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What options do I have for tuning?

AGrayson84

CEG'er
Joined
Aug 20, 2013
Messages
329
Location
Annapolis, MD
Hi everyone, I'm looking to be able to do some of my own tuning, because there are things that can't always be done right the first time when you take your car to a shop to tune it. I also want to learn how to tune for performance, and I think my untuned '98 CVST with 3L swap would be a good place to start. One simple things that I think will be a work in progress is the idle, but I also want to get into the performance aspect, like I said. So, to my questions....

Can you use EFI Live or any other similar software suites to tune this vehicle? Can idle speed be adjust with any of the handheld tuners available for this car? What are all of my options for tuning this car on my own?

Thanks,
Andrew
 
Check the stickies in this section. The xcal tuners seem to be the prefered choice here and tuning software is provided by sct (I believe).
 
you can also use moats quarterhorse. from the guys i talk to still prefer to use that over sct.

but dont have this idea that tuning is super easy. is practically usless without a dyno. without a dyno you cant "performance" tune. you can basically tune to make it run decent at least. you can make it run stoich a/f and then choose any a/f you want for wot. but you wouldnt know if 13 gives you more power, or 13.2, or 13.4, or 12.8...well you get the picture
 
Depends what you want to accomplish. A few of the tuners are limited by what PCM you have (Sniper can't do RjL1 i know) A good majority won't touch Contours... Tuning is not easy like aboy said, if you just want to adjust your idle speed that is easy, anything compatible should do that. Anything with fuel and timing you want a wideband, avoid mail order tunes.


- $379 new SCT Xcal is cleanest, simplest, most used, but limited if you plan on doing any major tuning yourself. Then you need to get the Pro Racer package ~350

- $ 250 Moates IS VERY affordable, and powerful but i think someone had to get a mongoose cable to be able to datalog.. (additinal $290) never used it personally, can't comment on it.

- $300-450 Tweecer base does everything as far as writing goes, but is limited with no datalog.. RT does that plus datalogging for 150$ more. Most of it is hard mode compared to SCT PRP, but does everything PRP does.

- Delta/Sniper tuning has a bunch of stuff, but i stopped looking at it due to my pcm being incompatible... They have stuff from couple hundred to couple thousand $$

- There is a few other companies that will burn chips but i wouldn't bother with those.



If i was you, i would find a local dyno/tuner that will work on your car, and use whatever hardware they recommend, and just let them do the tuning.
 
Thanks for all of the information fellas, and thanks for the very detailed write-up Beans!!!!!

Yeah if I tune myself I would definitely be using a dyno to verify the results while I tune. I have access to a Dynojet. I have had several cars tuned before, and to pay several hundreds of dollars each time you change things in the future just gets too costly. I'll just use an AFR sniffer in one of my tail-pipes and go from there. I'm very mechanically inclined, and technically inclined as well. I wouldn't be able to just sit down with the software and tune the car, but I'm sure I can find plenty of resources to learn how to do what I want to do.

So for the SCT Pro Racer package it seems like I would still need to purchase the Xcal. Is that correct? Otherwise, I'm not seeing what good the wireless USB dongle that comes with the Pro Racer package is going to do since it doesn't seem to include any way to connect to the OBDII port.
 
...- $ 250 Moates IS VERY affordable, and powerful but i think someone had to get a mongoose cable to be able to datalog.. (additinal $290) never used it personally, can't comment on it....

If you go with a Moates chip, the best software (best support for our ECU's, and most parameters available to tune) is Binary Editor. So you're looking at $170 for the Binary Editor with Dongle package (Dongle is required for the next item in this list ), $200 for the ECU strategy file, and you can actually get a Moates chip, and chip programmer for ~$100, or use the Quarterhorse ~$250, or use a mongoose(direct ECU flash) ~$250(used)+. If you use a Quarterhorse, you can use an ELM327 device (~$15) for datalogging, rather than the mongoose. so you can be all set, and tuning for less than $500.

The downside is you'll probably need to make a few support requests to get everything up and running right, depending on where you buy your stuff from (the BE Dongle comes pre-programmed, and may be incorrect for your usage). Also, when using a J3 style chip (moates or other), the ECU may need some TLC to enable the J3 service port.
 
Correct you still need a "handheld" from sct so a xcal 2 or 3 or that other thing they have...
 
Thanks for all of the information fellas, and thanks for the very detailed write-up Beans!!!!!

Yeah if I tune myself I would definitely be using a dyno to verify the results while I tune. I have access to a Dynojet. I have had several cars tuned before, and to pay several hundreds of dollars each time you change things in the future just gets too costly. I'll just use an AFR sniffer in one of my tail-pipes and go from there. I'm very mechanically inclined, and technically inclined as well. I wouldn't be able to just sit down with the software and tune the car, but I'm sure I can find plenty of resources to learn how to do what I want to do.

So for the SCT Pro Racer package it seems like I would still need to purchase the Xcal. Is that correct? Otherwise, I'm not seeing what good the wireless USB dongle that comes with the Pro Racer package is going to do since it doesn't seem to include any way to connect to the OBDII port.

The USB dongle from SCT has nothing to do with the car, that's just a security feature for their software. You have to have the dongle plugged into the computer if you want to do any tuning. As mentioned above me, you still need to purchase an XCAL 2 or 3 to plug into the OBDII port, to change the tunes, and datalog.
 
Thanks again for the info guys!! So it turns out this car once belonged to the_spy_guy, here on the forum. I got in touch with him a couple of days ago and he said there should still be a chip in the EEC. I just took a quick peak today, and sure enough, it has an SCT 4-bank chip. The chip has a gray wire attached to it, which I have not traced yet, but may go to a 3-position selector switch to switch between tunes, from what I've seen online.

The car doesn't seem to be getting good gas mileage, has some surge issues occasionally, and today the engine died out on me as I tried doing a full-throttle roll from a low MPH in 1st gear. Car started right back up after it died and I pulled over, but I'm wondering if all or at least some of this is tune-related. Can I simply unplug the chip to revert to stock tuning? Again, this car is running a full 3L Taurus motor so from what I've read stock tuning is OK for this setup. The next idea is to switch tunes (assuming the selector switch is buried somewhere) and see if any of the other tunes get better gas mileage. Now, this whole situation has me wondering if the current tune or if any of the tunes on the chip are for 91+ octane. I've been running 87 octane in the car since I didn't know it had a chip.

Now that I have this chip, what are my options for either doing my own tuning (if any), or having the car re-tuned? Thanks!!

-Andrew
 
You should run premium regardless since it's still running off the Svt ecu, and doubtful of how its tuned.
 
Thanks GIT-R-DONE!

Does anyone have any idea how I can find out who wrote the tune for the car? I see that most places that sell this chip offer lifetime re-tuning, and after driving around for 2 hours without the chip yesterday the car has a lot less drivability issues!
 
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