Took Betty to get her Dyno tuned for the first time today. I went up to RET in Downey where it was 94 degrees! Definitely not dyno weather. However...after a great initial custom tune by Greg, we got 294rwhp/304tq. That's on 87 octane gas, 26 degrees of timing (stock is 25), and a black car in direct 94 degree weather sun. We went and got some ice, let her cool down a little, and waited.

I'm going to run the 87 octane out (not sure why I filled up with 87 this morning...) put in 91 and see how she runs tonight/tomorrow (if any better).

Final pull without any other A/F or timing adjustments (SAE corrected, .99) was 303.73rwhp/316.21tq , 26 degree timing, and a solid Air/Fuel ratio. With a 15% drive train loss that equates to 349hp at the crank! not too shabby for intake, shorty headers, xpipe and tune.

Here's the graph for proof-

 

if you figure for 15% loss then its actually 357.3HP at crank, sometimes I wonder if you really did go to UCSD or if they dropped in their level of education you get after I left.....lol still great numbers awesome

 

yeah yeah yeah....whatever

 

well Im jazzed because I dynoed at 287-89rwhp (cant remember) and 291rwtrq without a tune and similar setup, so with the tune I should be close to what you put down and with my gears I should still be able to beat you.....LOL!!! Just messing

 

hey richard, it was nice to meet you.

those are pretty good numbers you got there, i am jealous.

RET all the way

 

Nice numbers, congrats!

 

Can't go wrong w/ Greg.

 

I had heard that shortie headers didn't do much for the HP. In fact the JBA ad states it adds 21 HP with a cold air and a tune... Which is what you get with a cold air and a tune! What gives?

 

my JBA headers added 10.57rwhp without a tune, thats the difference between the two dynos of one with the no mufflers and intake, no tune being the before and then again after adding the headers still no tune.

 

Nice numbers!!! 343 fwhp with "K&N Intake, JBA Shorty Headers, Bassani Xpipe with HiFlow Cats, Straight Pipe Exhaust" is very impressive!!

But what do you mean by 26 degrees of timing? What RPM and load are you talking about?

 

I also ran those around those numbers running 87 octane tune,did you say you had headers?? that's the only thing i dont have. i ran 291hp and 303tq. i guess if i put headers on ill jump around 10-13 tq. what you guys think

 

yeah I saw about a 10hp increase with JBA shorties no tune

 

his estimated HP would be 357.3HP @ crank (assuming a 15% loss)

Timing or "ignition timing" refers to when the sparkplug is fired in relation to the piston position. At idle it fires just before the piston reaches the top of its stroke. The time between piston strokes lessens as the engine speed increases and therefore the plug must fire sooner. In all cases the plug is fired in advance of the piston reaching top dead center. The combustion must take place in a very small window of time to produce peak power; too soon and detonation occurs (which can melt your pistons) and too late power is lost. You can advance or retard the actuall time at which the spark fires. This is measured in crankshaft degrees. when the piston is at TDC it is at 0 degrees. Ten degrees before that point would mean its 10 degrees of rotation from TDC. without getting really into the guts of how this all works, the overall timing is determined by both the initial timing (which is what you see mechanics measuring with flash timing lights; usually on stock motors can be anywhere between 0-15 and most Ford shop manuals specify 6-8 degrees of advanced initial timing on 289-351motors) and the mechanical/centrifigul timing determined by the distributor by adding them together. Im not 100% on this but supposedly the stock motors in the S197s are set at 25degrees advanced and so he tuned it by advancing it to 26 degrees. Going to an even higher octane will allow him to advance the timing even more, but there is a limit to the total timing that can be handled in a motor based on its compression ratio.

 

So again, what are they referring to when they're saying it's set at "26 degrees" instead of 25 degrees? The final spark calculation takes into account IMRC, VCT, lambda, several spark tables, and the knock sensor. There are spark values for a bunch of different cells depending on the load and RPM, not to mention closed loop or open loop operation.

For my 4.6 2V V8, it runs anywhere from 0 degrees of spark advance to 41 degrees of spark advance depending on RPM, load, A/F lambda, etc... The only difference between the 4.6 2V in my Crown Vic and the 4.6 3V V8 in terms of spark calculation is that the Stang has IMRC (CMCV), VCT, and knock sensor retard/advance. We're dealing with spark tables here and not a simple distributor advance. You can advance and retard spark with almost pinpoint precision.

You're right about the fwhp. I'm not sure what I punched in to get 343 fwhp, it's more like 355-360 fwhp.

 

sorry I wasnt sure what you wanted to know, if you wanted a very detailed breakdown of his tune, which I dont know (not my car and I wasnt there), or just the basics of what is meant by timing....lol, was just trying to help where I could, and I know that with these computers now that simple things like timing gets very complex, thats why I didnt go into a lot of depth, man I miss the old days where you can fix a car with whats in your tool box....lol (and Im not old, crap things change fast.)