For now I only know of Conanski (Paul) and I with onboard tuning devices, but hoping to find other users. I am sure there are others with custom tuned chips. I have started this thread with hopes of encouraging some discussions around the "mythical black art" tuning on OUR trucks eec (electronic engine control & in some cases transmission controls) and maybe just to help others learn a little bit more about tuning and fyi info on our trucks. I am no expert but I will layout what I know. The great thing about eec tuning is that is a whole lot like tuning in the old days, except it is much, much more precise and flexible and you don't even get your hands dirty. Some spend days figuring out the right jettings, accelerator pumps for carbs and then even more time playing with base timing and figuring out the timing advance, but with electronic tuning all of this is magically contolled by a little box and can be altered with some keystrokes from your laptop sitting in the cab of you truck and many, many combinations can be tried quickly with the correct devices. It doesn't have to be intimidating!

I will be adding to this thread as I can but here are some basics definitions to begin with.

EEC - Ford Electronic Engine Control a.k.a (PCM). Consist of the computer, but also important are all the sensors that report back to the EEC. I.E. Maf sensor, ECT sensor, ACT sensor, TPS sensor, Knock Sensor among others.

J3 Port - An unused port that can be found on the side of your eec (pcm) box. Usually has a plastic plug covering the opening.

Strategy - Definition that the truck operates on. Just think operating system. a.k.a. (box code, catch code). You can cross reference from your Binary Code to find what strategy operates your particular truck.

Binary - Calibrations that are assigned in the strategy (definition). These are the actual numbers that will be adjusted during tuning. This will include fuel tables, spark tables, maf flow transfer flow numbers, injector sizing, idle settings, and even transmission shift pressures and shift points on eec controlled trannies. a.k.a (calibration, tune file)

Custom Chip - Computer chip that is plugged into factory J3 port. Tune cannot be calibrated real time. Requires removing to write the tune. Several different mfg's of chips available.

Tweecer - Device that plugs into factory J3 port used to make calibration adjustments and data log vehicle performance. Can be made in real time on the fly. Comes with own editing software. Data log requires wideband o2 sensor and controller.

Quarterhorse - Device that plugs into factory J3 port used in conjuction with Binary Editor software to calibrate changes on the fly and datalog vehicle performance. Data log requires wideband o2 sensor and controller.

Data Log - Basically a recording of actual readings from your vehicle while running. Data is used to fine tune your calibrations. Without a data log, it's just guessing. Requires wideband o2 sensor and controller.

Wideband o2 - Device that is capable of reading a wide spectrum of exhaust gases to determine air/fuel ratio. (in my own uncomplicated terms).

Hopefully this will help "break the ice" for those looking to Tweak their trucks performance!

More to come!

 

Sounds interesting , i don't know much about tunning , so i went with a dyno burned chip , i know they can change about anything you want , set the air fuel ratio , change your timing curve , elimanate egr code and factory rev limiter , set idle , if you have a computer controled trans they can set your up shifts at curiseing and wot , set the down shifts , adjust tq converter , change line pressure , im sure theres more , the guy that tuned my truck is very well known around the mustang world in south fl , it made an unbelivable difference in performance , you will find out ,it was the best money i spent , i will follow this thread , good luck and have fun....Lew

 

You are right Lew. Tuning can maximize the performance of your truck. The factory does a good job with base settings but they are conservative with some of the values they calibrate in the strategy. They err to the "safe" side, but where tuning really comes into play is when that bug hits you....I want more power. Once you modify the trucks stock engine in a quest for more power there is MUCH too gain with a good recalibration or tune of the EEC. Usually when one wants more power, better heads are installed, bigger cams, headers and free flowing exhaust are among the most popular upgrades. When this happens, depending on what and how much is changed, the engine is no longer stock, but the EEC is. There lies the problem. We have to recalibrate the EEC to let it know ...."hey, we have done something to the motor and it is no longer what you think it is". Again, thinking along terms of carbs and distributors. Who would put a stock 2 barrel carb on a new motor with latest dual plane intake,high flowing aluminum heads, aggressive cam with long tube headers? And who would just throw the stock distributor back in there and not adjust timing? Well....if you are modifing or bulding a new motor for more power without tuning the eec that is exactly what you are doing. You are not maximizing the potential of the motor without tuning. Sure it may run, and it may run fast, but you will probably sacrifice some durability, drivability, and performance if you opt not to tune. You can possibly get away with very small mods, but if you spend your hard earned money, you might as well make sure you are getting the most from your setup.

Some additional fyi notes.............

EEC TUNING DOES NOT MAKE UP FOR AND IS NOT SUGGESTED AS A WORKAROUND FOR A MECHANICAL ISSUE!

MAKE SURE MOTOR IS IN PERFECT MECHANICAL WORKING ORDER BEFORE CONSIDERING TUNING!

THERE ARE NO MIRACLE 100 HP GAINS AND 10MPG INCREASES! I have seen tunes on more heavily modified vehicles garner as much as 50hp. It all depends on what you are tuning.

More to Come!

 

Do they make a cord to extend the J3 out to a remote location?

I envision a 'card' like the Quarterhorse, mounted in a plastic, portable housing, with a pigtail coming out of each end. One wire going to the J3 extender mounted neatly under the dash or in the glove box, and the other wire going to a laptop.

This way I can use one QH on all of my Ford EFI vehicles with ease. I only have to pull each PCM once to install the J3 extender, rather than over and over to move the QH card. It's either that, or buy a seperate QH for each vehicle $$$!

This way I can grab my laptop and the QH box, and I can jump from one vehcle to the next in a flash.

 

Not that I am aware of, but you could use the QH as the main tuning device to get where you want to be and then purchase the Moates jaybird and burn device and burn your own chips for each different vehicle. Would be cheaper than buying a QH for each vehicle. I'll check around on the cable idea....makes sense as the eec takes a little time to pull and install.

 

Yeah, I have 3 Ford EFI vehicles at the moment, and more if I had my way. So a quick connect QH would be the ticket.

A small plastic housing for an external hard drive or something of the sort would house the QH fine, and a short USB pigtail to the laptop, and one to the car. Hook and tune in seconds.

 

So what I am getting is: That if I want to put a mild camshaft and lifter set in my I6 (With new valve springs, etc), I will most likely need a twEECer unit and a chip to get the most bang for my buck?

Also, what's the price tag on those units?

-Wes

 

I have the "craig moates" stuff, though I never used it. Still in the box from five years ago.

What stopped me was that I was unable to find the code to play with, whereas all the GM stuff I've played with is fully documented on the web, some of which is down to the source code level.

Someone was kind enough to help me out in that way, however between then (a few years ago) and now my laptop fried and no data was recoverable so I guess I'm back to square one.

That's one of the things that kept me in the GM ECM world for so long, regardless what I was grafting it to brand-wise - source code.

 

Codes are much more available now days. Most codes and binaries are available now days. The Moates Quarterhorse is an awesome device (it's been out less than 2 years) when combined with the Binary Editor software. Many believe the Ford EEC to be one of the most reliable and tunable systems our there. I am assuming you would have the burn style devices and chips if you have hardware as old as five years. I will be posting some of our vehicles binary and strategies for reference in this post.

 

You will probably be ok. Is your truck mass air or speed density? I don't know much about the inline setups.


Price for the QH is around $250 + $80 for software. Tweecer runs around $375 - $500 depending on model (I believe). You would also probably want to invest in Wideband o2 which runs another $175. The wideband really allows you to fine tune your setup. You can make changes without the wideband but I would be more conservative than I would be with the wideband. Also, you would need to get your binary code off your pcm to see if that particular strategy has any definition support. Some definitions are free, some are pay for definitions, depends on how common the strategy is. Most of the major Mustang 5.0 strategies are free. I had to pay $25 for my strategy from the developer who reverse engineers the ford code so us common folk know what the heck we are looking at.

 

Thanks man......A tad expensive for my blood...

But that is the price you pay I suppose......Exactly what could I expect in terms of HP/TQ and mpg's......

BTW my truck is SD unfortunately.....

-Wes

 

Unfortunately that won't work with these EEC-4 boxes because unlike the EEC-5 there is no programmable memory on-board, reprogrammable memory is primarally what the Moates and Tweecer tuner hardware provides. These devices override the on-board memory when they are plugged into the EEC and you would lose all changes if the module is unplugged. Moates has a couple cheaper solutions for this type situation, the F3 and F8 modules that can remain on the EEC while you use a common software platform to reprogram them.

 

OK here are a couple screen shots from my tuner setup to show you guys some of the capabilities of this gear. The first is the dashboard where you can monitor a range of parameters in real time. One of the limitations of the Tweecer is that you can only datalog/monitor about 16 parameters at a time and that is why you see some blank windows in this shot. I was experimenting with dual O2 sensors at the time so I was monitoring the injector and fuel map parameters for both banks(all that stuff in the middle) so I had to turn off some other things like the TPS and EGR, it's a minor inconvience that doesn't really impact the power of the system. Also note the AFR reading right below the Speed and RPM windows, this is from my wideband O2 sensor that seamlessly patches into the Binary Editor software.



The next picture is the base(sealevel) spark table on the Tuner page. Changing the spark parameters is stupid easy here, just highlight a block in the table and change the number.. or highlight a whole section of the table and add 3 deg to them all in one step.. for example. A cool features of this software is that if you switch to this page while dataloging you will see a highlighted block following the actual spark advance being applied as the motor operates. Another great feature is the ability to easily compare binary files(tunes), it's not shown in this pic but if for example I was to click the button labelled "c3w1new.bin" in the "Compare Binary" section at the bottom the software will put the spark table for that tune up next to the current one and highlight any differences.



This next pic is the MAF transfer curve. This is one parameter that has a hugh effect on how the engine runs and again it's all too easy to modify by manually changing the kg/hr numbers in the second column on the left or by importing the data from a file. With this you can use any MAF meter you like as long as you have the response data for it.




In all cases here once changes are made you have to save them to a binary file and burn that in a memory location on the Tweecer hardware(the TweecerRT that I have has 4 memory positions selectable on the fly from a dash mounted rotary switch). Burning the file to memory is done by pressing the button with the red down arrow in the Tuner window at the bottom which only takes seconds.

 

I was assuming that he meant that he would install the QH in each vehicle when he decided to drive it. He could have the definitions and calibration ready for the QH for each different vehicle. I don't think he was saying he could program with the QH and drive without the device installed. I suggested the Moates Jaybird chip and Burn device if he wanted to use the QH to fine tune and then actually burn a chip for each vehicle.

 

Thanks Paul!!!! I had not gotten a chance for any screen shots. I'll use this for another segment.

You will notice that on Paul's Dashboard....these numbers can be data logged automatically and stored in MS Excel .csv file for further analysis. The beauty of Excel is you can look at your data any way you wish. My QH data logs at a blazingly fast rate. It samples all conditions selected on this dashboard every 500 hundreth of a second, so it take 19 samplings EVERY SECOND. This is as detailed as it gets.

Here are some definitions of abbreviations on Paul's dashboard.

Load - Load calculated by eec. Used in determination of Spark Advance

MAF - Air moving through the MAF in kg/hr

MAFV - Voltage coming from the MAF sensor to the eec. This voltage is reference to the MAF transfer table Paul displayed and that lets the EEC know how much air per kg/hr is flowing into the motor. One of the main functions used in tuning.

ACT - Incoming Air Charge Temperature in degrees. Measured by sensor in Air Filter Box. I take it Paul's Dashboard snapshot was during the summer!

ECT - Engine Coolant Temperature in degrees.

RPM - Self explanatory

AFR - Actual air/fuel ratio as determined by the WIDEBAND o2.

PW1 & PW2 - EEC calculated pulse width (on time) of the fuel injector in milliseconds to obtain commanded air/fuel ratio.

InjDC - Injector Duty cycle. The total own time percentage of fuel injectors. 100 would mean the injector is open all the time....which would probably mean you need bigger injectors.

Lambse1 & Lambse2 - Commanded EEC Air/Fuel Ratio. Pulled from fuel tables within the eec.

Kamrf1 & Kamrf2 - Long Term Fuel Trims. Used in adaptive strategy by the eec to learn fueling behavior.

Hego1 & Hego2 - Stock o2 sensors voltage value. Range is .01 to .99. In closed loop the Hego will try and maintain a balance of .5. Anything above .5 commands the eec to cut fuel, anything less than .5 commands more fuel. It basically oscillates back and forth around the .5 number if working correctly.

Spark - Degree of Spark Advance that is commanded by EEC.

BAP - Manifold Pressure

VBAT - Battery Voltage

There are many more parameters that you could choose to monitor and record, but you can only record so many at a given time. It is an easy push of the button to change parameters, but as you can tell, this is like having a gauge for basically everything on your motor and you can see exactly what everything is doing.

As you can see this stuff is way cool....and like Paul said, changes are easily made, but you will need to learn how everything ties together. You have to learn to think like the EEC, thus you have to study up. Once you make the change and save you can write the tune to the eec in less than 20 seconds. You can even adjust while the engine is running.


More to Come!