To those of you who have tuned cars with basic mods (intake, header, test pipe, exhaust), have you made most of the power through fuel or timing?

I'm not going for all out power, just some more area under the curve and a smoother curve overall. I'm undecided if I want to use a VAFCII or the eManage. Both have features I like and some I don't. Both have P&P harnesses from Boomslang, so hacking up the factory wiring is not a concern. If power can be made with timing, the eManage has the advantage. For adjusting the fuel, it's a toss-up IMO, but the eManage does have a little advantage since it can do partial throttle adjustments better than the VAFC.

The EMS is way more than I'll need, so I don't even want to throw it into the mix.

Any suggestions and experiences to share? Thanks.

 

Anyone?

 

i use a vafc II.... mods include hks exhaust and 4ig CAI..... i dynoed at 210rwhp.. 90 degree temperature outside and around 60% humidity....and my curve is awesome.... i dropped the vtec to 5500 and it pulls very hard once it kicks in.... and overall i gained 8-10rwhp from the vafc II alone..... i'm quite happy with it... however i will be upgrading to an ems soon..

 

The timing control on the E-manage isn't much good. Adjustments are in 1 degree increments and are not very accurate from what I hear.

 

The e-manage timing control in fact, sucks. It will work, if you are willing to develop a map that doesn't detonate. Even with the entire map zero'd, my car would detonate in RPM ranges outside of boost. (under 4K, on a stock pulley Vortech) Unhook the timing control harness, no detonation.

The E-manage is wired to the ignition coil outputs from the PCM. This unfortunately has a "parasitic" effect on the timing control. When starting to develop a base map for my car I had to pull 10deg+ below 4K to get to a point where it wouldn't detonate. I stopped messing with it due to the self destructive nature.

I never tried advancing the timing with an e-manage, as there wasn't much need.

On the other hand, the Split Second timing controller provided by Vortech works quite well. It is wired to the CKP sensor input, and shifts the signal to the PCM to get a timing change. It's also pretty simple to program with the R4 software from Split Second.

 

Thanks, Slow. This is the kind of info I was looking for.