Tuner Ordered

I went with SCT! I couldn't find any bad reviews and seems like more dyno shops prefer their product over all others.

Good Pick.

from what i hear i think youll be pleased!

What the heck where you thinking? J/K good choice

nice! congrats

Thanks guys. It's supposed to be delivered tomorrow. I talked with a rep from SCT yesterday who said that I would need a custom tune because my plenum has been upgraded. I can't afford to pay a dyno shop $200 to write a tune right now. Do any of you guys have any experience with these and know how to put options into the tune yourself? Here is what I want to do:

93 Octane
70mm TB and Plenum
Rear o2's off
Lean out fuel/air mixture as I'm turning my exhaust black

Any idea's?

It is all self explanatory when you plug it in. Don't worry you can't mess up your car with a tuner in the loaded options.

BraMas wrote:It is all self explanatory when you plug it in. Don't worry you can't mess up your car with a tuner in the loaded options.

That's what I was hoping. Thanks!
....me after tomorrow!

I wouldnt tune anything without a wideband but those are around 250 so there goes your budget :p I do think the handheld allows you to adjust minor fuel and timing.. ill plug mine in today and check. (never had to check before because i am using there PRP tuning software)

The handhelds will allow you to do a bunch of minor changes. You don't need a Dyno shop to put a tune in. You just might not realize all your potential with the mods you got with a basic mail order tuner. Just do some research and take it to the track with you to fine tune the things you want.

Very true you do need a shop to run the car and see exactly how it responds, the shop can make a tune that is smooth at all RPMs and works better than the mail order one. At least that is what the tune shop told me. In fact I think you will get a better tune at the shop.

Probably so but I have to work with what I have for now. I installed the preloaded tune this afternoon and turned off the rear o2's. The car does seem a bit stronger but the throttle is hanging up. When I let off of the gas it stays at about 1500 rpm and will eventually settle down to normal but it's definitely got the rpm lag now. Any ideas how to correct that in the tune? Also what fuel/air ratio should I be running? My car is turning the tailpipes black now but I don't know enough about the technical side to know what adjustments I need to make and which direction to make them. Help!!!!

most sites like lethalperformance.com or vmptuning.com will give you a base tune that is pretty close if you have minor mods (stock motor/no forced induction). who did you buy the handheld from and did they give you a base tune?? (did they ask for your mod list?)

This is why I had a shop do mine. Sounds like it is running rich.

I bought it on ebay from discountperformance. No they didn't ask for a mod list. Even after returning the car back to stock it's still doing it. It's very aggrevating.

Frank you say it's running rich? That will make the throttle hang the way it's doing?

I changed the MAF setting from stock to 90mm and that seems to have helped a little just sitting in the parking lot here at work. Apparently, from what I'm reading, the lag is due to too much air going into the motor so I changed the setting on that. Will changing the air/fuel ratio also help? What else can I try gang?

A/F will not make the rpm's hang usually it has to do with a vacuum issue (cracked vacuum line, or maybe the newer plenum is creating too much vacuum when the throttle body is closed)... granted i am no tuner so take all this with a grain of salt :p but im still learning too.

1) pull your battery connections for 15min, press the brake pedal several times after 15 min. reinstall battery cable.

start the car and check to see if the issue goes away.

2) possible bad IAC, you can unplug the IAC while the car is running and see if the idle/ slow rpm goes away (if it does then replace the IAC)

3) get some MAF/ electrical cleaner and spray you MAF over the weekend. and also clean the trottle body really well. I would clean the MAF towards the night and make sure you leave it out to dry for at least 12 hours before putting it back into the car to test.

I will do that this evening when I get home from UPS. Also going to do some data logging tomorrow and send the numbers to a friend of mine who will be able to tell what's wrong from there. A lot of things point to the IAC but whatever it is changed immediately upon installing the tune. It probably needs to be cleaned anyway so that's what I'll do this evening. Thanks David.

Not sure about the idle staying high (throttle hanging), mine stays high when its cold longer, when it warms up that goes away. The black exhaust pipes tells me its running rich because they should not be black. The black is fuel that is not burned fully. You have to keep in mind I had the supercharger added the same time, so I have issues with it in the cold when I start it up because there is more air being pushed in but when the car warms up it operates the same as it did before. I think you need a tune shop to help you out. They can program the car to run correctly and smoother than you have it now. When I brought the car to that shop I originally was going to use the Vortech chip that Vortech programs for you but the shop talk me out of that because they said they could program it better and take out any of the rough parts in the RPM band. They gave me the dyno data to show me it runs up the RPM scale and H.P. range very smooth with no banging around on the motor. Richard this is something you should let a pro handle trust me okay, your car is worth to much to have tune issue and motor problems plus you need to be happy with how it runs. I have no idea why it did not return to the stock tune.
By the way you mentioned changing to 90mm I think that is way to high for a stock motor, I would not set that any higher than 70mm. The other advice you have here seems okay but I think if you program it and an issue comes up it has to do with the program. Just a thought. Change it back exactly to were it was. I think the Roush is only different in the exhaust area from a stock GT so you should be the same. For sure 90mm is way to much for the motor. But read what the manual says and if you can not get it running right try a shop.

Hey Richard, after thinking about what you said about changing to 90mm that would add more air flow maybe, if it was running rich this might have helped. Did the exhaust color change on the tips? Also, give use an update, what have you done with it? Just good to know what you find out in case I ever have to work with the tuning unit. To be honest I had the shop do that and never have had to use it myself. So how is it going?

Well I don't know what I did but my car seems to be back to normal. Not going to mess with the tuner anymore until I can find someone to write a custom tune for me. I used Davids method of disconnecting the battery for a while and pressing the brake pedal several times. Seems to have things back to normal now. My computer would not allow me to data log the car so I will wait until I can get things done correctly. Thanks for everyone's help.

Ya I think when the battery is disconnected the computer PCU or chip or what ever recalibrates the air and fuel mixture depending on the air temp and other readings. It also takes a few miles of driving for the computer to figure things out. I know when I disconnected my computer it did not pass the pollution test the next day because the test looks at the past days driving recordings so you need about 50 miles of driving to have that done. I had to go and drive for a few hours and then I came back and it passed! That is a California SMOG Pollution test, not sure if everyone in the club has to do that.

You are smart to let a tune shop do this because you really have no way to see how the car is reacting with out the dyno equipment.

Yeah I'm getting a tune written now by a guy that owns a dyno shop and is SCT Certified. Will install tune later this week and post updates.

Ok I finally got this d*mn thing worked out. Apparently the device had to be reformatted because of it's age. So after an hour on the phone last night with my tuner, Willie Lynch who by the way is a tuning genious, we could not get the custom tune to load. I called SCT this morning and found out that I would need to reformat the device before it would accept any information. This took several tries and finally success! Then I had to load the tune revision from their website followed by the custom tune. I have installed the tune that was written for my car but have not had a chance to drive it yet. I will keep you guys posted on the progress from here. If you need a tune let me know and I will get you in touch with Willie, he is in VA and will have a tune for you in about an hour and he's is super nice to talk with. He definitely knows what he's talking about.

Its not like the old days, I remember when I was working with my two 650 Holleys on the Shelby I could spend hours tuning them to run just perfect but everything was just turning screws back then and listening to the motor and how it ran, you just got a bigger fuel pump, rebuilt the carbs and changed plug wires, distributor, coils, sparkplugs and that sort of thing, you could do the tune up all yourself and it was fun. Now these guys run around with a laptop tuning cars and you have to really know what you are doing. In the days of the old muscle cars you really did not need a tune shop (there was nothing like that). My father actually purchased a Boss 302 block and built his own motor when I was a kid in the living room, really pissed my Mom off but it was a wonderful time. I really miss the old days.
I have to have a pollution test ASAP myself so I will see how this thing goes, it past 2 years ago with no problems.

WHO WAS THAT DISCOUNT PARTS COMPANY YOU GOT IT FROM????