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Tuning questions N/A 8V build LH 3.1

eregan

Member
Joined
Feb 24, 2018
Location
Massachusetts
First off some ****ty videos...

First start - forgot to plug the oil tracks so had to take things back apart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKL33AdpkEM

Straight piped idle after warmed up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PysBPUzPzMc

Head is shaved .05, Cometic .027 HG, 5 angle valve cut, hour or so of porting. Running Pink injectors. RSI Stage 1 Cam (Thank you photoman327). Running a STS adj gear at 0.

Car is a absolute blast to drive, pulls hard 4k to red line. Sounds like a Harley at idle :cool:

It's a 92' 240 GL M47 with LH 3.1, how should I go about cost effective tuning?


Will do a in car go pro video soon
 
If the head is shaved 50 thousandths then it will help to advance the cam. If I recall correctly the rule of thumb was 1 degree advance for every ten thou after the first 20 thou.

For tuning there is a lot more tuning available with LH2.4. There are off the shelf chips and other tuning options. Or, of course you can go stand alone with Megasquirt.
 
At the very least after watching the video I would suggest the ezk chip to get you started with something a bit more turned to the engine setup. The ezk chip by itself made a big difference in my car.
 
At the very least after watching the video I would suggest the ezk chip to get you started with something a bit more turned to the engine setup. The ezk chip by itself made a big difference in my car.
Where the EZK chips at that sounds like a good place to start.
 
Yes you can totally mess with the tuning of lh3.1. Actually the EZK ignition is the same as 2.4 NA. The fuel bin can also be adjusted just like 2.4.

How can I do this, complete novice to tuning. Adjusting the fuel bin?
 
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Look for the Tunerpro/Ostrich thread. I quickly realized that going with programmable engine control is a much better way to go. Hit up Yoshifab for a Microsquirt and plug-and-play harness.
 
Shaving the head and putting on a thinner head gasket actually retard camshaft timing.
First start - forgot to plug the oil tracks so had to take things back apart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKL33AdpkEM

Straight piped idle after warmed up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PysBPUzPzMc

Head is shaved .05, Cometic .027 HG, 5 angle valve cut, hour or so of porting. Running Pink injectors. RSI Stage 1 Cam (Thank you photoman327). Running a STS adj gear at 0.

Car is a absolute blast to drive, pulls hard 4k to red line. Sounds like a Harley at idle :cool:
What's the noise in the underhood video? Is it an electric cooling fan that runs with the ignition on?

Sounds like it needs a muffler! :lol: It'll at least be easier to hear if the engine is detonating.

What are the valve clearances set to? If they're the 0.015" you mentioned in your wanted thread, you could improve some performance under 2000rpm(and the idle) if you loosened them up some more, but it likely will be at the expense of a little power at redline.

If the power doesn't seem to drop off by the time you get to red line, I would suggest advancing the camshaft timing 2? and then seeing how it pulls to redline. You should pick up a little torque throughout the powerband until 5k rpm or so. The fastest setup would be the most torque in your usable rpm range possible. Advance the cam another 2? or so after that and see how it does. You'll probably want it between 2-4? advanced, I would expect, with the stock redline and that amount shaved off the head coupled with the thinner headgasket.

Be careful of detonation/pinging though, you may or may not have a problem depending on the gas you run. You probably will not be able to get away with any more maximum ignition advance than what the engine comes with stock, but it would likely benefit from a recurved ignition map with more timing in some places and less in others than the current map.

For the fueling side of things, you'll just need to get a wideband oxygen sensor and see where you are to start with, then you can determine if you need much adjustment there. I wouldn't go out and do any tuning yet until you get one of those and see what's what. If you want a higher redline though, you will need to change the tuning.

Again, it sounds like you need to put a muffler on there! Hah.

A lighter flywheel and a 3.73 rear end(or even shorter, if you don't mind higher rpm on the highway), will make that thing SO much faster and more fun to row through the gears. First gear becomes annoying because it's so short, but the rest of the gearing is much closer together and the car accelerates quite a lot quicker.

Lastly, your tires don't have much grip and you need to lower the rear of the car to stop that inside wheel from spinning so easily. Is your car lowered at all? Even if it isn't, I would lower the rear of the car at least half an inch and see how it does from there. More traction to accelerate out of the corners means longer tire life, less silly looking and it's a much faster car when you start turning.
 
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The car has a e-fan on the front of the rad yeah. Valve Clarence is set to .018. I do have the forward muffler back on it now haha. Going to install a Wideband next week then look into adjusting the fuel & ignition. I'll mess around a little with the adj cam gear, but without the straight piped exhaust, I'm finding it doesn't pull as well to redline. Hoping to snag a 4.10 at some point yeah. Will modify the flywheel next time I do a clutch. It's raised in the rear with wagon springs, Got some IPD springs on the way should be here next week. Thanks for your input.


Shaving the head and putting on a thinner head gasket actually retard camshaft timing.
What's the noise in the underhood video? Is it an electric cooling fan that runs with the ignition on?

Sounds like it needs a muffler! :lol: It'll at least be easier to hear if the engine is detonating.

What are the valve clearances set to? If they're the 0.015" you mentioned in your wanted thread, you could improve some performance under 2000rpm(and the idle) if you loosened them up some more, but it likely will be at the expense of a little power at redline.

If the power doesn't seem to drop off by the time you get to red line, I would suggest advancing the camshaft timing 2? and then seeing how it pulls to redline. You should pick up a little torque throughout the powerband until 5k rpm or so. The fastest setup would be the most torque in your usable rpm range possible. Advance the cam another 2? or so after that and see how it does. You'll probably want it between 2-4? advanced, I would expect, with the stock redline and that amount shaved off the head coupled with the thinner headgasket.

Be careful of detonation/pinging though, you may or may not have a problem depending on the gas you run. You probably will not be able to get away with any more maximum ignition advance than what the engine comes with stock, but it would likely benefit from a recurved ignition map with more timing in some places and less in others than the current map.

For the fueling side of things, you'll just need to get a wideband oxygen sensor and see where you are to start with, then you can determine if you need much adjustment there. I wouldn't go out and do any tuning yet until you get one of those and see what's what. If you want a higher redline though, you will need to change the tuning.


Again, it sounds like you need to put a muffler on there! Hah.

A lighter flywheel and a 3.73 rear end(or even shorter, if you don't mind higher rpm on the highway), will make that thing SO much faster and more fun to row through the gears. First gear becomes annoying because it's so short, but the rest of the gearing is much closer together and the car accelerates quite a lot quicker.

Lastly, your tires don't have much grip and you need to lower the rear of the car to stop that inside wheel from spinning so easily. Is your car lowered at all? Even if it isn't, I would lower the rear of the car at least half an inch and see how it does from there. More traction to accelerate out of the corners means longer tire life, less silly looking and it's a much faster car when you start turning.
 
The car has a e-fan on the front of the rad yeah. Valve Clarence is set to .018. I do have the forward muffler back on it now haha. Going to install a Wideband next week then look into adjusting the fuel & ignition. I'll mess around a little with the adj cam gear, but without the straight piped exhaust, I'm finding it doesn't pull as well to redline. Hoping to snag a 4.10 at some point yeah. Will modify the flywheel next time I do a clutch. It's raised in the rear with wagon springs, Got some IPD springs on the way should be here next week. Thanks for your input.
Cool, nice work. I'm sure it'd benefit from having the exhaust opened up a bit with something larger, but I can't imagine the straight through front muffler hurting that much. It's amazing how much slower a car seems sometimes when it's not as loud!

It's not really a huge camshaft, it just has a lot of area under the curve with somewhat aggresive duration which makes it such a lump at low rpm. It's not magical in that it makes it have a ton of power at redline, though.

Dropping the rear will help a good bit with keeping the tire planted(you could also cut the wagon springs, if you wanted).
 
Update: The 240 has been tuned/chipped via redblockpowered. Power delivery is much smoother and 1st gear actually pulls now. Car has also been upgraded from buzz bomb straight pipe, to a nice 3" side pipe with glass pack and turbo flow mufflers. Will post some more ****ty videos soon!

https://imgur.com/a/Xz0mEdm
 
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Sweet, congrats! Now lower the rear of the car 0.5-1" so you can put the power down better. :oogle:
 
Yeah those springs gotta be cut haha. Theyre uncut ipd sedan rear springs, how many coils should i chop off to drop it another inch? Think my Hydras with 205/55r16 will rub?

volvo sauce/gravy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBO0e5CAaAo
You shouldn't have any rubbing issues with Hydras and that tire size. If you do, you can easily work around it. Chop off one coil(dead coil) from the top and then re-check. It's easy enough to do on the rear of the car, so start small and work your way up from there. If you carry much weight here and there, you might want to keep a little bit of rake, but if you want it to keep the inside rear tire on the ground, you'll want to lower it more. Start with one coil and see what happens. Heck, go drive it and see how it drives after 1 coil. :cool:
 
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