is daily or weekly tuning required with ms ?(or ems)

[740ATL]

Guys,

how often do you go about tuning your cars? Is it a daily thing? are you taking datalogs daily and refining them?

or do you just tune once in a while and leave it be?

is the tuning out of necessity or just because you like tinkering with the car? (the latter would be my problem)

I am assuming you are collecting datalogs and using something like mstweak to refine them and update the VE tables...

Thanks.

Mike

PS... great idea on the subforum.

[linuxman51]

shouldnt be, not after you get it all dialed in.

[kyle242gt]

Constant tuning required upon install or significant hardware change (code/cam/injectors/etc).

I use my laptop as a glorified gauge set most of the time (am I running lean at >100% duty cycle?)

Once things are dialed in, I ignore it, and just keep my sixth-sense (butt dyno) keyed in to any weirdness (surging, usually).

I never datalog, never MSTweak. Rather, I make fuel VE changes by watching WB AFR target adjustments realtime (if the AFR target adjustment is 102%, up that bin's VE a tick, anc vice versa). Works pimp.

[Hank Scorpio]

I found it to be seasonal for about 1.5 years. Mostly doing things like tuning cold starts in the winter (ie you started "squirtin" in sping time) and then tuning timing in the extreme heat.

Other than that, its pretty much do it in a week and you'll be close 'nuff.

[Matt Dupuis]

I've experienced exactly what Doug says. Depending on your temp swings, you might have to do it more often. My car would really be happy with three tunes - one for summer, one for winter, and one for spring/fall. Hopefully I can get that down to two or even one with some careful planning...

Honestly, the need for repetitive tunes is primarily 'cause at first you don't know what you're doing, and you really suck at tuning. Once you get some familiarity with the system, with what works and what doesn't, and once you REALLY understand what MS is trying to do, you'll get better at it. I've done probably two dozen tunes on my car in the past three years, and I plan on doing at least a few on the new motor before I'm satisfied with it.

Which brings up another point - if you're not picky, you might be happy with the way it runs right off the get-go. Personally, I'm shooting for OEM-quality cold start, driveability, and economy. Others might just be happy that it runs at WOT, and I find their tables are generally biased towards boost in that situation. I bias mine towards where I spend most of the time, which is below 3000 RPM and 90 kPa.

IMHO, a 12x12 table is too dense to tune on the fly, unless you've got someone driving the car who knows a thing or two about EMS tuning as well. Datalogging and MST3K'ing has always worked for me.

[adrianpike]

Before I got a decent tuning laptop, I was tuning maybe once a month, and just keeping a mental list of the hiccups I'd like to twiddle with.
Now, I'm tuning every other time I take a drive, but that's because it's now really quick to whip out the tunetop, make the change, and close the tunetop back up.

Datalogging and MST3K'ing has always worked for me.
It's how I've done all my VE tweaking, I couldn't imagine doing it any other way. I did my idle manually. If I'm not datalogging for MST3K, I usually keep hte laptop open to the VE tuning window, and hit G, and keep my fingers on the arrow keys, and just twiddle when I hit a hiccup.

[Morley]

My Haltech has been very stable....tuned it 3 years ago. No need for a laptop in the trunk really. The previous engine ran for 2 years without any tinkering, and that on an open loop system.

Guess it depends on the state of the machinery, and how much stuff you are changing along the way.

[ovlov760]

tuning for temperature changes and modifications is about it once you get everything initially dialed in. I do take my laptop with quite often simply because I like all the info MT can provide in real time and in logs.

[tequila_gundam_no_chaser]

I just started playing in MS, and i can tell you its fairly stable. I'm still trying to work out my startup, but for the summer, this map is good. Usually, I take my laptop just for the detailed readout, as others are saying, but for the most part, I've been driving two weeks without altering the map. Its fairly stable once you get it all dialed in.