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zrickety

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People confuse throttle calibration with more power. Often, this is where tuners get their “feel” on NA tunes. People’s opinions are not facts.
You can go to any honda forum, those guys have the dyno sheets to back it up. NA tunes are not rocket science. Again, most manufacturers are holding back. People's opinions are observations, by definition this is science.
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Litfuse

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You can go to any honda forum, those guys have the dyno sheets to back it up. NA tunes are not rocket science. Again, most manufacturers are holding back. People's opinions are observations, by definition this is science.
As far as I know, Honda guys are only getting increases when they do cam swaps and full Bolt-ons.
 

zrickety

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As far as I know, Honda guys are only getting increases when they do cam swaps and full Bolt-ons.
LOLOL you obviously haven't owned one. Any given ECU tune unlocks power, this is across the board.
 

Litfuse

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LOLOL you obviously haven't owned one. Any given ECU tune unlocks power, this is across the board.
I have owned several Honda’s. 99 Si, 05 Accord V6, 2006 S2000. Without bolt-ons, tunes offered marginal gains on these platforms. A tune on a new Type R is seeing 40plus horsepower gains, but we all know why. Even Hondata and KTuner websites show small gains with a tune only.
 
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I have owned several Honda’s. 99 Si, 05 Accord V6, 2006 S2000. Without bolt-ons, tunes offered marginal gains on these platforms. A tune on a new Type R is seeing 40plus horsepower gains, but we all know why. Even Hondata and KTuner websites show small gains with a tune only.
I’m going to see if I can dig up my APR chip tune from my 1.8T GTI. Three programs, all had substantial gains. I believe stage IV was 36 HP, 23 ftlb tq. Nothing else done. Just a chip installed.
 

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Litfuse

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I’m going to see if I can dig up my APR chip tune from my 1.8T GTI. Three programs, all had substantial gains. I believe stage IV was 36 HP, 23 ftlb tq. Nothing else done. Just a chip installed.
Yes, but it is a forced induction motor. APR is able to get some incredible gains. I’m looking at getting a new GTI in the spring.
 

BrntWS6

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If I may add my .02, oem tunes as a whole are conservative. The Honda/Acura guys get NA tunes all the time that make DRAMATIC increases. The OEM tune being garbage means there is room for improvement. I would also argue that independent opinions ARE data. If multiple people are saying it feels better, faster, stronger, then it's probably true. You don't need a dyno to compete in the Pepsi challenge.
Good point. I have been in the LS1 world for 18 years. It was not uncommon to get 20hp out of them with just a tune.
 

Litfuse

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Good point. I have been in the LS1 world for 18 years. It was not uncommon to get 20hp out of them with just a tune.
What year WS6 do you own? I have always liked those cars.

I had a 2006 GTO I did a lot of work to. You can’t beat the sound of a cammed small block Chevy with full exhaust. I was going to do the same with my 2019 Grand Sport C7, but I ended up not liking the car and got rid of it after nine months.
 

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What year WS6 do you own? I have always liked those cars.

I had a 2006 GTO I did a lot of work to. You can’t beat the sound of a cammed small block Chevy with full exhaust. I was going to do the same with my 2019 Grand Sport C7, but I ended up not liking the car and got rid of it after nine months.
2002...been a real fun car but don't drive it much since I bought the Jeep. It's just a H/C car but I did have plans to go nuts with a forged LS3 and a D1X. Decided to buy a Jeep instead.
 

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Well geeze, glad we provided some good content for discussion and debate.

I will keep it as short as I can.

Item 1.

While this engine is "rated" to use 87 octane fuel, it is a compromise to do so. You've got something that is 11.3:1, and is designed to rev to nearly 7500 RPM (even if the factory limiter is lower), means you end up having to pull power back to be able to run 87 octane fuel.

Item 2.

These stay at 1.0 Lambda in the stock calibration for most of the run, go into enrichment, and then almost immediately into cat overtemp protection. 1.0 lambda has about the worst knock prevention you can get under a load, which means they have to pull even more power out of it. But this combination of low timing, and stoichiometric fuel mixture generates a TON of heat in the catalyst, so to offset this they then put far too much fuel into it to cool things back down. this equals power being low now from protecting the cat, because it got hot, quick.

so you have 2 items that create an environment that is very unfriendly to low octane fuel, and also limits power because of this. So the oem is calibrating around this "87 octane approved" mandate they were given, but a little secret is that all EPA fuel economy testing is done with 91 octane 0 ethanol fuel. Which is why so few vehicles actually are able to return the advertised fuel economy figures. So you have the CAFE side of the team developing an engine and calibration to be super efficient (relatively) under one condition, and then another team that's sole job is to make sure it can live with low octane fuel, with almost no control over the base engine design.

So we are able to get huge gains by allowing the proper balance for a richer lambda, combined with other changes to make it happier on low octane fuel, but you still have the fundamental limit of the engine design holding back the power due to 87 not controlling knock very well.

Now move to better fuel, which means you can actually start adding in power, rather than just removing the items limiting power.

Then add in ethanol being a 100+ octane fuel that has a dramatic impact on cooling off air charge and combustion chamber/piston crown temps, and you have even more gains.

Now, I am completely floored that someone on the internet would ever claim to not believe something posted by a company, just in utter disbelief. </sarcasm>

With that said, we would never stack the deck on baseline vs results. here is some insight into our method:

6 baseline runs done with 3 minute cooldowns, then we take the median result. in the case of the MOAB from the original video, there were runs as low as 213, and as high as 229. we went a little higher than median and chose the 224 run as we had 3 that were 223, 224, and 225. we did have 2 that were 213 and 215, and one that was 229.

Same goes for the final numbers. 6 final validation runs, and choose the run we feel is the median. the highest was 258, lowest was 244, but we had a grouping of 252, 253, 253, and 255

and yes, all done on the same dyno, the same day, by the same operator. No rookie stuff here. It's almost like we've been doing testing and validation for over 70 years or something...
 

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Well geeze, glad we provided some good content for discussion and debate.

I will keep it as short as I can.

Item 1.

While this engine is "rated" to use 87 octane fuel, it is a compromise to do so. You've got something that is 11.3:1, and is designed to rev to nearly 7500 RPM (even if the factory limiter is lower), means you end up having to pull power back to be able to run 87 octane fuel.

Item 2.

These stay at 1.0 Lambda in the stock calibration for most of the run, go into enrichment, and then almost immediately into cat overtemp protection. 1.0 lambda has about the worst knock prevention you can get under a load, which means they have to pull even more power out of it. But this combination of low timing, and stoichiometric fuel mixture generates a TON of heat in the catalyst, so to offset this they then put far too much fuel into it to cool things back down. this equals power being low now from protecting the cat, because it got hot, quick.

so you have 2 items that create an environment that is very unfriendly to low octane fuel, and also limits power because of this. So the oem is calibrating around this "87 octane approved" mandate they were given, but a little secret is that all EPA fuel economy testing is done with 91 octane 0 ethanol fuel. Which is why so few vehicles actually are able to return the advertised fuel economy figures. So you have the CAFE side of the team developing an engine and calibration to be super efficient (relatively) under one condition, and then another team that's sole job is to make sure it can live with low octane fuel, with almost no control over the base engine design.

So we are able to get huge gains by allowing the proper balance for a richer lambda, combined with other changes to make it happier on low octane fuel, but you still have the fundamental limit of the engine design holding back the power due to 87 not controlling knock very well.

Now move to better fuel, which means you can actually start adding in power, rather than just removing the items limiting power.

Then add in ethanol being a 100+ octane fuel that has a dramatic impact on cooling off air charge and combustion chamber/piston crown temps, and you have even more gains.

Now, I am completely floored that someone on the internet would ever claim to not believe something posted by a company, just in utter disbelief. </sarcasm>

With that said, we would never stack the deck on baseline vs results. here is some insight into our method:

6 baseline runs done with 3 minute cooldowns, then we take the median result. in the case of the MOAB from the original video, there were runs as low as 213, and as high as 229. we went a little higher than median and chose the 224 run as we had 3 that were 223, 224, and 225. we did have 2 that were 213 and 215, and one that was 229.

Same goes for the final numbers. 6 final validation runs, and choose the run we feel is the median. the highest was 258, lowest was 244, but we had a grouping of 252, 253, 253, and 255

and yes, all done on the same dyno, the same day, by the same operator. No rookie stuff here. It's almost like we've been doing testing and validation for over 70 years or something...
Awesome explanation. One question: How much did you raise the rev limiter?

And uhh... want to look at the 2.0?
 

The Last Cowboy

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To get back on track, I'm getting 23.2 after 150 miles of mostly highway driving over the last 2 days. Speeds between 60-75 mph.

I use 89 octane mid grade. Recent oil Change to Pennzoil Platinum 0w20.

3.6, 8 speed, 32" Firestone MTs, 3.45 gears, no lift.
 

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Awesome explanation. One question: How much did you raise the rev limiter?

And uhh... want to look at the 2.0?
not to 7500, even though technically the engine is happy there, I believe it's around 7100ish

and we have discussed the 2.0, but unfortunately it's a different ECM family, and it has not been cracked yet for tuning.

it had E72 in it for these specific tests, but we ran all the way up to E91 during validation, and the stock injectors and fuel pump were up to the challenge.

What most people don't realize is that the 3.6 is designed for E85 due to export, and programs in the US. it's easier to standardize the components across the board than to make them have unique components for a small percentage of engines.
 

Litfuse

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not to 7500, even though technically the engine is happy there, I believe it's around 7100ish

and we have discussed the 2.0, but unfortunately it's a different ECM family, and it has not been cracked yet for tuning.



it had E72 in it for these specific tests, but we ran all the way up to E91 during validation, and the stock injectors and fuel pump were up to the challenge.

What most people don't realize is that the 3.6 is designed for E85 due to export, and programs in the US. it's easier to standardize the components across the board than to make them have unique components for a small percentage of engines.
So the results of your 30ish horsepower gain was using E72 octane fuel, if I’m understanding you correctly? What were your results with 91/93 premium gas?
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