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Tuning EFI

I went on a road trip with a little 2 place enclosed snowmobile trailer and my truck hated it. It had no power, couldn't hardly maintain 70mph, there was a huge head wind though. 6mpg.

Anyways, I started looking into some things and noticed where I was spending a lot of time had basically no timing in it! I'm talking 22* at 2k and 80kPa.

I basically took Stinger's base map and pulled 4* out as they suggested due to running 87 octane.

I gotta find a baseline OE map somewhere, I never have come across one.

anyways, I blindly put a bunch of timing in it where I felt it needed it and it was a whole different truck. Didn't feel like it had 2 brakes locked up anymore.

Obviously there are some rough spots. I think i could still put quite a bit more into it in the upper part of the map. Just scared is all, lol.


compare.JPG
 
Anybody got any tips for going at timing in the blind?

I haven't been able to find a single oem efi 460 timing map.. they flat out dont exist. My oem pcm doesn't have an available definiton or strategy or whatever to even do that.

The only thing I found so far was another guy saying he was running his at 35* by 3k.

I don't have any real engine tuning experience. The junk we used to build we pretty much just put at 34 or 36 degrees with the lightest advance springs we could find and then tuned the carb until it ran good.

I was pretty much gunna put a new set of plugs in it, put another 2* across the top (90 to 100 kPa) and do some logs of WOT runs and see how it goes. Then try again. Can you see pinging in a log? o2 fluctuations or something? My exhaust loud enough I can't hear pinging anymore.

Right now I'm mostly concerned with WOT... thats where it spends it's time while towing anything anyways.
 


I made a lot of changes. I figured out how timing during crank seems to work.. I think, and I worked on my cold start and hot restarts. They're much, much better now. Hot restart is still a little.. lethargic? I guess but it restarts with minimal drama.

Anyways, gave it all the timing I had the balls to give it and it didn't seem to mind? It sounds better as well. Also found it was set to take over timing at idle and was idling @ 15*. I bumped it to 20 and it sounds way smoother. 25 sounded and felt even better but it needs headroom to control idle speed.
 
Not much going on in here, eh?

I changed my transmission load from MAP to TPS and had to redo all the mapping for it. Plus side, it has a huge amount more usable range. The map started at around 25% TPS, which to get decent shifts I had to have in the 70-75% pressure. The problem came in on off-throttle downshifts that were very harsh, and say, after a WOT downshift, when you let up the upshift would be gnarly.

I ended up having to add a 0% TPS field at 50% pressure to calm all that down, otherwise it would only ever drop to the 70/75% pressure.

I think I got it shifting pretty good, and got some decent data out of it for other tuning.

One thing that sticks out to me is at one point the log is showing fuel flow at 102.4 Lph which is basically 100% of what my fuel pumps technically should be capable of (435.234sec). I have to get something on here to monitor fuel pressure. Also, I seem to be using a STUPID amount of fuel for the perceived amount of power I have.

 
Last edited:
e4od?
I really liked how mine shifted with the EPC solenoid completely unplugged
was like a shift kit
 
[486] said:
e4od?
I really liked how mine shifted with the EPC solenoid completely unplugged
was like a shift kit
Click to expand...

Yea. I have the tugger kit installed as well, 90% pressure on the 1-2 will almost snap your neck. And then the downshifts on decel will lock up the tires.
 
[486] said:
e4od?
I really liked how mine shifted with the EPC solenoid completely unplugged
was like a shift kit
Click to expand...
IIRC they don't live long lives doing that though.

Or maybe that's just FUD I remembered from old forums. Might be fine.
 
All I've got to add is props to you guys for taking on learning Ford tuning 🍻
I was on the fence a long time between converting my 96 obdII EEC-V bronco to the EEC-IV harness so I could run pimpxshift on my 408, but after adding up both $$ and time, I went Pro Flo 4 and quick4.
I do look forward another project down the road, and delving into the pimpx world.
 
I tinkered with mine last week, but I'm still not happy. Got some weird stuff going on with the AFR when I'm coasting down the backside of hills. But now that it's warm I clearly need a bigger trans cooler, so it's parked again while I change that :shaking:
 
Yeah, i just havent looked at it yet. Told ya im a noob at this stuff. I have to figure out how to adjust it.
 
There is a rate adjustment to be able to control when it kicks in. Stinger had mine pre set and I haven’t touched it yet, but it does surge every once in a while if I’m like coasting downhill a bit. You can always turn it off completely as well.

I’m pretty happy with how mine is running right now, I just need to work on efficiency. I can’t seem to get more than 6/7 mpg out of it. I am running at pretty high load at 75mph thought.

The rest of the truck is falling apart around it though, gunna have to work on that for a while instead, and my turbo ranger should be running in a month or so….
 
Ill look it up tomorrow, altho i wont be able to test drive it until next week since the trans cooler is out.

Stinger was way off on my tune so it doesnt surprise me that this would be off as well. They had it super lean; i think they underestimate how thirsty the 460 is. Last tank i checked i was getting 6.5 mpg; i have the mileage written down so i can check my next one as well.
 
reptillikus said:
Ill look it up tomorrow, altho i wont be able to test drive it until next week since the trans cooler is out.

Stinger was way off on my tune so it doesnt surprise me that this would be off as well. They had it super lean; i think they underestimate how thirsty the 460 is. Last tank i checked i was getting 6.5 mpg; i have the mileage written down so i can check my next one as well.
Click to expand...
Yea the afr map was horribly lean for sure. Everything else has been pretty close for me though. All the fiddly little things anyway.

I’m not sure how accurate the instant mpg is in tunerstudio, but if I slow down I can get it into the low teens. But who wants to drive 65 in a 70.
 
No VSS in my case, so i cant say if their mpg calc is good or not.

So i was digging around and i think my issue is its going in and out of over-run fuel cut. I understand it should show lean when coasting down a hill, because with the fuel cut it should show lean. But in my case it goes lean-rich-lean etc and the exhaust pops.

So digging around i see Basic/Load Setings // Engine State Settings // Overrun MAP Threshold, which is set at 20 kPa. I think m going to experiment with this, alho i wont be able to post any results until next week.
 
Check RPM on overrun fuel cut too. You might be right on the threshold going down that hill.

Been a while since I looked at it but there may be an "and"/"or" setting to where it will look at either RPM or MAP or need RPM and MAP to satisfy overrun threshold.

This kicked my ass for a while trying to fix off idle bucking in my stick shift car.
 
engine_state.jpg fuel_overrun.jpg
So in Engine State its sets to enable at 20 kPa. In Over-Run it re-engages between 14-1500 rpm. Beyond that, i dont really understand the settings yet. But with 5.13s and no OD i definitely spend some time decelerating at higher rpms, especially when coasting down the backsides of hills, which this area is loaded with. So maybe adjusting the RPM it enables at will fix it. My trans cooler comes friday, so hopefully ill get it installed Saturday, and i can get a new log showing what it does.
 
Also, check your TPS. At one point mine was right on the verge of going into decel fuel cut right off idle when I adjusted the butterfly but forgot to re-scale the TPS

I noticed this when I was trying to re-create and log the problem and saw the fuel cut light flicker on the laptop.
 
Im pretty sure i calibrated it, but its not like its hard to do, so ill recalibrate it tomorrow just in case.
 
you could turn it off and get the cool backfires on overrun at the cost of some fuel and fuel in your oil and you know...
 
Ummduh said:
Anybody got any tips for going at timing in the blind?

I haven't been able to find a single oem efi 460 timing map.. they flat out dont exist. My oem pcm doesn't have an available definiton or strategy or whatever to even do that.

The only thing I found so far was another guy saying he was running his at 35* by 3k.

I don't have any real engine tuning experience. The junk we used to build we pretty much just put at 34 or 36 degrees with the lightest advance springs we could find and then tuned the carb until it ran good.

I was pretty much gunna put a new set of plugs in it, put another 2* across the top (90 to 100 kPa) and do some logs of WOT runs and see how it goes. Then try again. Can you see pinging in a log? o2 fluctuations or something? My exhaust loud enough I can't hear pinging anymore.

Right now I'm mostly concerned with WOT... thats where it spends it's time while towing anything anyways.
Click to expand...
If I remember, I'll check my SCT Advantage software and see if I can find a 460 strategy I can take a screenshot of the main timing map. Anyone know what ECU strategy to lookup for a 460?
 
Did a little google fu, pulled up a calibration from a FEZ3 ECU. I think this is the correct main spark table.
Screenshot 2022-04-21 183131.jpg
 
Wildjon said:
If I remember, I'll check my SCT Advantage software and see if I can find a 460 strategy I can take a screenshot of the main timing map. Anyone know what ECU strategy to lookup for a 460?
Click to expand...

I’m guessing you can only pull up obd2 strategies? I can grab the code off my oem pcm but it’s obd1.
 
checked my box; i have 2 460 ECUs and both have the same code: 8SE

i did a quick search online, and it would seem there are 7 different catch codes:

8SE7.5F-x50 E-x50SD-Bank
DAD7.5F-x50 E-x50SD-Bank
J2C17.5F-x50 E-x50SD-Bank
MOT7.5F-x50 E-x50SD-Bank, C6
RUB07.5F-x50 E-x50SD-Bank / E4OD
W2T7.5F-x50 E-x50SD-Bank
Z2Z7.5F-x50 E-x50SD-Bank / Manual
 
Those codes arent in the database. You could try getting in touch with people familiar with binary editor.
 
Can anyone explain this to me? im super dumb, and just dont understand why it would be set this way.

fuel_overrun.jpg




Highest RPM to Re-engage Fuel: 1400
Lowest RPM to Re-engage Fuel: 1500

Isnt that contradictory? I feel like i should adjust this and that it might fix my popping on decel, but im not sure if this is right or wrong so im not sure which value to change, or in which direction. Its definitely in that rpm band that the issue occurs. Should i bump Highest up to 1600 and leave Lowest?
I dont have a log, but ill get one tonight on my way to work and post it tomorrow.
 
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