Ryan02SS

iTrader: (3)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bryan Wilkinson
yes.

Your stock computer is more than capable of making some adjustments on its own based on what the O2's are reading.

you can have a gaind from Lid, Headers, exhaust, Throttle Body, by just installing the equipment. You do not need to make any adjustments to the computer as of yet. You would be better off going back to the dealer, and having them reflash the computer.

remember, tuneres are in the market to make money. I have only seen one tuner on this list that flat out offered to help anybody who asked. Every single one of the others does not want to share. The whole point of having a forum is to share information. Right?, Mike just wanted your money and for him to tell you that you needed the tune goes to show just how much he doesn't know about the LS1, and its ECM.

By replacing the lid, headers and exhaust all you are doing is helping the engine breathe a little better. I would expect based on my experience 25 on the low side and 40 on the extreme high side. What you have done is removed the restriction that was installed from the factory. You have not added any fuel nor have you added any air at this point. The amount you are adding from the lid, is not worth 5RWHP. There was an artilce in GMHighTech where they tested all of the lids. Proving all of this.

You do not need to mess with the computer unless you are adding fuel or gobs of air from a turbo or blower making more than 5lbs of boost.

Hope this helps.
Bryan

In reality a stock LS1 can benefit from a LS1 Edit tune. Seen a bone stock 99Z gain 9rwhp @ 7rwtq over what it had at the start of the day. Anytime you change something on the LS1 a tune can help you attain more power. My last LS1 Edit tune netted me 26rwhp over what I had at the start of the dyno session but since I'm not running a blower or boost I really didn't need it and my PCM would eventually figure itself out. LOL Now it seems that Camaro SS 2002 could benefit from richening up the AF ratio to 12.6-12.9 to helps some as it is a tad lean but it is summertime and if it's really hot when dynoing the numbers will be a tad lower than a comparable fall or wintertime dyno.

Bryan Wilkinson

iTrader: (1)

Is it the worst information that you have ever seen or is it, just that you have read so much misinformation that you are deluded at this point or maybe you just didnt understand what you read. If you think that the stock ECM on the 2002 cars is not capable of dealing with the small mods like lid, headers and exhaust the you don't understand anything about the way the operating system or the database in the ECM works at all. The ECM will notice the changes and make calibrations to correct for the changes up to a point. He has not gotten to the point where tuning interventions is required and there was ABSOLUTELY NO REASON TO SPEND ANY MONEY GETTING IT RETUNED BASED ON THE MODS HE PURCHASED. DA

Now that we are beyond that, SURE, you could take your stock ECM without any modifications and make it faster. DUH!, Sure he could have it retuned after those mods, but it is not necessary. If you like taking your car to the absolute unreliable MAX. SURE you can. If you like losing reliablibtiy HAVE AT IT. If you want to kill the life of your car. HAVE AT IT.

Not everyone is like you. Not everyone wants to max out their system. Most of those that max out their system are the ones that cannot afford to do it right the first time. So they take all the shortcuts that they can to squeeze all the power they can out of the system. All of these changes that you are making that give you the 10hp you think is so great kills the reliablity of the car, engines that shines twice as strong shines half as long. Maybe he just wanted a little more power. Maybe he wanted ot make his mods and still get reasonible gas milage. DID YOU EVER GIVE ANY OF THAT ANY CONSIDERATION BEFORE YOU FLEW OFF AT THE KEYBOARD.

Why not setup the car, have all the power and still have the car emissions friendly ans still get good gas milage. Keep the cats, be able to have the car inspected, still take it to the track and wax your friends. Sure you can remove the cats, put on o2 simulators, hell why not just remove the mufflers all together and make your car as annoying as you possible can just like those kids with the 18" subs in the back of their car playing it as loud as they can for people to hear 10 cars back at a stop light.

Learn to read and understand what you read. If you have never worked with the Operting Sytem in the GM ECM, hell, if you have never even seen the OS in the ECM, then pehaps you should check it out, if you knew how, before typing stupid comments like the one you made. DA.

I hope this clears up any misguided information that you may have passed along in the past. Understand what you change before passing along advice.
No hard feelings.

Slowhawk

iTrader: (12)

I have no hard feelings.You said tuning is a wate of $$ which it absolutely is not..Yes the factory computer can adjust for headers,lids ect.Does it maximize it?NO. Do you really think tuning wrecks gas mileage and brings the car to unrealiability?Absolutely not!(Well,some people do tune to unreliability,but most proffesional tuners do not) The GM OBD2 is a very good self learning computer.It is so good that you can run all year with 87 octain gas.There is alot that can be done in the computer to make the car run more efficient,get better gas mileage and as a benifit makes the car faster.You of all people should know this by looking at your sig.Out of the last 80 cars I've tuned,not 1 said they would rather have a stock tune in the car.Most of them said it was the best $$ they spent so far.So instead of saying tuning is a waste(even though it looks like it helped you).Why don't you explain that just maybe some tuners have no idea of what they are doing

Bryan Wilkinson

iTrader: (1)

Ok I'll calm down.
There are tuners that do not know what they are doing. But I also have to realize that most people that YOU tune for came to see you because of the promise of something better than what they had. They read all of the hype on these forums and think that there is a magical forumla in tuning. When you are tuning for people, you are not tuning for better fuel economy and reliability though you make think you are, no offense, you are tuning to squeeze every little bit that you can out of the computer short of ping, knock, and detonation. Be honest........Why else would you be professing to be a tuner. "You can get more power out of a customers car than anyone else", its a pride thing and it is ok. "Every tuner does it"

The point is, the people that came to see you did not care about the reliablity of their car, even though they may say it, if they had, they would have spent the money to get the power the right way. Then they would have come to see you. 99% of all of the people with 98 - 02 can just go get a set of heads, cam, exhaust, and headers and walk away with a safe 100hp at the tires. You could make it 150-175, but the car becomes unreliable and rough sounding. I am of the belief that you should over engineer everything you do, including your tuning. aka tune on the safe side. This way you build a reputation as knowing what you are doing. That is why I am saying that the tune for the guy who started this thread did not need tuning. He had not performed enough mods to justify it or the money. Tuning is not a waste of money if you have performed enough modifications to your car that require it.

One last thing, You are not getting better gas milage by the tunes that YOU are giving. You are maxing out the computer. In contrast, you would be really suprised, if you know what you are doing, how much power you can get out of the stock computer without any mods. Not trying to ditch on your business. I paid to have my car tuned because I do not have a Dyno, and I cannot go running around on the street tuning this car for obvious reasons. Street tuning yes, WOT tuning, there is just not enough street. I will be doing finite tuning on the vehicle when EFILive releases their software.

In conclusion, you asked, "Do I think that maxiable tuning causes loss in gas milage and reliability?"Absolutely Yes without question.

The tune on my car, is extremely mild. Crazy mild. This setup is capable of at least 850-875RW. But guess what...., at 70mph the car idles at 1700RPM and with cats, 02, full exhaust, and everything else on the car, I can drive this car down any street just like I could when the car was stock, not break the tires loose and get incredible gas milage and pass NC state inspection. I can sit in traffic all day no problem. Now I am going to go out on a limb and say, if you had tuned this car, that would not be the case, with your tune, the car would be making 850-875RWHP, and I would be replacing rings next year, and you would be blaming the cats and exhaust for it not making more. The cats are costing me probably 20hp. With 771, Big deal. This is more HP than most people can manage, including myself. I have yet to have the car in 3rd or 4th gear full throttle. I run out of road and speedometer, no slippage if you roll your foot into it.

It is not personal, I am just trying to help the people that need help. The ones that have not yet had the ability to do what I did, and don't have the experience I have gained from it. I am not trying to be a know it all by any means. I am helping to disprove the myths surrounding things like, Bigger MAF's and magical tuning. If you are going to spend $31,000 on a new car, and want it to make more power. There is nothing wrong with that, but do it smart.

You and I have got to stop this, the typing is killing me. When I get EFILive tuning software, I would be more than happy to let you take a look at it, and I can even email you today the EFILive street recording that I took in stop and go traffic which is about 20 minutes for you to review if you would like. That is available to anyone who would like to see it.

Have a great day

Caveman

iTrader: (2)

Back to what this thread was about Camaro SS 2002`s car. Your car is close to my 02 Formula which dynoed 339rwhp + 359 rwtq with about the same mods. I`ve seen alot of other bolt on 02`s w/ 340ish rwhp, your tq is a little low but every car is different.

Camaro SS 2002

PM'ed you.

Slowhawk

iTrader: (12)

Bryan Wilkinson - Before you go out saying what I am you should read my 4000+ posts.You are completely ignorant of what's being said.Do you really think I tune to the egde?NEVER! No need to.I want the cars to last.Screw dyno #'s.Your car is not that special that it would make you the pro at tuning or the benifits from it.You think I don't tune Turbo's?Blowers?Nitrous?Don't write like I'm a punk *** kid.

I can prove tunes give better gas mileage on a 100% stock car or even a full bolt on car.What can you prove since you Do Not have a dyno or a big customer base to get all you facts from?

Anyone can say tuning is a ripoff.So is Hypertech's,Predators ect but people buy alot of them.You'll never hear someone that had there car tuned right(safe) say tuning is a waste of $$.

Slowhawk

iTrader: (12)

Camaro SS 2002

Sorry for jumping on your post like this.Hope you get your car where you want it

Bryan Wilkinson

iTrader: (1)

Just because you have made 4000+ posts and tuned all the cars you have tuned does not make you an expert either now does it. You started it with your smart *** comments, if you cant take a little rebuttle, dont dish it out. I didnt tune my car nor did I claim to have tuned my car, nor did I claim to be an expert at tuning cars. What I said was I understood how the operating system of the ECM functions and how it interacts with the database, big difference. I also understand how all of the sensors interact with the computer and the drivers that the ECM uses to control them. Again it is all about reading and understanding what you have read. Thanks for helping me prove that fact.

92SilverSHO

iTrader: (3)

some cars dont need a tune after headers and some do. i know cause i have bad luck that i would probably need a tune after headers, cause if i didnt have bad luck, i wouldnt have any luck at all!!!!! But a good tune does make the driveability better on a full bolt on car.

Bryan Wilkinson

iTrader: (1)

Very well said, I'll agree to that.

P Mack

iTrader: (6)

The pcm should be able to adjust because the ltrims are applied to wide open throttle. However if your ltrims are negative and you are running rich at wide open throttle, the pcm will not adjust because it errs on the side of safety rather than power. Another thing is the fuel trim cells are very coarse. There's only 16 fuel trim cells to cover all combinations of manifold pressure and rpm, and in some cases the boundaries are messed up so there's only 8 cells being used.

Mods which don't change the volumetric effieciency of the engine like a lid don't need tuning. I guess technically the engine has better volumetric efficiency with a lid, but it doesn't matter because the ve tables are referenced from the pressure in the intake manifold. The exception is a maf will need tuning if it's not calibrated.

Cliff notes: Even though the pcm should compensate for mods through fuel trims, it often can't cause the fuel trim cell boundaries are much coarser than the volumetric efficiency boundaries.

glennster

iTrader: (1)

I never thought I'd see a guy with a 700rwhp car talk about gas mileage and engine longevity.

Bryan Wilkinson

iTrader: (1)

That was my thought, not enough air coming in to cause a change, and the exhaust side should not require any computer tuning.

Bryan Wilkinson

iTrader: (1)

It wasnt the original reason for the thread, however, I am a extremist and a perfectionist. For the very same reason that I built my $100,000 Fiero with sound system back in 99. All of the things in that fiero I did because I was told by many that it could not be done.

www.perigee.net/~lunapark "you can see it there"

Well after doing all of the research, the main thing was told, by many including tuners was that I could not have a 700RWHP car that was

a. streetable,
b. would pass NC inspection,
c. get reasonable gas milage.
d. Be able to keep my CATs and real o2 sensors.

The reliablity thing was taken care of by over engineering the engine. Over built it, and reliability comes into place automatically. I will cross the 800RWHP mark and continue to get at least 26mpg with 72# injectors. Now that I have proven the skeptics wrong, I am going to see how far I can reliably take it. One last thing, I am no where near as cocky as my typing would make you think. I am very humble, I just want to do what most will not do and that is share everything that I have learned and share my complete parts list so that other people don't have to go through the pain of figuring it out. I can be provoked as you can tell from the post in this thread by people giving misleading information. My car is living proof of a lot of different misleading info that has come and gone on this forum. This car is 100% streetable in every since of the imagination. No cutouts, no nitrous, CATS, Full Exhaust, can drive in sit and go traffic, stock MAF, Stock Throttle Body, Stock computer, Stock LS6 intake. This is what I classify as a truly stock ride.

Hope that helps
Bryan

Camaro SS 2002

Ok guys, I emailed my tuner with some questions. Just thought you all might like to see what he said. This is the second time I had my car tuned by him. My computer had to be be re programmed by the dealer for warranty issuses before my second tune.

Here is my email to him:
Will you please read this thread I started on LS1tech.com. I was NOT intending to bash you in any way, I actually complemented you, I need to make this clear. I just wanted to see what people had to say. After reading the thread, can you explain to me why I did not waste my money, lose reliability, im still running lean, etc. Im not asking you to post in the thread, obviously you can if you want to. Shoot me an email, I REALLY would appreciate this.

Thanks,
Mark

His response:
Mark,
Unfortunately, this is one of the(my) biggest problems of forums. Everyone acts like experts and you have no real way of knowing what is right and wrong. You also don't know what agendas people have on the forums. With that said here are a few points about your car what we did and its value.

1. It is true that tuning becomes more important with the more mods you do. It is also true that I tune a lot of stock or near stock cars that pick up 5-10 HP on a regular basis. Is that gain worth the tuning cost? Well thats up to each person. I personally would always want my car tuned for the mods. I'm sure others wouldn't. But at the end of the day, the tuned car will always be the better performer vs the same car untuned.
2. After your TB and headers your car ran about 1/2 point leaner than it did before. This was the first dyno pull we did that day, when I reloaded your previous fuel and timing tables.
3. You aren't running lean. Your a/f on the topend is 12.9-13.0 At the torque peak you can run a bit leaner because the engine is at its peak efficiency. I don't agree with 12.5-12.9 being the best A/F ratio on a naturally aspirated car. LS1's are very efficient motors. On less efficient designed engines richer mixtures were needed to help cool the combustion temperatures becuase of bad or old design.
4. Your max timing on the topend is about 20 degrees right now. We had to pull 3-4 degrees of timing out of the car from the previous dyno session to keep it from pinging. Like I told you this can affect the power.
5. I can't see how the car is less reliable now. The car was too lean and had too much timing after you made the changes.

Alot of the power of these cars is directly related to the timing. I'm sure there are plenty of guys running 26-28 degrees of timing in other states. Our 91 octane fueled cars can't be compared to other cars that have 93 octane.

Hope that helps a bit,

92SilverSHO

iTrader: (3)

i know for me, when i get headers, AS long as the car isnt acting up, missfiring or backfiring or whatever, im not gonna get a tune until i get a cam, then ill go for a tune.

mooleyz28

numbers look fine to me... but im a newbie too.

Third Gear

iTrader: (3)

What an interesting thread this has been. I applaud everyone for giving educated responses Bryan, Slowhawk, P Mack, etc.

Camaro SS If he's right about your A/F ratio being around 13:1 then you don't have anything to worry about. That's just about perfect. Give or take a few tenths and that's where you should be. That graph gave the impression that you were running half a point leaner or more. The scary thing is I've seen people dyno low to mid 14:1 A/F ratios Luckily the dyno operator shuts it down early.

Your numbers really aren't that bad. I've just always been under the impression that a good set of LTs alone should net you around 15 RWHP. Also keep in mind different mods affect different mods. Such as part X might net you 10 RWHP on a bone stock engine, and part y might net you 15 RWHP on a stock engine, but combined they might only net 20 RWHP... But like everyone has said each car is different. Some cars are just flat out wicked from the factory and respond very well to mods, others may just be around or below the average. A lot of this has to do with production tolerances and build quality and other variables.

Maybe that's why I saw a bone stock 2001 Z06 dyno 342 RWHP (~407 crank). When it "should" have been less.... (I bet they under rated the '01s like everything else)

I'd also have to agree about the gas. 93 octane is nicer to have for max performance. Although there are a few union 76 stations around here that still sell the 100 octane "race" fuel for $5.00 a gal. So if you had a super hairy street machine you could do a mix. But those stations are few and far between. Also too much of an octane rating for a given compression and timing will cause you actually lose power. Since 100 octane is more stable (less prone to detonation) than 93/91. It burns slower. Then you usually need to add more timing to get to the same level as the 93/91. Of course the octane thing is another passionately fought topic that takes up pages as well… so I’ll stop now.

Hmm... now I really have an urge to buy LS1 Edit and start changing some constants, and easy things… oh and sorry for the huge post!

Bryan Wilkinson

iTrader: (1)

Was just reading Camaro Performers Mag, Summer 2004 on standsuntil 9/7/2004.

This is good reading.

3 CAM installs no computer mods, and losts of dos and donts with LS1 motors.

FYI
Bryan