LS3 Big Cam need some help fine tuning.

Howdy everyone! First, let me say that I am fairly new to tuning and I'm trying to learn so I don't a firm understanding on everything.

Anyways, I just finished having the car tuned by a very reputable LS shop through email and HP tuners. It took over 20 datalogs and tune revisions but the tuner finally said he thought it looked good. I told him I'm still having some drivability issues but he said he the tune still looks good and that he can't see any problems. I understand that it makes it hard to fix through email and I don't want to put a bad name on the shop because they did have good customer service. So I'm just trying to sort out my issue

My main issue is a hanging idle. With the clutch in and coasting my rpms fall very, very slowly from 2000 to around 1100 then it remains there for about 8-10 seconds before returning to 825 target idle. Occasionally, it will hang at 2000 for a couple seconds, then hang at around 1600 for another couple seconds, and then fall to 1100 again. It seems to do it even more when cold. Also, when driving between 1400-2200rpm when I let off the throttle the car will continue and maintain speed for a couple seconds before you can feel the throttle close and the car start to decelerate. I tried lowering the Throttle follower values a little bit but it didn't seem to help much, maybe I need to move them more. I did try pulling some air from the base airflow tables but it worries me because based off other tunes I've seen from people with the same mods I'm already a bit lower in value on my airflow tables then them and I would obviously like the car to be as quick as I can get it. Nor do I want to mess up the idle by pulling too much air.

The car also does not buck at all, even at 1000rpms which to my understanding this cam should buck harder than PBR champion. That makes me think the airflow is jacked somewhere either in the follower tables or the base airflow.

Mods are: CAI, TSP 2" Longtube Headers w/ offroad extensions, TSP F-35 cam 235/248 .649"/615" 111 LSA, 109.5 ICL.

Attachment 118307

This is the tune before I made any changes. It is exactly how it came from the tuner.

Thanks for any help!

At a quick glance, I would recommend lowering the BRAF table from 1000rpm-up quite a bit. That'll make a significant difference. Are you running a stock TB?

x2 on lowering BRAF. I had/have the same issue. Slowly getting better here. Each time I drive the car I keep in mind what gear and what rpm I'm at when I shift. If it hangs, I lower BRAF around that rpm. I do think that there is a way to log idle desired airflow. I may be doing it wrong, but it gave me a very good starting point.

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Originally Posted by kevin87turbot

At a quick glance, I would recommend lowering the BRAF table from 1000rpm-up quite a bit. That'll make a significant difference. Are you running a stock TB?

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Yes Stock TB, it has been mildly ported but its still stock hole size. Thanks, I had lowered them on my own to around 17 g/s at 2500rpm compared to the 17.6 the tuner had in there. Above 3000rpm I left the values the tuner originally had. That did seem to help a little but I didn't want to lower it too much as I'm pretty new to tuning and I didn't know if it would hurt anything else and cause my idle to suffer. Should I just make small changes like that until it resolves the issue and then leave it? Or is there other adjustments I need to make after that?

if it were me id start off by lowering it by 6% to see how that effects it.

Attachment 118329

Please share a data log.

So I pulled some base air and got the hang up to go away. I ended up having to put a little more air back in it because the RPMs were dropping too fast. My main worry now is the rest of the tune. If a supposed pro tuner didn't see that over 20 logs then I'm worried the rest of tune is sketchy.

Attachment 118348

I had Mailorder tune and it was less than stellar i can tell you that. This guy was supposed to be a good tuner as well and i'm still slowly learning and fixing stuff that wasnt even touched or was not even supposed to have been changed 10 months later. Thats the whole reason i bought HP Tuners. These guys on here will steer you in the right direction for sure. Glad to hear you had success dialing in your BRAF.

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Originally Posted by LS ROB

I had Mailorder tune and it was less than stellar i can tell you that. This guy was supposed to be a good tuner as well and i'm still slowly learning and fixing stuff that wasnt even touched or was not even supposed to have been changed 10 months later. Thats the whole reason i bought HP Tuners. These guys on here will steer you in the right direction for sure. Glad to hear you had success dialing in your BRAF.

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That guy (mailorder)) is supposed to be Texas Speeds top tuner from what I've been by other people. But I honestly have no idea. I'm slowly learning as well. I've debated paying the money to get HP academy's LS tuning seminar just to learn some more. I see ads for it all the time and it doesn't seem like it would be a complete waste.

Greg Banish's training videos, HP academy's seminar and long written up articals on here are the best way to go. BUT above all - don't be afraid to change settings to see what they do and keep in mind that one table won't necessarily fix 1 problem - lots of tables work together just like your braf table - in a gen 4 you have about 20 different tables that correspond to this one setting... SO, just jump in, make changes and see what benefits or dis-benefits they cause...

I heard the same thing. I don't want to bash anyone, so all I'm going to say is that the tune was not even close for what I paid for it. Anyways, as I mentioned earlier, I have learned a TON from just getting on here and reading up on different things. I wouldn't look at purchasing tuning seminars and what not just yet. Alot of info can be found right here in the community forums. I'll take things I see on YouTube and search here to see if the info lines up with what the more knowledgeable guys around here are saying. Sometimes it's easier for me to see something done (you tube) then other times its easier for me to just experiment and do it. Whenever I'm unsure, I'll ask and am delighted with an answer sometime after. I guess what I'm trying to say is, get your reading glasses on lol

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Originally Posted by GHuggins

Greg Banish's training videos, HP academy's seminar and long written up articals on here are the best way to go. BUT above all - don't be afraid to change settings to see what they do and keep in mind that one table won't necessarily fix 1 problem - lots of tables work together just like your braf table - in a gen 4 you have about 20 different tables that correspond to this one setting... SO, just jump in, make changes and see what benefits or dis-benefits they cause...

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I planned to do just that, except I'm not trying to play with things I know nothing about just to experiment because I can't afford another short block right now lol. I do plan to play with the Adaptive Idle Spark though to get my idle to be more natural instead of the artificial chop. My tune doesn't chop as bad as some other f35 cars but I still would like the more natural cam sound and more consistent idle. I'm thinking about putting them back to the stock settings and see how it does. My plan in the future is to do away with this cam, flycut the pistons, do a solid roller cam setup, 13 degree heads, intake, rev it to the moon and try to squeeze out 600RWHP N/A on a stock bottom end through a TR6060

Just checking as I have the same issue. BRAF - Base Running Airflow?

Yes, that is correct.

Thanks LS ROB.
I have never spent any time in this table. I have a manual and mine looks like this:
Attachment 118408
Should I take 6% out as suggested above in all rows?

Each engine will be different depending on how far off the airflow is. You can try larger amounts if you're hanging real bad and smaller amounts if you're hanging just a little. If i remember correctly, my airflow is measured in g/s. You can click on the measurement units based on your preference and change them. As i stated above, i try to find out what rpm and what gear i am at when I shift. If it hangs, i lower it some. It takes some driving to dial it in, but this is what I found has helped me the most as i am not sure how to correctly log airflow in the scanner. Hope this helps.

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Originally Posted by GHuggins

Greg Banish's training videos, HP academy's seminar and long written up articals on here are the best way to go.

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Thanks for the plug, it's good to see that people still find benefit in my training videos.

That said, for this case the OP MUST make sure his airflow model is correct before chasing his tail with idle running airflow. The ECU will try to trim airflow based on what it is seeing and the RPM error. If you keep feeding it an incorrect airflow number from the MAF/VE models, you'll have a really hard time deciding what value to use. On the other hand, if the airflow is correct, it's really easy to look at what value it stabilized to for idle and just past that into the RAF table once and be done.

That's true. The airflow and fueling model controls everything else in the calibration. This was one thing I meant as far as tables working together. For example for others out there I'm personally going in circles right now on a V6 F150 that I don't have access to dashpot or airflow tables on and the only thing I can do is drastically lower the etc calibrated airflow settings or skew the SD airflow tables to 20% on the rich side - grossly lying to the ecm about the air going in, so it'll close the tb down. Otherwise it just keeps wanting to idle higher and higher every time I take "fuel" out due to the non-accessible airflow at idle tables in the cal right now. Trying to get hpt to add in the 100 or so missing tables right now for this particular cal... Of course it's a gt500 blower and tb on the wee V6 :) The other option is to skew injector data, but don't want to do this as it'll effect the whole tune all over again :/

As far as the training videos goes, it was actually where you demonstrated shifting the injection timing on an older camaro I believe, combined with another mans research on stand alone saw mill engines that lead me to investigating and coming up with my injection timing procedures and philosophy's... Just wish I had more of an OE level understanding of the coding, so I could really dig into the cals.

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Originally Posted by GHuggins

...I'm personally going in circles right now on a V6 F150 that I don't have access to dashpot or airflow tables on and the only thing I can do is drastically lower the etc calibrated airflow settings or skew the SD airflow tables to 20% on the rich side - grossly lying to the ecm about the air going in, so it'll close the tb down. Otherwise it just keeps wanting to idle higher and higher every time I take "fuel" out due to the non-accessible airflow at idle tables in the cal right now. Trying to get hpt to add in the 100 or so missing tables right now for this particular cal... Of course it's a gt500 blower and tb on the wee V6 :) The other option is to skew injector data, but don't want to do this as it'll effect the whole tune all over again :/

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If this is a drive by wire (torque based) Ford, you are looking for the wrong thing... (Hint: TORQUE control...)

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Originally Posted by eficalibrator

If this is a drive by wire (torque based) Ford, you are looking for the wrong thing... (Hint: TORQUE control...)

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Yes, I'm aware of that Greg, but it's still got airflow tables to go along with those torque tables :) If you zero out the DD, torque in idle areas then it still wants to idle high and then you grossly increase the etc table as a last resort and it still idles high and wont come down until you shift the air model to the rich or nearly zero out the etc vs throttle angle vs airflow table - where do you go then?

I would attach the tune as it stands right now, but the attachment device isn't allowing me to attach anything other than really old small files - actually got this one to only flair to 2000 rpms on hot restart having idle torque set around 14. But working around the many missing tables from this vehicles cal - which I think you may have missed that part :) is causing me many headaches. For example this cal is missing probably 50 etc related tables alone.... Funny thing is hpt put all of the tables in the V8 trucks, the v6 ecoboost trucks and even the v6 mustang cals NA or boosted - didn't matter on them - they had them, but not the v6 NA trucks??? Don't have a clue why, just the way they decided to do it I guess...

EDIT - actually may have figured out what was going on. Will find out tomorrow when he tries the tune change in which case it was something I overlooked, but again had nothing to do with torque modeling and everything to do with airflow and fuel modeling throwing off the idle airflow values... Just hoping this indeed is what was wrong (gt500 injector data in a F150's tune without accounting for the 30psi change in rail pressure - vehicle to vehicle)