Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

Hello

A few months ago I asked for help to learn to tune. I was given some links to help me learn. I understand the basics of what tuning is now. But I want understand how to tune. What values do you look for and how do you know your car is with in safe limits. Also how do you know what your stock settings are?

I am going to buy a cheap RB 20 and learn how to build it up and tune. I have access to a shop and tools where I can work on things.

Can someone help me or point me in the right direction so I'll know what I am doing?

Yes I have researched , but can't find any info about how to tune maps, what values to look for, etc.

I am having my car tuned professionally so this is not for tuning my main car. It's for learning.

Edited by yoshiii335
Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/455349-how-to-tune-what-to-look-for/
Share on other sites

Like Ben said there are entire forums dedicated for tuning. Plus it's like a job/career, its not an easy task and takes time to master, hence people paying top dollars for professionals to tune their car for them. Otherwise everyone would do it.

You'll have to spend a considerable amount of time researching on what you are doing, what to look for and then you'll have to test it out on a car and having access to a dyno or road tuning . There are a considerable amount of variables involved.

goto: www.learntotune.com purchase their basics and road tuning course plus watch through all the online tuning videos. You will have a pretty good idea of how things works before hands on experiences.

  • Like 1

It is also easier to learn when you have an original base map that is setup right and you make small changes and tweaks etc to get your self comfortable with what setting does what and how the engine behaves.

Just keep in mind any real 'power' tuning needs access to knock ears and a dyno.

It is also easier to learn when you have an original base map that is setup right and you make small changes and tweaks etc to get your self comfortable with what setting does what and how the engine behaves.

Just keep in mind any real 'power' tuning needs access to knock ears and a dyno.

Thank you,

Do you know where I would usually get base maps for? Or does it come with the aftermarket computer for a particular car?

Come with aftermarket ecu.

That said, you are definitely trying to do to much at once.
Engine swap/engine rebuild and tuning with 0 prior experience and what sounds like not much knowledge.

I would be instead of asking these questions, learn taking out an engine on a dummy car, take it apart, put it back together, put it back in the car and see if it works.
Otherwise you risk screwing up a potential project because of a simple mistake, unless you have a friend that knows what there doing that can guide you through the process.

  • Like 1

i found that the more you search and the more you read online puts you backwards, the only way to learn how to tune is to open the laptop and tune!

you dont find how to tune from a book, tuning will find you when you let it.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • In the context of cam 'upgrader' I mean generally people who upgrade headers/cams - not my specific change. I mean it makes sense that if I had a bigger cam, I may get more false lean readings. So if I went smaller, I'd get less false lean readings. To a point where perhaps stock.. I'd have no false lean readings, according to the ECU. But I'm way richer than stock. My bigger than normal cam in the past also was giving false rich leanings. It's rather odd and doesn't add up or pass the pub test. Realistically what I want is the narrowbands to effectively work as closed loop fuel control and keep my AFR around 14.7 on light sections of the map. Which is of course the purpose of narrowband CL fuel control. So if I can change the switch points so the NB's target 14.7 (as read by my WB) then this should be fine. Haven't actually tested to see what the changed switchpoints actually result in - car needs to be in a position it can idle for awhile to do that. I suspect it will be a troublesome 15 min drive home with lots of stalling and way too rich/lean transient nightmare bucking away for that first drive at 2am or whevener it ends up being. Hopefully it's all tune-able. Realistically it should be. This is a very mild cam.
    • Messing with narrowband switchovers is a terrible bandaid. I don't want to think about it. You are a cam "upgrader" only in concept. As you said, your new cam is actually smaller, so it's technically a downgrade. OK, likely a very small downgrade, but nevertheless. But the big thing that will be the most likely suspect is the change of the advance angle. That change could be equivalent to a substantial decrease in cam lobe duration. I haven't gone to the effort of trying to think about what your change would actually cause. But until someone (you, me (unlikely), Matt, someone else) does so and comes to a conclusion about the effect, it remains a possibility that that is the change that is causing what you're seeing.
    • The previous switchover point was 501mv. The stock value is like ~360. They now were idling at about ~880. The thing is, most people get a false lean condition. I am getting false rich conditions. This isn't a quirk of terminology, most cam upgraders get awful fuel economy because the O2's read false lean and add fuel - Mine are attempting to aggressively subtract fuel.
    • So... the whole idea was to upgrade the power of the motor from stock. The motor I bought with the gearbox had 'some' stuff done to it in the past, but it wasn't as well thought out/what I had wanted to do. The stock heads typically are a big restriction on LS's and need porting to unlock quite a lot of power. You can then go a bit silly with aftermarket castings to get more, aftermarket intake manifolds for a little more, and then porting those for more. <- We are here. Nobody in Australia really goes down this path (for some reason). It might* make 3kw or something more than doing things the tried and true path for 10X the cost. So that's probably why - I wouldn't even recommend it to people, the money was and is likely better spent on just CNC'ing the stock heads and putting a 6.3L stroker kit in. I didn't want to go down the 'normal' path and then think: But if I'd just done a bit more - I could have had a slightly better result. I assumed the heads were running out of flow and it always annoyed me - Turns out the previous installer advanced the cam 6 degrees so this is likely why it was coming on earlier and running out of puff earlier than advertised. The body panels were just lack of planning/no information on this anywhere on the internet and the fact they came out different was annoying. From test fitting the guard it appears I could have gotten away with GTR guards only, but I got the bonnet and raisers and everything else as well for a pretty decent package deal.
×
×
  • Create New...