Custom tunes safe for track usage?
 

Cross posting since I'm not sure all track junkies read the tuning section:

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=75855

Thanks!

What @CSG Mike said: Get someone who tunes track cars and race cars, and who will come to the track with you to finalize the tune under real-world conditions. Be prepared at the track to drive the car as instructed by the tuner; likely, you'll be doing the equivalent of dyno pulls, except on the track and without the dyno. For example, you might hear something like: "I want you to drive a lap at half-throttle until you reach the main straight. Then I want you to squeeze down until you reach nnnn RPM and hold that RPM for the length of the straight."

Ask the tuner what his goals are with the tune, and ask yourself if what the tuner says makes sense to you. Hopefully, you'll hear words like 'safety' and 'reliability'; 'power', not so much.

One thing to note: a tuner who does race cars and tune for different goals. For example, if you're trying to make a one lap wonder trying to break a record at all costs, the tune will be much more aggressive with a lot more heat output than a tune for a weekend warrior who just wants maximum engine longevity, and wants to just use regular pump fuel.

Most tuners will tune you on pump for this type of situation, and then recommend you put in a bit of high octane as a safety net for yourself.

I recommend anyone who tracks top off their tank with a few gallons of 100/101 unleaded at the track, even on a stock car.

How many customers have the time to work with a tuner at the track? Even if I could find a tuner, I still wouldn't trust the tune on my car for testing.

I'm surprised there aren't more off the shelf packages with NA parts and associated tunes. I want to buy a tried and tested package; not be somebody's test dummy. This is the appeal of the Cosworth packages. The more people that get them, the more confidence I'd have in it. And, right or wrong, I trust Cosworth more than the other tuners out there since Cosworth has a bigger reputation to protect.

I'm thinking stick with stock and then go JRSC since it has been heavily track tested; or Cosworth.

As mentioned it's very hard to just get a canned tuned for this car namely when you have so many people getting different mods.

For track, you need a tune that is conservative to start. I have talked with half a dozen tuners for this car now and almost all were dyno designed. As Mike said in other thread, it's just not the same. Even guys like Perrin and Knose don't test looking at oil pressures either. They look at oil temps but lets face it they don't sit there and tune for average oil temps of 265F on the dyno and all the heat.

If you don't have a tuner you can take to the track pick a tuner who will work with your track logs day of. Be smart enough to look at your own logs and know if there are issues before putting the car through extended sessions.

Personally I run a tune for 92 Octane despite having 93 octane in my area with almost no ethanol. Also have a hard limit on RPM at 7200RPM.

This gives even more overhead for issues on track.
I can safely run race 93 octane with no knock for up to 50 minutes at a time.
But the penalty is to do that, I don't make the power like the big street tunes. But still 65WHP over stock which is plenty and that same power is made in heat and extreme conditions, not just on the bench.

From page 3 of Jackson Racing's Installation Instructions:

When at the track, we REQUIRE running a minimum of 50% 100 Octane fuel. We highly recommend running 75-100% 100 Octane when at the track.

And, in response to a related email inquiry of mine:

We recommend customers with access to only 91/93 octane at the track to put a full tank of 100 octane in, and then top off with the 91/93 every couple sessions. As stated in our instructions, it is also important to keep above half a tank due to fuel starvation.

Note that the JR tune is a 91 octane tune (i.e., that's the minimum octane that can be run when using the tune).

An off-the-shelf tune will never be as accurate or as effective as a custom tune that has been created specifically for your car. OTS tunes are pretty reserved to begin with, to allow for variances across many different cars and fuel sources. If you're looking to build a true track car, you should find a tuner you can trust. There are a number of them on this forum.

If you want to get an OTS tune that is guaranteed to work, but doesn't necessarily produce the most optimal results for your specific car, I would look at Shiv's OpenFlash Tablet. The OFT, an air filter, a header, and Nameless' OP/FP combo pipe will be much much cheaper than Cosworth's comparable package. Even with a Nameless header, which is all Cosworth's header is. Once they start producing engine internals, which is what their reputation is built on, then I'd start looking at them for products.

There has been discussion on packages, but you will always get those guys who extract more power out of the setup with absolute disregard of what "safety margin" means and blow up their car, then blame the parts/package for the problems.

With that said, anything is possible, but the reality is, what are you willing to pay and how refined of a setup are you looking for?

If the tuner is good and experienced, they will be able to tune for the exact conditions you will be running. That can't be stated for all tuners, but based on experience, we know which tuners do a good job and which tuners are full of crap. :popcorn:

It's pretty pathetic that you "have" to run 50% race fuel on an off the shelf map to take it to the track. LOL! However with that said I would never trust an off the shelf "stage" map for an OEM ecu on the track without mixing in race fuel. We are pretty much in the business of building engines because of that so I can only complain so much ;)

As mentioned tunes that are good and safe for the track need to be based off of a map that was tested under those conditions. All of our Hydra EMS maps are that way because we have raced with all our maps and made the required adjustments but the entry cost is $1899. In the world of "buy our tune" it's a dyno game and they often fall into the trap of pushing it just that bit too much. Plus not many specialize in track cars so they don't know any better. It's one thing for an engine to survive a 12 second dyno pull or a 12 second quarter mile and it's a whole other battle to go WOT for 20 minutes straight, 8 times in a weekend.

The one thing that can sometimes go wrong with adding race fuel into a factory ECU base map however is that the Subaru ECUs learn up with higher octane. So while you think you might be giving yourself a safety margin, the ecu could easily be adding +4 degrees of ignition timing and bringing itself straight up the edge of knock again.

It's actually fine to run 91 octane for that tune, but there are many reasons to run 100 octane mix other than the tune itself. ;)

For the tune up it gives ;)

It's for the guys who don't have air oil separators to catch blow-by. :D

@Sleepless, I think you're overly concerned with the basic bolt ons and tune, if you think about it, it's nowhere near close to the complexity of the FI and tune since there are a lot more parameters and things that can go wrong ,, I think the list from more complex to simple would be something like this Turbo>Supercharger>bolt ons>stock .. then again there are some cases where the OEM tune was the problem (there are many TSBs about the factory reflashes) and people had custom tunes because of that ..

I bet there are hundreds of bolt on + tuned cars on the road and track, in fact I hardly ever see a bone stock FRS/BRZ :) with that said, there are always risks associated with taking these cars to the track ..if the car was not that boring in stock form we wouldn't bother modding them :/

I've been "heavily track testing" my car with KW kit and guess what at the very same tracks you attend to (temps, octane, elevation) but I never had any tune related issues so far, what more evidence you need? :)

Speaking of catch cans, I was surprised that, on the stock engine setup (as in nothing changed), I got a small (but very noticable) boost in power when I added catch cans (kind of like adding some race fuel). In about 30 track days since then I've only emptied the catch cans once and even then there wasn't very much in them. Such a minuscule amount of oil can make such a large difference!