Microtech Library

[TURBOJ1]

Hi my name is josh and i had a tuner in kansas city mo install the (microtech lt 8) i believe and tune my car. Now its a pretty good tune but i have some issues that i thought you could help with and im even willing to pay for a better tune. Anyway while cruising down the highway my afrs go to like 18.1 and it bucks a little when i barely press the peddle. also My charging system is only putting out 13.2 volts and i dont know if thats normal because i have a 400 amp alternator hooked up. also starting the car in the winter is a b****. Oh yeah one other thing , the battery will not stay charged if i let the car sit for a week or so. Thanks for any advise. I also forgot to mention that the battery light and the cel is on and i know someone mentioned a way to get the check engion light off with a resistor , any thoughts on the battery light..Im located in arizona right now but i will be back in my home town of columbia missouri after schools out in april.. As soon as i find my damn dongle ill post the map that i have in there so you guys can see it. I believe my injectors are 440cc and i have way too many mods to list right now lol

Hey bud,I had the same "issues"...Your microtech is NOT regulating you alternator,you need to source an internally regulated alternator,you 400amp should be able to be modified to work.It won't start in winter because you prolly don't have your IAC hooked up,but tuning it will/may help you start better(also look into buying a spare starter 'cause the cold starts strain your starter).I would'nt worry too much about crusing and having low AFR's,mostly when going into BOOST,I also have the jerking/bucking when I press the pedal slightly,but I have learned how to get around it,when I'm by myslef it dosen't really bother me,but when I have company in the car I just use 2nd gear and that seams to do the trick......I have been thu MANY MANY headaches so I'm happy to pass on whatever little I know...Hope this helps

 

[josh9413]

Thank you for the info. It was very helpful. Do you know how many volts the charging system should be pushing?

 

[Alamo1]

Anywhere between 13.5 and 14.5 is normal for most cars. Mine runs about 13.75 according to the microtech.

 

[Knox Joe]

^thanks

I'm still having a hard time during cold starts. When the car isn't cold it starts pretty easily. Another issue I'm having us stalling when releasing the throttle. My idle is pretty high at 1100-1200rpm. Also idle afr is pegged at 10.0

And what's the thing with adjusting the brass screw? Instructions say unscrew it till it feels easier to turn. Then turn it back in one full turn. Could that have something to do with me stalling when releasing the throttle. The only other way for me to counter the stall is either throttle while braking to keep the rpm up then slowly let it drop. Or raise my idle via the 8mm bolt and hex screw to an unwanted 1500rpm.

Advise please. Thank you

Sounds exactly like my tune. Are you running an 8 or a 10? I'm running an 8, and your symptons mirror my own. I also have brought it to a renowned tuner and even with him tuning it, cold start-up, idle, and stalling is still there. I also think this is all due to the alternator, as we watched the power surge constantly, and the Microtech is just not able to compensate without a battery load compensation table. We tried to compensate this with a capacitor hooked up in parallel with the battery, to help reduce draw on the battery under loads, but it did not help.

 

[808MP5]

Running the 8... Yup, Cold starts, jumpy idle, and stalling...

so far i have almost fine tuned the cold starts... got it down to a 3 crank max instead of sometimes sitting there for like 15-20min trying to get her started to go to work... as for stalling while release the throttle, i have also learned how to deal with that... right when i throw her in neutral i give it a small tap on the throttle, and i got my idle down to about 1100 rpms... a lot of my issues seems to be tuning related... i want to get her dyno tuned but need to first save a cool $500-$600 dollars just for that...

so far i got about 2100miles on the rebuilt motor and i'm liking it sorta... i get lots of lag in the low rpm's although my afr's look ok but once up in the 4500k region she wants to take off... i blame it on my guess work tuning...

btw anyone can tell me how to export the data to excel???? or is everyone actually typing it in?

 

[808MP5]

Im having problems with cold starts
Do you think u could share some knowledge and tell me how you tuned your maps to fix that problem. Im running 440 injectors with a gt3071r turbo and nology hotwires and steed speed manifold if that helps

it was much of just a guessing game and testing my google skills...

what's happening when you try to start?
for example for me i could just crank and crank and it would never catch...
so i started leaning it out(going more negative)...
i noticed that it would crank and fire multiple times but never start...
then i started making it more rich(more positive)...
i noticed that it would crank and fire just a few times then actually fire one or two more times afterwards...

did a little google search on how to tell if your flooding the engine... and it sorta described what i was experiencing when i would crank and then it would catch and fire one or two times afterwards... so i knew i was to rich...

i started leaning it out again and got it to the point were it would catch and fire multiple times but never start...
i moved on to the after start enrichment and started increasing the fuel 1 step at a time until it would start...

now with the settings i have it starts between one to three cranks sometimes four...

so from what i just said...
your are adjusting the crank map
look at your current environmental value pointed out by the yellow block...
adjust that value and the two adjacent values and keep them no more than one value up or down if not the same(i made mine the same)...
i would start by leaning it out depending what the values are already(you will know you are too rich if it cranks but fires slowly and you get those little extra thumps after the fact)...
what you are aiming for is when you crank it fires multiple times in rapid succession...
once you get that part down then go to the after start enrichment and start increasing that...

there's another thing too that makes a difference is the timing... haven't quite figured that one out yet though... i tried playing with the timing trim... the lower i made it the harder it began to get it started... i noticed that a timing trim of +11 brought my idle timing to 24deg... i tried lowering my timing trim and it made it a lot harder to start... so i'm going to assume that somewhere around 22deg-26deg is what we? should be aiming for after starting the motor...

hopefully someone else can chime in and share some experiences...

what i want to know is what's the stock timing on our cars...
for example the stock idle timing
stock max timing
and everything in between...

i've tried raising my timing max to 43 and i get a lot of clanking...
dropped it down to 40 and it's a little better
dropped it down to 38 and it purrs
but then who knows whats really going on... i am still trying to learn this thing... but i know in the end i'm just gonna pay a tuner and get it done on a dyno

Hi my name is josh and i had a tuner in kansas city mo install the (microtech lt 8) i believe and tune my car. Now its a pretty good tune but i have some issues that i thought you could help with and im even willing to pay for a better tune. Anyway while cruising down the highway my afrs go to like 18.1 and it bucks a little when i barely press the peddle. also My charging system is only putting out 13.2 volts and i dont know if thats normal because i have a 400 amp alternator hooked up. also starting the car in the winter is a b****. Oh yeah one other thing , the battery will not stay charged if i let the car sit for a week or so. Thanks for any advise. I also forgot to mention that the battery light and the cel is on and i know someone mentioned a way to get the check engion light off with a resistor , any thoughts on the battery light..Im located in arizona right now but i will be back in my home town of columbia missouri after schools out in april.. As soon as i find my damn dongle ill post the map that i have in there so you guys can see it. I believe my injectors are 440cc and i have way too many mods to list right now lol

you mentioned that you're running really lean while cruising also... i have experienced this too...
you can try to tune it out yourself or take it back to the tuner... he should be able to tune it out... what i believe is happening; sorry to say is that it's not tuned correctly(at least not for cruising)... it would be easier with a partner in the car to watch what your afr's, load, map, and rpms are... i'm pretty sure it's happening at one if not all of those three criteria and is repeatable... so you need to see when it's happening and add fuel to either the load map or rpm map(s)... you could also check what your decel map value is... i get lean conditions while cruising when my vacuum is near my decel

as for the battery not staying charged... i would either blame the battery or something is grounding out...

and as for the check engine light... i would pull the codes... my check engine light isn't on... although the person i got the microtech from said it would be on... so another thing i can't really chime in on

 

[josh9413]

Holy crap man . Thanks for all the valueable info. I dont know what people would do these days without forums and such generosity of knowledge on different setups and systems. I will deffinately try all this some time soon as im currently away from my ride right now but i will have it back next week.

 

[Alamo1]

Tuning my car was also quite the guess and test. I started off the stock injector map that turf burn posted and worked from there. My car has a bunch of mods including 440 injectors and I had to spend all of the summer of 2012 getting it to idle and cruise properly. Now I have an idle that is 20ish degrees advanced timing so that it will stay consistently at around 13.5afr. My cruise is the best part of the tuning I have done. I've gotten it to stay between 14.2 and 15.5 at all vacuum points except for when I hit my pump 2 enrichment. Then it goes pig rich because I haven't had anyone to help me tune in boost. Every once in a while it goes lean for a second but never hits more than 15.8ish.

A lot of it is guess and test. I have read and re-read every post on this topic probably 20 times and every time I realize that I can tweak a little more I makes car run better. I most likely will not eve get the chance to have my car on the dyno so I just keep plugging away.

Just keep trying different things and you'll get there. I ordered an advanced tuning book off amazon for Christmas so of it turns out to have any useful info I will definetly post up some theory that I find helps. I can post up my map if anyone wants to look at it. Not sure how much it will help with the cold start issue as I only drive my car in the summer.

 

[TURBOJ1]

Thank you for the info. It was very helpful. Do you know how many volts the charging system should be pushing?

I now get 14.2 at idle...

 

[TURBOJ1]

I WOULD ADVISE ANYONE HAVING ALTERNATOR ISSUES TO LOOK INTO GETTING A SELF REGULATED ALTERNATOR,and also a higher apmerage....It made my charging issues go away,the only thing that u only get "full" charge after 1500 rpm...at 1000 rpm,it charges at like 13.2ish...but after 1500 i get over 14volts......hope this helps

 

[Knox Joe]

Part number of alt. used?

 

[AusOrion]

^ This.

Also, the biggest problem that people have with running self-regulated alternators is getting a signal back to the ecu to let it know that the battery is being charged, otherwise it lights up the battery (and park brake - I think) warning light(s). How did you solve this?

 

[808MP5]

anyone care to post up their timing settings?
just wanna get an idea of where i should be at...
so far the only 99%complete map posted is the NSN MP3 Racecar map...

 

[Alamo1]

I am on 440's and started with the stock injector map. I haven't adjusted my timing at all since it seemed pretty conservative. That is to say the map that Steve/TurfBurn posted at the start of this thread.

 

[TURBOJ1]

^ This.

Also, the biggest problem that people have with running self-regulated alternators is getting a signal back to the ecu to let it know that the battery is being charged, otherwise it lights up the battery (and park brake - I think) warning light(s). How did you solve this?

You are runnung a microtech ...right?

 

[TURBOJ1]

Part number of alt. used?

I got mine off of fleabay....140amp ( ill see if I can get the link) then I took it and had it modded to be internally regulated,after that my charging issues are gone

 

[TurfBurn]

^ This.

Also, the biggest problem that people have with running self-regulated alternators is getting a signal back to the ecu to let it know that the battery is being charged, otherwise it lights up the battery (and park brake - I think) warning light(s). How did you solve this?

Not sure what you guys are doing, but it's wrong. You shouldn't need any modification to the alternator or wiring if the Microtech is wired correctly. My instructions for wiring the Microtech are published out there somewhere now and the alternator works fine in that configuration. The stock ECU fully regulates the alternator in that configuration.

If you need to swap alternators (because you strip the car completely of ECU etc for racing) I believe it is the late 90's 626 alternator that works, just have to swap pulleys as the rib count is different.

 

[808MP5]

I have a copy of the instructions. My alternator is working fine. But my battery light is on. Also my voltage gauge doesn't output the voltage. I have my volt gauge tapped into the cig lighter and it reads 0.0-0.2 volts.

The microtech software shows my voltage as 13.5v

 

[TurfBurn]

something goofy with the crank wiring then most likely. Is your tach working? Double check the fuse on the cigarette lighter as well.

 

[808MP5]

Yes the tach is working. The cigarette lighter has to be working. I charge my phone from it. Plus it's my main switched 12v for all my gauges. Besides that car running great with its guess tune.

I've got the lt8 installed per your instructions.