rollex

Made a new thread to help me learn. http://www.fordxr6turbo.com/forum/topic/91004-diy-tuning/

Hey guys, so I've purchased HP Tuners and am going to give tuning a go. I will be attempting to turn a standard BF XR6T tune into something that will run the following: ID1000, intercooler, dump and ~15psi. I've got an XCAL tune in the car currently that runs this combination fine but I cannot edit the tune with HP tuners so it leaves the only option of doing it again myself as a learning experience. What I plan to do is the following: "return to stock" with XCAL4 Start hacking the stock tune on the weekends Save hacked tune Load stock tune Plug XCAL4 back in and load my custom tune so I can drive to work etc. "Return to stock" with xcal4 go to step 2 until my HP tuners tune is acceptable and I don't need to or want to keep using the XCAL tune.Now in terms of where to start I've found this guide: http://www.hptuners.com/forum/showthread.php?48134-Speed-Density-on-the-BA-BF-Australian-Ford-Turbo-6 and been told to read Paul Yaws injector dynamics write up. Can someone post a link to this article? The next thing to get my head around is how the fueling is calculated. It seems from looking at some offline files and reading the above thread you get your "MAP per airmass high res" to get your commanded AFR to match your actual AFR so you can then tune the base fuel map. My understanding is you update your base fuel map (TPS vs rpm) to give the AFR you want at specific RPM, the ECU will then use this map along with the calculation air mass to work out how much fuel is required. This seems quite different to how other ECUs calculate fueling, eg they will have a single map of load (MAF or calculated MAF via a MAP sensor) vs rpm. Am I totally off the mark? Does the command AFR in the TPS vs RPM base fuel map get used like this? I will keep reading as this seems very different to how other ECUs that I've tuned work and I want to have a solid understanding before attempting any tuning. Is there an equivalent writeup for ignition timing and injector sizing? As these will be the next things I need to read. Another thing as I can't read my SCT tune what should I datalog to get and insight to how it has been tuned currently. Eg can I effectively log all of these parameters to reverse engineer what my current maps might be so I have a good starting factor? What is better for datalogging, SCT livelink or the VCM scanner for HPT?

I'm still curious on your comparison even if I cant use sct.

Have you used the xcal 4 software? Just out of curiosity much better is it, can you rescale maps eg increase the resolution and change axis limits etc? This is why it would be nice to use the sct tune as they might have done this.

Hpt said the osid has been scrambled most likely in an attempt to tuner lock the pcm so they won't be supporting it. Ill see if kpm are interested in unlocking it for me otherwise I guess this will be a good learning experience.

How much of that info can I find out via the scanner if HPT come back to me and say they can't decode my tune? Another question is is how good is the standard knock detection, will I be safe to tune the car without knock ears. Eg if I trend the knock values with the scanner will this be sufficient to see knock and also safe if I leave the standard knock retard enabled? Knock ears would be ultimate but unless I make some backyard ones they are pretty expensive.

Just some history my car has been tuned many times so this may be the issue when I had bought it they had tuned it with HPT to increase boost. Heinrich tuned it with HPT again KPM then started from scratch with XCAL, I think they reflashed my ecu back to stock but they may have only reflashed the maps to stock and still had the PCM not "stock" if you know what I mean. Time will tell when HPT get back to me. Regarding tunign from scratch, would it be possible to start a new tune, spend a few hours getting there then revert to my XCAL to drive to work etc. Then the following weekend go back to my new tune and keep chipping away at it? This would be quite appealing as I could learn to tune but still revert to my current XCAL tune if it became too hard or I had issues. Thoughts? "return to stock" with XCAL Start tuning with HPT Save HPT File Load "return to stock" hpt file Re-marry XCAL and load my tuned XCAL tune drive current xcal tune to work during the week following weekend return to stock again, load my partially tuned HPT file etc rinse and repeat until my tune is driveable ?

Cool makes sense, thanks for the info.

Ok that is good to know. If I got my modded tune working (assuming HPT can figure it out) made changes and flashed it then decided to revert to the original "return to stock" tune, would the SCT be none the wiser and allow me to load my modded SCT tune back again?

Also with the XCAL if I do a "Return to stock" and pull the file via HPT and make no changes I can then reflash my modded SCT without issue yes? What I'm getting at is the "return to stock" is reversible providing I don't do a write with HPT ?

Well that's sh*t if the case.... I'll have to find out. I tried the beta software and when I do a read it has garbled text for the OS type. It successfully does a read of the spanish oak 1024k so will see what they can do with it. Support said they supported reading SCT tunes before I bought the product but now they are going back on their word saying generally they don't support any other tunes.

The latest xcal as of 2 months ago

The tuned file, I'm guessing reading the stock file would be fine as it is a 09/06 model. Either way the SCT shouldn't modify the PCM so much they can't update their definition files to figure it out.

VCM scanner works fine, tried a "Read entire" but I get a "Failed to read ECM definition file" even with the latest VCM suite. Sent the file off to support, hopefully the SCT has just modified some random setting that isn't normally touched so I can get it up and going once they map it. LAME

No problem, I'm about to go pick it up from the depot and grab my laptop from work so will report back. Appreciate the help.

Ok just want to make sure I've got the instructions correct: Plug in HP tuners and upload my current modified tune to a hpt file: Load stock tune with SCT XCAL hand controller (what does unmarried mean?) Plug in HP tuners and upload stock tune to a hpt file Download modified tune via HPT so I can start tuning Is there a document that describes this in more details? What risks are there, can I brick my PCM if I do it wrong? Can I always revert my tune using the XCAL SCT if I want effectively nuking the HPT tune? I searched the HP Tuners forums but could not find any threads at all about this which I found surprising.

Apparently delivered but they didnt leave a calling card, slack.

Ah it seems that site links to the other site for sales. I'll give them a call thanks

So I bought the scanner cable and vcm suite from www.vcmstore.com.au however the item hasn't turned up, no confirmation email and the website is now down. Have I been ripped off? The website made it look like the main australasia reseller??

Yep but in our case there is no good reason to not try it for better economy. An increase in NO compounds for a few random cars won't hurt the environment, when you are talking millions of delivered cars it totally makes sense to not do it though, well you don't have a choice as it won't pass emissions testing.

Other than emissions what was the reason? Lots of other manufacturers implement lean cruise

Running open loop constantly is one way to do it I guess but makes it a bit more difficult to make it run nice in all conditions.

How much of an improvement to economy could I expect by implementing lean cruise via offsetting the voltage? Could you effectively "hack" lean cruise by adding a sensor voltage offset at cruise rpm ?

Yeah I understand what it is. Someone above suggested they are a pain in the ass but you only need 1 sensor then and don't need a second bung in the dump pipe if I use one so I'm questioning why it is a pain in the ass as it seems there are some definite benefits. I'm assuming they have two outputs, the full wideband output and the narrowband low/high output so the PCM gets it's narrowband signal whilst you can simultaneously use the wideband.

What is the reason narrowband simulation is a bad thing? Is it hard to calibrate them to accurately replicate a narrowband? Also if I get a second bung welded in my dump pipe should I be removing the sensor when I'm not using it, eg do they wear out faster than a narrowband?