BACK TO BACK FINAL RESULTS AT POST 76 ON PAGE 4!

So I've never done a timeline / build / findings thread before and figured this could be informative to a few people. Plus no one has really posted a review on an Evan's E-tune with the AEM EMS (that Ive seen at least) so I figured I'd be the first! So far Im pretty impressed and I havent even received my 2nd calibration yet. Theres still a ton of bugs that need to be worked out in my tune, but the WOT map is tons of fun compared to stock (loving the lowered vtec)

Ill be doing this the best I know. As a couple people know, I was gonna tune the EMS myself, but with me still being in school / applying to grad school, Ive got too much on my plate right now, so I decided to support one of the sponsors here on the forums!

I'll post details later, but I was looking for a decent program to monitor my power gains (similar to gernbys soft dyno) but since I have an AP1, flashpro isnt an option for me.

I havent seen anyone on this forum use the Virtual Dyno software but after doing some research a lot of people are finding that their results are pretty accurate, and repeatable depending on how well you log your runs (Not my strong suit)

Anyways, heres my first two runs that I had with the AEM V1 base calibration that comes with the software.



These results are supposed to be on a Mustang dyno, and you'll see why soon enough, Im trying to get them to as realistic numbers as possible. I'd be pretty excited to make 195whp on a Mustang dyno, but that base map feels pretty slow. Also, the blue line was on a twisty road in Dallas and the red line was on a straight (slightly down hill) road in Houston. (Flawless replication, I know.)

Heres my first calibration from Evans Tuning that they sent me, Im guessing this is kind of like his "base" tuned map set for my mods. Vtec is set to 3800 and theres some other minor changes here and there from what I can tell, but I havent sent him ANY logs at this point.



These were done on the same stretch of road in Houston that the red line above on the base AEM map was done, only difference is that the red line here was done in one direction (slightly downhill) and the other was done in the other direction (slightly uphill)

And heres the difference between the base AEM map and Evan's map



I'll tell you Evans map feels WAY faster for sure, but make no mistake, I am in no way claiming that I gained 50whp from Evan's first calibration tune up top OR that I can constantly put down 250whp on a Mustang dyno

HOWEVER on this last graph, these two were done on the same stretch of road, on the same day, starting at the same point, going the same direction, just a few hours within each other (temp changes included in SAE) So I feel these results are relatively accurate in the difference between the two.

Also I just guesstimated the weight of my car, but moving the weight up and down really doesnt make too big of a difference to the graph. I think 2800 is in the ballpark however.

After this is all said and done I'll be looking to take my stock OEM ECU and AEM EMS tune to a dyno and compare the actual results. But for now, this is good enough for me, and Im having a ton of fun with this process.

As for the accuracy of VD, HERE is a thread that discusses the results and shows back to back runs from an actual Dyno and the software. They found that it has pretty good accuracy if used correctly (probably where Im failing as my Dynojet results show that Evans tune made 291whp!)

Anyways stay tuned if your interested and Ill update this as much as I can

 

Interesting post, looked into the VD, great tool.

What year AP1, and what mods exactly? What's the AFR on the tuned run?

Since the base map run numbers seem realistic, and you duplicated the test conditions closely and feel the comparison is accurate, how do you explain the 56whp gain from base map tune change alone?

 

I got my 2nd and 3rd revisions these last few days. I haven't tested the 3rd tune yet but the 2nd tune made 225whp and looksuh more reasonable, I'll post the results and graph later. As for the crazy powered one I did it again and got 242whp up top, I still think its bogus, gonna do more testing tonight maybe on all 3 etunes and replicate it as close as possible.

Mods are in sig, and it's an 03 AP1

 

On your mod list, is your exhaust a 70mm single, or dual? And I'm assuming you're not spraying on these runs?

What's being changed on the revised tunes, just fuel or timing as well? What's being used as the basis in the AEM datalogs for the changes, AFR and rate of acceleration? Is Evans using the VD graphs for the revisions at all?

Can you include AFR in the tuned plots?

Looking forward to your updates and if you can figure out how to make the results accurate/consistent.

 

How much are e-tunes compared to scheduling a dyno session?

 

Its a 70mm Dual, and no Im not spraying on these runs. He doesn't support nitrous tunes via e-tune.

I havent looked at the Accel. rate maps, but so far he hasn't messed with the ign timing from his base map, just messing with fuel currently. I redid the runs the best I could and have o2 mapped on all these as well. From what I understand he uses his own version of a software dyno, so no he doesnt use VD, but he is using the same logs that I am using for my own personal VD graphs.

I got revision #4 tonight, but I didnt have the time to get any runs in. In the legend, the "#1" = etune 1, #2 = etune 2 and #3 = etune 3. Ironically my results show that power-wise, tune 1 was the most powerful, then 2 and then 3 My best guess is the maybe a slight downhill on the first couple or a downhill on the first and an uphill on the others, or maybe my car just likes a slightly richer fuel mix.

Heres the graphs. I changed the multiplier. Dynojet multiplier is 1.09 (reads high), Mustang is .95 (reads low) and I have these set for 1.0, which *should* be the most accurate in the real world.

Blue is tune 1, orange is tune 2, green is tune 3 and red is base tune


Tune 1 vs Base tune


Tune 2 vs Base tune


Tune 3 vs Base tune


The midrange in that base tune seems too high too me honestly, no jump on vtec and there most definitely is one. Vtec is set to 5.7k on the base tune and 3.8k on the Etunes, so there should be some solid gains there. Some time this week I want to try to upload each calibration and do back to back for every tune on the same (flat) road, but cops are swarming where I live (college campus town) and the software only takes 3rd gear pulls, and no where is there a place where I can haul ass to 76mph and not get nailed with a $200+ ticket, so its kind of difficult.

 

Cool seeing the results for the different tunes, hard to draw conclusions on them until you know the testing is accurate/consistent.

Did you try doing the run for each tune multiple times, to see if you can get consistent results with no variables introduced, like different tunes?

If so, what were the results of the multiple runs with no changes? I think you would need to find an empty "test" road or highway, where you could mark off exactly where to start and end your run each time, on the same exact piece of road, ideally in the same weather conditions.

I played with the software a bit, saw there is a place to enter the gearing through all the gears, and a dropdown to select the gear to do the run in, though only 3/4 show up by default. By default the stock FD was also incorrect. I wonder if its possible to configure it to do the runs in 1st or 2nd for convenience.

How do the AEM logs compare? They are quite a powerful tool, you could set up your own software dyno based on them too. But just in the basic log you can measure your acceleration in them just by comparing how much time it took at WOT to accelerate from a given start to end speed, and compare it between the different tunes.This is pretty quick/easy to do manually.

How does the butt dyno feel for each tune? The kind of power differences you are getting on the VD, should be measurable by your butt.

You could also try asking Evan's what kind of results he's seeing in your logs between the different tunes, which direction the changes are taking the performance in, all these methods should give you additional frames of reference to validate your results. Maybe he can show/send you the software dyno or graphs he's using. Though at this point he might be tuning AFR based on the AFR log alone to get it to where he likes, no need for a software dyno to do that.

 

Ya he requires 2 full throttle logs so I have 2 of each log, except for tune 1 I have four of. I can post each tunes multiple dynos later so you can see, the curves all look very similar.
Butt dyno feels like its faster up top but you can definitely feel that AFR swing in the midrange, feels like something goes wrong and then like a turbo spool lol, he addresses that in tune 4 so we'll see what it looks like

I also noticed the car editor in the software and put in ratios for different gears but it wouldn't let me save my changes. I noticed the FD being wrong as well but it didn't really matter since I had to change it for my 4.77s anyways

 

Street dynos really, REALLY need perfect datalogs in order to compare, and also need to be averaged together from several pulls in order to get very repeatable results. I've written 3 software dynos over the last 6 years, and am VERY familiar with the pitfalls.

First off, if you are comparing graphs from different roads or directions, STOP. You cannot compare pulls that aren't done on exactly the same piece of road in the same direction from the same spot at the same starting speed. You also need the wind direction and magnitude and direction to be similar, and the weight of the contents (including fuel) should be similar. Furthermore, you need to make sure the engine is equally heat soaked. If one run is done in the morning when the car is still warming up, and the other run is done when the car is totally heat soaked, you'll get very different results. Even the particular batch of fuel can impact the results.

Lastly, there's nothing preventing you from loading up several calibrations over a period of an hour to test them all at the same time under the same conditions. If you perfect your testing strategy, your results will follow!

Here is how I do my pulls. All of these were done within 30 minutes of each other (on private property in Mexico).
http://youtu.be/Te_y9cFyi-w

 

And make sure you have the top up with the AC off, and your tire pressures are the same ...