Paulyy

I've been looking around for ems turning schools and cannot seem to find one around victoria. i came across this book called 'Building & Tuning High-Performance Electronic Fuel Injection' and was wondering if anyone has heard of this or has any other good books to read about engine building and tuning. i want to avoid doing a 4 year mechanic apprenticeship just to learn how to put together an engine with $300 pay per week which im not interested in.

the part im interested in is the performance sections: tuning, ignition timing, cam angles and stuff like that.

Thanks all


EDIT: and also open to any other Tuning book(s)

951Doc

Reviews on Amazon don't look very good.

951Doc
http://www.project944turbo.com

Paulyy

Thats something i forgot to look at. it says the book is for beginner with ems and AFR's ect. hmmmm.

Darwantae951

I bought this one. Haven't begun reading it yet, but the reviews were good and it looked as if it covered a pretty wide range of equipment.

http://www.amazon.com/Modify-Managem...ref=pd_sim_b_2

Paulyy

That one looks good actually, i have it a quick look through, good price

Chris White

Its got the Electromotive software screen shot on the cover…its got to be a good book!

Just kidding, I think I looked though it once and it seemed decent. My usual beef with these type of books is that they don’t get deep enough into engine theory. If you really want to know and understand tuning you need to know the real details on engine theory – things like flame front propagation speeds, heat of sale ignition of a fuel mixture and the rate of heat increase due to compression of a gas.

If you get to understand all these things then tuning is no longer a ‘black art’, it becomes a science!

Paulyy

I dont think any book will get into depth that much but its somewhere to start. i just orderd it from an aussy book store and also another one which is like a 101 on engine mods and goes through the basics on everything from turbos to cams to intake to head porting. It's somewhere to start and it dosn't Cost much. To learn the technicall stuff like the stuff you just said, really dosn't make any sence to me just... yet but if i start somewhere sooner or later ill come across it and understand it better if you know what i mean. once i get a compleat understanding of the EMS systems il talk to some of the local dyno tuners in melbourne if they could teach me the advance stuff.

A.Wayne

LOL ... and a ford Focus ..........

Chris White

You don’t have to know all the technical details but it really helps to al least know the general theory – otherwise you may learn what different systems can do but you won’t know what it actually important. My favorite example on this board is the total infatuation with AFRs – do you know that none of the people that post about their AFRs are actually measuring their AFR? They are measuring (using an inaccurate device) the oxygen content of the exhaust. This is not measuring the AFR. Yes, under the right circumstances it is a good predictor of the AFR but there are quite a few ways that it can be off. For example – if you have a slight misfire and there is unburnt fuel in the exhaust the wideband sensor will report a lean condition….add more fuel and you will end up with the AFR you are looking for but you will actually be running very rich with a misfire. The reason is that the sensor is measuring just oxygen content and if you have a misfire and don’t burn all the fuel you will have also not burn all the Oxygen, and the unused oxygen will make the wideband reading look lean. In truth engines are very tolerant of AFRs, +/- 10% in AFR will not cause your engine to explode and will also not cost you a lot of power. +/- 10% on ignition timing will destroy your engine….understanding the theory behind how the engine operates will help you understand what’s really important and what is not.

In truth any engine management system only controls two basic things (there are other ‘little’ things it does like idle motor control but they are nowhere near as important as the main two) – the amount of time the injectors are open for each cycle and the point in the engine revolution that the spark is fired. That’s it. Everything else the engine management system does it collect data to calculate when and how long it needs to do these two basic things.

If you look at engine management systems you will see that they offer lots of adjustments for many variables but you will need to understand why you want to adjust the fuel or timing to know what to do with all the programming power that a good EMS offers. If you don’t have a grasp of the basic theory then you won’t know what to do with the adjustments (unless you just blindly follow the ‘advise’ of somebody that claims to know what to do).

The theory stuff is nit that hard and on the first level its pretty basic. It can get as esoteric as you want when you dig into details – but get a grasp on basic stuff if you really want to know whats going on.

Do a search for “suck, squish, bang, blow” for a good start – it was an article in SSC a while back that covered the basics. Here is one place to start – the navigation is a little odd out the pictures and animation add to the original article. http://www.motoiq.com/magazine_artic...ow-part-1.aspx

JohnKoaWood

I learnt it back when men were men, carbs were DP or SD, and real men knew how to set head space and timing!

That having been said, CW is an engineering geek..

Sorry Chris, I for one, do LOVE reading your technical posts.. in the technical forum.. thanks for all you try to do, all you really do, and for trying to educate the masses... but something tells me, it is lost on most that read it...

Paulyy

I see where your coming from chris. like the AFM LINK i've got in my 951. I'ts not a hard thing to tinker with.. when i first got it, i though oh great i touch something on this and bye bye tune. i downloaded the instructions and got reading. i probably read through it 7 times untill i totally understood everything on it. made up some zone tables X = RPM (link x00 - x75) Y= MAP (link 100-900) x being Y first digit. and used the data logging from the LM-2 and made notes in each box of the AFR at e.g. 4500 rpm 13psi. i understand all that but when it comes to ignition timing, i understand what i means but don't know where to start off with and how much at how much load. then cam timing i have an idea of advance for more highend torque and retard for low end torque but that is all. i've got a few books coming to do with cams duration, porting, flow and all sorts of cool stuff.
Im still young at 19 and have a lot to learn. so oneday il hope to know as much as you chris