Dear WeatherCat automotive enthusiasts,
The fuel injection saga took another even more pleasant twist this week. I had started to try to learn how to adjust the tune myself, but before I could get very far from it, the fellow who sold me the system said he was going to be in the San Francisco bay area this week. He lives in the Sierra foothills, but he has so many customers around San Francisco, that visits are frequent.
It was clear that I was over my head, so I agreed to have him take a shot at tuning the engine for his usual fee.
WOW!! Installing this system had made the engine more quiet and making some adjustment had further reduced the noise, but a professional tune knocked down the sound another quantum factor!
I'll spare you the gory details, but it is very much like us old-fashion guys used to do with tuning a carburetor to get a smooth idle - extended to the entire power band. The other amazing thing is how you do this from a laptop. Those of you who remember, adjusting the timing was always a pain. Since this electronic fuel injection system also controls the ignition - timing is another software setting. It was set at 15˚, the guy thought it needed to be advanced to 20˚ - he just typed in 20 in the appropriate box and -
presto! Timing was now set to 20˚!!
The other wonderful thing about this software tune is that the software can really support the process. The FAST software even includes some 3d graph generators to help you visualize how the engine is reacting to the tune. Here is a graph showing the state of the tune on March 27 that shows the self-tuning algorithm adding some "bumps" to the surface of this curve at the center of the image:
Those discontinuities would make the engine operate more roughly than necessary. Here is the same graph after the fellow had completed his expert tune:
See now smooth and continuous the surface has become. Those are the sorts of conditions that give you the smoothest and quietest performance.
My trusty wagon got the call for the weekly grocery run and it was really amazing. The stereo doesn't have to be put so loud so that you can enjoy the music and except when accelerating hard, it is easy to have a conversation.
Normally, you can't use the adjective
"quiet" to describe any big-block engine from the muscle car area. However, if you are
"persistent" (or is that stubborn?) sometimes you can!
Cheers, Edouard