How hard could it be?

[Cummins_Bred]

For anybody who has used efi to tune a duramax or 5.9, how hard is it to get
it mostly figured out? Anybody's opinion is welcome (so long as you have used the software, i don't really wanna know what your buddy says or what you "think", only wanna know about personal experience). I don't have a performance shop, nor do i have anytime access to a dyno. I'm looking at buying to tune my own vehicle, and a few friends of mine, but wanna know what the learning curve is before i sink my own cash into it. Just don't wanna buy it and not be able to teach myself how to utilize it well. I know it will probably be trial and error, but i'm on the fence whether to buy it for myself or not. And i know there was an efi live "class" scheduled in indiana a while back that got cancelled, but are there any others scheduled nearby?

[EFI Support]

I'm biased, so I won't answer your question.

I will however suggest that you go to our website, download our V7.5 software for free, and download a tune from the Tune library here on CompD and take a look for yourself. You can view the tune, view the tables, have a play around. Without our hardware you can't save and you can't flash a truck, but it will give you an understanding of what is involved before you part with your hard earned dollar.

I'm sure if you asked, someone may even shoot you a modified tune so you can take a look at the differences between a stock and modified tune.

Cheers
Cindy

[chizwizdiz]

I'm an amateur, but I seem to be doing ok. I started with the stock tune, and went through the tables one at a time, making small, incremental changes but mostly just smoothing the tables. I have had some help recently, and that has helped tremendously.

I'm much more comfortable navigating my way around the tables now, and have learned through experience. Example: last night I must have changed something (I think base timing) too much because my truck wouldn't barely idle and smoked all over. I shut the truck down, went back to the drawing board, re-flashed it and all is well.

Honestly though, it takes alot of time. I'm on three different forums trying to absorb as much knowledge and experience from other EFI users. To me, it's all worth it though. I like having option to change whatever I want, and I look forward to the additional release of tables/options.

If you buy EFI Live and don't feel like you can make your own tune, there are plenty of professional tuners out there who would be more than happy to make one for you.

[ARbowhunter7]

Its not bad. Nick @ DuramaxTuner stayed on the phone with me for a half hour or so and I learned enough make a little tune.

The way I really learned is by looking at othet peoples fuel tables compared to their mods and power numbers. That gives you an idea of what values to change, and by how much.

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[phale]

The biggest hurdle for most people is getting past the thought that they are going to do something wrong and blow their truck up. The software looks intimidating at first, but there are really only a few tables that you need to change at first to notice a change in your truck and then as you get more comfortable with how the software works you can begin using the other tables to really fine tune the truck. If you are looking to learn and you get the software, I still have a couple of spots open in our testing group and you will learn the basics of tuning through watching how I change the tune each time I send you something new. I also send out an explanation of what I changed so you know what is going on with your truck.

[THEFERMANATOR]

I've only done DURAMAX tuning, but the key is to start small. try a small change and see what it does and go from there. If youi bump up the timing and hear rattle back it back down some. Watch your EGT guage and don't overfuel, and try to keep your fuel down low close to stock to avoid hydrolocking it. this isn't a big problem with stock fuel systems, but with bigger CP3's and sticks you can really pour in some fuel and hurt things down low. I'v e also found that keeping your pulse width low in teh lower rail pressures helps. Only turn your fuel up high in teh RPM range and higher rail pressures. This helps to maintain rail pressure better and reduces smoking and touchy throttle.

Also see if you can find somebody to help you understand what does what. And I'm sure before long somebody will make up some spreadsheets to help with timing so you can keep it at a certain percent before TDC which helps to give you a good baseline. And I would be careful using downloaded boxed tunes as guides as many of them are very choppy and unrefined. I had somebody send me some PPE tunes and i was less than thrilled with the way they drove. i built a tune with about 60% of the fuel of the PPE, yet it runs almost as strong without the smoke.

[ecc_33]

not to high jack this thread but are we going to have to pay another 399 for the 07.5 + to tune these trucks?

[JWhite]

not to high jack this thread but are we going to have to pay another 399 for the 07.5 + to tune these trucks?

No, the Cummins software will work on all future engine series releases

[EFI Support]

not to high jack this thread but are we going to have to pay another 399 for the 07.5 + to tune these trucks?
All Dodge Cummins applications we release support for will be covered under the Dodge Cummins tuning license.

Cheers
Cindy

[Ackerdiesel]

I've been playing with the v7.5 and if you do it like that it's fairly simple.

[IdahoRob]

Small changes and save as a new version (so you can go back if needed) and test. Repeat x 100.

[homewrecker]

I've only done DURAMAX tuning, but the key is to start small. try a small change and see what it does and go from there. If youi bump up the timing and hear rattle back it back down some. Watch your EGT guage and don't overfuel, and try to keep your fuel down low close to stock to avoid hydrolocking it. this isn't a big problem with stock fuel systems, but with bigger CP3's and sticks you can really pour in some fuel and hurt things down low. I'v e also found that keeping your pulse width low in teh lower rail pressures helps. Only turn your fuel up high in teh RPM range and higher rail pressures. This helps to maintain rail pressure better and reduces smoking and touchy throttle.

Also see if you can find somebody to help you understand what does what. And I'm sure before long somebody will make up some spreadsheets to help with timing so you can keep it at a certain percent before TDC which helps to give you a good baseline. And I would be careful using downloaded boxed tunes as guides as many of them are very choppy and unrefined. I had somebody send me some PPE tunes and i was less than thrilled with the way they drove. i built a tune with about 60% of the fuel of the PPE, yet it runs almost as strong without the smoke.

Good post on duration and pressure baselines. Thanks. Anyone care to share a general rule of thumb on the timing map? Increase based on rpm, boost, load percentage. Is there a point or power level where timing needs to start declining in the higher rpm range or the more your engine can take the better?

[phale]

Timing will have to increase as your rpms increase if you are trying to run more pulsewidth to develop more power.

[IdahoRob]

Increased timing will;

Add HP
Add Torque
Add Fuel economy
Lower boost pressure
Lower EGT

But will also raise Cyl. Pressure which in turn lowers engine life, if taken to extreme can lower engine life in seconds.

One of the big mis-conceptions is too much timing and the engine will rattle. Not necessarily so. So the thought of add timing until it rattles and then back it off is a dangerous thoery as cylinder pressure can be huge without any heavy rattle. Everything has to work together, pressure/duration/timing/boost/rpm.

Rattle on the common rails can come from too much rail pressure/duration at low rpm/boost also.

Best advice I have is run the least amount of timing you can to reach the goals you want. There are limits, I've done a lot of testing with the Dmax in all the different ranges from 300HP to 1200+HP with timing and know what helps them live at those ranges, and what doesn't. The Cummins appear to be stouter, but I really like the conservative side of things and the gains of extreme timing usually don't out weight the costs.

[homewrecker]

^^ Thanks for the reply. Trying to learn all I can for when the 03-05 version is released.

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