BIG thanks to James @ RWTD!

T

Trav4011

Active member
It's never easy to judge someone's character over the internet.. Much less test thier ability to tune your vehicle. ;) After this weekend, I can say that I have a new friend in the industry..

James and I were talking about tuning in general, back and forth, after my fiasco at L&S last week.. Not only did he explain everything that was done (wrong), but, explained what needed to be done to fix it. Keep in mind.. he never once tried to get me over there for tuning.

I was going to make the 20+ hour trip up to JLP and have Johnny take care of the truck.. As he has always been great to work with, and basically offered to tune the truck for free, to help me out.. But, the cost associated with making that happen, as well as the time involved, just made it impossible to do.

So, I asked James to get me in, to try and straighten out this mess.. He was able to work me in, short notice (less than a week's notice). And, we made plans to head up to Mobile.

We headed up there this past Friday evening.. Shacked up in a hotel, and got there Saturday morning.. Vince went to work, building a base file right away. Got it off of the trailer, and onto the rollers..

After some keystroking, he got the nasty tip in issue taken care of.. as well as a few other misc. things.. Idle was perfect.. revved out great, but, we still had a nasty miss. We determined it to be plugs (probably fouled out from the pig rich tune from the previous week's session). So, we yanked them out, only to find some heavy detonation damage. One plug had it's porcelin broken, up the electrode.. and the gap had opened up to about .060". The others were black as hell, and fouled.. But, I'm not going to even get into that mess..

Swapped in the new plugs.. and voila.. Truck ran perfectly.. :) Data-logging.. organization.. this guy knows his sh*t!

So, we start making dyno pulls.. Within 3 pulls, James had the truck up in the low 600 range.. We iced down the cooler, for a "go for the gusto" run.. before loading up on the trailer..

Well, things don't always work out as you'd like them to.. lol..

The following run, the A/F was all over the place (lean), and James was working feverishly on the keyboard to try and figure it out. But, about 10 hours later, and after trying EVERY trick in the book, we finally exhausted all of our options.. and chaulk it up to a fuel system issue. The tune is SPOT on.. when the issue isn't present. James went above and beyond.. staying there till 5 in the morning, trying to figure this out. Then, straps ANOTHER car to the rollers, after I pulled the Lightning out of the bay! :blink: This guy is a damn machine! Nothing like tuning with the sun coming up. ;)

So, anyway.. the issue is that the truck will go lean, sporadically.. but, when the issue isn't present, the A/F is rock solid, where James set it originally, before this issue reared it's ugly head. Our best guess is that I'm running into some sort of fuel boiling issue, or there's a problem with the regulator. While fuel pressure does show steady on the gauge.. I'm thinking that there's something wrong between the tank and the regulator. MAF counts between runs are all within a few points.. so, there's no variation in the tune. Everything checks out.. but, I'm going to call Aeromotive on Monday to discuss this with them. Driving the truck on the street.. the issue wasn't present on 3, back to back 120+mph pulls. So, maybe the rails were getting so hot, that the fuel is boiling in them..?

Anyway.. I just wanted to give a big thanks to James. Super nice guy.. and a bad@ss tuner! I will be back in the fall, for my race tune, and fine tuning.

Final numbers from this weekend..
630whp/617wtq @ 14.5 (just shy of 15psi). 14-15 degrees of timing on E10/93 Octane

Pics/Video from this weekend's session will be coming soon. :)

Thanks!

Travis
 
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way to go! it's good to know there are people out there that still care about customer service.
 
Travis - get your battery checked out, just for insurance. We had a local guy who had a bad cell in the battery causing some issues. Even if the battery is new, there could be a bad cell.

Nice work on the dyno. Sounds like you've got one hell of a stout setup :eek:ldtu:
 
The voltage was erratic..

It would fluctuate between 13.8 volts and sometimes drop to 12.8 or so.. But, we added a few grounds, and got it between 13.1 and 13.8.

I have a old red top in there.. I may switch it just to see if that helps.

Travis
 
Trav4011 said:
The voltage was erratic..

It would fluctuate between 13.8 volts and sometimes drop to 12.8 or so.. But, we added a few grounds, and got it between 13.1 and 13.8.

I have a old red top in there.. I may switch it just to see if that helps.

Travis
Click to expand...

The battery is probably the issue. Voltage is so important to a high HP motor, I would think those big injectors need perfect power to operate correctly as well as the pumps and everything else.

1 Volt to the pumps + or - can make a huge difference in flow.

Also since you found signs of detonation in the engine I would take the time to do a complete leak down on it just to see where you stand, I'm sure its in pretty good shape judging by the numbers it made but I would do it just for piece of mind.

Do you know what your valve springs are ? I'm sure that with the XR heads they are great springs but still I'm curious.
 
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Great to hear travis, I knew it just had to be fine tuned..:eek:ldtu: You should deep six that battery and put back in the factory battery i would also consider doing 1 of our high out put altenators as well when you plan to push it pass 650 rwhp!...we have had many issues with those optima's. we replaced them with the factory battery and cleared those issues up..Good luck and keep in touch...:eek:ldtu:
 
Tell us about what you have for a fuel system now.
We can all learn something from you.
And maybe make a suggestion or two.
 
greg said:
Tell us about what you have for a fuel system now.
We can all learn something from you.
And maybe make a suggestion or two.
Click to expand...

Here's a diagram..

Rebuild105.jpg


:)

Travis
 
There is one thing that I don't like about the Fore unit and that is they didn't take the opportunity to move the fuel return away from the inlet of the pumps. My way of thinking is that having hot or warm fuel returned, point blank at the pump inlet is stupid. I know the factory got away with it but I think it needs to be changed.

I have put a tube on mine and pointed it off to another place in the tank so that the pumps can pull in as much fresh fuel as possible.

Just a thought.
 
Vince, if you see this.. and get a second.. please send over the dyno charts! I'm waiting to make a video compilation until I have those.. :)

Travis
 
James.. PLEASE email me with an updated file..

The trans is still set to shift like it was on the dyno..

Also, I need to lower the decay rate for the idle.. As it's hanging up a little. When it's warm, it'll hang up at 2k or so, and slowly come down after 6-7 seconds.

Also, the truck is idling at 950-1000rpm.. I want to lower it a bit.

Please get back with me on this and the dyno charts..

Trav4011@hotmail.com

Travis
 
Might as well start calling. The reason I started doing my own tuning was so I wouldn't have to wait on somebody else. In the big picture of things 300 bucks for PRP is negligible IMO.
 
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