HP Tuners Lessons Learned 4.7 engine
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Joined: Oct 2012
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From: PA
Previous HPT experience is on the CTD Ram... going over to the Dak took little time to understand there is not much that can be tuned on my year Dak. There were only 3 tweeks I did to it, 1st got the e-fan working where I wanted it, the 2nd was setting the injection pulse width where I wanted it after doing the 12 hole injector swap and lastly, getting the timing advanced where I would not have pinging on the crappiest fuel. Overall there was so much more gained by doing the hardware mods before the tuning. Tuning & headers did not give a whole lot of a bump in performance, it was there but nothing like the other mods. If those were done 1st I might have different feedback but thats what I saw.
The biggest hitters in no particular order were:
1) potato launcher mod (aka PL)... this mod gave a very noticeable bump in bottom end torque. What I found it to do is shift the power down the rpms but it sacrificed some top end. (later addressed with a newer short runner intake manifold swap, see below).
.. Note this mod cost something like $50 in parts to make and by far had the biggest impact. I did this mod on a neighbors jeep GC with the 4.7 & she was shocked at the performance change & happy about the mpg bump.
2) 70mm TB
3) turning vane in the airaid intake tube... this cut the aero pinch point in the intake tube in half which gave better flow overall and gave another noticeable bump in performance.
4) '03 intake manifold swap... this bumped power up the rpms and showed me that the PL could be tweeked to get performance to my liking
5) fuel rail wrap/insulation, bump in bottom-mid range power
6) 12 hole injectors could not determine if this had a performance change or not as these went in with the IM. I did find while monitoring the LTFT that it was running rich, HPT helped dial it in with the injector pulse width changes
Other notable gains came from the airbox mod (I'd go bigger on the valve if there were room for it, it helped top end) and wrapping the intake tube to prevent heat soak, insulating the coolant lines across the IM to contain the heat.
From the tuning perspective, (your original post)... the hpt helped me to dial it all in and was limited to just the pulse width and timing. Someday I may go back and do a performance tune where it runs on 93 oct & the injector pulse width is bumped back up (currently pulled back so LTFT indicates its adding fuel within its capabilities and is running on the lean side for mpg's, no pinging).
If you have questions dont hesitate to ask, happy to help.
The biggest hitters in no particular order were:
1) potato launcher mod (aka PL)... this mod gave a very noticeable bump in bottom end torque. What I found it to do is shift the power down the rpms but it sacrificed some top end. (later addressed with a newer short runner intake manifold swap, see below).
.. Note this mod cost something like $50 in parts to make and by far had the biggest impact. I did this mod on a neighbors jeep GC with the 4.7 & she was shocked at the performance change & happy about the mpg bump.
2) 70mm TB
3) turning vane in the airaid intake tube... this cut the aero pinch point in the intake tube in half which gave better flow overall and gave another noticeable bump in performance.
4) '03 intake manifold swap... this bumped power up the rpms and showed me that the PL could be tweeked to get performance to my liking
5) fuel rail wrap/insulation, bump in bottom-mid range power
6) 12 hole injectors could not determine if this had a performance change or not as these went in with the IM. I did find while monitoring the LTFT that it was running rich, HPT helped dial it in with the injector pulse width changes
Other notable gains came from the airbox mod (I'd go bigger on the valve if there were room for it, it helped top end) and wrapping the intake tube to prevent heat soak, insulating the coolant lines across the IM to contain the heat.
From the tuning perspective, (your original post)... the hpt helped me to dial it all in and was limited to just the pulse width and timing. Someday I may go back and do a performance tune where it runs on 93 oct & the injector pulse width is bumped back up (currently pulled back so LTFT indicates its adding fuel within its capabilities and is running on the lean side for mpg's, no pinging).
If you have questions dont hesitate to ask, happy to help.
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yes it does have controls for adjusting tire size & one other, not sure what the other one is, there were 2 controls on that page.
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Thought I was done but.... another update. I dumped in 89 octane fuel for a tank to see how it affected mpg's, thought i might have pinging I could not hear so it was a test. MPGs went up from 17.3 to 18.3 on the one tank I ran before getting motivated to retune it. Bumped duration in the bottom end (richened it up per the LTFT to smooth out the duration under load), this brought more power in on the bottom end & my expectation was mpg's were going to go down. They did but not as much as I expected (17.4~17.5's). Not sure I if I have any more tuning to do in it, runs awesome with more power on the bottom end & a tad bit more on the upper end (bumped duration there as well)
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Update... developed a mis-fire on #6 a while back. Very random & sometimes would set the pending code & CE light. Did all the normal debugging... swapped coil, plug, injector and no improvement. Been running mid grade Arco for the last year against my own advice to run Chevron (shame on me). Did 2 sea foam treatments thru the intake manifold and the frequency of the mis-fire dropped significantly but it would still trip the code. Filled up with the chevron on this last tank & now at 100 miles later, no code, no pending code.
One of 2 things (could be both) I suspect... the Arco + tune was leaving deposits on the valves causing the cylinder to not seal 100% and the sea foam removed most of it and 2, the winter fuel is causing an issue in that cylinder (worn out).
It is still being driven often & currently daily while the ram waits a replacement trans (bearing) and runs awesome with the current tune in there but idles not so good. Going to do a compression test on that cylinder & possibly a leak down test if it fails to ID where the problem is. If it is hurt and no longer providing good compression, will use the "engine Restore" additive and milk it until I can swap in another motor, which will be an HO motor.
For the $2100 starting point on this truck, I cant complain... it has served me well with over 40k miles on it now since I picked it up and besides the intermittent mis-fire, runs awesome. I have learned a lot with it and still plan to do the y-pipe and cat back exhaust to finish it off.
One other thing with the HP tuners... not sure if I mentioned this but I went back and dialed in the tune to match the airflow & the injectors that I installed, there is a tool in the logger that shows me what the LTFT averages & counts are in the cells that the tune hits during the test drives. Was able to easily turn everything "green" (rich vs "red" = lean) which brought on a noticeable bump in power in the area's I re-tuned. I had an approach to run it on the lean side got mph's and started thinking I'd rather have the power. As it turns out, even with the power turned up, mpg's still stay up and appear to be better then it was previously. Will find out later today as I plan to top it off & measure mpg's. Should be approx 150 miles on the tank, should be longer but will be driving it over the weekend & want the commute mpg's.
One of 2 things (could be both) I suspect... the Arco + tune was leaving deposits on the valves causing the cylinder to not seal 100% and the sea foam removed most of it and 2, the winter fuel is causing an issue in that cylinder (worn out).
It is still being driven often & currently daily while the ram waits a replacement trans (bearing) and runs awesome with the current tune in there but idles not so good. Going to do a compression test on that cylinder & possibly a leak down test if it fails to ID where the problem is. If it is hurt and no longer providing good compression, will use the "engine Restore" additive and milk it until I can swap in another motor, which will be an HO motor.
For the $2100 starting point on this truck, I cant complain... it has served me well with over 40k miles on it now since I picked it up and besides the intermittent mis-fire, runs awesome. I have learned a lot with it and still plan to do the y-pipe and cat back exhaust to finish it off.
One other thing with the HP tuners... not sure if I mentioned this but I went back and dialed in the tune to match the airflow & the injectors that I installed, there is a tool in the logger that shows me what the LTFT averages & counts are in the cells that the tune hits during the test drives. Was able to easily turn everything "green" (rich vs "red" = lean) which brought on a noticeable bump in power in the area's I re-tuned. I had an approach to run it on the lean side got mph's and started thinking I'd rather have the power. As it turns out, even with the power turned up, mpg's still stay up and appear to be better then it was previously. Will find out later today as I plan to top it off & measure mpg's. Should be approx 150 miles on the tank, should be longer but will be driving it over the weekend & want the commute mpg's.
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Yeah it would short term save $ which is good, ultimately I'll do the motor swap as the plan is to keep it long term... as in the Ram & Dak take me to the finish line in retirement. Cheaper to do a motor swap then have a car payment.
how are you liking the potato launcher mod?
how are you liking the potato launcher mod?
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Joined: Oct 2018
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I get what you're saying.
I like the potato launcher mod, but i think i made mine to big, too much volume, got a slight improvement in torque, but not as much as i understood you are getting out of it, also a little improvement on mpg, but not much.
Like you, i rather have the low end torque in stead off higer mpg's, it downshifts less as before.
So is on my to do list for in the spring time, make another one, probably use the same pipe as you used and when i have the right volume, maybe make a stainless steel one again.
This is what i had laying around, so i gave it a shot..., to be continued.
Greetz Ludo.
I like the potato launcher mod, but i think i made mine to big, too much volume, got a slight improvement in torque, but not as much as i understood you are getting out of it, also a little improvement on mpg, but not much.
Like you, i rather have the low end torque in stead off higer mpg's, it downshifts less as before.
So is on my to do list for in the spring time, make another one, probably use the same pipe as you used and when i have the right volume, maybe make a stainless steel one again.
This is what i had laying around, so i gave it a shot..., to be continued.
Greetz Ludo.