I have TR owners contact me all the time...and tell me they wanna run XFI, SD, FAST or DFI. My advice to them is this. Make sure you fully understand whatever setup you're gonna use...and that you can tune it yourself. There's a couple of locals who pushed aftermarlet fuel management systems on a few guys...and the results have been less than spectacular... cuz they can't tune it...or have the wrong combination. It's tough to watch these guys struggle...whe n they don't have too. Personally, I never tell anyone that they need something...wh en they don't. If they don't understand a certain setup...then I tell them to stick to something they do.
Brad...there is a certain amount of magic involved with marketing aftermarket systems. I recall when a certain well known tuner trumpeted his claim that FAST would knock two or three tenths off a chip right off the bat. He convinced one of the guys running a ME chip on a mid second nines car that miracles would follow. Took him a year to consistently out perform the ME after the sale.
There is much more profit in selling an aftermarket system than there is in selling chips and it opens up a market for Tuners to follow their clients from race to race to tune their cars and collect more money for their services. We tend to idolize these guys giving them credit for all sorts of abilities far beyond their actual performance in smoothing out the rough spots in a/f curves.
When they go too far and blow up an engine, it never seems to be their fault, but is marked off to "That's Racing"
The foremost marketing point is the slow 8 bit computer GM put into the cars in the 'eighties. No doubt that it is slow but it has never been a hinderance to Steve, Eric, or Bob as the speed is predictable which makes it possible to anticipate required timing to have the right fuel at the right time. Nothing happens instantly including injector response/dead time. As this can be measured, then the programmer can anticipate the time between command and response for a given computer and given injector.
Understanding reality vs marketing takes a lot of squeal out of selling the pig. In the past 15 years or more, we have seen many examples of 12 second cars running an aftermarket system combined with owners that have no clue as to how to tune it but it makes for good conversation at Sonic or Tim Horton's.
I suspect 95% just get in their cars and drive them and maybe 2% can actually tune them no matter what kind of system is in the car. I agree completely that most never tune their 5.7 chips based upon my experience that no one that writes me has ever read the instructions that came with the chip. Further, no matter how many times I explain how the chip works and ask people to read the instructions to reinforce what I have told them, they ask the same question the following week. Yet, they ask me how much faster they will go with FAST or such. When they ask me if they should bump the fuel pressure, I am pretty sure they don't read.
Now, back to MAF's. Bob, and others, have posted flow numbers for various types. I have never run a Translator and I could not find a new one that I have had in the box since they were introduced years ago. I was going to give it to Rich but I suspect I threw it away on some get rid of stuff binge in the past couple of years. Of course, I always suspect that when I cannot find something but it is usually true so....
I started running gutted MAF's back in the -90's when I went to ME chips. Then, I went SD when Steve introduced that on the ME and followed to Eric with the SD1 chip after Steve gave him his software and Eric revised it to do away with the thumbwheel.
The physics behind removing restriction on the inlet side of the turbo is indisputable. Anyone that has gone to a four inch inlet can immediately notice the throttle response-particularly if they get rid of the maf. Increasing the flow on the inlet side allows the turbo to do the same job with less effort. If one has a big turbo and runs 23 psi there will not be as much obvious gain as there will be if one has the same turbo and runs 30 psi where the turbo has to work to do the job. Run a 100 yards with your mouth closed and a finger closing one nostril for an example.
That eliminates most of us because we don't normally push our engines like that. The physics are still true, however. We go to all kinds of effort on the output side of the turbo-ported heads, bigger valves, bigger intercoolers, big exhaust, etc. to improve performance so it seems a bit odd that we resist doing the same at the beginning point of the process.
The SD1 chip is dead simple to use IF one will read the instructions. Eric writes instructions that even I can understand so they must be simple. Yes, it has 20+ adjustments, but in real life, no one touches much other than timing, and fueling. Beyond that turning down the cruise fuel a bunch is about all I ever touch. If you run it closed loop, just play with the A/F's and forget it.
I have been running open loop most of the time since I went thru three Innovate wb systems and average 21-24 mph on the highway and reasonable in town compared to conventional chips. I actually turned wb control back on in the GN recently as the NGK unit has not failed in three years! LOL
Eric asked me if I wanted to go to the SD2 but I did not because lately, I just get into the T and drive it...I have too many projects to want to play with Buicks lately. It does not look all that hard to learn but I really don't see the point because I don't think it will make a ten or eleven second car any faster.
These days, I suggest to most that they should get a 6.1 chip and run closed loop which tends to protect a lot of them from themselves. It seems to work quite well and I still look at the timing retard and narrow band as a guide for picking the A/F.
