Crome guys, I'm confused as heck... I'm using Crome free (yea I know but I'm married with kids and broke!)

Anyway, my car is a 94 EG hatch with a chipped P28, motor is a mild build:

84mm Darton Sleeved B18C1
RS Machine ITR pistons
Manley rods
OEM "R" crank
99 spec ITR head with Buddy Club Spec III cams

I just want to get a decent base tune in the car because I have to drive over 75 miles to a tuner with a dyno..

I have a 6 month old Innovate LC1 wideband in the car and it has been properly free air calibrated per instructions. I use it in place of the OEM 02 sensor and have it wired correctly into the ECU using the narrowband outputs. But my gauge always shows rich as hell no matter what tune I use, it won't idle and even misses and sputters when it crosses into vtec (WB shows 9.8-10.2 afrs)

I loaded both a stock P72 and P30 tune last night and still get 11.9-12.2 afr's at idle/mid throttle.WTH??? I figured a P30 would be very lean but not the case...

Any ideas fellow tuning gurus? I'm lost? Is my wideband screwed up? Any way to verify it?

 

The way to verify it is to check your spark plugs. If they are black and soot covered then you are running rich as your AFRs are showing.

What injectors are you using?

Have you tried setting up the fuel injector offsets in the fuel multiplier calculator(advanced tab). Also don't forget about the battery offset in the advanced tables?Just throwing a base P30 or P72 code on a chip and expecting it to run your modified engine isn't going to happen. You are going to have to make adjustments to get it to run properly.

 

I haven't pulled the plugs, I'll do that tonight.

Stock injectors so I've left all the settings alone, I figured this would be my best bet until I get it to a dyno and tuned and then I'll see if I need bigger injectors, most say I won't until I reach the 220whp mark.

 

Yeah you might want to add fuel tools to the P72 ROM. That way you can change the injector offset under the fuel multiplier advanced tab. I usually start in the 30-40 range and go from there. changing it up or down until I get the idle at the right RPM and AFR. Also you should go into the advanced tables and change the battery offset to the Honda Civic 240cc 12ohm setting. Just a suggestion, it may or may not help sort things out a little bit.

 

Okay thanks man, I'll give it a go tonight. Whats the purpose of setting the offset to the 12ohm setting? Isn't both the P30 and P72 ROMS setup and scaled for OE 240cc injectors? I purposely haven't put bigger injectors in yet just to ease the tuning at first.

I'm not a total rookie to tuning, but all of my experience has been with Mustangs and other domestics mainly fords.

 

I always go into the advanced tables and ensure that they are correct anyway. The P72 and P30 injector offsets are different. But they both use 12ohm 240cc saturated injectors. Wouldn't hurt to try the P30 (B16) civic offset on the P70 ROM???? I'm just throwing out suggestions.

Verifying that your AFRs are actually rich would be the first step!

 

Ok little update... I re-read Xenocron's tuning tips and went and copied the tables from the P72 into a P30 base. I rescaled all of the x axis (rpm) to match and also changed the advanced options to match the P72. Added fuel tools and changed the offset as well as made sure the injector offsets were 12ohm 240cc.

Car started up and sounded good, AFR's weren't as rich as usual and it was even trying to idle. Then it surges a few times and shuts off only to no restart whatsoever! Just cranked and cranked... so I put the other chip I had in (just a P30 base) and it starts right up! changed back to my P72/P30base chip and nothing!

Corrupt file/ROM? I'm lost...

 

yeah it's a corrupt rom, use the stock P72 and put it in debug mode, disable everything, remove checksum. make sure the engine light isn't on so you can rule out another issue. Make sure your wideband ground is isolated so you're getting correct readings. if you're cruising at around 14-15:1 AFR then that should get you to your tuner at least. If it's higher or lower, just change the injector size until it gets you there. Bring an extra set of plugs just in case they foul out

 

Thanks John, whats the debug mode do anyway? I've seen that on there but had no idea what it was for.

You mention isolating my wideband ground? Innovate says to make sure its grounded at the same spot at the ecu as the gauge and other grounds, is this wrong? maybe I'm getting false readings?

 

I believe it disables O2, IAT, ECT, VTP and KS codes. I know I'm missing something but maybe HRTuning can chime in.
I typically get good results grounding to D22, but on some applications sharing a ground causes interference, so with Innovate in particular I tap both ground wires to the chassis and use A25 for switched power, never gives me any trouble.
It's best to rule out false readings first, just compare your live Crome AFR values with the logworks values to make sure they match up. I program Innovate to run 0-4v with lambda 0.680 - 1.293, it tends to read better that way for Hondas. Stoich is at 2.1v