Went to Uberdata from Hack. My experience/thoughts.
 

Setup:
D16z6 @10psi via T3 60 trim turbo (.63/.60)...big exhaust side
Open downpipe
450cc injectors
Uberdata

Well, I ran the hack for 5-6 months.

I was now boosting 10psi. Even on stock clutch it pulled ------ CRAZY. Even on a big ass turbo it spooled fast as hell. It was scary how fast that car went. I knew that a VAFC set on -35% across the board along with a stock timing map was FAST, but just TOO unsafe. A lot of people last a really long time on the hack (at 10+ psi even), but there's always those instances where thone engine will let go. Because I didn't wanna rebuild the engine quite yet, I decided to go uberdata EVEN THOUGH I knew that it would be slower (mainly because of the timing retard)......

I gathered the chips and supplies and got everything together for chipping. A few weeks later, I had a chipped ecu running BeerBong's map.

I noticed that his map was slightly lean at certain points but I decided to leave it and try it out.

The results? Exactly what I was expecting. A consistent power curve, but not as fast as the hack. It spooled slower and didn't seem to make as much power, but there was one big difference. It was EXTREMELY SAFE, and CONSERVATIVE. I looked it over and knew there were a few things I needed to change. First, was to add some fuel to the lean spots. Second, Look at the timing map.

What did I see? Too little timing. Will it be AS safe if I advance it more? Of course not, BUT, if people are running the hack on 30 degrees advance, upping the timing a little bit on that already conservative map isn't going to be NEARLY as bad as the hack I was running. Plus I knew I've got a spare engine so if this goes (which I highly doubt it will) i've got a back up.

Here's the details of what I found. The ign Lo curve is WAY too retarded. 7 degrees advanced at 2000 RPM @ 1psi IS NOT going to get you anywhere in a hurry (safely yes, hurry NO ) That needs to be advanced. Along with that, 17.5 degrees at 10psi is extremely low as well. People with the hack have been running about 29 degrees advanced, is upping it to 25 going to bomb the engine? No. It may lower the life, but if you're looking for a decent amount of power you can definately ADVANCE it temporarily. Buy 2 chips. Run a race setup and a daily setup. It's that simple. This is what's great about uberdata.

So overall, I couldn't be anymore happier with Uberdata. It's a MSD BTM+AFC+A LOT MORE all packed together for a price right around 120-140. It's stupid not to.

I'd like to hear your thoughts and opinions on this.

Remember, I didn't say advance the hell out of the timing, BUT it's definately going to be way more conservative than the hack along with upping the power. Also, I never said you'll need to run this 24/7. But if you're looking for more power temporarily(by temp. swapping chips) from Uberdata, this is one place to take a look at.

Re:Went to Uberdata from Hack. My experience/thoughts.
 

i'm an ignorant ----- and had someone chip my ecu for me and having him tune it also, but i plan to learn the basics from him so that i can start messing with it myself. as far as performance, i'm running a rich/retarded base map on 6 psi with a big turbo on a b16 and i had a 100 mph trap (et was slow b/c of slipping clutch), you tell me what i think about the results ;D

Re:Went to Uberdata from Hack. My experience/thoughts.
 

You are much more aggressive than I am.
I understand your point re: hack / performance but I unfortunately end up tuning other ppl's cars more than my own.

Key to having quality boosted spark tables is to have proper NA spark tables. The reason that I say this is I do not use "boost retard" style functions... Normally I set retard at 0.1 (yes, a tenth) degrees / psi to give a minimal amount of retard. Past then from 5psi to the top of the map, I'll add 0.25 deg retard. Then from 7psi to the top of the map, I'll add 0.5 deg retard. Then I'll retard the very last column of the map another 0.75 degrees. This adds up to 2.5 degrees of retard at 10psi.

This is not a lot. You don't need a lot. In my experience, boosted hondas that have proper intercoolers don't need ANY retard at all till 5psi. The "step retard" described above gives gradually increasing retard as boost increases. It's not linear. The key thing to non-conservative timing is to figure out where your motor ends up. You NEED retard in high RPMs after your peak torque has been made - don't forget this either or you'll detonate the piss out of the top end, and this is independent of boost. I try to shoot for 21 to 24 degrees final timing at the torque peak of the car at 10psi on 93 octane pump gas, with timing dropping to mid-teens either side.

If you're going to play with the timing to this degree, I'd also aim for 11.5s more than 12 flat AFRs.

Re:Went to Uberdata from Hack. My experience/thoughts.
 

That's right! This was exactly what I was hoping to hear. But it seems like everyone is running the basemap set at .7 degrees. I dont think anyone actually realized that the 1-3lb settings are running very little timing when you do this and that you could set it for quite a bit more.

Also thanks! I didn't know that about the peak torque. I gotta remember that when Im on the dyno in a few weeks :)

Re:Went to Uberdata from Hack. My experience/thoughts.
 

Nice write up man. Good stuff there.
It should be noted that Pats map is actually -2 degees accross the board from what he is actually running. There was some time contraints on the dyno, so I elected to not adjust his dizzy to match the maps and just make a mental note of it.
He is actually at 20* in boost on the low cam and 19.5* on the high cam.
Good observation on the low speed timing @2000. His timing down there at 0" is still stock. I usually advance 3-4* from 1700-3500 ish w/ noticable results. Cant get anything past you :P
I dont however, like to ramp up the in boost timing under 3500ish. I prefer to hit full timing advance around the same area as stock. 3500 in the case of his Z6.

Pats timing overall IS conservative, but thats how I do it on other peoples rides. We did add 2* to a total of 21.5* on the dyno and saw no noticable gains :-\, so I elected to back it back down. Lower peak combustion pressures w/o lower power.
I agree that D's dont require any retard till around 6-7psi.

Heres the revised map that should be matched to the dizzy at idle.
http://www.draglab.com/pat9final2.bin

Re:Went to Uberdata from Hack. My experience/thoughts.
 

Hey! Thanks for posting. I asked BeerBong who did the map, because I wanted to make sure I was going the right way about advancing the timing down there. I read that it was really conservative b/c of the limited time you guys had to tune so I was hoping to add a little more.

I also need some advice, which Ill PM you in a little bit. :)

I just wanted be a little more careless now and see what I can get out of it, most likely with a higher grade of fuel as well.

Great job BTW with that. The power feels unbelievable. It's so linear.

Thanks again man, I appreciate it! It's made things quite a bit easier and safer for a lot of people I know, especially with setting up their basemaps. :)

Re:Went to Uberdata from Hack. My experience/thoughts.
 

wow good info guys. I am actually putting his maps in my y8 today since my blank chip finally came in.

Re:Went to Uberdata from Hack. My experience/thoughts.
 

couple things...

First, be careful putting Z6 maps on a Y8. From what I've heard, the cam and head itself flow very differently in certain areas, and you may be left with significant lean spots.

Secondly, you won't see much of an increase in performance JUST from playing around with timing. Timing should follow fuel. I.e. if you're playing with timing, you should also be playing with fuel. If you give it more fuel, give it more advance. More advance = more time to burn fuel. Give the fuel too much time to burn, you pass the detonation threshold and all of a suddent the fuel starts burning without help from your spark plugs. So what am I suggesting here? Cyclic tuning... Nail your AFRs to a set value you feel is safe with a wideband. Advance and retard the timing until you reach the optimal timing values. (Note: this should take a long time.) Now re-wideband the car. Anywhere that you had to advance timing to make gains should have leaned out. Anywhere that you had to retard timing to make gains should have grown richer. Bring your AFRs back to your target with the wideband. Observe where power is made or lost versus the timing corrected maps. This should give you a much better idea of where your target AFR is optimal and where you should use a higher/lower target for optimal performance. Rinse, repeat...

The interaction between fuel consumption and timing should be significant enough to see with a wideband and datalogging - single digit percentages. You are not likely to be able to get precise enough figures to be able to use timing to refine your target AFR by looking at a wideband display. This is also the time at which a EGT, particularly an EGT that can be datalogged, can really make a huge difference. I really wish I had one. Sigh.

In any case, hope that babbling was helpful.

Re:Went to Uberdata from Hack. My experience/thoughts.
 

Hahaha it's funny you bring this up. I was wondering that and was about to ask to make sure I did the right thing by adding fuel after I was done. I figured adding timing would lean out the mixture, so I added quite a bit more after advancing it.

Wasn't 100% sure, but I figured that it'll burn off faster BTC and will run lean. Just had nothing to back it up :P

Thanks!

Re:Went to Uberdata from Hack. My experience/thoughts.
 

unless you added 10-15 degrees of timing, the fuel adjustment needed will be of a relatively small magnitude - 3-5% would be the limit of what I use.

HOWEVER adding "quite a bit more" fuel will do a lot to offset the danger you just induced by adding more timing advance.

Re:Went to Uberdata from Hack. My experience/thoughts.
 

ohh alright sounds good. So that extra fuel would actually smother the flame if Im detonating. Correct? So the slightly rich situation would be the extra safegaurd.

Thanks again for the advice!!

Re:Went to Uberdata from Hack. My experience/thoughts.
 

Im a big fan of running high 11's-12.0 A/f vs 12.5
I see the extra fuel as a virtual in cylinder 'heat sink' lowing combustion temps and preventing the onset of detonation.

Re:Went to Uberdata from Hack. My experience/thoughts.
 

Leed hit the nail on the head.

COOLING.

The reason lower AFRs are safer is that fuel acts as a coolant in the combustion chamber. The heat of vaporization (liquid gas droplets turning into vapor) cools the combustion mixtures.

This is also part of the reason why water injection works well. Boiling the liquid water takes heat out of the combustion mixture. Water has a VERY high heat of vaporization compared to gasloine, which helps explain why it is so effective. Beyond the cooling effect from vaporization, water vapor acts as a buffer to slow down the rate of reaction. I went into this a little bit in the first TE training class's advanced topics...

On a molecular level, detonation occurs when a gasoline (hexane, heptane, benzene, etc. etc. etc.) molecule bumps into an oxygen molecule with enough kinetic energy (heat) to overcome the activation energy of combustion (amount of energy required to overcome molecular repulsion forces and have a forward moving reaction).

Cooling the intake charge serves to curb detonation by decreasing the amount of kinetic energy in the combustion mixture, leading to fewer molecules having the required energy to detonate.

Liquid water in the combustion chamber being heated to its boiling point (from 70C to 100C lets say) serves to curb detonation by cooling the combustion mixture by an amount equal to the mass of water present times its specific heat times the temperature difference between the temperature of water entering the chamber and its boiling point. Because the temperature difference plays a role, this explains why colder water works better for water injection.

Liquid water heated to 100C in the combustion chamber boiling into water vapor at 100C serves to control detonation by cooling the combustion mixture by an amount equal to the mass of water present times the heat of vaporization for water.

Water vapor present in the combustion chamber also acts as a buffer on a molecular level, helping prevent detonation. If you have a measurable portion of water present in the chamber, a fuel molecule with high kinetic energy has a chance of hitting a water molecule (and bouncing away) rather than hitting an oxygen molecule with sufficient force to start a combustion (detonation) reaction.

Re:Went to Uberdata from Hack. My experience/thoughts.
 

From Timing on the AFC Hack to water injection 101 and its affect on cooling the combustion chambers...only you buddy!

My $.02...tuning is a process, like Blundy stated. Nail down your AFRs on a semi conservative timing map, then play with your timing. Go back and recheck fuel.

Timing is most effectively 'tuned' on a dyno. Basically its much easier to hold at static load points and change timing on the fly...measuring the amount of change in Torque at the same time. You will either hit a point where power no longer increases as you increase timing or EGTs will get hot enough to melt pistons or you will hear knock. Generally advance until you hit peak TQ and then back off a degree or two for safety (or leave it there if you hear no knock and the risks are acceptable to you). Do this to every area of your timing maps and you are golden. The truly best way to tune timing for optimal performance.