Idle Tuning on Gen III Cable Cars

[@mechanicmike8114]

I just want to Thank you for your intelligence, AND for all the time you have put into this. You are awesome.

[@mohammadalfonso6757]

I dont mean to be off topic but does anybody know a trick to log back into an instagram account? I was stupid lost the password. I would appreciate any tips you can offer me.

[@carllattimore8227]

Thank you SIR. All of your videos are straight to the point. No BS some people have the talent to teach and you are one of them. Seen alot of videos that have people with alot of knowledge but they cannot convey the right message. You have this MASTERED. Keep it up !

[@JOne0442]

Thank you very much man for explaining in great detail on how to tune. I was lost big time before watching some of your videos. I've been tuning wrong this whole time lol. I'm gonna take another crack at it with a completely stock tune. By following your lessons I should have the heavy chevy screaming in no time. Thanks again for taking time to explaining this to all of us out here. Keep on rocking it bro !!!!!!! 2000 Silverado 1500 extended cab with 5.3, automatic. Mods; BTR stage 2 V2 truck cam, mildly ported and smoothed 862 heads, mls head gaskets, shorty headers, K&N cold air intake. Oh, and Flowmaster American Thunder catback with a 40 series muffler. Soon to come; tb/ss intake with 36# injectors, Holley Sniper throttle body.

[@QXZ9027MKII]

Top notch Sir, thanks for the insight, Much obliged for you time & effort.

[@mikesmilkstein7763]

Man I wish you had a video on how you dialed in the spark table. Good stuff

[@Go69]

Excellent video! This is one of the few videos on idle tuning that I have watched that actually discusses idle PID-proportional, integral, and derivative. I had everything polished in my tune-VE Table, BRAF, Spark, MAF, all of it spot on and was still having stalling issues when returning to idle.. Ended up having to adjust the proportional idle to get it to stop stalling. Once I made those changes, it now idles like a champ! I could have also gone to OPEN LOOP IDLE as described in this video, but I've seen several guys with really large cams get it sorted without doing that.. I have finally solved my stalling issue at idle and could not be happier. For those of you running the Elgin E1840P-otherwise known as the SS2 or Sloppy Stage 2-just know that this is what it took for me to get that cam to idle in my .030" over 6.0 with ported heads, 92 MM throttle body, and DBC.

[@ChopperDoc181]

I’m really glad to hear that you got it figured out. Idle tuning is the toughest tuning there is. It’s easy to dial in the airflow (fuel) while driving but another story to work out the “kinks” when coming into a parking lot. Nothing more embarrassing than trying to leave a car show and having your car stall several times. Most shops spend mere hours getting the MAF/VE and a few other tables straightened out. VERY few spend time on the idle tables. They basically bump the RPM up and call it a day if there are problems. Good tuners try their best to find the lowest possible idle point possible, and that takes serious time and testing. I only know of a few pros in the country that devote that kind of time into a tune. One of them is Frost. Kudos to him. He needs a week, minimum. I take two weeks because a. I’m not a professional, and b. I really want to be sure my work is solid before giving the vehicle back. I have enough cars that I can loan one out in the meantime, which is what I do when tuning for a customer. But that’s just little old me. Undercharging and trying to build a good reputation. Also it’s not my profession so I don’t rely on the money. The first Gen V I did took 2.5 weeks because it was a whole new animal. Talk about complicated. We put cutouts on that truck about a month ago and it sounds badass for a 2015 Tahoe with a stage 2 cam lmao. It’s his wife’s truck so it’s extra hilarious. Sorry for the diatribe and late response. I’m also a bit drunk. I go back overseas soon so I’ll probably have some time to do more videos then. I’d like to do some Gen IV and V here soon. Lots of good stuff to share with y’all. Another benefit of being an independent tuner is I don’t care if people know about it or not. I’ll share my secrets.

[@derekfelber743]

Great video! I can wait to watch the others. Already linked some of my friends your vid!

[@thatturbotruck]

Great video. I have been tuning these ecu's a couple years now and always used stit+ltit to dial in the raf but I noticed on a speed density setup that seems to be an ecu guesstimate. It works fine on maf vehicle but I recommend the dynamic way for sd cars after using this my current truck starts nad idles even smoother. My raf wasn't far off using the idle trim method but the dynamic seemed to do the trick a lot better.

[@thatturbotruck]

Another thing I never though to try was adding a little timing to the areas underneath the desired idle rpm to help it return to idle. Mine would return but had a small "hunt" first that seemed to cut that in half

[@gl1tch717]

Way late here but i really need more on the hybrid stuff. It seem's very beneficial to my current setup. Awesome stuff btw wish you could do more vids's. Super informational!!

[@michaelbaskinmichael9862]

Much needed thanks makes a lot of sense

[@rowsemotors]

Thanks for the video. Very informative.

[@jimblackwood4286]

Love your instructional method. Do you have something for setting the start and warmup parameters? Even a link to a vid that you know is a good one would be a lot of help.

[@ChopperDoc181]

Not as of yet. Been busy with a myriad of other things lately, as usual. Check out Goat Rope, he might have a something on that. If you go off of my VE setup tune, that’s a good start. From there focus on fueling and idle air until it’s drivable, then tune as shown. Spark is another thing I play with for drivability, particularly for stalling and so forth. I don’t do WOT until everything else is running smoothly, and I have an idea what fueling will look like wide open. Once I have that I work up to it. Keep in mind though, the VE table maximums dictate minimums too, so sometimes numbers will shift. That means that as numbers increase on the top, you may find numbers at the bottom getting too lean. For idle I typically increase the entire columns a bit at a time after changing the top end. Hopefully that makes sense

[@carguytim9913]

Subscribed! Awesome video, hope it works been having a heck of a time tuning since I put my cam in.

[@carguytim9913]

Update on my comment, everything I learned from your video helped me today. My car doesn’t surge anymore, idles better, doesn’t turn off, it’s great!

[@ChopperDoc181]

That’s awesome. Great to hear feedback like this.

[@عليبنخالد-ق2ض]

I finally find why we got hanging idle, the issue is spark idle in gear, when you move it to park the overspeed idle spark take long time to start working, also the iac has already been added air when you in gear, so when go to park iac take long time to remove air maybe 2-6 seconds And overspeed also stat working late and he add more spark so we need to remove spark from 1200 and maybe 1600 rpm The factory iac valve has a slow degassing response And more idle spark will effect I should to adjust spark idle start from 400-1600 rpm gear and park Or 400-1200 with low spark timing gear and park

[@TheSeanfromla]

Thanks for the video bro 🤙🏾🤙🏾

[@michaelbaskinmichael9862]

Still having trouble don’t know why my air is so high and looks like everybody’s tune I see is much lower , and why am I having so much trouble a freind suggested to turn. Am gear counter clockwise by one tooth , what do you think should I check it . Thank you chopper I no you busy and I am grateful for your help . I live next to a pro tuner but he won’t help he’s afraid I might learn

[@72Z28]

Very informative video and illustrations. I have seen other videos where people log idle desired airflow in P/N &Gear and copy the values into base running airflow. However, in your video, you have logged Dynamic Airflow and copied the values into Base Running Airflow Table. So is there any difference between the two methods. Will appreciate your response.

[@ChopperDoc181]

Yes, my version relies on good VE or MAF data. In a gen III, that idle desired number actually comes from the base running airflow table. In my mind, and others out there, it means that using idle desired to plot idle desired isn’t the best method. It’s worked for me in the past many times on narly cams. That’s why I prefer using dynamic numbers. At the end of the day though, whatever works is what works. Go with that lol. I’m not one to troubleshoot working tunes since that’s literally the only goal. This is just another round in the old magazine to use when shit don’t work.

[@72Z28]

Thanks for the prompt reply. I have set a table for logging dynamic airflow as per your video. As advised, will start VE Tuning, then MAF, and last will be logging Dynamic Airflow

[@Mr688895]

How does one determine the correct counts to see at idle? I am tuning a hybrid 454. Ecm is a modified 94 OBD1 and the heads, intake, and injectors are 96 to 99 Vortec. My IAC counts warm are 0 to 2. I have seen 5 to 10 to shoot for and as high as 40 to 60. Does the ecm used determine this or is it something else? Thank you.

[@mikesmilkstein7763]

Hi Doc , so the hybrid tune sounds like it would be nice. I was under the impression though that the mass air isn’t a factor until you set it to whatever high rpm it is set for in dynamic airflow tab? Just thought VE was working fueling at idle up to whatever rpm It’s set to. I think stock It’s 4000 Rpm? I set to mine to 2500.

[@ChopperDoc181]

When the MAF is active it becomes the primary airflow table. The number in the dynamic tab doesn’t seem to do much, although I also set it to 4K and go from there when tuning a MAF enabled car. There’s a lot of tables we don’t see in the software that are in the PCM. But MAF is much more accurate at high RPM. The VE on the older gen 3 setups can effectively be zeroed out and the car will run fine as long as MAF is on and accurate. It’s been done. DDNSpider actually did it on his car during one of our discussions. For the hybrid, it will work on either air model. The question is if you are going to use fuel trims (STFTs). You can enable STFTs with a pure SD tune or MAF. The idea behind the hybrid tune is to kill the trims at idle on super rowdy cams, then use them throughout the normal driving range. It’s quick and easy to setup using PE. It also can be done using either airmass model aka CLSD or CLMAF.

[@mikesmilkstein7763]

@ thanks for everything seriously! I’m feeling confident attempting to tune my 99 SS knowing what I learned from your videos . I’m a firm believer in if you want something done right you have to do it yourself!

[@PJTORRES7]

Great info thanks!

[@westonlennen]

So is it safe to say if the guy I had tune my car didn’t mess with the idle screw to get idle counts down that he doesn’t know what he’s doing cause my car has an idle hang in between shifts as well as when I put in nuetral sometimes the car will drop down to 500 rpm’s then shoot back up to desired 975rpm my idle counts are at 160-180 warm and the car only seems to want to idk right with the a/c on. I’ve tried contacting the tuner multiple times but supposedly he’s the best in the world etc. he kept telling me vacuum leak but I’ve looked at everything and can’t find anything as well as spraying carb cleaner all around intake and still no fluctuation in idle so I’m wondering if I got screwed

[@merlinglennon5370]

My ls1 with mildest comp thumper stalls cold every time I put it in gear, any ideas. Thanks

[@ChopperDoc181]

Increase your “in gear” spark advance a few degrees, and add some air to your in gear “Base Running Airflow” row. Usually I add 1-2 g/s over whatever the neutral numbers are. Spark though is what will make a noticeable difference.

[@cpressl90]

Thanks for the info. What about using the throttle Cracker? my cammed car wants to stall (too lean) when i clutch in

[@ChopperDoc181]

Almost all transient fuel is a product of the VE table. I’d look there. Also, your DFCO settings too. That should be off while tuning. I will say though, the last car I tuned I turned on the clutch cutoff for fuel because the customer really liked the crackle effect, and the lean conditions that caused did not make it stall. It crackled like crazy though lol.

[@rogg5204]

If I get surging coming to a stop, are my spark over / under speed tables the best place to start? DBC throttle body on a cammed 6L with 799 heads and TBSS intake. Sometimes the surge / idle swing is enough to make it stall.

[@ChopperDoc181]

This is a very common problem with larger cams. The problem is not simple. All of the areas to address are in the video, however all cars respond differently. A few things to look at though… 1. Is your IAC still moving or does it hit zero? Also, are the numbers in a practical range? Some cams will like higher numbers to idle, but won’t like to cold start. Pick which one you prefer here. 2. Spark should only be advanced to the point of lowest MAP value… this means efficiency. 3. Lower the over/under for larger cams to keep the PCM from losing control of the torque. You don’t want huge swings. 4. Check your fueling. Bad fueling will definitely cause problems. Leaner is better when you have overlap, since there is always some air getting by which skews the numbers at low RPM. This is usually referred to as “false lean”… so actually let it be “false” since what the WB is saying isn’t necessarily true at idle. 16-17 AFR is perfectly fine. 5. Air will always enter the chamber from the easiest source. With overlap, this could mean that scavenging is the source, which is where bucking comes from. That means you need to make the intake the better source. This can be done though adding idle air, or decreasing MAP through MBT spark for that engine. The lower the MAP the better. Hopefully that helps. Good luck, it’s the hardest part about tuning a cam.

[@prestonedmonds4128]

My engine doesn't like coming down to idle. It'll die after a throttle blip or coming to stop sign. It's an aftermarket BBK throttle body and IAC port is small. I get IAC steps down to 40-60 but this still persists. I drilled a small hole in the throttle body blade but I think it needs more I feel.

[@ChopperDoc181]

Giving it more air won’t help an idle hang. Look at your spark at the hang, and reduce gradually. You can use the scanner too to adjust it and test. Also, add timing back in under your normal idle range, as in 400 RPM or so. I usually set those columns to 30* to prevent stalling. Also, increasing the base idle alleviates a lot of problems. The bigger the cam, the more RPM it needs to be stable. It is possible to get them lower, like even 600, but it can be incredibly difficult to make it reliable in all conditions.

[@autumnjeserich2689]

I been pulling my hair out with my idle tuning. Its like I have to choose between the engine starting without me holding the pedal or being at the 40-60 counts when hot. But I been basing that when the engine is all the way at operating temp at almost 210. Gonna do it closer to that 200 number because there it wants more throttle blade and so it should start easier too

[@ChopperDoc181]

The counts at operating temp are not a set in stone number. You just need them low enough to allow for it to open enough when it’s cold. 99% of that is from the blade setting. Also keep in mind, with a vibrating engine, the set screw isn’t always going to stay put. I put a lock nut on mine, as a sanity check. A way to do it is set your blade until it’s happy and runs cold and warm, then go back to the effective area and reduce the numbers. It will change the counts. It can be a long annoying process. If the counts end up higher and it runs well in all conditions, then call it good. The whole idea behind the range is to allow for enough IAC motor for it to start and run completely cold. If yours are say 60-80 and it has enough, send it. No need to pull your hair out lol.

[@autumnjeserich2689]

The issue I'm having is it doesn't have enough air to start but once its running for awhile the iac will completely close and be unable to control the idle unless the blade is closed enough to where it wont start without the pedal down and wont stay running unless I feather the pedal for about 30 seconds. I've gotten my ve table pretty dialed in hoping that doing base airflow tuning fixes that. I've noticed desired iAC airflow being under 3 g/s consistently even at 0 g/s but actual tends to be around 10 g/s

[@ChopperDoc181]

Then you need to open the blade a little more… or… port the IAC itself. That definitely helps too. Also, many have had to drill a hole in the blade, but definitely try porting the IAC first before doing that. What I mean is drilling out the back exit hole. Check the forums, lots of information on that. It was night and day difference on my 102.

[@j.finesseflights1403]

Subbed! Noob here, thanks for sharing your knowledge!! Keeps me from pissin off the hpt Facebook groups! 😂

[@b123zmanab]

I have a 5.3 with DBC throttle body. Cold start I log dynamic airflow and desired airflow as you described. I let all the cells get populated and take that data to the correct place in tune. My question is when I let it warm up from a cold start and say at 198 cell it gives me a 12.25g/s when fully warm. If I then go back to the tune and update the dynamic 198 cell, I load the updated tune and then turn back on the truck. Now the dynamic 198 cell wants only 8.5g/s and not the 12g/s it was just calling for. What could that be? The motor acts like way to much air, high rev on start up. If I again change the cell box back to the new 8.5g/s the engine runs normal. It’s the same for the desired if I log those as well. When warm it will want 14g/s and then after I update the tune for that it now only wants 7g/s. Maf and VE table are dialed and smooth. Maf and dynamic numbers are just about dead on to each other. It’s like I can’t drive the truck unless I let it warm all the way up, shut it off, turn it back on and then it seems fine and logged number are accurate.

[@ChopperDoc181]

Have you posted this on tech or hpt? Would be easier to take a look at the log and tune than to speculate.

[@b123zmanab]

Thanks for the response, I just made a post on HPT

[@b123zmanab]

Figured out my issue, ended up being a faulty IAC valve. Changed it out for a new ACdelco unit and all is working perfect. I do have one question though, as the truck is warming up my desired and dynamic are less than 1g/s apart. At full temp dynamic and desired get about a steady 1g/s apart, the desired is lower than dynamic. Is this okay? Should desired be more than dynamic? I used your IAC chart from the other video to see what the actual IAC wanted and most number are off by about 5. Is this close enough or should I change the IAC chart? Thank you for all your videos, extremely helpful for us new to tuning.

[@ChopperDoc181]

@@b123zmanab They can be off and vary day to day. If it's running and idling nice and warming up on its own, it's good. Remember try not to get upset if numbers aren't always perfect. The overall goal is function. Once it's functioning, no need to mess with it further lol.

[@SLOGOAT219]

So do you recommend doing IAC counts table first or BRAF?

[@ChopperDoc181]

BRAF guesstimate to get it running, VE, then use dynamic values for BRAF for more accuracy. IAC is fine tuning. Set the screw so it runs good enough to tune, come back later to dial it in so it has enough IAC for cold starts.

[@michaelbaskinmichael9862]

Must be something else wrong can’t get it straight enough to run right now either my tunes are so bad which don’t believe they’re that bad, it won’t even idle now. I’m thinking bout taking timing chain cover off now and having a look

[@jetnieva1187]

Great videos on tuning with HP Tuners! When people say the sound of a cam is in the tune or tunable, what's being changed in the tune? Thanks!

[@ChopperDoc181]

In this case, without VVT or VCT (Ford) or something similar (cam timing), the sound of the cam is simply the sound of the cam. Gen III cars don't have VVT so you can't change the lope with just the tune. If it has a nasty sound, then it is simply a huge cam in there with lots of overlap. The lower you can get the idle the better it will sound, but they get really unstable at lower rpms so there is a limit to how low you can get it. As for what is being changed for a cam, basically everything air, fuel, and spark related must be changed to account for the new profile. This video focuses on all of these factors for idle areas. I have other videos that cover the rest of the tuning process for modified engines, the cam being one of the biggest changes you can make over a stock tune.

[@atptuned]

Check under Spark>Advance> Idle adaptive spark> overspeed and under speed. You can make the overspeed more negative so if it’s -5.0 make it -10 and for the under speed add 5 degrees to the whole Table. Same as the under speed. Add -5 to the over speed table and add 5 to the underspeed table You can adjust it to your liking

[@MK-gp4qh]

Thanks for this videos man really helpful do you accept donations?

[@ChopperDoc181]

Wow that was a really fast reply to a new video. I'm not going to turn them down if that's what you're asking... lol.

[@MK-gp4qh]

@@ChopperDoc181 paypal ?

[@916chevyboy]

Nice

[@michaelbaskinmichael9862]

What is the best way to reduce fuel in gear

[@ChopperDoc181]

Reduce the air it thinks it has. Typically on the VE or MAF. If these are accurate though, then use the base running airflow table.

[@michaelbaskinmichael9862]

Will try thanks doc

[@cadenbushnell2580]

And this would be the same process for a gen 3 that is dbw?

[@ChopperDoc181]

Basically, except you won’t have an IAC to worry about.