Several questions regarding tune. Please help.

[neutral]

Hey guys,

I'm gonna try to include as much detail about my car and the issues I'm having in the hopes someone will be able to help. Sorry for the length. Here goes.

I had the Full Blown premium turbo kit installed on my car about 2 months ago. Running the included basemap, the car ran fine outside of a touchy throttle. Last Wednesday I drove 2 hours to Louisville to have my car tuned at Dynosty. It was an all-day affair, so I got my car back right around when they were closing and I was on my way. I get in my car, start it, lightly hit the throttle to get going, and immediately the car dies. I start it back up again, and again it dies on throttle. I think this is the idle trying to figure itself out, so I over-gas it to get going and I'm on my way. Hit the highway, and I'm soon realizing something is not right. I hit the throttle, there's a .5 second delay where nothing happens, and then BOOM the car jerks forward and starts accelerating. This is 100% reproduceable the whole way home. Also the car stumbles pretty badly while on part-throttle, and it feels like the I'm letting off and hitting the gas pedal every 2 seconds. I lurch forward back forward back all the way home.

I call Dynosty the next day and they tell me I'll have to bring it back to get the issue sorted out. I make an appointment, and head back on Friday. Half way to Louisville I go to pass someone and all of a sudden I can't accelerate. I hit the pedal, and the car starts breaking up REALLY badly, and absolutely refuses to accelerate at all. Part throttle, full throttle, doesn't matter (previously the car ran perfectly in full-boost). I try for about 30 more seconds to get moving and then the check engine light comes on. I immediately turn off the car and coast to the shoulder. Check the code, and it's a P0300 Random/Multiple Cylinder Misfire Detected. I call a tow truck and he drives me and my car the last hour to Dynosty. I'm pretty annoyed at this point so I call Dynosty and tell them I'm stuck and getting a tow, and mention that I'm pretty sure this is the tune causing the issue because my car has never done this prior to their tune. I'm told that's not possible and it was probably a mechanical fault. Joy.

Car arrives at Dynosty, they start it up, seems to be running fine. They have no idea why it acted up. They find a loose transmission ground and re-connect it. We don't think that would cause the issue but we don't rule it out. Hal notices my part-throttle stall issue immediately and pins it on incorrectly set injector dead-times. We're not sure exactly what injectors are included in the Full Blown kit, so we don't know what the timings should be set at. Another all-day affair, and I'm told the issue is resolved. Hal says he couldn't find the exact numbers but he was able to get it close. I drive it around for 5 minutes or so, and it appears that it is in fact fixed. Hooray. No charge on this visit outside of the $240 tow and obviously gas to get there and back. I get on the highway to head home, and my heart sinks again. The car is still stumbling on partial-throttle. It's certainly better, but it's still very noticeable and makes driving rather unpleasant. I look at my AFR's while it's happening, and I see 2 different patterns. With cruise set at like 70mph, sometimes my AFRs will shoot to 11.1, and it'll just hold there, then all of a sudden the car will stumble, AFR will shoot to 20 for a half second, then level out to 14.6ish. Other times, it'll be at 14.6ish, car will stumble, AFR shoots to 20, then back to 14.6. And it stumbles every time when I'm accelerating between 1-3k RPM. If I floor it and go into full boost it seems to be fine.

So here are my questions:

1. Can injector dead-times being wrong cause this sort of issue, or is this probably something else?

2. Is it actually possible for the tune to have caused my highway breakdown, especially considering that the tune ended up being off?

3. Other people are running this same exact kit (presumably with the 550cc injectors like me), and I haven't found anyone complaining about the dead-time issue. Does anyone have the exact info on the injectors included in the Full Blown Premium kit and/or the dead-time numbers on them? LJ from Full Blown provided us with numbers but they definitely weren't right.

Again, sorry for the long post, and any insight would be IMMENSELY appreciated.

Thanks,
neutral

[Turdinator]

First of all I am no tuner so i have no idea what could be causing your issues. There are people on here who could definitely provide some insight tho. Do you have any logs you can provide of the issues on the highway? If you can load some up to datazap I am sure people will be able to start giving you some theories on what it could be.

[neutral]

Nice. I've never heard of that site. Very cool. I discovered another neat symptom my car is having and I snagged a log of it with torque. If I'm sitting still, and I try to hold the engine RPMs at a constant level by holding the gas pedal slightly, the revs constantly cycle up and down at a regular pace. Below is the log. You can clearly see the commanded AFR staying constant while the measured AFR, RPMs, and engine load cycle at regular intervals.

http://datazap.me/u/neutral/trying-h...g=0&data=1-2-3

If more information would be useful, let me know and I'll take another log with the additional info.

Also I'll log some driving tomorrow on my way to work.

Thanks!

[Wayno]

First thing is flash back to your base map to rule out hardware issues. If it runs fine then find a tuner who knows what they're doing.

[Turdinator]

First thing I noticed about the log is your engine load is fluctuating a even tho your throttle is steady. Are you tuned with Ecutek? Is the tune speed density or maf based?

Wayno's advice is very sound. Assuming you can flash between the Dynosty tune and base map, revert to the base map and make sure it isn't a mechanical problem.

[neutral]

Originally Posted by Turdinator

First thing I noticed about the log is your engine load is fluctuating a even tho your throttle is steady. Are you tuned with Ecutek? Is the tune speed density or maf based?

Wayno's advice is very sound. Assuming you can flash between the Dynosty tune and base map, revert to the base map and make sure it isn't a mechanical problem.

I need to buy a cable then. Been spending so much money lately I've been holding off. :'(

Anywho, yes I'm tuned on EcuTek, speed density based.

[Kodename47]

Injector latency will cause more issues at lower injector pulse widths, however this is only applicable to the PI system on this car. Without seeing more info it's hard to tell.

If the car runs fine on full throttle it would rule out the idea of it being fuel delivery related.

[renfield90]

So...you changed nothing mechanically on the car, changed the tune and had lots of issues, and your shop tells you it's a mechanical problem before turning around and saying they fixed the tune when they really hadn't?

Get the base map on there before you damage something and find a new shop.

[zc06_kisstherain]

Originally Posted by renfield90

So...you changed nothing mechanically on the car, changed the tune and had lots of issues, and your shop tells you it's a mechanical problem before turning around and saying they fixed the tune when they really hadn't?

Get the base map on there before you damage something and find a new shop.

I am with this guy as well. i wouldnt run with same tune if problem is there and is likely damage more

[neutral]

Took the car to my local shop (Allspeed Innovations) today after it was being extra stubborn. They pulled a spark plug and it was definitely fouled from running rich. They loaned me a tailpipe wideband AFR gauge to get some good readings while driving. Under full boost, my AFRs were holding at 11.5. I then hit a ~15 degree incline where I was holding light throttle to maintain speed up it, and the AFRs fell down to 10.1 on the wideband. So our current theory is that the front O2 sensor is toast and is causing these issues. I have a buddy with a BRZ we're gonna swipe the O2 sensor from tonight to see if that fixes anything. This is a bit of a chicken-and-the-egg problem. Did the original basemap tune (which was running really lean) burn out the O2 sensor, causing the car to run rich, which fouled the plugs? Or did the new tune just run too rich by itself, causing the fouled plugs?

I took another data log on my way home. You can see the measured AFR bottoming out to 11.0 in several places on the factory O2 sensor, which was really 10.1 on a wideband.

http://datazap.me/u/neutral/drive-home?log=0&data=1-2

[renfield90]

Correct me if I'm wrong but don't most forced induction base maps start off rich in order to be conservative?

Two months of driving on the base map, no problems. Three hours driving on their map and you're stranded on the side of the road, and they admitted they got at least part of your tune wrong. I don't see any chickens, but I see your tuner laid a lot of eggs.

[neutral]

Alright so my car is completely undriveable now. I'm assuming the cold weather is exacerbating the tuning issue. At cold start, it runs fine, but once it warms up it starts running way too rich causing the throttle to barely function unless I can get it into full boost, which is obviously not realistic for a daily driver. So I'm not entirely sure what my options are. My buddy who is way more familiar with cars than I am says that it's 100% a tuning issue that caused my original breakdown and continued inability to drive my car, and not something mechanical like Dynosty tried to suggest at my last visit. I'm just not sure what to expect from a situation like this. I've taken 3 days off work now (2 days to drive to Dynosty, 1 because my car couldn't get me to work), and I'm bumming rides from coworkers now. I've called Dynosty twice this week and was told I'd get a return call, of which I've received none. So the way I see it, the options I have that don't require me to front more large sums of cash are one of these:

1. Get my car towed back to Dynosty. This would be at minimum a $400 tow bill, which I'm not sure if it'd be realistic for me to request that Dynosty pay for.

2. Have Dynosty send me a tuning cable and try to tune the injector latency issue (which is what we presume to still be the underlying cause) remotely.

I'm not a very demanding person, nor do I understand what should be expected from a tuning place like this. Is it a best-effort type deal where I'm on my own now, or should I expect for my car to at a minimum be driveable when they're done with it and demand that they do whatever it takes to get it there?

[phrosty]

Ethically if it's something they did, they should do whatever they can to fix it without incurring cost to you. They should either fix the tune and repair any damage for free, or if they're right about it being an unrelated mechanical issue, they should find out what broke and charge you for finding it.

Legally... you probably signed something saying they're not responsible for anything they did, which may or may not be binding depending on your state laws (some things you can't sign away).

I'm not sure if I'd trust taking the car back there!

[renfield90]

One thing I'm seeing is that it appears the car is fine in open loop (while warming up, and I'm assuming you're WOT to get to full boost) but in closed loop the car sucks. Did you try swapping the O2 sensor? I think it's really unlikely that it failed, but based on the symptoms it bears examining.

I still think you're playing Russian roulette with your motor if you let them touch it again. They couldn't get your tune right after two days on the dyno, what makes you think they're going to do better remotely?

If you get the base map on there and the car works fine, then only a single variable has changed and it'll be pretty clear where the problem is. This is diagnosis 101, change one thing at a time and then test.