Fuel & Fire vs SD vs VE tuning

My current tune is incomplete and the car runs miserably so I decided to take things in my own hands.

I'm putting the stock flash back on the PCM tomorrow

It seems to me there are 3 tuning options:
1) traditional fuel and fire tuning.
2) VE table tuning and
3) Speed Density tuning.

I like the idea of SD tuning. It seems it will simplify the VCMs operation and our tuning of it. I've heard horror stories of normal "every day" driving being difficult and not well mannered. I also hear tale of VE tuning being more difficult and more for the "experienced" tuner.

My car is a weekend warrior. Heads, cam, 9", NOSzles, ported this, polished that, etc... It's driven to and from the track, cruise ins and 500+ mile weekend trips are not out of the question either. She runs 11.5 @ 122 on the juice and 12.2 @ 114 off. She gets 23-25mpg on the highway, before the heads, it was 29.

To make a long story short, I'm looking for opinions on the most effective way to tune w/ the above uses in mind. Could a couple of you more experienced tuners chime in w/ experiences and opinions on each application? I'd like to have a better plan before I get started.

Thanks!

my own car is h/c making about 460 HP runs fine in SD, even with the big cam still manages 25'ish mpg on the highway.

SD is still closed loop so all you need to do is spend the time getting the VE table set right. Also, be aware you need to tune spark using the low octane tables (knock learn is disabled) and relax the burst knock thresholds a bit.

I think SD is the rout I'm going to take. Can I completely remove the MAF from the car? What tables would I have to change to keep the VCM from looking there for values? If you could just get me pointed in the right direction.

Thanks Chris, I know you folks are increadibly busy. :cheers:

What is meant by relaxing the burst knock and desensitizing the knock sensors??? Are we lowering the values or increasing them?

I'm real intersted in S/D tuning also... this MAF stuff is killing me. Any step by step write ups out there? Where do we begin?