Fast XFI or Big Stuff Everyday Driveablilty

[SloGN]

LMAO!!:tongue: :biggrin:
TurboDave and JayC have you ECU guys pinned in a corner again.:tongue:

"F.A.S.T bake you a pie"....:biggrin: LOL!

i'm not pinned in a corner. :biggrin:


My fast has enough correction to allow me a way out .


It all good here guys. if anyone decides to use the search function they can read all of the good info that has been posted here.


It seems to me that there is not gonna be a answer to my question up above tho.

 

[JayC]

still waiting on a answer.

Thats like trying to put 5 gallons of water in a one gallon bucket. There is only so much code space and its amazing the stuff thats already been crammed into the stock ECM. The newer ECMs had way more room to work in.

Let me know when your XFI can control EGR and all the other stuff it needs to do to be emissions legal.

Maybe instead of bagging on the stock ECM, you should take a look at the calibration tables and see all the stuff thats in there that your XFI doesnt have. Yes the stock ECM has plenty of limitations but from a driveability standpoint, it's the clear winner.

I like standalones as much as the next guy. Ive run Gen 6 DFIs, FASTs and Electromotive stuff on my own cars and we work with BS3, XFIs and whatever else people bring us into the shop on a daily basis. Im just not going to sell someone who doesnt need it a standalone box and try to convince them it fits their needs.

If it works for you, great. Based on your ETs, you dont need it but if it makes you happy, more power to you.

 

[dentmasters01]

So youre having someone not even at the track who isnt watching the car running make your adjustments.

So if youre emailing files all over the place and having remote tuning done, no wonder you like FAST so much, youre not doing crap with it except having someone remotely "tune" it for you. Whats the difference in this and a chip other than youre swapping one file for another. Sounds like to me youre just as much at the mercy of someone else as you would be if you had a chip.

yes, I have actually had someone not at the track making adjustments....how is this wierd....before the "tuning" abilities of the chips, you would send your chip off to someone sitting at a desk and they would change the dynamics of the chip with the information you relayed to him ?? At least with the fast software, they see what actually happened during the run just like he was there. And if I send Jack a data log run, I problably on the phone with him relaying information about the run as to what happened ie. is there anything he should ignore. Like spinning at the launch or what ever..... If you would have read my other post instead of jumping on one statement, you would have also read when I said " thats why its important to learn the system so you can tune it yourself " keep reading and you'll get the whole story. I now can tune my own system with the occasional question. And yes, I do like the FAST. Thats all I have. I don't have a chip, a translator, a MAF that can go bad, I don't have to change chips if I change turbos's or injectors....One question no one has answered, what can the factory computer do the FAST can't ?

 

[SloGN]

Thats like trying to put 5 gallons of water in a one gallon bucket. There is only so much code space and its amazing the stuff thats already been crammed into the stock ECM. The newer ECMs had way more room to work in.

Let me know when your XFI can control EGR and all the other stuff it needs to do to be emissions legal.

Maybe instead of bagging on the stock ECM, you should take a look at the calibration tables and see all the stuff thats in there that your XFI doesnt have. Yes the stock ECM has plenty of limitations but from a driveability standpoint, it's the clear winner.

I like standalones as much as the next guy. Ive run Gen 6 DFIs, FASTs and Electromotive stuff on my own cars and we work with BS3, XFIs and whatever else people bring us into the shop on a daily basis. Im just not going to sell someone who doesnt need it a standalone box and try to convince them it fits their needs.

If it works for you, great. Based on your ETs, you dont need it but if it makes you happy, more power to you.

The xfi has EGR control.


That's a great thing to bring up because just about every chip out there has the EGR function's turned off.

yeah it's some pretty amazing stuff since buick had to release 4 chips just fpr the 87 model yr to clear up some off those great driveablity issues. The bbkj chip i think has the egr function turned off in it aswell due to knock issues caused by the intake getting hot on the #3 cylinder.


C2732 m2732a chip has 32k of info on it correct. so why not use a 64k chip that has double the storage space and rewrite the code to allow more to be done without using the add-ons. Can the ECU even process more than 32k ? i know that it's a 8 bit processing unit.


I thank you for the answer as there was nobody else gonna answer it for me.


you may be right about me not needing a aftermarket ecu for the times i'm currently running but the car has picked up since i installed the fast over my current ecm/chip combo. Like i stated i bought my fast in 06 and these add-on items were not there or was dang expensive compared to what i got my fast for. The combo was a bob bailey extender extreme chip(55 inj) with a 3.5 maf and a translator with the 6.2 software. So the next step would have been a powerlogger, gen2/tuner pro, WB.

At the start of this thread i totaled it up for the add-on stuff and it was like 1070 bucks to go from a stock chip to the nice stuff mentioned here in this thread. so a few yrs ago these items cost more than they do now. i gave a grand for my fast with a new WB thats my reasoning and i don't ever have to buy anything else as the fast can grow with the car.

 

[JayC]

C2732 m2732a chip has 32k of info on it correct. so why not use a 64k chip that has double the storage space and rewrite the code to allow more to be done without using the add-ons. Can the ECU even process more than 32k ? i know that it's a 8 bit processing unit.

Nope

All the addons thats being done to the stock ECM are usually at the sacrifice of what little codespace was in there (Not much) or some obscure table that never gets used where you stick some code.

Its tight in there.

 

[SloGN]

Nope

All the addons thats being done to the stock ECM are usually at the sacrifice of what little codespace was in there (Not much) or some obscure table that never gets used where you stick some code.

Its tight in there.

I understand that.

so your still dealing with 20+ yr old technology. The processor and the 32k chip were out dated when the cars were new.

you also talked about the ECM's being purpose built. actually they were not purpose built for our cars. the 84-85 ecm's were purpose built. as those only fit the turbo sfi cars.

The 148 ecm is a carry over from the front wheel drive cars that were NA so they had to again hack the code and make a special mass air to be able to handle the air flow #'s over what a na 3800 uses. by doing that they had to rescale the resolution of the mass air tables.



Also somebody up above mentioned something about NASA using the same era cpu on the space shuttle today and it works just fine. okay they are still doing the same thing with that cpu today as it did back then.

We on the other hand are tring to make the ecm process more info and do it faster in a manner that was not intended back in 86-87.

 

[Turbo1dr]

FWIW, my drivability problems went away when I installed my XFI. Like someone mentioned above...someone behind a desk 1000 miles away can't possibly tune your car perfectly for drivability unless they are sitting there with the car.

Back in the day...1994 95 or so, one of the best things I ever bought was Modern Muscle Car's CHIPSTER chip burning program. That allowed me to burn and customize my own chips for my cars needs. I never bought another aftermarket chip for years. Granted, you couldn't do a lot of changing within the chip but back then it was something that saved me a lot of money and time. I still burn my own chips today because sometimes even the best chip maker out there doesn't get the drivability tune "just right".

 

[slo-joe55]

The MAFPro really is a darkhorse in engine management with the Buicks. It bridges the gap between those people that want ease of tunability without going to a standalone system. Its really a shame this system hasnt gotten more press because it's a pretty amazing device. The wideband tracking is excellent and its not very difficult to tune.

That being said.. Ive been tuning engine management systems as long, if not longer than anyone else on this board. I've worked with TEC, Motech, DFIs, FASTs, Big Stuff 3, AEM and the latest and greatest, the KAM system we have on our race car.

The bottom line is that if you're not running faster than 10.00s, you really dont need an engine management system and even then with the MAFPro, its debatable.

Can you make an aftermarket ECM have good street manners and drive well? Sure.. Can you make it drive as well as a stock ECM.. I dont think so. Ive tuned countless Buicks with engine management systems, supercharged and turbocharged Mustangs, monster trucks with blower motors in them and tons of street rods that people just cruise in. While you can get good quality driveability with an aftermarket ECM, it still isnt as good as the factory stuff. The factory ECMs are purpose built. They do things aftermarket ECMs dont. Thats not a bad thing. You couldn't take a factory Buick computer and drive a Ford with it. If a single ECM would scale to every application, the factory would only make one ECM.

Anyways, back to the question of XFI vs BS3, XFIs are just a lot more prevalent here because more vendors sell them. At our shop, we work more with Big Stuff 3s but we can tune whatever comes through the door. Almost all the fast Mustangs we deal with are Big Stuff 3 powered. We sell way more BS3s than we do XFIs. For the money, the BS3 is a great buy. Still tho, unless you had a really fast car and were more interested in drag strip time than street time, I wouldnt sell you one.

Hey Jay
I went to a stand alone system years ago (FAST bank to bank) because of the engine build and injector size (#83) at the advise of my mechanic with has done the tuning. Is there any where I can go (for information) to began to learn how to start tuning this system for myself?
Thanks any insight on this is appreicated.

 

[JayC]

Norbs has put some FAST stuff up.. thats a good place to start. I dont have a link but a quick search should bring it up.

With FAST/BS3, etc, its all about hands on time. I was fortunate enough to start my engine management foray back in 1990 with a Electromotive TEC which made programming a FAST or BS3 look like childs play. The TEC was extremely difficult to learn and by the time I moved on to something else that used units of measurement that werent made up, things were much easier.

If you can get a tune close enough to your combo to work, that helps a lot. You can really see how all the different tables work together. And dont be afraid to ask questions. Ive seen some tunes by guys who supposedly knew what they were doing that were completely jacked up. Everyone has their own style but some styles make you go WTF when you see them.

 

[slo-joe55]

Norbs has put some FAST stuff up.. thats a good place to start. I dont have a link but a quick search should bring it up.

With FAST/BS3, etc, its all about hands on time. I was fortunate enough to start my engine management foray back in 1990 with a Electromotive TEC which made programming a FAST or BS3 look like childs play. The TEC was extremely difficult to learn and by the time I moved on to something else that used units of measurement that werent made up, things were much easier.

If you can get a tune close enough to your combo to work, that helps a lot. You can really see how all the different tables work together. And dont be afraid to ask questions. Ive seen some tunes by guys who supposedly knew what they were doing that were completely jacked up. Everyone has their own style but some styles make you go WTF when you see them.

Thanks,
Will start there.