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XRT Tuning - And so it begins....questions

20K views 145 replies 9 participants last post by  eagleeye 
#1 ·
Recently started logging for Ed @ XRT. Everyone who has done this says we'll be uncovering everything that is wrong with the vehicle.


I've got some basic wrenching and diagnostic skills....but the info in these logs are crazy beyond me. Even after reading through threads of this stuff, there is just so much information. I don't know what to think of it all.


However, sometimes I learn better when I have a specific task at hand. In this case, Ed has let me know I may be running a lean condition (Air / Fuel Ratio) during my pulls. A/F #1 is down to about ~11 while A/F #2 is ~14. And while Ed can only interpret what he reads and make suggestions, it'll be up to me to really find things. In this case, he's suggested an exhaust leak.





The way I understand this is that somewhere on my driver side (A/F #2 ), between the engine and the cat (not the senor after the cat), I'm simply getting extra air? If that's the case, how do I find that leak? OR can it actually be way more complex than this?


And I'll be continuing to read up on A/F, exhaust leaks, etc, but if anybody has any insight, that'd be appreciated.


Thanks!
 
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#42 ·
^^^ Agreed. That all made sense. All very connected - cause and effect, this does that, when this happens, these number do this, and because of that, this other thing.

Thank you, sir for that great explanation.
I think this is why Ed, after my WOT lean condition was fixed, ended up not caring too much about these variances.
 
#43 ·
I was just re-reading what I wrote. I'm going to log both VVT angles on my car today, just to make sure they're moving together. They most likely are.

But with all the little issues I've had with my car that I'm pretty much caught up on fixing it would just figure that there's something else dumb to fix. My alternator yowls when I start the car and I've got new bearings and a new brush for it and haven't gotten to it yet. I've never only had two thing to do to the car, ping fix and alternator. I have to have at least three things to do. :)

Oh, wait, still have to undercoat the thing.... Guess I'm still at three.
 
#49 ·
^^^ All that is really lame CK. Sorry to see that after all that work.

I want a switch. Such a good idea.

And I'll have to check out the intake side of my system. Thanks for the tip ITB. I am 99% sure there are no exhaust leaks. And I do remember some hoses going into my manifold that were pretty easy to yank off despite having a clamp on it.

Also will have to inspect the injector o-ring. Ed/XRT mentioned that as well to look at.

You're right - will be learning a lot over the next few weeks. School was never this fun though.
 
#50 ·
Also will have to inspect the injector o-ring. Ed/XRT mentioned that as well to look at.
If you do check the o-rings, be careful. They like to fly when you take the injectors out. You may not find them again. Also, you need to watch how you put the fuel rail back on. If it doesn't look like it's quite seating correctly, it's not. If it's not seating right an o-ring is more likely than not being pinched by the rail. Use a bit of grease or WD40 to lube the o-rings when re-installing. Makes reinstallation go easier on them.

I learned all this changing my injectors. I think a better way to check your o-rings is to use a canister of propane. If an o-ring is leaking air in, the engine will suck the propane in too. Just take the black injector shield off and wave propane or even spray a penetrant around the injectors. My bet is they're fine. Mine all were. That's where I came up with extra o-rings for the new injectors, after crushing a few of the new ones.
 
#51 ·
Nice work guys!

Its 4:17am here. No sleep. Been thing of the Syvecs ECU for myself and a customer. Very expensive ecu and family life.

The variance between the opposite sides of the engine or per cylinder can be cause by many issues. Air flow (major and injector phasing are keys.

Yes sometimes its hard to tune and see issues. Whats even hard customers not being able to find issues due to shops not taking their time to check.

I will say the last couple of months been hectic and supporting many cars 2005+ with mileage issues.

Colin, for meet to dial in the the CL to OP, I disable the CL and tune to get the map very close. Doing so allow small corrections. Fighting corrections to get the exact small changes are hard. I hope that bit helps.

I see some posting here and its hard to know who I tune by their nicks :)

Time to sleep.

Have a great weekend everyone and I want to share this graph with you. Its just v0. I am so happy when I can make little changes and see the effects. Car runs naturally lean around idle and vacuum and goes rich in boost :) That means there is a high possibility of an intake system leak. It wasn't there in stock before the turbo had to be changed.



Chris, I need to see your power. Its time. I want to be happy before month end!!!
 
#52 ·
Ed, I'm feeling the family pressure like crazy right now. Little B is 24/7 demanding. A is the same, I know. My gaskets seem to be holding. Got some logs yesterday. B and I will get head out later for some time out. I'll really try for some hard pulls there.

I know we'd like to round out.

JD...hijack...sorry.
 
#53 ·
I went all over my car yesterday and today. I wanted to check the condition of my plugs to see what was going on with each cylinder. Found a few interesting things.

1. Plugs 2, 4, 5, and 6 had oil all over the threads. It's that time. Time for new valve cover gaskets. Sprayed down all the threads with electronics contact cleaner to degrease them in the meantime.

2. Coil on 1 wasn't tightened down and was loose. My bad last fall when I put the plugs in.

3. The harness retainer clip on coil 4 is broken off and the harness wasn't tight. Swapped the coil to 2 and wrapped two strands of 28 gauge wire between the harness wires and around the coil to keep it on. I moved it to plug 2 to keep an eye on it easier. No $$$ for a new one right now. I didn't know about this when I changed the plugs last fall.

4. The contacts on that same coil on 4 were green with corrosion. Cleaned those all up too.

I also double checked that the gaps were all good, .7mm.

While I was in there I cleaned all the contacts on the coils and the harness connectors. I also cleaned all the grounds but one. The main ground going to the starter I couldn't due to the bolt being seized. The bracket twists when I try to loosen it or tighten it.

I tell ya, it's some easy to get those plugs out after doing it a few times. You need battery out, and the air box stuff out. You need a 3/8" ratchet, 3" extension, 6" extension, a u-joint, and of course, the 5/8" plug socket. You don't need to do it from below. You don't need to jack up the engine to make it easier. You do need to rotate the 5 and 6 coil 90 degrees to get them out. It took me 20 minutes per side to get all the plugs out and back in.

Once I had everything back together again I loaded the engine full of seafoam through the PCV. Could hardly breathe for all the smoke just before I shut the engine off. I don't think I ever had an engine so full of seafoam before. Did that a little more than an hour ago now. Will be waiting until after dark before I take the car for a spin to burn it all off hehehehe

Will be interesting to see if the pinging goes away with this.

Photos attached.
 

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#55 ·
Not a hijack CK - this is all things XRT / Tuning / Fixing / Questions.


Great info Cracklin - let us know if that solves your pinging!!! Everyone will rejoice when that happens and we shall celebrate.


I haven't had a chance to do much this weekend. Hoping to get to some of these ideas you all have suggested.
 
#56 ·
It appears I eliminated what sounded like piston slap so there was one spark plug that was loosed. No pinging change, dammit. I logged right from the moment I started the car with the engine loaded up with seafoam and went for a drive to thrash the carbon out. Sure stunk.

But when I got home the IAM was 0! 3-5 degrees of knock with loads around 1.48-1.5 and that IAM went from 1 to 0.5 to 0 in like 2 seconds. I knew something was up when I was just about home, pulling away from a couple of lights when they went green.

One thing I am going to do is go over the photos of my plugs for any indications of something wrong. Found some useful info at this site that could be helpful to me. Spark plug reading

Going over the log I found that when I decelerate the passenger side goes way lean while the driver's side does not. If the driver's side bank stayed at an AFR of 13.5 during a decel the passenger side went to 15-18 so I smell a leak. Vacuum goes way up during a decel. So if there is one it's on the passenger side. But there's no way I can hear a leak from the cabin while driving. With some research I did find a way online for how to find a leak easily. And for those with a turbo it will work for you too!

http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/crazy-easy-vacuum-boost-leak-tool-187968.html

I'm going to use that to check for exhaust leaks as well. There's something not right. And I'm still on a mission.

P-O-ed right now.
 
#68 ·
Going over the log I found that when I decelerate the passenger side goes way lean while the driver's side does not. If the driver's side bank stayed at an AFR of 13.5 during a decel the passenger side went to 15-18 so I smell a leak. Vacuum goes way up during a decel. So if there is one it's on the passenger side. But there's no way I can hear a leak from the cabin while driving. With some research I did find a way online for how to find a leak easily. And for those with a turbo it will work for you too!QUOTE]

How do you know AFR on 1 bank vs the other. I have only ever been logging A/F sensor #1 . That is what is listed in the basic log parameter lists, Ed hasn't asked for me anything else.
 
#58 ·
I just shake my head. Because it feels like I've been banging my head against a wall.

I went to build a intake pressurizer and no one had the 3" to 1/2" bushing I needed. So I skipped that and took out the canister of propane and went over the intake and got nothing. It's never easy. Then I thought about what else I could try. And right now. Not that I'm impatient when I want something yesterday. ;)

So I went to Canadian Tire and picked up a bottle of Lucas Octane Boost. Figured if if it's a knock problem why not try to reduce it. Can't buy anything more than 91 AKI octane around my parts. I use Esso (Exxon) 91. So threw 2/3 of the bottle of Lucas in the tank and filled up just before I took the car for a thrashing. Stopped at the house to get the laptop and off I went.

I did everything this afternoon the same as I did last night. Even on the same route and stomped on the throttle on all the same big hills after dropping down from 5th to 2nd. I'd engine brake and then hit the gas again and again and again, all between 2nd and 4th. WOT in 2nd up a big hill of an on-ramp and made sure that throttle plate knew I wanted it to move.

So I get home and into the driveway. Time to wake up the blank screen and what do I find: The IAM is at 1. Never left 1. Still had as much as 5 degrees of knock but today it was all feedback knock. Yesterday it was all fine learning knock. But it was still in the 1.47-1.53 load range.

More research and experimentation needed.
 
#60 ·
Well, the preliminary results are in.

I didn't reset the ECU after putting the octane booster in. The more I drove the better the car got. Did three more logs and the knock is all but gone. ECU still learning the new fuel mix. Maximum knock over the three more logs I did, stomping the pedal, was .35 degrees, down from as high as 5. No feedback knock. .35 Fine learning knock.

I say preliminary because I've never seen this before. I've been chasing it for so long and scratching my head and ass crawling all over everything on that car wondering what it could be and it *might* be the gas. Thought it was gas before but never any definitive results. But I've never had that little knock retard before.

It's going to take a few weeks to know for sure because I (hopefully) don't need to fill up more than once a week. But the Lucas is *supposed* to raise the octane 10 points, or one full AKI rating. So I took the Esso gas to 92, up from 91. So far, my car likes the extra MMT.
 
#65 ·
No Chevron here. Esso, Petro Can, Irving, Shell, Ultramar. That's it. Nothing better than 91 for octane. If there was 93/94 I'd have been all over it already.

At least I know what the problem is. Short of getting race gas to mix or getting Toluene from Sherwin Williams, Shell seems to be the consensus of people "in the know" around here, to try first. After that I'll likely pull a little timing at a time and see what that does for knock reduction.

From what I've been reading, as time goes on, year over year, less stations carry anything more than 91, from east to west. Not sure why that would be because there are plenty of cars around here that could use it.

I still have some Lucas left. I'll fill up again with Esso with the Lucas, run the tank down to fumes and try Shell. And on down the list until I see an improvement without any additional additives.
 
#67 ·
Here the octane levels available are 87, 89, and 91.

Toss some Lucas in your tank and see if the problems go away, even a bit. I noticed a difference within 5 minutes. I'm not suggesting you do it regularly. But you'd have someplace to start. You would have a possible why of your problems.
 
#72 ·
That makes sense. I have a wideband on the way that can go in the bung of the down-pipe bellmouth. My up-pipe is now catless, there used be a sensor in the stock up-pipe, which was catted. The header feeds the up-pipe, I have only worked on the H4 and H4 turbo.

But at least I am sure I am using the right parameters from the available list. RR is cool like that eh?
 
#74 ·
Just a quick update about my engine knock issue.

I haven't done any logging over the last couple of days. Honestly, I feel kinda naked without the knowledge of what my car did because I'd had it with me for every trip I made for weeks.

That said, I haven't heard or felt any knock. I did before. I'm learning the accelerator all over again because it's so much more touchy, just since putting the octane booster in.

I'm going to do another seafoam treatment in a few days to accelerate burning off the excess carbon buildup, since I seem to have eliminated my knock problem.
 
#75 ·
^^^ Very good news Cracklin. Glad things are looking well. So is the touchy throttle from the higher octane? Or is it because now that you have no pinging/knocking (due to better octane), you can really feel the throttle response?


Anyhow, I'm running on v5 with some slight pinging as per Ed so he'll be working some of that out for me. Still really happy with the way this is all turning out. The car is just so much more......fun and confidence inspiring. I no longer have that "I'm in a wagon, its going to perform like a wagon" hesitancy. Part of that is from the suspension as well.


In addition to the slightly pinging, I've got to log and identify some areas where my shifting is slightly off kilter....not sure how much Ed can remedy or not, but I'm hoping some of it is within his power.


During slow to semi-moderate acceleration, at gear shifts, I feel like I'm either hitting a small puddle between shifts OR there is a pretty hard thump.


I don't remember much of what stock was like so I may load that up again to find out. Anybody else have/had these auto shifting characteristics?
 
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