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Thread: What's the difficulty level of tuning a mild CAM?

  1. #1
    Tuner in Training
    Join Date
    Dec 2013
    Posts
    11

    What's the difficulty level of tuning a mild CAM?

    I'm in the process of having my motor rebuilt from ground up and I decided to change the cam (specs below). My overall question is ... What would the level of difficulty be for me to do the tune myself. Last year I asked for guidance on tuning my stock LS3 with 1-7/8" header and based on feedback I was able to pull it off. I was pleased with the results and the car ran strong. My detail questions/process are below and I appreciate any feedback.

    Stock LS3 cam
    Duration: 204/211
    Lift: 0.551?/0.525?
    LSA: 117
    Overlap: -26.5

    Upgraded Cam Profile:
    Duration: 216/224
    Lift: 0.553?/0.553?
    LSA: 117* +4 advance
    Overlap: -14

    Car Setup:
    - Drysump Manual LS3 in Grandsport
    - Stock Airbox with Attack Blue Filter
    - Stock Intake & Throttle Body
    - Upgraded Cam (above specs)
    - AFe 1-7/8" TRI-Y header with cats
    - Stock NPP Exhaust

    Questions:
    1. Should I start with the factory GM tune, or build off my current bolt-on's tune?
    2. What are the main tables that I will need to modify?
    3. What are the best parameters to log during this process? Also what is the best refresh rate... 10Hz?

    My current plan:
    1. Decide which tune I want to start with.
    2. Pull back about 3* of timing from high load situations to keep timing in the safe zone.
    2. Set PE to 11.8 to ensure no lean conditions while working through the new setup.
    3. Dial in the VE table
    4. Dial in the MAF
    5. Work on PE ( keep if rich for now )
    6. Slowly add in timing.
    7. Work on the transitional airflow characteristics: idle, coast down. WOT to nothing, etc.


    Here are the dyno results from my bolt-on's setup.

    Smoothing = 0



    Smoothing = 3


  2. #2
    not as hard you might think, im a beginner and tuned much bigger cams, once you dial in your fuel and wot timing, you just have to add to your base airflow if needed and adjust overdrive and underdrive, maybe add more idle base timing drive/park and main tables

    but mostly thats it, there is more stuff but thats if you have surging issues and false lean idle etc

    if you post your tune and datalog we can take a look at it and give you some pointers, honestly you might get away with just tuning the fuel from your old tune you may not need to change anything else