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XcalII software help

what do you think of the tuning place I just posted?

I know NPG does tunes, but they want 100 bucks for something they do with a 350 dollar piece of software. I'm assuming they've sold a few more than 3 tunes?

npg is pretty usefull, but I swear, it's like if NPG made hamburgers you'd act like McDonalds didn't exist...

I'm just trying to get this right for as little as possible. I bought the Xcal thinking the initial invesment would have me set. this was the way it was made to seem by other members of this site. turns out they were wrong. so now I have this tinker toy here that turnes out to be all but worthless without more money thrown at it.

out of curiosity, how much would a single tune at a dyno without having bought an Xcal have run me?
 
no idea about that place. sure they should be able to make a tune.

On NPG, they have sold tunes to a number of people. Sure others can tune a contour but they know the car. Trust me, what you pay for the tune is getting you alot. They will work with you until the tune is right. It took us all summer to get my car dialed in because of some running issues I had to sort out. Well worth it.

if you want an average hamburger you go to mcdonalds. If you want something more then average you go to a place that specalizes .... doesn't mean the first place doesn't exist, its just that the later is better ...

having a dyno tune done? not sure. I think its safe to say most places charge $100 an hour. And it going to take a few hours to dial it in.
 
I don't recall. If I was faster on some thing it would have been quicker. I am sure you know how it goes with free time, and getting burned out on a project.

The first tune was pretty close and then it took some fine tuning once everything was is good running order.

I wideband will only aid in the tuning process.


oh I though of a good example of how the xcal2 can be usefull. on the dyno there was a cougar owner with a tune that wasn't dialed in. On the top end the car was getting into the 14 A/F. So I went in with the Xcal2 and added 6% fuel at WOT. this got the A/F to stay around 13 which increased the power a good amount.

That is what the xcal2 will be good for. tweaking on the spot of a small set of limited parameters.
 
Look man, I understand getting it cheaper.. but you gotta stop passing the buck on all this.

"the members" of this site didn't make it seem like ANYTHING. YOU thought that. YOU thought that you could use a tune from any other car, much less any other contour. No members told you to do that, either.

YOU thought that the XCAL would be all you need.. you did so after reading (or not reading??) most of the tips and stickies we have here. If you thought that it was all you need, it was because of YOU.. not "the members"..

Fast
Reliable
Cheap


You can only pick two, my friend.
 
Ray said:
Look man, I understand getting it cheaper.. but you gotta stop passing the buck on all this.

"the members" of this site didn't make it seem like ANYTHING. YOU thought that. YOU thought that you could use a tune from any other car, much less any other contour. No members told you to do that, either.

YOU thought that the XCAL would be all you need.. you did so after reading (or not reading??) most of the tips and stickies we have here. If you thought that it was all you need, it was because of YOU.. not "the members"..

Fast
Reliable
Cheap


You can only pick two, my friend.
Click to expand...





well the 'tour hasn't ever been reliable, so I'll go with fast and cheap :laugh:

but all I'm saying is everybody is all "yay Xcal" here, but fails to make it plain that all it is is a code reader without the PRP.

all of that aside, I found a post about a diy wide band on here today, so I'm looking into that. uses a bosch LSU wideband sensor. sounds pretty good to me. where do you guys purchase the bung for welding into the Y-pipe anyway?


I figure the best thing to do is get a wide band on it so I can do some data logging with my fancy plastic box before e-mailing off for a tune that might need to be tweeked a bunch of times. I'd rather get it as close as possible the first time.

I asked joey about the info he'll need this morning.
 
KAOS_2.5M said:
but all I'm saying is everybody is all "yay Xcal" here, but fails to make it plain that all it is is a code reader without the PRP.
Click to expand...

sure everyone says they use a Xcal2, because that is what most use. any background reading on a Xcal2 would have brought up the fact that you need to get a specific tune for a specific car/modifications.
 
BrApple said:
sure everyone says they use a Xcal2, because that is what most use. any background reading on a Xcal2 would have brought up the fact that you need to get a specific tune for a specific car/modifications.
Click to expand...

I was thinking all the car specific comments were just because of the specific build/part combos people have, not seriel numbers. the first place I saw that was on a focus site, hence my asking the question. but i know what your trying to say.

something to consider though is how out of context a bunch of banter between people who've been in this community is to a n00b.

over on the other site all you freakin hear is "take it to a dyno for a tune"

yeah... and I could just take it to ford and have them replace the whole damn abomination with a lincoln MKZ too :laugh:
 
so going to sctflash.com and reading up on the Xcal3 and the owners manual and any faqs available isn't clear enough?


ok the only thing that I see as confusing is it says it comes with a tune. yes it comes with a tune for popular vehicles .... which ours is not. but since NPG has tuned a number of contours they have a database of tunes that they can send with a xcal3. from there it gets fine tuned for a specific vehicle.
 
yeah, your statement about npg tunes vs a tune from a general ford tuner that mainly does stangs being worth the extra 40 bucks makes plenty of since.

right now I'm shopping out a wide band. will the 14point7 JAW work with the Xcal2? I can build one of those for about 100 bucks. that plus a 100 dollar tune from NPG gets me set for about 400 all in all, which I guess is ok considering I'll be able to monitor air/fuel in the future as well as pull my own mils.

its still almost twice what I paid for the engine and about half what I initially bought the car for though.
 
I'm aware of the standard wideband everybdy uses, but like I said, low budget.

I found out about the JAW digging through blu's buld thread. it looks promising.

BTW, do people leave the wide band installed? or do they take it out and stuff a bolt in the bung?
 
KAOS_2.5M said:
I'm aware of the standard wideband everybdy uses, but like I said, low budget.

I found out about the JAW digging through blu's buld thread. it looks promising.

BTW, do people leave the wide band installed? or do they take it out and stuff a bolt in the bung?
Click to expand...

mine is a perminant install. great thing about the LC-1 is it can scale the output to a narrow band guage. I look at it all the time ....
 
KAOS_2.5M said:
so you have a wideband in the downdraft o2 spot sending to the ecm as well?

I thought wide bands went in a new bung on the y-pipe?
Click to expand...

no it is stand alone. I never said I had it wired to the pcm. its wires to my narrow band a/f guage.

yes in my case it is after the turbo. but when I had a y-pipe it was after the y-pipe and before the main cat.
 
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