Beginner G8 GT trans tuning

[informationjunkie]

I've been playing with the shift mph in all gears, and basically did a little bit of this, but i've set 4th to 5th to happen at around 65mph or so, and 6th is disabled, i'll keep testing and see if i like it, it's feels different not having 6th , but it feels nice the trans seems to be in the right gear most of the times.

i plan on playing with this more in sport mode after i get normal done. with snow, school, and work i just have not had the time.

[ltgdude]

I am very green at this tuning thing and am looking for some guidance. The guys over at Intense sent me a quick tune for my 09 G8 GT and it works nice over stock. I guess I am looking for suggestions to tweek this tune. It is stock with the exception of exhaust and air intake.
I am also looking for a cheater guide to some of the abbreviations I see.
Look forward to learning more.
THX

[bluegoat06]

i plan on playing with this more in sport mode after i get normal done. with snow, school, and work i just have not had the time.

I couldn't get used to shifting into 5th at around 68mph , so i made the 5th gear shift at around 40mph. way better, 6th is still disabled.
Here is my current tune if you want to experiement. i'll leave like this for a while, 5 usable gears in sport mode, i tried going more agrresive in the downshifts at low rpm, but didn't like the feeling cause i'm not always all out when driving around the city trying to have some fun.

Thanks Ecuboss for the idea, definetely a more enjoyable sport experience with the trans in sport mode. :thumbs:

[SoCal]

I am very green at this tuning thing and am looking for some guidance. The guys over at Intense sent me a quick tune for my 09 G8 GT and it works nice over stock. I guess I am looking for suggestions to tweek this tune. It is stock with the exception of exhaust and air intake.
I am also looking for a cheater guide to some of the abbreviations I see.
Look forward to learning more.
THX

The abbreviations are pretty frustrating at first. I don't know of a good reference. But if you want to list the ones that are giving you trouble, I'd be happy to try defining the ones I know.

Almost forgot, "thetuningschool" website has a transmission guide. 20 pages. $80. I haven't read it. Would be interesting to see how their recommendations compare to what you have now.

Intense tunes being editable in HPTuners is a huge selling point in my opinion. I've considered getting their intake/tune combo. It might be nice to start from a "finished" tune and just tweak here and there. Which I guess is exactly what you are doing.

As for what to tweak, that is tough without knowing what they've already done and what about the transmission's behavior you'd like to change.

[denmah]

im really liking the fact that my stock g8gt can blow off 2nd and chirp 3rd like it was made to do it now haha

[Matthewo]

hi, im a regular over at the g8board, but just bought an hp tuners vcm suite, not the pro version, maybe i will upgrade later. but just wanted to introduce myself, and hopefully i'll be on here a lot trying to learn.

[informationjunkie]

I am very green at this tuning thing and am looking for some guidance. The guys over at Intense sent me a quick tune for my 09 G8 GT and it works nice over stock. I guess I am looking for suggestions to tweek this tune. It is stock with the exception of exhaust and air intake.
I am also looking for a cheater guide to some of the abbreviations I see.
Look forward to learning more.
THX

try here, should have most you will need.
http://www.hptuners.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9552

I couldn't get used to shifting into 5th at around 68mph , so i made the 5th gear shift at around 40mph. way better, 6th is still disabled.
Here is my current tune if you want to experiement. i'll leave like this for a while, 5 usable gears in sport mode, i tried going more agrresive in the downshifts at low rpm, but didn't like the feeling cause i'm not always all out when driving around the city trying to have some fun.

Thanks Ecuboss for the idea, definetely a more enjoyable sport experience with the trans in sport mode. :thumbs:

thank you for putting this up. i will have to take a look.

[Allmachtige]

My 2-3 still sometimes has a short delay (hesitation) that some people talk about. Adapt is at 200 and 2-3 discrete is disabled. Think enabling discrete for 2-3 could help?

[informationjunkie]

give it a try, it might help.

[bluessv]

Allmachtige,

I've found that playing with the Shift Time Transition tables for the 2-3 shift dramatically improves the delay from stock tune. Make your "Initial Normal" table all 0.2998 and make your "Initial Special" table 0.4004 for the 1-3 reference and 0.2998 for references 4-9.

Then make your "Final Normal" table 0.5498 for references 1-5 and 0.5000 for references 6-9. Make your "Final Sports" table 0.6504 for references 1-2 and 0.7002 for references 3-9.

These are stock figures for newly calibrated 6L80's in our Aussie built and designed Commodore SS vehicles (Pontiac G8) and are a significant improvement on the stock figures in the stock tune that would have been loaded into yours.

I'd personally "Enable" the Discrete Shift Torque too but that's just a personal opinion as I've had better results like that. If you're still having problems I'd also try hooking up the scanner to the vehicle and going into the VCM Controls section for the trans. Hit the "Trans Adapt" reset button. Not 100% sure that this feature works but have heard a couple of the boys on here say they had flare issues on the 2-3 shift, did the above scanner process, and the flare went away.

Hope this helps you out mate

[ecuboss]

I couldn't get used to shifting into 5th at around 68mph , so i made the 5th gear shift at around 40mph. way better, 6th is still disabled.
Here is my current tune if you want to experiement. i'll leave like this for a while, 5 usable gears in sport mode, i tried going more agrresive in the downshifts at low rpm, but didn't like the feeling cause i'm not always all out when driving around the city trying to have some fun.

Thanks Ecuboss for the idea, definetely a more enjoyable sport experience with the trans in sport mode. :thumbs:

Glad you found it useful. The shift points suit the types of road where I live - But I can understand why you may want to lower them a little.
To me it feels lilke a more gentle PAL mode.

[Matthewo]

hi all. could someone please review my g8 gt transmission tune. the engine part is bassically a superchips rotofab 93 tune. i did a little bit of changing on the tranny file and used some ideas from shanes tune. thanks for taking a look

[Matthewo]

you can take a look at it but i modified it a little bit more and loaded it into the car. seemed to work fine. not as dramatic of a difference as i thought it might be from drive to sport mode. so i need to do a little more tweaking. i did get drive to shift almost like stock. not as long as stock but close to it, for lazy shifts in drive mode(.25). then .1699 shifts in sport mode. im pretty happy with drive mode, for normal driving so far. but i need sports mode to be a little bit more race like. i still have yet to really mess with the shift preasure, and i havent even thought about shift torque adder, im going to read up more on all these things before messing with them.

as far as the rest of the file goes, i have TM set at 6042 or maxed out. which is i guess the reason why i am still getting sideways on 1-2 upshift, which is how i like it.

[Matthewo]

My 2-3 still sometimes has a short delay (hesitation) that some people talk about. Adapt is at 200 and 2-3 discrete is disabled. Think enabling discrete for 2-3 could help?

i noticed that the adapt for 2-3 is 40 on a stock tune, while all the other adapts are at 200, i thought it was a little strange. seems like everytime the car gets retune, be it by the dealership or myself, the 2-3 harsh shift goes away for a while, and shifts like every other gear. then over time it comes back.

[bluegoat06]

Glad you found it useful. The shift points suit the types of road where I live - But I can understand why you may want to lower them a little.
To me it feels lilke a more gentle PAL mode.

Well, the wife hated not having 6th, i didn't think she was going to even know how to move the shifter to the sport mode, but i guess she did the homework , so i had to modify the the tune a little bit and put 6th gear back.

It's not bad though, i raised 5th gear a little bit more that the last tune i posted, and also raised 6th gear to work alone with 5th, also modified the TCC apply/release points to kind of mimic what the factory does as well. made her happy, and still i'm able to enjoy more sportier shift points at part throttle.

Here it is to whoever wants to give it a try.

[ecuboss]

Well, the wife hated not having 6th,

I'm suprised she even noticed - unless of course you have it in S when driving on the highway - which is not what its for IMO. Sport is when you want to drive it in a sporty manner and not have the engine turning over at 1500 rpm at 70mph !

[parish8]

wow, this is a good thread. long, lots of info. i am only part way thru and i plan on reading it more than once. so far i have learned to mess with the torque management adder modifer table. i have a loose stall and a decent amount of power. the loose stall doesn't like timing being pulled at low loads but the tranny doesn't like the timing not being pulled at wot.

just a little playing with that table has it feeling better all ready. before the converter and about 100hp ago i had it shifting great but now it looks like i am starting all over again. just getting it to shift at all is tuff. i have made too many changes over the last year i dont really know what i have going on any more. might switch the tranny tuning all back to stock and start over.

[esinger]

I believe I about to the point you are Parish8. Not only with the tranny tune, but my whole tune in general. I honestly feel like I'm running a Frankenstein tune right now. Bits and pieces from various sources with no real cohesion.

My game plan is to run my Frankenstein tune on a daily driver basis and have another tune that's a start from scratch using the stock tune and build up from there on my driving for the heck of it hours.

I also learned something this past Sunday at an eight mile track. A guy with a completely stock 2008 G8 GT (no extra options/base) w/ SC 93 octane tune with 50% Torque Management ran a best of 8.59 @ 86 MPH versus my completely replaced exhaust system, Rotofab CAI and HP Tuner's car with a best of 8.45 @ 86 MPH.

Before I bought my HP Tuner I used the SC tuner and my best was 8.89 @ 82 MPH on my stock setup.

These cars are not created equal! He was nice enough to let me grab his tune using my HP Tuner, so I have his file.

[esinger]

Here's the guy's tune that I grabbed on Sunday

NOTE: This is with the Beta 2.23 editor

[bluegoat06]

It's curious to see how they accomplish 50% Trans TM removal ?, there is nothing else different in the Trans TM other than an increase in the TCC limit torque reduction max torque. i think what people feel as 50%TM removed with this tune, is the increase in shift pressure B (they use 400 PSI instead of 275.6 PSI) and a reduction in shift times, especially 5th and 6th (0.09 sec in those gears, wonder why make the shift so quick for the crusing gears), i don't think the trans would shift that fast anyways especially with 5th and 6th clutches, that and they make your TC useless.