Glad you have someone who's not a dyno monkey getting you fixed up. Keep us updated on what had to be fixed how bad the tune ultimately was and anything you can post so other people don't have the same bad experience as you have had with the previous idiot. I don't know how these bad tunners stay in business.

 

Sounds like you finally found a good tuner. I hope so for your sake.

 

Spent about 3.5hrs (most of it in the car) with the tuner this morning and can definitively say it's BY FAR the best money I've spend to-date on this project!
He started by pulling the tune and identifying some immediate needs. LT fuel management was disabled (I may be getting that terminology wrong) so he took the time to dial that in while we were in the vehicle and work on knock and a/f settings. The car runs MUCH better without a doubt now.
Shift points were where we spent the majority of the time and he admitted were trickier than anything he'd come across. It's shifting MUCH much better now but still has a tendency to do quick 1-2 and 3-4 shifts if you're trying to roll hard into the throttle from a dig. He tweaked the tune probably 20 times but it seemed like, because we really had to feather at about 50% throttle for a good second+ to keep from roasting the tires off, the computer just wouldn't hold 1st gear. It really seemed like any wheels slip it just did NOT like at all. It would scream in manual 1st and shift awesome all the way to 3rd.
Car does not have traction control but it was almost like it had something built in that detected wheel slip and just shifted straight to 3rd. Anyone have any experience with that?? It is a 98'.
He thought it was very possible that some drag radials may totally solve the problem (I've got MT s/s on order) but sure seemed like he exhausted all options and then some, at least to me.

Overall, extremely happy with him and will definitively be back to see him once the DR's go on. It was showing injectors at 98% during WOT so he suggested upgrading these over the winter. Something I told my first tuner to be aware of and upgrade if needed. Not surprised that wasn't identified though!

Sorry for another long post. If anyone has any additional feedback/suggestions though it would be much appreciated. I know this guy will welcome the feedback as well!

 

Good deal, when doing shift timing you really should have a sticky tire on there to limit wheel spin as much as possible.

I will also echo that your converter is absolutley positively not to big and you would actually see gains if you stepped up to something around a 4000 in the future....

Where did you guys end up setting your shift points?

 

Haha...he said he would've put a 4000 in it as well! I may be tempted to pull it over the winter and have FTI re-stall depending on what type of gains it might actually make. Never done that myself though...

He also echoed that sticky tires would be preferred and may affect shift points once they go on. I'm pretty confident he'll get me back in asap if needed though.

To be honest, my head was spinning from all the tables we were looking at and can't recall exactly where they ended up. I'm sure, if it might help, he would send me a screenshot of it to post to the group. He got WOT points dialed, it was the partial throttle tables where we spent all our time. My first ever experience with HP tuners so probly getting terminology way wrong here. Makes me want to learn though!

 

I would think you should be shifting at every bit of 6700 rpms.

Having the right converter can make or break a set up and you want it to match your combo and power band.

Looks like your combo peaks around 6500 rpms so shifting after peak and having shift extensions drop to some where around 5800 rpms would keep ya right in your wheel house constantly.

Those are just a few thoughts if you're looking for a bit more.

Here is a example of my car.
Pretty much a max effort build where I shift at 7300 rpms and run a 4400 stall. You will notice my shift extensions only drop to around 6400 rpms constantly keeping me around peak.

 

From my experience a stall is either a On or Off type thing. there is not a middle ground half throttle unless you are manually holding it in a gear. its either blah,blah,blah until lockup or to the floor and 4k and its gone ! i say 4k because thats what im running.

im glad you have found someone that knows whats going on.

 

Just a quick update/question this morning after driving the car into the office. Noticed it's back to running (what I perceived to be) really rich. This is purely based on sight and smell. Once it was warmed up and in closed lope I started spittimg out black water again out of the tips and they just get nasty. Fumes in the garage (with door open) almost burn your eyes. I know the 2nd guy leaned it out a bit and put new 02s on but I'm not convinced he had a clue what he was doing. See #3 work in person yesterday I feel like he was really dialing that in.
I guess my question is...what should I really be expecting from this build with my LTs and ORY??? Seems like I've lost a good 5mpg+ crusing as well which seemed like quite a bit. Starting looking into some HF cats to potentially scab in the Y but not sure how much those may/may not help...

 

Mpg and built cars really don't go hand in hand imo. My exhaust tips stay black and my exhaust stinks. Speed Eng true duals. I "think" the smell and black tips are pretty common on built cars.

 

Ya, kinda thinking that as well at this point. Reached out to the tuner this morning and he provided some good feedback. Said with this cam, I'd get some raw exhaust spraying with exhaust valves still open and see some raw fuel until the exhaust is hot enough to evaporate it.
May keep exploring the HF cat option if it might help with fumes.

 

Without cats this is normal. More HP more fuel.

 

At your power level, HF cats arent going to cost you any power but makes the car much more enjoyable.
my cam has 16 degrees of overlap and the only time you can smell exhaust is in a cold start before the cats get good and hot.

 

Just thought I'd provide a quick status update to those interested. Ended up getting some MT's installed last weekend but it was a rainy week here so didn't drive the car much. Initial reactions were...they're sticky!
Car still has issues though in drive with quick shifting from 1st gear even with little/no wheels spin. Manual 1st goes just fine but 1-2 shift appears early at wot so hoping tweaking those again will help. Did a few 0-60 pulls just for pre-h/c/i comparison and was basically identical. Think/hope bumping the 1-2 shift point will improve performance though. Was getting a slipping sensation when crusing in drive and dropping down to 2nd around 50mph so thats got me a little worried. I think the speedo is off a few mph so hoping that may have something to do with it (I really have no idea though). The MTs are 285/40/18s.

Having some HF cats scabbed in Wednesday then scheduled for a tune tweak on Thursday. REALLY hoping he can get it dialed in with the sticky tires but, based on the way everything has gone so far, I'm not overly optimistic.

 

One last update post prior to dropping back off to the tuner this evening. Had the HF cats installed and the guy did a great job. Definitely seems to help with smell so happy with that.
Any last words of wisdom from a tuning perspective regarding the quick shifts? Even with the MT's and minor/if any wheels slip, if you start in drive, the thing just shifts 1-2,3-4 SO fast. Its honestly like the car has traction control just built into the computer! It did NOT do it prior to the H/C/I install though so just wondering if that cam is causing the computer to just lose it's mind???
The speedo is def off reading from my ScanGauge so Im sure he'll get that cleaned up. Trans bounces out of lock up with even the SLIGHTEST pressure reduction but I'm thinking/hoping that can be adjusted. The 3-2 downshift is still strange. Like the car flashes to the stall, then downshifts and starts pulling. Maybe speedo and shift points will help with that?
I have the feeling like this is my last shot to get this thing dialed without taking extreme measures so any words of wisdom that I could relay to ny tuner would be much appreciated!

 

I'm thinking that the tuner needs to erase the tune completely, reset to stock tune and start from scratch. If it started with the first tune I'm thinking that they have been piggybacking off that original tune and that's why everything is still off. Have the tuner set everything back to stock tune to include transmission and start your tune from 0.

that's the only thing that I can come up with that might help.

 

Ya, I think that's pretty much what he did last time. He pulled the existing tune and then overlaid with a stock tune to see what had been done. Looked like a pretty cool feature in HP tuners. I'll definitely relay this to him again though!

 

You are going to need to be patient, it takes time to get the tune dialed in.

 

What do you mean "Bounces" out of lockup ? when you barely give it throttle it unlocks ?

 

No, when you just barely let off the throttle it would pop out of lockup.
I actually just spoke to my tuner a little bit ago and he said that everything appears to be ironed out now so we'll see! Went ahead and upgraded the injectors so he took care of that and said speedo was definitely a little off. He tweaked shift points and lockup points again and seemed to be happy with it. Should know more tonight after I pick it up. Fingers crossed!

 

That's weird, it should only unlock if your foot hits the brake or you are under the commanded lockup speed or WOT.
Hopefully he got it fixed !!