First start up tune
Thread Starter
Staging Lane
Joined: Jun 2014
Posts: 77
Likes: 0
From: Dome Valley, AZ
First start up tune I am getting close to finishing my 5.3 swap into my old truck and starting it and I am a little worried about the first start up. I changed the cam, lifters, springs. Installed 62# injectors with fast rails and it has two 62 mm turbos with 8.7# springs. The motor didn't come with an ecu or harness so I ordered a standalone harness and found a stock ecu that had all the stock stuff deleted off of it. My plan is to take it to the dynoand let someone who understands this stuff tune. Can I start it and drive it on the trailer or at least hear it run after all this time? Any help will be greatly appreciated.
No you can't start it up and drive it as is with the stock tune, you're going to wash out the cylinders with those injectors.
Find a tune for a 5.3 from the same year and use that as the base. Change the injector information to the correct values (as given by the vendor), increase the idle rpm, increase the running airflow (if it's a gen IV engine with dbw throttle) and it should idle and run just enough to get it to a tuner.
Don't get into boost and you will be fine. Monitor AFR and trims to make sure it's not going dangerously lean but it shouldn't unless the cam is humongous.
Find a tune for a 5.3 from the same year and use that as the base. Change the injector information to the correct values (as given by the vendor), increase the idle rpm, increase the running airflow (if it's a gen IV engine with dbw throttle) and it should idle and run just enough to get it to a tuner.
Don't get into boost and you will be fine. Monitor AFR and trims to make sure it's not going dangerously lean but it shouldn't unless the cam is humongous.
Thread Starter
Staging Lane
Joined: Jun 2014
Posts: 77
Likes: 0
From: Dome Valley, AZ
To set those basic parameters, will I need a tuning program or is there someone that I could send the ecu to just to get it close? This is all new to me, I'm use to reading spark plugs for data. Thanks for your help!
You'd need some sort of tuner, EFI live, HP tuners etc. to do it yourself. You can send in your PCM to several online tuners, but at that point it's not really cost effective to spend $200 on a basic tune that's going to only be used for a short time and going to get erased by someone else after you pay yet again for another tune.
Might as well just get your car towed to the tuner and go from there.
Might as well just get your car towed to the tuner and go from there.
