Okay - time to ask and learn. Lots of people talk about "tuning" after an installation. What exactly does this mean? what is tuned? How is it done?

 

Your tuning your engine for the correct air/fuel ratio (using a VAFC or whatever)and playin with the timing, fuel, and cam gears to extract the most performance from your motor.

 

Is there an ideal A/F ratio for the ITR or is it dependent on the mods?

 

I guess without being specific, tunning on an engine is basically like tunning an instrument. You tweak the motor or whatever (ignition timming, cam gears, A/F ratio.spring rates damping..) to get the best performance to suit your needs.

I guest without being specific on the type of tunning like suspension, ignition, weight reduction..or whatever it is hard to answer your question.

 

the perfect a/f ratio if im right is one lambda? maybe i completely wrong... but i know it is either 12.7 or 14.7 the perfect a/f ration that is

 

I know that tuning means to do something to the car (I'm talking about the engine specifically here)to allow it to perform at its maximum potential. My question is: What is this something?

 

Stoichiometric is like 14.6:1 A/F . 14.6 parts air to one part fuel.

This is not necessarily the best point for the most power, though. If you are RICH, you have an A/F LOWER than 14.6:1. If you are LEAN, you have an A/F of HIGHER than 14.6:1. For example, if your A/F is 13, that is rich, 16 is lean.

Generally speaking, it is optimal in terms of perf and reliability to be a little rich at WOT. I think you want around 13:1 or so for an N/A motor. If you are turbo, you should be even richer, like 12.X:1 I think. More fuel keeps it a little cooler and less prone to detonation.

Besides the A/F tuning, you can also tune cam gear settings, timing, etc. depending on what tools you have to adjust with...

Thoughts?

FB

 

Excuse my ignorance in this subject, but as far as ignition timing, for the most performance, it should be set to 18degrees.

But you wouldn't really want to do more than that even if you put on bolt-ons because of the strain on the motor right? And bumping it back would lose power right?

So whats to tune with regards to ignition timing?

 

Oh as for what the "something" is:

You can use a V-AFC or other device to add or remove fuel. Basically there are electronic adjustments and mechanical. For example, you could add more fuel with a higher Fuel Pressure as well.

For cam gears, you can try to advance or retard the intake and/or exhaust gear to optimize power and shift the powerband.

You could index your plugs or advance the timing to eek out a few more ponies.

Besides performance adjustments, to tune your car it should have all maintenance type stuff done: oil changed, fresh spark plugs, distributor, rotor, fuel filter, blah blah blah. All of these things can get you to a good state of "tune."

FB