You thought wrong. You have to verify that the MAF transfer function is correct. Every single car has variations. The stock transfer function was developed for a stock car with a stock intake tract, and even then was made to account for skewing caused by things like dirty air filters or sensor filaments. So, while it's usually close, there is almost always room for improvement. You want exactly what fuel you're commanding, not "close to".
How do you know the fuel and spark tables are sub-optimal? It doesn't sound like you know enough about tuning to make such a blanket statement.
I'm still learning. I read a ton about the MAF transfer function, and I'm actually a little excited to calibrate it. I want to swap out my aluminum one with the later plastic design, so I can practice calibrating on this one, and (hopefully) do a better job the second time.
And I'd assume the fuel and spark tables are sub-optimal, because we wouldn't need to tune it if they were optimal. I started this thread because I know next to nothing about tuning, but I thought "tune to make better" was a fairly safe assumption.
No, that table just tells the PCM how to calculate torque, it does nothing to control spark.
I know it doesn't control spark, I just remember reading somewhere that Ford maps out the MBT on an engine dyno to get the best torque with the least timing, and puts it in that table. I read it on the internet, so it can go in the same file as "leprechauns don't like rye bread" if it's incorrect.
I'm not touching MBT or max spark tables, just borderline knock. I think that's the right way to do it...
Every car is different. My '99 for example, loves fuel. I get the most power at around 12.1:1. Other cars seem to like anywhere from 12.6:1-13.3:1. Unless and until you put the car on a dyno, you really can't know what any given car will like. Same goes for spark, some motors can tolerate a lot more spark than others.
I don't want to try and make a end-all tune without testing, but I'm still a little ways off before I take it to the nearest dyno. I'm just trying to figure out a good starting point for our engines, since it's such a rare platform as far as the internet's concerned. I knew engine requirements across different engine styles would be different, but I didn't think out 3.4 V8 would fluctuate that much between cars.
Good idea. There are a lot of good Ford tuning books out there, or you can sign up for classes with a couple different SCT dealers (or maybe even SCT, not sure if they're classes are available to PRP's).
I'm looking at the SCT manual. From what I've read when it came out, it was what they gave to the dealers minus the bits about dealing with customers. I would assume it's recieved a few revisions since then.
Yes, you can flash a AWL1 tune over any '96/'97 calibration.
Hot damn. Maybe I can finally fix my 4th gear lockup with 3.99 gears, since I don't think YIY1 has the setting I need to change.
