EFI University, 101 and Advance course quick review
So this weekend was my EFI University classes, I certainly recommend these classes. Going in you should have a solid understanding of AFR, fuel injection, ignition timing, and VE. The first conversation is about the basic 4 engine strokes but its more just to have the image to refer back to when discussing timing. It gets more in depth real quick. Also the better at math you are the easier some of the theories will be to digest. They do give you a calculator but if your able to come up with the percentages of change in your head it would speed things along, I know this because I wish I could.
The 101 class is classroom based learning, they give you a book and you sit and listen to the instructor. At the end of 101 course there is an example dyno run, in my case it was a honda s2000 with AEM software (live tuning). The 101 is certainly a lot of information and a whole lot more then I ever got out of books or certainly the internet. You can't ask a book a question when you miss something. So yes the 101 is more of "why" then "how" course.
To get into the "how" is the advance class. My advance class had only 4 people including myself, the 101 was 12 people. There is a decent price jump to take the Advance class but I can't express how happy I am that I took the class and took it right after the 101. In the Advance there is a bit more classroom type learning, more details about compensation tables. Then using that same s2000 each student got a chance to drive the car on the dyno first just learning how to control the load on the dyno to hit instructor selected points on the tables. Dynotech has a mustang dyno so we could set load, very cool. Then after that we got to adjust fuel and ignition tables from the passenger seat. So every run on the dyno there was 2 students in the car. With a class of 4 there was very little down time, there was always something to do. Even when I wasn't in the car they had large TV screens showing what was going on the tuning lap top. After the fuel and ignition changes at targeted loads we moved on to full pulls. After each pull we would look at the logs and interpret them to make a given change. First fuel to hit target AFR's (this is when quick math is handy), then ignition. We also got chances to read the logs to diag a problem, in my stupidity I only gave it 98% throttle one run so I had to look at the logs and find out why I made less power. All in good practice.
So leaving the class I walked out with a very informative book, now covered in my notes. Two certificates of completion, both 101 and Advance. And most important much much more confidence about getting my hands in on my own car. My instructor was also a wiz with excel so he hooked us up with some excel files that do the longer math for us.
The instructor was a Honda guy so he didn't have any FA20 experience and I didn't ask about Ecutek. However the instructor stress's not to over think it. Everything is a 4 stroke engine with a piston going up and down. For me the first hurdle will just be learning the Ecutek software. For example on the AEM software the high rpm high load was the top right of the table. Other softwares may show that in the bottom right. Of course they can not teach every software out there. We had a S2000 so we used the AEM, a different class may have something else. The instructor did have numerous other softwares on his laptop that he pulled up, Haltech, Motec. It was very cool to see just how advanced those really are.
So in short I highly recommend the EFI University classes, I have lots of experience in automotive schooling and this is right up there.
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