2015 Sierra 5.3 DOD delete L86 cam - Troubleshooting

[adunphy]

The truck has 85K miles on it and suffered a collapsed lifter on cyl 7. I did an AFM/DOD delete with an L86 cam. The owner (friend of mine) has told me for years that the truck has always performed horribly. He swears drivability has been like this since the day he bought it. Never a check engine light nor other indication of a mechanical failure.

Once I got the new cam in and took it for a ride, I was shocked at how terrible the driving experience is. Very unresponsive, constantly "confused" about which gear to be in, throttle response is abysmal. It behaves well at WOT, but part throttle is the problem. I also noticed that while in park/neutral, if I kick the pedal, there is a delay and then it ramps up to RPM then hangs in a few spots on the way down. I know the L86 cam will require some minor tuning but this feels like something else entirely. I am still new to Gen 5 tuning and been reading alot about the torque model design so I suppose a lot of this could be related to improper Virtual torque settings, but the truck is stock and so is the Tune (before I started trying things)

I was able to reduce huge swing in timing during shifts by modifying the Base Min spark table. That made a huge difference, but overall the truck is still very lazy feeling. I keep noticing how frequently the TPS and the pedal position go their own ways. During this time I also notice very low 0 or negative value for timing despite my changes to the Minimum spark table.

I'm afraid I may be applying my gen3 and gen4 methodology when trying to tune this so wanted to see if anyone has any pointers. Attached my current tune file and a log. Any help would be appreciated.
2015_Sierra_5.3_rev2.hpt
22-08-14 17-33-21.hpl
WOT section starts at 05:30:15
TPS vs Pedal at 05:32:12

[GHuggins]

You said l86 in the title and I completely over looked the 5.3 part all along reading the post, still overlooking it and thinking the l86 isn't that bad Yes, the 5.3's benefit immensely from tuning - especially on the transmission side. Does it have a lift kit or tires or all stock? You should drive one stock with some 35's before tuning - they really really suck - won't even get out of their own ways.

If you're doing it yourself - leave torque model stock or yank one out of a 16's or rather something slightly newer.
Pay attention to cam timing - decent mid range there
PE - get into quicker and leaner
Ignition timing and knock settings - add a small chunk of timing and slightly detune the knock settings - 10% is enough

Dial the tranny in - most will be here as far as full benefit goes.

[adunphy]

Hey Greg, been a while since I posted so glad to see you are still out there! As always I value your input and suggestions.

Does it have a lift kit or tires or all stock?

All stock -- no lift kit, stock wheels/tires

I'll take a look at some other 2016-18 5.3 stock truck tunes and see if I can leverage the tq model stuff. For PE, I did quicker and richer so your leaner comment intrigues me. Will also look at detuning the knock settings a bit per your suggestions. I have been leaving the trans tune to last up till now but it sounds like I need to focus there first.

As far as the cam timing goes, that is an area I have zero experience with. Anything I've done to date has not had VVT. I'll have to do some searching here to get clues on where to start with all that.