Can't wait to hear your impressions. out of the box I think you will notice it's quite nice. I will be here to go over logs and see from there. Generally it can get even better, sometimes much better with custom tuning.

 

Well i just installed the Stage 1 91 octane map. I am up in Canada so I went with Shell 91 which is ethanol free and supposed to be one of the better ones. I had reservations as I mentioned, as I had a tune done over 10 years ago. Regardless, I bit the bullet. Well, wasn't I in for a surprise. I was surprised to fell the car pulling significantly harder than before. As I am a newbie to all this all I can go by is the seat of the pants feel, however I know my car well and could definitely feel the difference and it wasn't slight. I did record the datalogger on the default parameters for anyones evaluation, one in 2nd and one in 3rd WOT. I glanced at the numbers and I saw on the 3rd gear WOT a max boost of 17.8psi at 4000rpm, and then by 4900 it drops to 13.5 and then back up. Could this be due to a boost leak or the hoses not holding pressure? Also I saw a few knocksums, dont know what that means if important or not. The air fuel readings looked decent I guess. Any comments would be greatly appreciated, especially if I should run the datalogger with other parameters.

 

I'm sure Sam will comment on your logs, but I can tell you with certainty, a proper leak test is critical when logging and tuning your car! That should be done before anything else IMHO. Good luck!

 

Im not aware of any leaks...just wondering about the drop in boost if that is part of the map or not...Shouldnt boost be relatively stable at throughout the rev range after max boost..

 

While I don't like it either every off the shelf map I've seen from Cobb shows a few knock sums upstairs.

 

My point is there is only one way to know for sure! These 12-15 year-old cars are prone to boost leaks as they age, and certainly when one starts turning up the psi. Ensuring it is tight before you start tweaking may save you some time and headache later on. When was the last time your car was properly leak tested?

 

I had the car checked for leaks a few months back. I just made the comment about a wavering boost pressure after 4000rpm on my 3rd gear WOT log. Dont know enough about the subject so i figured Id ask. Should the boost be wavering like that or that normal behaviour for boost after 4000rpm?

 

Do a 4th gear pull to redline if you can do it safely. 4th is better as 3rd is a bit too short. You should hold boost to redline. I hold a solid 1.2 from about 3500 to 7500. I would have Sam do a custom tune for you to tailor it to your particular application with your local gas. It's much safer to do it that way. A friend had a canned Cobb tune and had tons of knock and eventually blew up a turbocharger due to overspeeding. The tune was too aggressive for his use and altitude. I would err on the side of safety, engines are expensive, custom tunes are not. Sam will take care of you. Good luck.

 

I appreciate your advice. The last thing I want to do is harm the engine or components. I think Ill withold doing any wot runs until I get my data analyzed. Now to do a 4 gear WOT might be a little difficult on the street, dyno maybe. Just a thought though when I see the knocksums after 4000...maybe the map is running too much timing or I should try the canaadian version of 94octane...(probably equivalent to 91 in the USA). In other words the map may be looking for better ocatne and thus the knock.
In terms of your turbo holding 1.2bar throughout 3500rpm and after, any mods on your car...my wavering boost pressure.... could that be a symptom of the engine looking for more air? I have the stock air intake on right now but I do have an EVOMS which I liked I just kept blowing the MAF every couple of months.
.

 

Hey guys. Sorry i'm jumping in a little bit late on this one. Thanks for all the support and good advice everyone.

apocala, your car actually looks pretty good. On the fuel up in Canada if you have random knock correction of one one or two degrees. It's actually perfectly fine on pump and this can vary depending on conditions or loads. Once we see them very widespread or going over three, four, five you want to address it. On higher octane or highly modified cars we should be able to do well with zero knock. Once they are above 5 or 10 degrees let's say you're risking things. As for the wavering it could just depend on the hardware and if you've done a proper pressure test it could just be your car trying to maintain boost. There is a spot where it's pulling about 2° for a few rpm, no big deal but that could also be affecting it. If some cars don't have that effect it's because they have upgraded turbo chargers, gates and different supporting modifications. What exhaust are you running? Any other mods at all? I can say you have nothing to worry about and it is also quite normal for the car to ramp up a little bit and then level out. Characteristic of a small stock turbo charger after tuning as the revolutions increase it can't hold the volume so they replace boost with timing and it works quite nice. There are some things we can do including a custom MAFless tune and you can run your air box! I would guarantee you smoother/increased tailored power.

One last thing to note, I've had a lot of current conversations over the years with lots of Canadian friends and clients. Dealt with lots of different tuners and had some great conversations with Todd at Proto too about the fuel up there. The way that it's rated does not really match up with our octane. Interestingly, regular 91 shell is better than all of the other stuff including 93 and 94. There's too many additives in it and the octane is organized by ethanol content and other additives. Even some of the racing fuel from Petro Canada is up to 10 points higher than stuff like for example VP. In Arizona California and Nevada we also have poor fuel. It's almost like it's 90 octane LOL. You will notice that the access port has 91 octane Maps as well as ACN 91. Try ACN 91 because I believe the fuel up there is about the same as what we have here. That Map will is made for this purpose and will be cleaner/smoother and likely run even stronger on your fuel. After years of logging and working with some of the best tuners in the world I have a really gotten a good understanding of all the fuels up there. It's all pretty much the same but if one was better it's good old regular 91. Lots of chasing tails happen to figure this out specially when the number 94 is in your brain. Feel free to post up along running that map and I bet you it'll look pretty darn clean. Going forward from there I'd be glad to help you out just shoot me an email.

 

Yes, I agree with you on the gas mileage, eg each time I loaded the files from the accessport, it knocked out the fuel gauge meter eg went from half a tank to empty at the quick flick of the ignition switch pre tune upload to post tune. Wasn't really impressed with that and not as though it was a one off occurance based on my experience and responses I got back on why that happened were well....... (no comment)

 

Very simple explanation why that happens and has nothing to do with the AP: Below about 1/2 tank the meter loses contact with the fuel and the remaining gas mileage is estimated. Therefore, when you reset the CPU (load a file) it gets no reading, and shows empty. Try it with 3/4 or more fuel and you will not notice that issue. Cheers!

 

Excellent response, its a pity COBB / one of their major P car agents couldn't of responded with that very simple explanation. I would have been a much happier camper at the time. On reflection I am indeed surprised they can change all the 0's and 1's specific to a model's ECU and get the fueling / air / boost tweaked to make the car run quicker, yet they couldn't explain that to me. They made one feel a bit silly (eg that hasn't happened and sure the load file was done right(not withstanding the workshop that flashed the file for me is an agent for a another tuner (picked up the issue with the gauge straight away after firing the engine) for other euro marks and does indeed flash more than one or two cars. eg reload the file and see if that fixes it , and if you want, I can get COBB to perhaps look at it. hmmm

 

Great explanation Aslan!

Hi smit, how long ago was this? It just happen but not often i've learned over a few years now. So it could have been news to those gents st the time. The first time it happened to me I didn't think much of it just cycled the admission and a couple miles and it came back. With those things said there are a lot of factors like check valves thank event the actual shape of the tank and fuel level. And in their old age of these cars do absolutely do funny things. With the access port people notice because they are flashing themselves not a shop who knows or does it and drives it and then delivers it. So when it comes up to a tuner they might scratch their heads and say that it doesn't make sense and I believe them. It doesn't make sense ha ha. Unless you know the car intimately well from a service standpoint. Thought it was a fluke. Anyhow if I can ever help you with anything feel free to reach out.

 

First time on the 91 file was circa 18 Aug 2016. Second time on the 93 file was circa 20 Dec 2016. With reference to your "those gents at the time" and "reach out" to you, if you have access to your inbox /outbox email archives, perhaps review them around those dates mentioned.