V8Supra said:
WHY would you put an "aftermarket" computer on if you wanted a conservative tune??
V8Supra said:
As for maximum power being a "fair few degrees" before knocking, this poses the question - Why does my car STILL make more power "stock" than any other.
I spent a whole 30 minutes on the dyno to get the AFR's and timing initially setup, just havnt been back to finish off the WOT tune yet as the diff is dying, all low end stuff has been done on the road. Plus after 30 minutes we got 155rwkw, this was with a factory holden V6 airbox, factory paper filter and poxy log headers. Out of interest what did your car make??
V8Supra said:
I did another log recently to see if anything had changed, and guess what - it had. Apparently they changed the Shell Optimax formula and there were a couple of MINOR knocks (my computer was pulling out about 6 degrees of timing). Which in a car fitted with a knock sensor pulls out timing before this happens thus making the knock MUCH smaller than it could be. Richard told me to switch to BP ultimate as thats what all his customers cars are using now and the knock went away. If my engine didn't have knock sensors then it would have been knocking a LOT more the whole time! fukc that!
Exactly my point, the knock sensor was able to adjust for the crap fuel! This is the whole point of them, not to tune to the edge of knock, but to save the engine from problems.
V8Supra said:
Knock sensors are to prolong the life of the engine. Try running a car that is highly tuned on a microtech and take it to the track on a hot day. It will be pinging its head off all day and no-one would know. In Sideshow's case it doesn't matter as he views them as throw away engines. In my case I'd rather not spend another $1k to put another engine in.
Pinging on a hot day?? Havnt had that problem yet - I have the air temp and water temp compensation tables for fuel and ignition setup properly, wont matter if it is 50 degrees or 10 degrees it will still run fine. Iam running a wolf and id say a microtech can do the same??
V8Supra said:
If you can hear knocking is FAR worse than it should be.
Sideshow says "tuning an aftermarket isnt just for all out performance". No its for engine longevity, fuel economy, by law adhering to emissions standards etc. But most of all its for power. I don't know about longevity of my engine, as I havn't run it for 200k kms yet, but fuel economy is better, power is better and its very legal.
Yes the knock sensor will detect knock before it is audible which is great, but there is a problem with knock sensors - it wont pick up audible knock. It is tuned to a certain frequency using the knock filter board in the memcal, which is specific to the engine it came off, so it wont trigger off engine noise like valvetrain rattle. Once out side this tuned frequency, which is before it is audible to the human ear, it will not see any knock - which is fine if it is before knock. The problem with this is you need to be careful while tuning and have a good understanding of how the delco adds timing - which Richard certainly does.
And finally Iam not having a dig at you or your tuner, its just that knock sensors are not the final answer in knock detection allowing complete safety, obviously they are better than having none but with the ECU setup properly they are not 100% necessary. Bad tuning with knock sensors can still cause trouble, the delco has very advanced (and confusing) coding for spark advance and can cause heaps traps for young players, also you do realise if richard hasnt extended any tables you dont have any tuning above 4800rpm, just a set spark advance per rpm increase....