Ok, I found some dude's very comprehensive tuning guide on 60degreev6. Forgot what his name was (Gary?), but it seems everyone's using his tutorial.
I want to VE tune. Unless someone can prove to me that it does absolutely nothing, I want that dialed in.
The PCM is a 99 Monte Carlo L36 PCM. This is an L67 swap in a 95 Regal with headers, 3.4 pulley, CAI, autolite 104's, 3" high flow cat, 2.5" exhaust, and 3.29 gearing.
Now here's what happens. I disable PE, and I fail the MAF by unplugging it. The tune instructions show that I should be able to fail the MAF in the tune, but I don't have those options available to me when I go in there in hptuners. Not sure why, as many tabs are completely blank. Anyways, that's where I'm at. When I turn the car on, it takes a long time to crank. Actually, it always takes a long time to crank, with or without the MAF plugged in, typically 3-4 seconds. Once it starts up with the MAF unplugged, the idle is very, very rough and I have to keep my foot on the gas to keep the engine alive. During this time, a very loud howling/suction noise is coming from the engine bay. I've determined this to be the IAC valve being wide open. Here's the problem. If I let it sit for a while and give it some gas, after about 5-10 minutes, eventually that howling noise will go away. I can then sit and rev around a bit, and as the scanner is populating the LTFT cells, that noise comes and goes a bit, but not as loud as in the beginning. I can then get it to the point where if I just sit in idle, I will have a great, steady idle, with the noise completely gone.
However, the moment I start driving around again, that howling noise comes back.
Here's the problem. When that howling noise comes on, it causes my STFT's to run off the scale as extremely lean. At the same time, the O2 sensor is reporting very low numbers (60-80), and there is a very strong and obvious smell of gas out of the exhaust. When that howling noise goes away, the O2 sensor starts reading rich, and the STFT's go in the other direction and also read very rich. All it takes is for me to start driving around again, and the IAC will open up and throw off all of my data.
Here's another thing. I can command a certain RPM using VCM controls in the hptuners scanner. With the MAF plugged in, it will run at the commanded speed. However, in SD mode with the MAF unplugged, if I command 800 RPM, the IAC valve will open wide again and it will idle between 1200 and 1700 despite being commanded at 800.
I have no clue what's going on here. It seems to be working fine with the MAF plugged in, albeit rich with LTFTs between -10 and -16, but that's about it. Any idea what this could be?