New to MS. Trying to tune 85 Mustang 306 SC sbf

[jbigalow]

I am new to tuning and i was hoping for some help.

still getting some backfires, seems rich and pulling fuel everywhere for low rpm/load driving.
had some teething issues with the TFI settings and the PIP tang not being aligned with the #1 tdc.
started maf but said screw it and went SD. confirmed timing at 10* tdc with it fixed at 10, does bounce a couple degree's, but not bad. finally got the idle somewhat steady but it still likes to surge, cant seem to get it steady at 800/900. been ready the MS3-pro manual but can't seem to get the idle sorted.

anything we may be missing or are we just doing good?
backfires more than i like but the MAC pro dumps are perfect to hold air and fuel.
would be nice to compare to similar tunes to minimize the trial and error, but looking for any feedback/settings that i may have screwed the pooch on

Using Tunerstudios MS 2.6.19
MS3 1.4.0

car stats
running new MS3-PRO with DIYBOB
1985 ford mustang running 89 EEC IV system/drivetrain
306 sbf
Trickflow H/C(stage 2)/I
42lb injectors
Vortech V1S1 supercharger
TKO600 transmission

[Matt Cramer]

Try a little less timing (maybe 15 degrees) in the 900 to 1200 RPM rows. This often produces a more stable idle.

[Laminar]

Here my tune -

- Explorer 5.0 w/ stock intake and GT-40P heads
- LS coils

Are you running the stock IAC valve? You can see what my idle timing and VE settings are

[Blown88GT]

Your ignition table indicates 43lbs (400kPa) of boost??
Your AFR & VE Tables are 10 lbs (175 KPa) of boost.

Use the built-in table generators for a starting point. Located under Tools for each.

Start with a base tune & go from there. MS3 should be the same as MS2Extra.
MSExtra Maps are here; http://www.megasquirtpnp.com/mspnp2_maps.php

[jbigalow]

Thank you for looking!

I will definitely give this a try and get back to you guys.

[Blown88GT]

BTW, I use MAF instead of VE.
You do need the MAF flow curve to use it; had to raise the lower end a bit. Then set entire VE table to 100, then fine tune lower left cells for correct AFR & idle.
I switched after getting the VE close, works better for me.
You can leave the MAF cable connected, if not enabled in TS, it's ignored.
MAF for Fuel, MAP for Spark
Basic/Load Settings---General Settings
Primary Fuel Load = Speed Density (or in my case: MAF)
Primary Ignition Load = Speed Density

I believe the idle (high vacuum) surging is due to not bypassing or dumping 100% of the supercharger air before it gets to the MAF (blow thru). I can only dump about 50% since BOV is smaller than the pipe to the intercooler. Pump air flow adds air to idle & cannot be controlled like the IAC (IAB). You can tune most of it out at a later date with closed loop idle & idle advance settings.

[jbigalow]

finally got it to idle when at operating temp, VE sorted out, ended up liking the afr table to be at 15to1+ in idle cells, 17 15 14* through the idle rpms to help stabilize it.
still in SD and have gotten it drivable with some rough work, figure let it autotune further though timings conservative.

starts hard, seems to like lean but it still wont start without pedal, it does try harder to pop off than with richer mixtures. still trial and erroring this but any tips might be helpful.
we are looking at converting to GM 4 wire IAc for better idle speed control while cold. anyone chime in to how useful it is over the ford pwm valve?

started with WUE, doesnt like it but still doing trial and error for afr correction....wondering if going to 4 squirts might help? not liking that option if it wont let us run up to 7500rpm. i want to get the main ve more sorted out, seems that the AFR table is a bit too rich along the cruise/driving band, leaned it out for some testing the next time we go for a spin.

so far so good but figuring on asking a few more questions and let yall look over things

[Matt Cramer]

If anything, we've found steppers are a bit more complicated to tune than PWM valves - more parameters that can be set wrong. Instead, focus on getting the fuel and spark tables tuned to produce a good idle when hot. After that, come back and tune the warmup settings.

Full sequential will be better than four squirts per cycle.

[whittlebeast]

The RPM signal is rather dirty. What are you using to get RPM to the squirt?

[jbigalow]

were getting the RPM info from the PIP input on the stock harness through the DIY bob. Thanks for pointing that out! we'll need to check the signal with a digital oscilloscope at the connector(s) and at the dizzy to see if we have a bad cable or PIP module.

[jbigalow]

so we checked the RPM signal and it was pretty dirty so we ran a new ground wire from the head to the MS3 pro BOB board. the fixed that issue

we also discovered that the rubber boot to the GM map sensor was cracked so we fixed that.

now we have a few other issues we are puzzled on.

1) AFR constantly goes from 12 to 18 ...repeat

2) we have a 500rpm idle surge at any RPM. this happens when it's at idle and even when it's driving and i'm holding the throttle at a certain %.

3) the runs pretty decently but once we get it to 3k it starts breaking up and backfires like crazy. if we do a quick rev it's fine but as we get into it we can't go past 3k,

once again thank you guys for all your help so far. hopefully we are getting somewhere.

attached is the tune and log.

[jbigalow]

here is one of the logs. the others are too big. let me know if this helps

[Matt Cramer]

What are you using for an O2 sensor?

Can you capture the RPM surge on a tooth log? This will let me take a closer look for noise on the RPM input.

[jbigalow]

i'm switching over from a PMS so i am using a UEGO2000 wideband.

I will try to get that data for you.

[jbigalow]

attached is the composite logger file. sorry its a bit odd of a post but i hope it doesn't sound like im too insane

it took a bit, but finally figured out that the MSD stuff needed the spout to go to the white msd pickup wire and not to the TFI module. i rigged it up with a cotter pin after removing the coil - pin from the TFI connector (pin 2 DkGrn/yellow) and running it to the coil side of the spout connector with the spout yanked. we will of course make this permanent.
after this change we tried to check timing from where it was and boy was it advanced, ended up at 40+* while timing was fixed at 10* (this was correct with the spout to the tfi) this does kinda jive with the width of the blades being about 35* of crank angle, i didnt realise this at the time so i cranked over the dizzy to get it right and that's when i saw how odd the PIP position was in relation to the rotor and that's what led me down towards figuring and trying out switching to rising edge trigger.

one thing i've been trying to sort out is the injector timing and if the signature PIP window/trigger was setup right where the narrow blade is at the pickup gap when the rotor is just past the #1 terminal

after looking at the PIP i had figured that i needed it to trigger off the rising edge as the falling edge ends up with one cylinder with advanced timing, pretty sure i'm right on this after the testing listed below.

i did get my Vantage DSO hooked up to the PIP/Spout as we had it setup before through the TFI, which was incorrect with the msd 6al/boost timing master
i included a picture of a section of the spout signal as it was hooked up to the TFI

after changing to the proper CDI wiring scheme and triggering on the rising edge i went ahead and probed into the cyl 1 inj signal and looked at injector firing timing in relation to the cyl1 PIP and it being the tdc compression indicator. as you can see the cyl 1 injector opens on the intake stroke of cyl1 as its at the cylinder 5 ignition event about 540* before cyl 1 ignition, hence it is firing on the intake valve being open.

i do need to double check on adjacent cylinders but i included a picture of a paused section of waveform (ch1-inj1, ch2 PIP) with the narrow cyl 1 tang visible 3 events after the injector firing.

i believe we are finally getting somewhere, i hope the logs will give you the PIP signal that is clean, cant get a log of the Spout? maybe should have just left it on the composite logger.

we will hopefully get to drive it soon but for now it appears we have fully verified proper signature PIP timing with the injector/and rough crank angle math.
its at 10* btdc offset as that is the trigger point where the blade covers the magnetic field enough to switch the Hall. timing is reading right at what we fix timing to, verified table timing and the light were jiving properly.

we still had some popping/backfiring but hopefully its fueling that will now be closer now that the injector and ignition timing are correct with the valves.
we did get new plugs in just to rule them out. hell the old weren't too bad but we've been rich as hell sorting things out, plugs are cheap.

are we sorta shooting ourselves in the foot not just going with MAF instead of SD? i do know that i had not set the VE/trim table to 100 when we ran it, it was on the table created with the ve tool. so im thinking we may want to revisit the MAF sooner than later?

i appreciate the help, hopefully this can help others as there wasn't many threads on the TFI/CDI/PIP timing info from my searches with the usual terms.

i will try to get pics of the PIP tooth position at 1 tdc for posterity

[jbigalow]

@Matt Cramer have you had a chance to look at the log yet?

[jbigalow]

ok, so after a bit more work, trying to enable maf, somehow screwed it up and went through the whole pdf again.
a note for only the sensor grounds going to pin 18 white is in there....
in reference to the signal noise issue in previous posts, one question is if we should remove the TFI ground (oem ford pin 16 black/orange) to the block (through the oem wiring harness, as ford did it) and run that to pin 18 white, the sensor return (map/tps/etc).

right now the MS3pro is signalling the msd box directly off the tacho out (we had previously ran this to the spout into the tfi...which is the wrong way lol)
so since the oem dizzy/TFI is just reduced to the CKP/signature PIP, and the tacho output is the msd/cdi box...

it would make sense for the tfi to only ground at the pin 18 white ms3pro sensor ground then?

i dont see real noise with my vantage since im grounding to the block with my common lead. but this would have to mean that the MS3 is probably seeing noise.

the DIY BOB does not have the ford tfi ground ran anywhere that i can tell, so am i crazy in this needing to be other than a oem block ground?

[Matt Cramer]

You can run the TFI ground to a power ground instead.

Can you use a tooth log instead of a composite log? The tooth log will be easier for me to evaluate.

[jbigalow]

got a tooth log for ya.
setting is back to falling edge as i had forgotten the ms3 inverts, as i alluded to in the prev post, i'm an idiot lol

i cant seem to spread the chart to smaller intervals/time divide, so i can get a signal picture that i can compare to what my snapon vantage see's

we backed off the maf, we had enabled it, but couldn't ever get it to rev and trying to deal with that while making sure our trigger and ignition stuff was correct was a pita. so its back to speed density, now rev's fine, still get plenty of exhaust backfires but ive verified timings where its supposed to be. verified with the 180* firing cylinder number 6 (5.0 ho firing order 13726548)

Dag nabbit....and its at this point (we are about to call it a night, just this instant) that i just found out that numbnuts had wired inj1 to inj A, inj2 to inj B, etc, instead of in line with the firing order (inj1 to injA, inj3 to injB, inj7 to injC).
im pretty sure we just found the main damned problem we've been fighting for a while now.

i must thank you profusely for your help so far, and if the trigger looks good to ya im sure we have finally bagged this issue.

im going to update the first post with this sweet screwup just in case this can help some other poor 5.0 schlub not ASSuME that things are wired correctly using a pinout found online. thankfully he put it into an excell sheet for the OEM (diybob) to MS so we have permanent records, probably should post that too for posterity.

Thanks again for the time
regards, James "imma trust you" williams, and James "my luggage password is 1,2,3,4,5" lindholm

[Matt Cramer]

Looks like the TFI signal is wired correctly and getting a good signal; it's just running a bit rough. Let me know how the changes to the injector wiring works out.