Tuning 101 - Thread Merged with Injector Posts

Charles

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<Insert official Legal sounding BS> The site, its owners, employees, their dogs, neighbors, and anyone else you can think of have no liability if you blow up your truck, car, go cart, microwave oven or anything else you force these tunes into.

We do not review, test, or even pay attention to whats uploaded here. So if you blow up your vehicle, other peoples vehicles, kill your cat with them or get infected by some deadly virus that harms anything or causes the zombie apocalypse we are not responsible any way, form or fashion.

Take it up with whoever uploaded the bin file not us.

<insert more legal bs to close this disclaimer>

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I can't be sure.... but back in 49 when I cold-called Jim at EH and settled on trying a set of 30% nozzles, that may have been the start.

They were fine and dandy compared to a stock 466 6 holer... And IIRC, even back in the dark ages I still pulled 544 on the DJ on fuel. Seemed like good times. Then when the same setup with a 200 EDM went 590 all-else-constant, and simultaneously ran crystal clean with an empty 238cc injector it became obvious that the little 30% was a complete waste.

My dedicated tow vehicle for light stuff is a 550 with a 38R and 300/100's. Only reason it isn't running 200's is the 100's were take-offs sitting on the shelf for a good deal at the time. It would never pull the same power/egt with a tiny little 30% nozzle. As it stands, it will not ever exceed 1250 degrees, flat to the floor for eternity. I regularly run around 30k. And it's making enough power to have melted one ZF6, and the carrier bearings out of a Dana S110. I have since added another cooler to the ZF and run full synthetic in the rear. Motor never exceeded 1250. Usually runs ~1100 to 1200 flat to the floor, steady-state.

You won't pull that hard with a 30 and stay in that temp range without compounds and water, and more timing. Basically, more engine stress for no reason other than trying to make a slow nozzle keep up. The 30 and the 100 may be close, but a 200 is the real winner, and it's night and day.

If I had a choice, I would run a 200 on anything sub 600hp. I don't care if it was an AD. 200EDM would be crisp and clean. Much cleaner than the stock nozzle at say 250 to 300 wheel.

As for driving on the street. It's super simple. If the truck smokes.... and you don't like it.... pull pw. If you can't find the power you want and the smoke you want with any nozzle size currently available, you either have an engine/charger issue, or you just can't write a program because you don't know how an engine works. A lot of tuners fall into the washed out IT category, who then find themselves tuning engines because they know computers. They have a hard time with bigger nozzles, additional oil/fuel delivery systems and so on. They usually depend on the limitations of the engine systems to bracket their commanded values into ranges that will work, and when the engine systems are opened up the dumb values for pressures and dumb transitions between areas of the maps become pronounced and get highlighted. If you can't tune a 400/400 to drive down the street, snappy and responsive with little to no smoke whatsoever, then you need to consider the possibility that you don't know what you're doing at least in some major area. If you took the turbo off the truck I could have a 7.3 zipping around on 4/4's no prob. It would be slow as balls with no boost, but it wouldn't be rolling coal. Run like a strong IDI.

If a man like Mike-O can pass the California emissions test in the same program that pulls 6 hundo on the dyno with a set of 4/4's, what's your excuse for simply getting someone down the road and back again with decent smoke control?

With my red truck running 1500psi with IPR issues I towed an F350 on 48" tires on a dual tandem gooseneck over 4 hours each way with 4/4's no problem. In fact, in that route was a trip over Mont Eagle once there and once back again.

I also drove for months on a single 15* pump with 4/4's and a 94mm first stage charger with excellent response and power. Rolling burnouts all day. Little smoke at all. On a single OBS pump pulled from a junkyard truck.

Now if you don't have the file right... then yeah, a decently quick injector will tell on you. Truck will be a nightmare. All day long.

Get the file right. Don't sell fag injectors because you have bad files or can't tune. On the other side of the argument, if I didn't already have a file I had written for a given setup, or... couldn't sit in the truck for a half a day zipping around dialing it in, I would tell people to forget anything over a 200, or buy tuning software and tune it themselves.

The only actual downside that should be considered when selecting nozzles of larger and larger flowable area, is idle quality, vs idle haze. At and beyond a 200, you will have to start to choose a bit between buttery smooth idle quality on a hot engine, vs a little hazing out the tailpipe. I'm okay with the haze when I'm sitting at a light for longer than a minute or so. And even that may just be the 15:1 or so CR I was running more than the nozzle.

Just my take.



Oh.... and I would probably pay a lot for an injector that emptied a significant quantity in 1, lol. Idle might be a little touch and go, but I'd figure it out, lol.
 

lincolnlocker

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I can't be sure.... but back in 49 when I cold-called Jim at EH and settled on trying a set of 30% nozzles, that may have been the start.

They were fine and dandy compared to a stock 466 6 holer... And IIRC, even back in the dark ages I still pulled 544 on the DJ on fuel. Seemed like good times. Then when the same setup with a 200 EDM went 590 all-else-constant, and simultaneously ran crystal clean with an empty 238cc injector it became obvious that the little 30% was a complete waste.

My dedicated tow vehicle for light stuff is a 550 with a 38R and 300/100's. Only reason it isn't running 200's is the 100's were take-offs sitting on the shelf for a good deal at the time. It would never pull the same power/egt with a tiny little 30% nozzle. As it stands, it will not ever exceed 1250 degrees, flat to the floor for eternity. I regularly run around 30k. And it's making enough power to have melted one ZF6, and the carrier bearings out of a Dana S110. I have since added another cooler to the ZF and run full synthetic in the rear. Motor never exceeded 1250. Usually runs ~1100 to 1200 flat to the floor, steady-state.

You won't pull that hard with a 30 and stay in that temp range without compounds and water, and more timing. Basically, more engine stress for no reason other than trying to make a slow nozzle keep up. The 30 and the 100 may be close, but a 200 is the real winner, and it's night and day.

If I had a choice, I would run a 200 on anything sub 600hp. I don't care if it was an AD. 200EDM would be crisp and clean. Much cleaner than the stock nozzle at say 250 to 300 wheel.

As for driving on the street. It's super simple. If the truck smokes.... and you don't like it.... pull pw. If you can't find the power you want and the smoke you want with any nozzle size currently available, you either have an engine/charger issue, or you just can't write a program because you don't know how an engine works. A lot of tuners fall into the washed out IT category, who then find themselves tuning engines because they know computers. They have a hard time with bigger nozzles, additional oil/fuel delivery systems and so on. They usually depend on the limitations of the engine systems to bracket their commanded values into ranges that will work, and when the engine systems are opened up the dumb values for pressures and dumb transitions between areas of the maps become pronounced and get highlighted. If you can't tune a 400/400 to drive down the street, snappy and responsive with little to no smoke whatsoever, then you need to consider the possibility that you don't know what you're doing at least in some major area. If you took the turbo off the truck I could have a 7.3 zipping around on 4/4's no prob. It would be slow as balls with no boost, but it wouldn't be rolling coal. Run like a strong IDI.

If a man like Mike-O can pass the California emissions test in the same program that pulls 6 hundo on the dyno with a set of 4/4's, what's your excuse for simply getting someone down the road and back again with decent smoke control?

With my red truck running 1500psi with IPR issues I towed an F350 on 48" tires on a dual tandem gooseneck over 4 hours each way with 4/4's no problem. In fact, in that route was a trip over Mont Eagle once there and once back again.

I also drove for months on a single 15* pump with 4/4's and a 94mm first stage charger with excellent response and power. Rolling burnouts all day. Little smoke at all. On a single OBS pump pulled from a junkyard truck.

Now if you don't have the file right... then yeah, a decently quick injector will tell on you. Truck will be a nightmare. All day long.

Get the file right. Don't sell fag injectors because you have bad files or can't tune. On the other side of the argument, if I didn't already have a file I had written for a given setup, or... couldn't sit in the truck for a half a day zipping around dialing it in, I would tell people to forget anything over a 200, or buy tuning software and tune it themselves.

The only actual downside that should be considered when selecting nozzles of larger and larger flowable area, is idle quality, vs idle haze. At and beyond a 200, you will have to start to choose a bit between buttery smooth idle quality on a hot engine, vs a little hazing out the tailpipe. I'm okay with the haze when I'm sitting at a light for longer than a minute or so. And even that may just be the 15:1 or so CR I was running more than the nozzle.

Just my take.



Oh.... and I would probably pay a lot for an injector that emptied a significant quantity in 1, lol. Idle might be a little touch and go, but I'd figure it out, lol.

You are alive!! Always love reading your posts!!

live life full throttle
 

Nobody Special

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Yep. I love my 200% nozzles. The truck drives great, runs great, and idles great. I loved the 100% nozzles too though......

BUT....

Seeing what some people are selling and passing off as "tunes" for larger nozzles makes me think that a lot of customers are really easy to please. I'm certainly not tooting my own horn here as my particular tastes are worlds different than what most people expect and they're not for everyone. Just to clarify, my personal tuning practices are much different than my employer's. I'm by no means saying that either one of us is a superior "tuner", we just do things differently than others and much different than one another.

Stock nozzles suck but they are very forgiving in the tuning world. Once the nozzles get bigger, the individual's tuning ability and HEUI understanding starts to come to light. It's entirely possible to make larger nozzles "streetable", but there's no sense in playing "tune tag" for weeks on end relying on ACCURATE customer feedback and hoping to get everything perfect by shooting in the dark and seeing what hits the bull's-eye. The tuning for my personal injectors (and lack of anything else aftermarket) will not work for any other truck out there without significant changes since the variables between any handful of trucks at this age (and with a myriad of different vendors' products) will cause EVERY truck to have individual tuning needs to be perfect for THAT PERSON'S tastes. Charging a miniscule amount of money for a remotely written "custom tune" and then rehashing it every three days for a month to get all of the quirks out isn't financially feasible. It'll have any compassionate calibration-writer wanting to :morons: in no time. This is why I quit the "remote tuning" bit.
 
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bluedge8

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I just wish I had time, money and knowledge to understand all of these different types of threads! I actually understood everything Charles said this time!! My ultimate truck is a compunded 7.3, no smoke 550-650hp all day- every day.
 
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I have ran a few injectors over the years stock 80 100 and 200 nozzles. Hands down tims 300/200s idle the best and run smooth. And customer service.... oh yeah that is amazing.

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Dan V

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I will have to say, I met Cody at his place and we chatted about bits and pieces of this very topic. Then Charles gets on here and writes a knock drag out super post. It makes me re-think my choice of 160/30...then I reflect on how much effort I wish to make it "right" at a 100%, or greater, nozzle...relying on somebody else to write and modify the tune. So perhaps, while the 30% isn't optimal, it is better than stock (I think) and doesn't rely on me to buy the software, climb the mountain that is the learning curve to tune for myslef.
 

V-Ref

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I think a professional, comprehensive, and collaborative relationship between a tuner and a injector builder can meet 99% of 7.3 HUEI customer tuning needs for nozzle sizes up to and including 200%.

If folks are more finicky than that...they need to man up and pay to get a tuner in the drivers seat of the truck, or get Minotaur. ...and get busy tuning.

Mechanical communities generally regard .016 hole size (approx) as the threshold where you start to compromise on "daily driver" manners...and where the pump/dv/bar pop pressure/nozzle type/spray angle/compression ratio and on and on become key to good manners on a "daily driver" application. I understand it's a totally differ injection event.....but the principle is the same.

I still haven't seen any compromise to 200% nozzle posted other than Sir Charles about slight compromises to idle resolution and cold temp exhaust haze. I've posted a ton of vids of my experience...it's no compromise imho.

Seriously....what advantage is there...even for smaller injectors. ..With lower power goals....to dragging out the inj event over longer time. If it's atomization....I call B.S.....cause there's plenty of "clean" 200% trucks out there...and a whole thread on here of "dirty" smaller nozzle trucks....
 

DZL JIM

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Charles,
You are 100% spot on with everything you have said about what 200% nozzles can be.

However...

It's posts like yours that drives me nuts dealing with customers who blindly believe everything they read online and want to jump on the 200% bandwagon feet first.

Why can't you emphasize to the average Joe how many hours you have spent live tuning your own truck?
You brought Mike O into your post, why can't you emphasize how many hours he has live tuning his own truck?

200% nozzles will be a HUGE disappointment without live tuning.
Don't lead the average 7.3 owner to think his truck will be the miracle your truck is by just swapping in 200% nozzles and doing nothing else and going about his day.

Sorry Tim, not relevant to your post, I know.
Did DynoProven tell you to test at the parameters that you did?
 

lincolnlocker

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I just wish I had time, money and knowledge to understand all of these different types of threads! I actually understood everything Charles said this time!! My ultimate truck is a compunded 7.3, no smoke 550-650hp all day- every day.

If charles would allow, ask him what his exact combination is and maybe tuning.

live life full throttle
 

Charles

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Charles,
You are 100% spot on with everything you have said about what 200% nozzles can be.

However...

It's posts like yours that drives me nuts dealing with customers who blindly believe everything they read online and want to jump on the 200% bandwagon feet first.

Why can't you emphasize to the average Joe how many hours you have spent live tuning your own truck?
You brought Mike O into your post, why can't you emphasize how many hours he has live tuning his own truck?

200% nozzles will be a HUGE disappointment without live tuning.
Don't lead the average 7.3 owner to think his truck will be the miracle your truck is by just swapping in 200% nozzles and doing nothing else and going about his day.

Sorry Tim, not relevant to your post, I know.
Did DynoProven tell you to test at the parameters that you did?


Anyone running a DPC421 PCM could take a handful of files I have sitting on my laptop and be doing rolling burnouts and dragging trailers all around no problem with a 200 EDM. If one truck runs crystal clear on a file and another is a smoky pile, then there's not a tuning problem, there's something wrong with the second truck.

When I put the 300/100's in my 550 it was otherwise bone stock. Stock charger, stock everything but injectors and a downpipe. A good running file from my red truck ran identical in the 550. Same cache code, same injector, same result.

If the file's good, it's good.

If not, then it's bad, and with anything 200 and up on nozzle, it's usually real bad. With a 4/4, the difference between super clean and super responsive vs a total miserable failure can be as little as 0.2ms either way. You have to keep ICP out in front of pw. But since both are determined by MFD, which is your right foot, if the relationship between pw, ICP and MFD errs in the favor of pw as you're coming up on the pedal, then you can drive all day long and never get "on top" of the pw. Truck smokes, has low power, won't lug, drops on shifts, won't even touch a single charger, so on and so forth. And most times pulling just a few fractions of pw as the MFD is climbing will get the ICP out ahead and pull a complete 180 on the engine's feel, output and smoke.

I tried to say it before, and I'll try again, if it's off a little, a bigger nozzle will tell on you. And it will be BAD. Like real, real, bad to drive. Basically ruin the truck. No doubt. And that is exactly what is happening to anyone who ever says they don't like a 200 EDM. Because if a 200 is dialed, nobody on planet earth wouldn't love the way it drives.

And for seat time on a new setup, yes. It takes some time. I would say after I had the 200's dialed, from there to the 300's took a couple days worth of pulling over every now and then during the course of normal daily driving and making some ICP/pw/timing changes until the pedal tip-in was good, pedal was linear, and the ICP to PW relationship was good with good timing.

For more complicated needs it takes more time. I probably have 100 files for the 550, each one being a small change, continually working toward a goal of full power with an unbreakable 1250 degree EGT ceiling. Some of that was that half the files were on a stock charger, then the rest at a higher output with the 38R still under the 1250 degree ceiling at all operating points, even dragged all the way down to stall flat to the floor.

I'll say again, if I didn't already have a file for a given setup, and wouldn't be able to sit in the truck for a half-day and make sure it was crisp, then I wouldn't go over a 200. I fail to see how professional tuners can't have canned programs for a 200 written for basically any practical setup at this point. If you write the file for a single charger on a stock pump, you'll be good to go down the road clean and clear on any other setup that isn't having it's own issues, which won't run right on any injector anyway. Although they will almost always run worse on a faster injector as it highlights the errors.

What is a 200? Like a 0.011? In 2014 surely we can get past mainstreaming tuning for a little guy like that.

In the grand scheme, the biggest nozzles available are small.
 

JD3020

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I will say that if i didn't have Minotaur i wouldn't have 200%'s in my truck. I have a ton of time in my tunes, and its still not perfect. But i also have a piss poor set-up. I run a 15* pump, stock turbo, non-intercooled, and tow anywhere from 8-16k on a daily basis. I have no experience with anybody elses tunes on these though. I got the 200%'s, ran tunes for stage 2's for a while, and then bought Minotaur.
 

Jomax

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I'll put in my 2 cents. 30% nozzles work for 95% of guys wanting new injectors.. In the end we really need to think. How many people buy injectors and go on a forum? Most guys are construction workers, retired people towing their rvs and just want alittle extra power, etc.


I bought a set of used injectors 175/30% from swamps. Still running the stock turbo with a ported housing. I was able to clock off 14.73 in the quarter. I weight 8600lbs.. The dually tows almost everyday. I had more power up the hills, lower EGT's than stock injectors, and just flat out runs GOOD.


If I wasn't a diesel enthusiast, 30% nozzles would've made me the happiest guy on earth. But like most of you, we always think of," it runs good, but can I make it better"

The dually will be staying with what it has, other than a 38r. It's the tow rig and want it reliable, no need for studs, valve springs, push rods, etc. I have My play truck to try stuff.

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DZL JIM

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Charles,
If you can comment in any way OTHER than what you have done LIVE tuning your own trucks, that would be helpful to those interested in anything larger than a 100% nozzle.
No point in repeating yourself. You have proved what LIVE tuning will do, whether it was 10 years ago or yesterday. And it doesn't matter if you have 300 good files or 1. Those are all for YOUR truck that you LIVE tuned.

If you don't believe me then try talking with hundreds of customers a year with tuning issues that did not get live tuning, for even basic injector upgrades.

I have seen first hand 3 stockish OBS trucks with Stage-1 injectors all run the exact same chip. As in take the chip out of one truck and put it in the other. ALL 3 trucks exactly identical in every way and every upgrade. Yet all 3 trucks run completely different. 1 runs good, 1 not so good, and one some good and some bad.

Now imagine trying to do that with a bigger injector with a bigger nozzle.

I had Bill live tune my truck years ago. The difference then was amazing vs the 'stock' Stage-3 file I was running up until the seat-time session. Stage-3's have been around for how many decades now, you'd think it'd be easy to get good tunes for those, right?

Every truck is different....
 

Charles

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Charles,
If you can comment in any way OTHER than what you have done LIVE tuning your own trucks, that would be helpful to those interested in anything larger than a 100% nozzle.
No point in repeating yourself. You have proved what LIVE tuning will do, whether it was 10 years ago or yesterday. And it doesn't matter if you have 300 good files or 1. Those are all for YOUR truck that you LIVE tuned.

If you don't believe me then try talking with hundreds of customers a year with tuning issues that did not get live tuning, for even basic injector upgrades.

I have seen first hand 3 stockish OBS trucks with Stage-1 injectors all run the exact same chip. As in take the chip out of one truck and put it in the other. ALL 3 trucks exactly identical in every way and every upgrade. Yet all 3 trucks run completely different. 1 runs good, 1 not so good, and one some good and some bad.

Now imagine trying to do that with a bigger injector with a bigger nozzle.

I had Bill live tune my truck years ago. The difference then was amazing vs the 'stock' Stage-3 file I was running up until the seat-time session. Stage-3's have been around for how many decades now, you'd think it'd be easy to get good tunes for those, right?

Every truck is different....


Since I don't send programs out on the wire I can't say in mass and I don't pretend to know about that, nor do I want to. I just know the only two trucks I've ever tuned worked identically. If I had wanted the 550 to run like the red truck nothing at all was required, it was spot on identical.

Most people's maps look like a bomb exploded and most of mine look like a granite table top, so maybe consistency is in the simplicity.

If you put the same injectors in 3 different 5.9's and went around bolting the same pump on all three, would we expect them to run dramatically different from one another? Maybe people need to pump the brakes on all the bs compensation tables and crap. Since basically all the sensors are nullified to a large degree in my programs I could see that cutting out the bs that comes along with all that. I try to be as "mechanical" as I can be in the tuning. Think P7100 with an aneroid valve with the addition of dynamic timing.

I bet the bazillion temperature, altitude and other bs trims are the reason for variability. Turn it all off and you might find out that the hardware was ready to rock the whole time.

You may find truck 2 had a bs Baro value, and truck 3 had a bs EOT value from the sensors or similar. I say turn it all off. Nobody needs that crap.
 
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