Dyno tuning is not absolutely necessary for tuning IF your tuner is very experienced and the road tuning is done with a wide band O2 sensor in place. Matt the "HITman" does most of his tuning on the road with a M&W UEGO wideband, a laptop, and a driver with a steady foot.

If done by "feel" without an O2 sensor on the road... I bet that there will be flat spots on the power curve where you will definately be too rich or dangerously too lean. This is how turbo conversion with sub computers were tuned here in Korea until 1997. With wideband tuning we found gains in not only drivability and gas mileage but also hp gains of upto 50 hp.

 

Any stand alone or piggy back ECU will "work". Which one you choose will determine your results as much as who you choose to tune it.

A top of the line Haltec EK6 won't do you any good, unless you have someone who knows how to tune the software to fit the engine/setup. Properly done, some people can manage with just an S-AFC and larger injectors. Others use ECU replacements form Simple Digitial systems, Motronic, etc...etc...

The Unichip is a solid device, but it is worthless without proper tuning. (as with any ecu modification). The UniChip has a good background with other companies, it just seems that Alpine has a problem tuning them. Everyone I have read about, heard about/talk to, LOVED the unichip, as long as it was installed or tuned by a compentent shop. Xorro got an additional 20 WHP out of her Supercharger by having the unichip retuned by a company in the UK(She's in england).

Please don't get this wrong, I'm not bagging on Alpine. They have admitted that they have a problem tuning the unichip, and are willing to work with current owners to get things resolved. Let's just hope that everything works out for everyone involved.

 

Cuda TurboI'm very glad you're enjoying the new found power.

9o7TiB7o9 - due to the fact that at every elevation a turbo'd vehicle response differently, there will be quite a bit of variance in tuning.
The Alpine kit isn't exactly "complete", there were several suggestions made to Cuda to maximize safety as well as longevity of his engine. (as well as drivability).

Raithan - the Unichip requires a certified Unichip programmer to tackle. Not every tuning garage will have this. We have extensive experience in Unichips, Links and TECS. Very shortly we'll be adding Pectel, and hopefully Motec. Something that would be more common would probably be a Greddy E-manage. Most tunershops/garages can afford the tuning hardware/software for the Greddy E-manage. The Unichip, Link and TEC is less common.

iTiburon - as stated above, you require a certified Unichip tuner to do this for you. As well, the map that was made for Cuda is specifically made for the climate as well as altitude of Alberta, and hence may not function as well anywhere else. (not to mention there were some additions made, so it was tuned for those)

Random - Dynotuning at times are a luxury for some. Yes it would be "ideal", however the dyno is not representative of real-world driving. It's an enclosed system with controlled variables (both of which are not true of street driving). With the experience we've had in tuning turbo'd Subarus, BMW's etc in addition to factory turbo'd cars, we came to build a map to be catered to real world driving conditions in addition to our climate and altitude. When tuning for real world conditions, the road is often sufficient enough. A wide-band O2 sensor is a good idea to fine tune to extract the last bit of power, but in day to day driving conditions, bad gas etc is also a factor that needs to be dealt with, hence running a little rich is generally a good idea.

The troubles you're experiencing can easily be taken away by using an Electronic boost controller in conjunction to a blow-off/recirc valve between the intercooler and inlet. It's not actually the Unichip that automatically makes your car run lean, but your factory ECU.

batman - we've had great sucess with even the Apex-i SAFC + larger injectors on some applications. This is ofcourse more "crude", however it'll get the job done. One nice thing with the Unichip, Link, Motec etc are the fact that it'll control ignition timing as well. It makes it much neater and cleaner to work with one unit then fiddle around with several. This makes troubleshooting much easier as well.

Cheuk in Seoul - when tackling a new application (as in Cuda's Tib) we generally spend alot of time analyzing the OE fuel map, ignition curve, cam durations, combustion chamber geometry, and many many other varibles. This is used to determine a safe base to start from and then make alterations. As mentioned, running a tad rich is always better just in case any sh*t happens like bad gas. A wideband use again useful for finite power extraction, but however may not be critical to most applications. The O2 sensors on the car itself are not wideband, but however give a relatively good indication of where the A/F ratio is at.

 

I would still disagree with not testing with a wide band O2 sensor. I agree that a good base map... ie a starting point can be obtained with experience, even before ever starting the car... but without a good wide band you will never get the numbers you want... gas milage / power / margin of safety. With a narrow band you are only guessing at your margin of safety.

Anyways, each his own.

When we do Haltech installs. We load a base map dependant on application, injector size... etc. Then we put on the UEGO wideband O2 sensor... manipulate the idle maps, then play with mixtures under no load. Then we go out on the freeway for about 1-2 hrs, varying the load / boost / throttle and make adjustments to the map dependant on the wideband readings. After all that we put the car on a Dynojet 248C with the dynojet wideband O2 sensor and make some fine tuning of the map and get some power numbers along with an a/f curve.

 

Cheuk in Seoul - The wideband sensor is a good idea, however, not totally critical on all applications. The idle maps on the car aren't touched as there's no boost @ idle, and hence no need for extra fuel. The design of the Unichip w/ AIC is such that fuel is only added under boost situations. The narrowband O2 allows us to tune within the range to provide quite a large safety margin. We've noticed that even tuning with the narrow band O2 on Subarus and comparing it to wideband results are quite close in range ~+/- 7% to 10%. Again, fuel grades here aren't the best, the highest being 92octane (91 more common) so err on the side of caution by running slightly rich for on throttle has been to our experience very safe. Not to mention this extra fuel can be easily used up with cranking up the boost on the AVC-R by 1-2psi.

 

But if you dont adjust your fuel curves at idle, you're car will bog when running bigger injectors, as many turbo cars do. Also, without a wideband o2 sensor, you're guessin how rich or lean you're running... i dont like guessing on my car.

 

skierd - the Alpine kit does not include larger injectors. It uses STOCK ie: OEM injectors. It uses an Additional injector (ie: 5 total). The fuel from the 5th injector is on demand based on a MAP signal. If it sees boost, it squirts. That's basically how it's set-up. Thus you do not need to play with the idle fuel map.

If you were to use a SAFC + 4 larger injectors (depending on size) to get stock like idle, you would run -XX% in the low throttle position say anything less then 30% throttle (using the TPS signal). Then when it reaches the threashold, it'll cross over to the hi-throttle position and utilize a -5% adjustment (again as an example).
This is the only time you'd need to alter your idle map. (using 4 larger injectors)

As for the O2 sensor, it outputs a certain range between 0-5V (again as an example) and by doing a simple test, you can correlate the voltage to A/F ratio. As well, the OE ECU reads close to the stoich A/F between 13:1 and 15:1 Depending on the part of the curve, boost etc you'll want to be closer to either ratio.

 

forgot y'all were talking about the unichip. my bad

 

All this stuff is scaring me. Making me not wanna turbo my tib when I get it. But I still will.

 

Yeah, I understand that with the Unichip / stock injectors / extra injectors that no manipulation is done on the idle setting... I was just pointing out how we did our Stand alone tunes.

Actually, a fifth injector controller should not be that difficult to tune... I have been suprised to hear that Alpine in the past was having such a difficult time. Getting it close shouldn't be that hard.

I'm not a fan of 5th injectors... for the obvious reasons. Also the way the Unichip / 5th injector / MAF is set up... the tuning curve will always be off... and probably need constant tweaking.

This is for the guys who are still trying to understand fuel control issues.
Fuel control with sub ECU's and fifth injector controllers is difficult to get spot on even with a wideband O2 sensor. Using a MAP based sub ECU on top of a MAF stock system makes the combined fuel map very irregular. Most tuners, as expected, err on the rich side for all boost / rpm / load situations to be safe. This will cause the car to run very rich at times usually during part throttle conditions. Unfortunately, part throttle O2 sensor readings are used by the OBDII computers to lean out the ENTIRE fuel map to compensate for this. It is known as Global Adaptation. I HATE OBDII. This means you will have to do a ECU reset... usually by disconnecting the battery for 30 min.. but this varies with different ECU's/cars. The length of time needed for this global adaptation to take place is a matter of arguement... some say weeks others say minutes. Unless you have a sub computer capable of making changes to the ENTIRE fuel map for EVERY condition... to minimze O2 sensor flucuations... Not just for WOT conditions. OBDII will make it difficult.
That is the reason why so many tuners are going to stand alone systems / full ECU reprogramming and why many of the sub ECU companies are producing more and more complex sub ECUs/ full stand alones. I'm sure that the Unichip is probably the weakest of a variety of sub ECU /ECU's that Ion tunes.

That said, I love Haltechs and Motecs.