| WOT condition, which really doesn't constitute extreme racing conditions - semi-extreme I would say. Put the car on a roadcourse and run it for at least 15 minute intervals and then you have an extreme condition. I think what you may not be aware of is that on the dyno, I dont just tune the car to see what its maximum potenial is. That is really just the last step I take, and only if the car owner wants me to. The majority of my time on the dyno consists of remapping fuel and timing parameters starting from base boost and working my way up in increments to refine the entire fuel map. This is considerably more time consuming than tuning with an AFC, since an AFC can only tune for one boost condition. In the process of doing this, I am optimizing the configuration for every increment along the way. I typically start with the pump fuel tuning and work my way up to what I know is a safe boost level attainable on pump fuel and making the changes in the procedure outlined above. Once I have finished the pumpfuel tune, the car has made about 10-15 pulls and is pretty heatsoaked by the time I get there, which is my intention. When the powerplant components are in a heat-soaked condition, fuel and timing are spot-on, and there is no detonation present, I know that the car is tuned properly. If it runs correctly when it is heatsoaked, it adds a great deal of safety overhead for when the car is actually put into severe conditions. Then I let the car cool down for about 10 minutes and make the "facial shot" pull, which is what people see as my results for pump gas tuning - when the car is at normal operating temperature and the intercoolers are ambient temperature. Once this is done, race fuel is loaded up, and the fuel map is continued to be constructed, leaving off from where we were at on the pump fuel tune. I begin working up the boost and making my revisions, and leaving just enough time for the engine to drop below 200F before making the next pull. AGain, once we have worked up to maximum boost and fuel and timing are spot-on without any ping, I know we have a safe, reliable tune as the engine is again heatsoaked by this point. And then we let it cool down for 10-15 minutes and make the racefuel "facial shot" pull, which are the results you see me post. You dont see the full picture of how I do what I do - all you have ever known up to this point is the dynocharts that I have posted and nothing on my tuning procedure. My custom tuning is actually quite a bit more conservative than I believe you are aware of, since my reputation is on the line if the customer goes out and blows the engine for whatever reason - be it my fault or not. I wouldn't make a living blowing people's cars up. :) FWIW and AFAIK, Russell's widebody convertible has seen mountain auto-x runs where I know it is pushed to pretty aggressive limits. The last time I was in the GA mountains was with the guys from Z1 and everyone of them were running my ECU program. We were tearing it up for long durations at a time and nothing happened to any of those engines, except for Bob's car overheating due to a leak. I have auto-x many days of my life and run the car for considerably longer than 10-15 second WOT durations in these events - I have yet to have a problem because of tuning the car - the tuning is actually what allows you to run them like that and not blow them up. Paul Izzarone of Melbourne, FL, had his car built by Z1 when I was there, and I tuned that car as well. He has won FTOD on numerous occasions in all the auto-x that he does. Paul's car takes a serious beating, and it is performing without any problems. Kai Berenstein of Gainesville, FL also participates in auto-x events around there and runs my EPROM program and has no issues. I Am sure there are a number of people out there that are running one of the 850-some-odd AshSPEC ECU programs that have been sold and beating the daylights out of the cars without any issues on behalf of the tuning. Hope this clarifies some things for you - I think you may have the wrong idea of what I do and how I do it though. -Ash
[ ashspecz.com ]
[ agpowers@bellsouth.net ] Enthusiasts soon understand each other. --W. Irving.
Are you an enthusiast? If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
Albert Einstein
|
