Van B
10-16-2009, 08:02 PM
Some of you may know that I changed engines in my 67 Camaro this year. In the process, I felt it was time to switch to EFI as well. I ended up going with a Pantera ECU882C mainly because at the time, my engine builder hadn't really worked with anything else as far as I knew.
I sent the car to Wegner for a week to get it dialed in a little better. When I got it back it was at least driveable, but still nowhere near what I expected. It was great at wide open throttle, but way rich most places below that with at lot of little hiccups here and there.
A month or so ago I downloaded a tuning manual for the Pantera ECU and spent a little time on the phone with Lance at Pantera. Daylight is getting short in the afternoons here in WI and weekend time has been scarce but I have gone out driving around a few times in the past couple of weeks tuning as I go. Make a change, drive, make a change drive, etc.
I have taken a lot of fuel out of the tune and it is still running 12.8 or 13:1 air fuel ratio in most part throttle situations. At WOT running up thru the gears it dips to 12.6:1 as close as I can see while trying to keep my eyes on the road and the laptop. I know, you're asking "you can't get a friend to drive while you tune?"
So given everything I have been told, I should still have some room to lean it out more, shouldn't I? I have been going by seat of the pants feel and most of the hiccups that it used to have are gone. I guess I want to leave it a little fat for safety's sake, but what should I be shooting for all around? Should I be tuning it to an "optimum" A/F ratio?
On a side note, on one of the drives I matted the throttle in 2nd gear and it took off getting all kinds of loose with tire spin which it had never done before. I always figured the Toyo RA1s were so sticky it eliminated a lot of obvious tire spin. So either I have the tune a lot better than it was or the sub 50 degree temps on that day were not giving me much traction. Most likely it was a combination of the two.
I am glad I finally got out and just started playing with it. After studying the tuning manual I started getting more confident that I wouldn't totally screw it up. I will most likely take it to a dyno tuning shop once I have it as good as I think I can get it-that is if I can get to that point before the snow flies.
I sent the car to Wegner for a week to get it dialed in a little better. When I got it back it was at least driveable, but still nowhere near what I expected. It was great at wide open throttle, but way rich most places below that with at lot of little hiccups here and there.
A month or so ago I downloaded a tuning manual for the Pantera ECU and spent a little time on the phone with Lance at Pantera. Daylight is getting short in the afternoons here in WI and weekend time has been scarce but I have gone out driving around a few times in the past couple of weeks tuning as I go. Make a change, drive, make a change drive, etc.
I have taken a lot of fuel out of the tune and it is still running 12.8 or 13:1 air fuel ratio in most part throttle situations. At WOT running up thru the gears it dips to 12.6:1 as close as I can see while trying to keep my eyes on the road and the laptop. I know, you're asking "you can't get a friend to drive while you tune?"
So given everything I have been told, I should still have some room to lean it out more, shouldn't I? I have been going by seat of the pants feel and most of the hiccups that it used to have are gone. I guess I want to leave it a little fat for safety's sake, but what should I be shooting for all around? Should I be tuning it to an "optimum" A/F ratio?
On a side note, on one of the drives I matted the throttle in 2nd gear and it took off getting all kinds of loose with tire spin which it had never done before. I always figured the Toyo RA1s were so sticky it eliminated a lot of obvious tire spin. So either I have the tune a lot better than it was or the sub 50 degree temps on that day were not giving me much traction. Most likely it was a combination of the two.
I am glad I finally got out and just started playing with it. After studying the tuning manual I started getting more confident that I wouldn't totally screw it up. I will most likely take it to a dyno tuning shop once I have it as good as I think I can get it-that is if I can get to that point before the snow flies.