Tuning a 93 3.4 Firebird

[tkoforpresident]

i haven't forgotten about my car and it's tuning needs but time/money has been short lately. I do plan however to get back into it soon enough. It's not a bad idea (as i'm sure some of you will agree) to take a step back, especially when something car/build related isn't quite going your way and relax and then go back at it for round 2 nice and refreshed.

I'm entertaining the idea that the bird might actually be out of fuel, which would be an easy explanation as to why the car didn't want to run. As some of you may know the gauges on these 4th gens can be extremely off, to the point in fact that a 1/2 tank gauge mark will actually mean you are almost out of gas!

Either way, i plan on adding a few fresh gallons just in case. It can't hurt.

I went ahead and downloaded v5 on my laptop and downloaded your (Robert) a1 .adx

I'll be creating/burning a new .bin with the MINIMUM changes necessary. such as the BPC set for the 19lb injectors (although the first step in tuning will be to change that # with the aformentioned process, so it won't stay that for long), disabling the EGR, IAC VE table, and the CCP (if someone will be kind enough to tell me what in $a1 that table or flag rather that it is named under.

I'm really hopeful this second attempt will prove more productive and i am going to try to be more open minded to failure than before. You must all pardon me for expecting this (or rather hoping) it to be easier than it has turned out to be. (Some of you will laugh at me for calling this difficult and i'm sure you have every right to lol)

For now i'm going to be sticking with the provided 19lb injectors from the 3.8 firebird/camaro but if i still have issues or if a good opportunity provides itself i will be hard pressed not to install the fresh set of injectors our good friend Bob cleaned and provided for me.

That's all i got for now. If someone can answer my question about the CCP disable that would be capital.

thanks!

max

[robertisaar]

i have a slightly more updated XDF and ADX than the one you're running, Max... i'll email it to you, even though i think mark has the newest one on the TP download section.

as for disabling CCP: look for the CCP divider in the constants, look for the enable temp. just max it out and you'll be good.

it took me ~3 good logs and i have a rock solid VE table with them off... if you decide to run EGR, enable that, then CCP, since CCP is not compensated for with any tables/constants, since it really can't be predicted as to how much it will effect the motor. EVAP is really only a major difference in VE when it's fairly warm out and fuel starts to evaporate in the tank, making the fumes necessary for the carbon cannister to actually have any effect.

[cold_surfer]

best easy check for fuel is to crawl under and bang on the tank. if it is really 1/2 tank then it won't sound as hollow. you might even knock loose some junk around the fuel pickup/sock and help yourself out there too.

[tkoforpresident]

thanks for the tuning/fuel tips guys.

and Robert, thank you for the new xdf and adx that your sending me.

May i ask what is updated in the newer versions?

when i get home (i'm at work currently) i'll look for the CCP disabler.

Robert, when you say ~3 logs that really makes me optimistic though i know not every application is the same and whatnot, and i'm sure you had far more thorough logs than i will have by sitting in my freezing car and revving the engine at certain intervals hahha.

A friend of mine offered up the suggestion regarding BPC. He was wondering if the new camshaft's duration and specs would have any change on the BPC that we should consider. Basically, does the radical cam i have installed affect the BPC # at all? I was skeptical but assured him that i would ask the experts.

max

[robertisaar]

what's updated: few more tables and constants related to the TCC and DFCO. may be more, but not sure. the ADX has a delay built into the command repeat, now i don't get random errors, though the logging speed is down to 6 samples per second. i may get it closer to 10 again, but i'll have to play with it to know for sure.

BPC is a comparison of two things: injector flow and cylinder size. when one of them changes, the BPC needs to as well. as you can see, the cam has no effect on it.

[tkoforpresident]

great, thanks!

[tkoforpresident]

good news, my brother just bought a laptop and will be receiving it within a week. Now i don't have to go out of my way to beg a laptop from my buddy.

bout the only good news in the last month lol...

tomorrow i'm going over to change the oil/filter, put some gas in the tank, and maybe charge the battery too. Then once my bro's laptop gets here i'll have to download some stuff on there and get it ready to help me tune.

Robert i have a question for you.

You sent me the newest .adx and .xdf for v5 $a1, but when i saved them to my desktop they came as compressed files (maybe they are supposed to be idk) but when i go to "select .xdf or .adx as the case may be, neither are coming up as an option in v5 so i can't select either of them.

can you help with this?

[robertisaar]

they can't be compressed when you try and open them with tunerpro. it will never see them.

i might have made a few changes to the ADX/XDF since the last version anyway, so i'll just email those uncompressed...

[tkoforpresident]

okedokee

[tkoforpresident]

First update in a while:

-I drained the old gas-laden oil and put in 4.5 fresh quarts of Gastrol GTX and a new K&N Oil Filter. No signs of coolant/milkshake oil (yay).

-I poured 4.5 gallons of fresh 93 octane gasoline into the tank.

- I installed a new o2 sensor into the drivers side header (don't know if thats the sensor being used with my obd-1 computer, but i got a 50/50 chance right? Plus it only took one minute to install.

Observations:

-Battery was dead (as expected) so I disconnected it and took it home to charge.


Up next:

- Install recharged battery.

-Install EEPROM with John's stock 3.4 tune (and minimal changes)

- Start car, let it go into closed loop mode. Set fuel psi til streaming data shows a close to "stoich" level. Then record psi, and rewrite BPC based off of that data.

Question:

-very simple. If the BLM and INT are ABOVE 128 that is a lean condition and if they are BELOW it is rich, right?

[tkoforpresident]

heres a depiction of what my first .bin will be.

It consists of the EGR enable temp set to max, the BPC set to 210, the CCP enable temp set to max, and the Idle VE table being "unchecked" so it will not be used.

[robertisaar]

looks good.

was the new O2 a heated or 1-wire?

[tkoforpresident]

looks good.

was the new O2 a heated or 1-wire?

single wire. It's the one i had already purchased, if you remember.

what about the question of BLM & INT below/above 128?

[robertisaar]

single wire. It's the one i had already purchased, if you remember.

what about the question of BLM & INT below/above 128?

memory and i are two very different things

i didn't see the BLM/INT question the first time around.

as long as the O2 stays active, shoot for 128 BLM/INT. if it's showing LESS than 128BLM, that means it WAS rich and that the O2 is correcting for it. INT is going to show which direction the BLM will move and a good idea of how much as well...

[tkoforpresident]

i can't wait to see what psi it wants to run at!

It's so exciting!