Hi all, I have been reading around trying to find useful information on learning how to tune your own vehicle. I am currently about half way through reading the aem ems Manuel, I'm also reading through hondata's technical section for S300.

If anyone else knows of any good sources of information it would be cool to gather them all in one easy to find area for anyone else curious about self tuning. Any tuners want to chime in how they learned (self taught or by taking efi classes)

 

www.efi101.com

They offer actually classes around the country, and their forums are a wealth of info

 

There are a couple of books by Greg Banish that are pretty good too. I finished one the other day, through about chapter two of the second. Both together were like $32 on Amazon.

 

I would suggest getting to know all electrical sensors and location, then function, which way they flow , for example: distributor -> rotor -> cap ect. But all wring and sensors! Then start reading up on the ecu basic function and last but not least the program you choose to tune with. And the same steps for that as well.

Ask your self simple. Common questions ,like what a stock intake air temp, if it's 160 and u start increasing over all fuel table curves and it raise to 180, you might have a air pocket in the coolent or intake gasket.

What's the most common air fuel ratio. Stuff like this!

 

Thanks for the help guys! I've read through the aem ems Manuel twice now (has great info on how differents parts work and work together) also been glued to hondata.com as I intend to use s300. Cant wait to Start my first tune. Want to get my car's fuel map in good running shape, then I plan on getting the street tune in good enough order to get to a dyno where I'm going to try to get one off the local tuners from 8thcivic.com to look over my shoulder while I figure out the ignition tables and hopefully prevent me for making any critical mistakes.

 

Would love to attend an efi 101 class but the don't come to Oregon. So hopefully the money I would spend on those classes I can use to rent a dyno. (and keep a very knowledgable tuner hovering over my shoulder)

 

This is a bad approach and you will learn why. Go spend money wisely, take the efi classes and learn how to tune properly. Don't waste your time on the dyno as it will cost you more money and the risk of blowing up your motor or someone else's motor. I took the efi classes and after i was done, first car ive ever tuned made over 450whp on a b16 on e85.

 

i learned to tune from uberdata forum and pgmfi forum just spent hours of reading and note taking but my knowledge while ive tuned about 10 cars already is far from someone that has taken the efi classes

 

I fail to see how an efi class could be any more beneficial than studying like crazy, then having a great tuner be your personal tudor while on the dyno. Wouldn't it be better than learning in a class of people to have just 1 on 1 time with a tuner?

 

I guess it depends on the knowledge and teaching style your tuner friend has...you could certainly learn as much from him as you would in an efi101 class, but he probably isn't going to do a lotmofmthings you would learn in that class. But that doesn't mean it isn't possible...

 

Yes what Xenocron said and also the great thing about efi is that they don't teach you how to tune any particular software, but rather the theory of tuning. Seth and Brian are great professors and i learned a great deal from them. I flew out to texas just for the aem class, its worth it. Ive been to some dynoshops where they have tuners that are so narrow minded and they only posses knowledge on how to tune a single software or motor. Its up to you, but also some tuners will also not share everything they know because after all, you will be in competition with them. Just food for your thought.