temps for forced induction engines

 

After grounding the shield at the dizzy I no longer get cutouts in 1st or 2nd, at any rpm or throttle position. But now I get the cutouts in 3rd at higher rpms. I completely forgot to grab the laptop and take a datalog, after I eat some dinner I'll take her back out and grab one.

The cutouts happened in any gear before, but primarily first or second. When I get that datalog I'll see if it still resets.

 

ok that means ur picking up noise somewere in the system , does the shielded wire run past any spark plug wires by any chance, speaking of which what kind of wires do u have on the car

 

Cheapy wires. Yea, um.. The shielding runs to the bolt on the dizzy, so it's right by all the wires and there's no way around that unless I run it to a different ground.

The actual shield itself doesn't, it's got a crimp connector to a ground wire I reused out of the old harness. But that ground wire runs right behind the dizzy, by all the wires and there's no way to avoid that without running it to a different ground.

 

the shielding can run anywere , its the wire inside the shielding that u dont want the spark plug wires near,

cheap wires have bad rf supression and can cause interference , try to keep the spark plug wires as far away from the inner wire as possible

 

So your talking about the white wire that's connected to the dizzy? How would I shield that and the rest of the wire it's connected to?

 

the shielding wire goes around that wire , ever strip a coax cable for ur tv ? its basically the same type of thing

 

I know that, the shield is around the black and white wire, black is unused and the white goes to the dizzy wire. Then the shield is connected to ground at the dizzy. But the shield doesn't cover the white wire all the way to the dizzy cause I reused wire on the dizzy connector.

 

how much lenght wise isnt shielded ? u can alwas wrap that section with aluminum foil lol

 

I guess I'm asking what I can use to shield the rest of the wire to the dizzy.

What about some hvac foil tape? I think about a foot or so.

 

i know tin foil will help , so the havac stuff should work to , u just have to make sure it touches the shielding and then ground it at the end nearest the dizzy

 

I'll work on it tomorrow, it's cold enough out that the loom is cracking anytime I try to do anything with it. What would be the best way to connect the tape to the shield? If I try a butt connector it'll just rip the tape..

Guess I can always tape an open end of the shield to the foil tape, then do the same to the wire running to the dizzy screw..

 

I shielded the whole wire all the way to the dizzy connector. Checked continuity to make sure all was interconnected through both shielding all the way to where its grounded at the dizzy.

Still cutting out, once in first, then a whole lot in 3rd. Only 2 resets though.
Its gotta be the plug wires I guess, Cant think of anything else. Unless somehow all the wires I didn't use are picking something up, I didn't do anything with them except coil them up and tuck them to the side by the HVAC blower.

Anyway, Heres another datalog, I did notice it go a tad rich a couple times when it cut out, which leads me to believe its spark.

It wont do it no matter how high I rev it in park or neutral, so its gotta be doing it only when its under load, would that be old/crappy plug wires or maybe even the plugs? I zip tied the plug wires that were close to the harness, up to the top of the intake manifold to get them out of the way.

It almost seemed to cut out more than before in 3rd. I currently have hotter than stock plugs in the car, My dad also mentioned that sometimes when I start the car, it causes noise on the tv in the house, we have one of those free amplified antennas for tv.

 

ill take a look at it in a lil bit

 

Im reading up on the MS forums, seems weak spark causes alot of noise, which could point to coil, wires, ICM or plugs?

 

unplug the bypass wire and see if it goes away , if it does that means dwell settings need to be tweaked

 

ok, ill check that and get back to you on it

 

You called it. It didn't cut out a single time with the bypass disconnected. And here I was chasing a ghost that didn't exist, lol.

 

ok im about to take the wife to work , soon as i get back ill make some changes .

btw have u made any changes tot he tune if so u need to upload it so i can edit that one

 

I haven't touched anything so far. Its been running well aside from the cutouts. I know its not a final NA tune, and I'm still reading alot of information in the MSExtra manual over and over to make sure it sticks. Also created an account on the MS forums, and read over some posts on there to pick up what I can from other peoples experiences.

Don't think I am quite comfortable with making changes yet, though I know I should probably mess with a NA tune first so I dont screw up a turbo tune.

 

try this

i didnt change anything except dwell settings

 

I think you modified the wrong file, Its super lean again. Maxed the AFR and stalled.
the original was willev2.msq

if this means anything, off the ms forums

There was an error in the manual. Dwell control MUST be used with HEI7/8.
Do NOT use fixed dwell like the manual stated.

James
http://www.msextra.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=27027

Im assuming this is the problem, because you set it to fixed.
I already reverted to the last tune. I'm currently reading up on dwell settings.

 

i may have i stopped at my job and used the computer there so may have had an old file , i was using dwell control thats odd .

do me a favor and upload the tune ur currently using

 

I think you arent supposed to use minimal for hei4 on a hei8. When I looked in the dwell settings it was set to HEI4
Here is the quote from MS forums
"Where was that?

That setting must NOT be used with HEI7/8.

James"

Heres the tune I reverted to.

 

What should I set the dwell settings to? Should I drop the run field down some?

Heres what its set to
cranking 4.0
running 2.5
minimum discharge 0.1

Would I set the running discharge down a little, maybe try 2.3?

Oh and I get the jist of tuning VE on the fly, What do I need to know when messing with the spark table? Like more spark or less for a given circumstance?

 

try turning the running down just a tad and see if it clears up if it gets worse go the other way

spark tunning is pretty complicated ill let u get a handle on the rest first

i had dwell control enabled i dont know how it ended up on hei4 on that one i uploaded


let me dig out my laptop and see if i have the tune file for my iroc i had to play with dwell on mine i can give u those settings since the v8 and v6 use the same coil and icm

 

I was reading on the dwell and saw that if its too high, it will reduce the power of the spark if the coil gets hot, so I will give that a try. Should I go in increments of .1 or .2 or just see what works?

Oh and while I am thinking about it, how lean can I go for fuel efficiency? Im drinking alot of gas doing all the datalogging.

 

u shoudl be able to do cruise at 17.0 with the right amount of spark timing

do .2 at a time till u narrow down a range thats good then switch to .1


at high vacum cruising u should be in the 35* sprak range or higher

 

I know you said something about having a boost safe timing map, however you have spark set 32 max at 30kpa 4000rpm and up

 

OK, setting the running to 3.1 seems to do it. I "think" it may have done it once, but it very well may not have done it at all.

Before it did it repeatedly in succession, now, not at all.

I just had to, my car did its first donut tonight ;P I dont think I have ever heard my tires squeal before, I have pretty grippy tires

 

thats safe , 30kpa is around 24 inches of vacum , only time u will hit that part of the map is if u had a manual and u downshifted with ur foot off the throttle

boost is 101 kpa and up

be careful with the dwell i think max setting is 3.2 or 3.6 for running any higher and u can burn up the coil

 

If u have 0 kpa then u will have roughly 29.93 inches of hg.

Depending on the current barometer where u live boost could be higher then 95kpa or 101 kpa. Just matters on weather and elevation. When the blizzard of 78 hit my area boost would have been above 88kpa because the barometer/atmospheric pressure was so low.

Later when you boost the car 1 kpa is equal to 0.145 psi

 

i miss living at sealevel lol , on average im right around 84kpa on a normal day

btw 100kpa on ms is 0 vacum

99-0 kpa ='s vac
100-255 = boost with the 2.5 bar map good till 21 psi , they also make a map sensor good till 44 psi

 

Opps i corrected my post. I just woke up. I never should post things till i have at least 2 cups of coffee in me....lmao

I live quite close to sea level. About 700 ft altitude. The corrected alt is still good on most summer days as long as its not 1000 degrees and humid out..lol

Whats the altitude where you live in nevada? Isnt that where you still live dave

 

34blazer is in nevada , im in utah , my town is 6500 ft above sea level

 

Wow that is some high altitude

 

yeah it is took alot of getting used to when i moved here im basically on the edge of the desert in the mountians , when i first got here i couldnt run a block without being out of breath.

at this altitude cars loose about 25% of there rated power lol imagine trying to drive a bone stock v6 thirdgen up here , and the speedlimit on the highway is 80
if u dont do atleast 70 u will get run over by a semi or another car

 

What? My (Nissan) 2.8L idles at 29 to 30 Kpa, and my old turbo hybrid 3.2L in Jimmy with a GMPP equivalent of the Crane 260-2 idled around the same, maybe just slightly higher. I can't imagine the iron head 2.8L being much different.

 

its not my v6 pulls 22-24 inches at idle , i was refering to him asking about the 32* - 4k rpms at 30 kpa in the spark map

u will never hit that part of the map unless u downshift and have the throttle closed

 

That makes me think that my coil may be going out, it is original afaik. Weak spark would cause the same miss. It almost felt like when I turned the dwell down, it moved the misfire to a lower rpm/gear, cause when it was on 3.0 it didn't do it until 4th, but when I started going lower than 2.5, it put the miss back down into second. In between 2.7 to 2.9 moved it around in 3rd.

I'm almost positive that that's not how it works, but that's exactly what happened.

 

Oh and while driving and tuning the VE on the fly, can I shoot for a 15 afr under acceleration NA? And how do you have the AE set currently?

I was reading up on both and its pretty tricky, I mean tuning VE is a little easier, at least in my head, lol

Thank god I only live 86ft above sea level, lol