Well, this is becoming an all too familiar routine lately over the past several months. Started out as trying to diagnose some weird readings and why I was missing some PID's in the Jeep's operating system. Once I found out it was an ECM and got that resolved, now I have been "tweaking" and "fine-tuning" in that search for perfection. I have said it before that I am a mechanic and not a tuner, however, my wife informed me that there was a time when I was quite proficient at tuning and people would come to me after others couldn't get their **** running right. I explained that times were different and those were the days of re-curving distributors and dialing in carburetion with wrenches and screwdrivers. She asked what's the difference now? I had to explain that nowadays, all the tuning is done via computer and you don't even pop the hood and that's not what I call being a mechanic. She said "then leave it alone and live with it the way it is".
Now, I don't know if she did that on purpose or what but that lit a fire inside of me. Seeing as how I've been down for the past several weeks I have been doing quite a bit of research and trying to become more "learn-ed" in the ways of tuning these modern engines. Now don't get me wrong, in this short period of time I am in no way, shape or form a proficient tuner. I am not even at terrible tuner status and I have great respect for those tuners out there who can open a laptop, plug in, tap some keys, save the tune and upload it back to the vehicle and send it on its way. THAT is truly an art and I am humbled at my limited knowledge of such things.
That being said, I am grateful to at least have my background of tuning over the past 35 years the old fashioned way because between that and a decent understanding of how the modern engine performance systems operate with the various sensors, actuators and modules I can at least fumble my way through some minor adjustments and be able to see immediate results.
Here I set up my "tuning station" and I am plugged in with the tune downloaded to the laptop, making a few adjustments and taking notes, then writing back to the ECM.
HP Tuners program opened and looking at some spark data. I was getting just a little bit of knock retard on the timing so I backed off a couple degrees of timing at mid-throttle. I then went in to the MAF vs. Frequency table and added about 5% to move my LTFT's a bit. That is the problem with most CAI (Cold Air Intake) systems as they alter the MAF data vs. what the OEM programmed into the tune. Most never know this when they install a CAI on their vehicles but if you look very closely at the fuel trims you will see variations after a CAI installation. Maybe I just look at mine a bit more than I should but I like them to be closer to stoichiometric and I think I am damn near there. I am really not a big fan of CAI systems but in my situation I simply don't have the room for any kind of traditional air box so I am trying to come as close to perfection as possible. I am **** about my air cleaner cleanliness and clean it often as well as when in dusty situations I install an outerwear over the filter for a little extra protection. Most of the vehicles I see that come in with CAI systems installed are very neglected and it is obvious that the filters don't get cleaned regularly. I see fuel trims off quite a bit on MAF systems with dirty filters, not so much on speed density systems however. Maybe that is why Jeep never did a MAF system on the Wranglers and stuck with speed density because they knew the environments they would potentially be operated in and that they would more than likely see off-road miles unlike a passenger car.
After some tweaking of the tune, I followed up with a detail of Final Inspection on the body and some 303 Aerospace on the plastic to brighten things up a bit. For a 11+ year old Jeep that sees a fair amount of off-road miles and 140k on the clock, I think she still looks pretty good.
I also opened up the new Macnaught grease gun that came in last week sometime but haven't had time to check it out. It appears to be a nice quality gun so I loaded it with my Multiplex EP-2 grease and put it on the grease gun rack to try out. I took one of my old Lincoln 1134 grease guns from the rack and gave it to my son so he could have a general use grease gun at his home.
Lastly before closing up the shop I noticed that I hadn't changed the calendars. I chuckled to myself as I flipped from May to June because May was a complete wash and clusterf**k of a month. One I definitely am happy to wipe from my memory.
Thanks for looking and for following along with all my ramblings.
