THE Most Powerful and Neglected Tables in the LNF E69...

[gmtech16450yz]

Ok guys, here you go...

Optimum Spark tables. Absolutely the most misunderstood and neglected tables in the E69. I'm here to say these tables (along with many other obviously) are VERY POWERFUL when you figure out what they do and how they work.

I waited over a year for somebody else to figure these tables out, but to this date I've never seen ANYONE else using these tables for tuning. I actually don't quite understand it, we all begged and pleaded to Chris and Bill to give us more for the LNF E69, then when they do, tables like these are left gathering dust.

Here's basically what these tables can do-

Ign timing control at idle, where so many guys have had issues that they couldn't fix.

Ign timing control on cold starts, again this will fix all "Cat Warmup Delete" surging idle issues if you figure out how to use them. I'll post up a log of a perfect cold start and idle that my car has had for over a year on the stock and EFR turbos, straight gas and E47.

Ign timing control to eliminate the timing drop(s) that occur right before 3k and 4k rpms. Tune these tables right and the ign timing drop of 10 or 15 degrees will be GONE. No more dips in those dyno charts that pretty much every LNF dyno that starts the pull at 2k or so has. ( When I was trying to decide which vendor to go with on my EFR build, one of the vendors I didn't go with really wanted me to fix this for them. Unfortunately, I never did tell them how to do it.)

Ign timing control on decel.

Throttle control at all rpm's and loads. (Really.)

Boost control at all rpm's and loads. (Yep.)

What else am I forgetting? Not sure.

Here's a very short version of how these tables work. They're lookup/compare tables. That means they don't directly control anything, they're tables the ECM looks at and compares what it's seeing elsewhere to the numbers in these cells. For instance, if you have 20 degrees of ign timing in a certain cell, but the stock number was 2 degrees, the ECM will do this- (ECM talking here- lol) Ok, the main ign timing cell I'm in right now is requesting 20 degrees, but my Optimum Spark cell is saying something like 5 degrees in that same cell. So if my airflow says I'm making plenty of power (again, more lookup tables involved), and my Optimum Spark cell says I'll be making optimum power at 2 degrees, why do I need to go all the way to 20 degrees? I don't, I'm gonna run this cell at say, 5 degrees.

Here's what happens in another similar situation- That particular main timing table cell was at 20 degrees stock, but you've set it to 2 degrees in your tune. That particular cell in the Optimum Spark table is at 30 degrees. Again, here's the ECM talking...
Ok, I'm not making the power (or airflow) that's being requested of me, so I'm gonna look at my tables to see what I can change. Optimum Spark cell says I'd be making optimum power at 30 degrees in this situation. My main ign table is requesting 2 degrees, there's no way I can make the power that's being requested at that amount of timing, so I'm gonna bump that up to say, 12 degrees. (Again, lot's more tables we can't see that control the amount of range any table can have. There IS a limit to how much timing the Optimum Spark tables can control. When they get over that limit, they use throttle and boost to control airflow/power.) Back to the ECM talking- Ok, so if I'm still not making enough power at 12 degrees ign timing, I'm gonna have to open the throttle more or give it more boost.

End result- you're NOT getting the requested 20 degrees that you put in your ign timing tables, and you're also NOT getting the requested airflow that you asked for in your DAL's, MALT or other airflow tables. Starting to see how powerful these tables are? Notice how these tables are in the "Torque Management" area instead of the "Spark" area? That's because they control torque more than they control spark directly. Lookup tables in any ECM are EXTREMELY powerful.

Here's a very simple analogy... The sky is blue. You're in charge of keeping the sky blue. Your "lookup table" says it's supposed to be blue. Somebody else made the sky blue, not you, that's another "table". You walk outside everyday and the sky is blue, everything's cool. You walk outside one day and the sky is green. You look at your "lookup table", it says it's supposed to be blue. Somebody changed that other guy's "table" to make the sky green. Your table says it's supposed to be blue or bad things are gonna happen, so you tell the other guy "Hey, I need that sky to be blue or we're gonna be in trouble!" He says "Ok, but this guy told me to make it green, so how about a compromise, we'll make it kinda blueish/green, Ok?" lol. Make sense? The problem is nobody got what they wanted. The sky is not green like the table was changed to, and it's not blue like the other guy thinks it should be. So now they fight over what color it's gonna be and nobody's ever happy.

That's the way these computers work. You can make changes, but you better make sure what you're doing is making all the other hundred tables happy. Otherwise they're all gonna fight each other and the car is gonna run like cr@p. As you can see, there are HUNDREDS of tables interacting with each other on these E69's. Anyone that says "tuning the LNF is easy" and "there's only a couple tables that everyone uses" is ignorant. Even I don't know all the table interactions on these E69's. Nobody does. Like I said, if your tuner says he's got it all figured out, RUN AWAY FROM HIM. I can guaranty he doesn't understand all there is to know about these four little tables. I've seen dozens of tunes from every vendor and professional tuner, I've NEVER seen a tune with modifications done to these tables.

So it's time for the disclaimer, which is one of the biggest reasons why I've kept quiet about modifying these tables...


CHANGING VALUES IN THE OPTIMUM SPARK TABLES CAN MAKE YOUR CAR UNSTABLE AND VERY, VERY DANGEROUS TO DRIVE.


Seriously. You put the wrong values in and here's what it can do- start and run perfectly at idle, run fine around town, but give it full throttle and IT WILL STAY AT FULL THROTTLE. Remember, the tables say "Optimum Spark", but they have a huge effect on throttle and boost also. BE CAREFUL! I can't stress this enough. These tables are powerful, way more powerful than the DAL table by far. You can make it so the throttle plate goes wide open at 1/8th pedal position if you want. You can make the turbo boost when you let off the throttle. You can make the throttle "latch", like I said above, it will not decel after you go past a certain pedal percentage. Basically, you could die!

Seriously, I'm not kidding about the power of these tables. I've been doing this a very, very long time. I know how to make changes safely, I've been doing it since I modified the carb on my Honda 50 when I was 10 years old. I learned what to do when my go-kart throttle stuck wide open when I was 12. Early on in my testing of these tables, I did actually lose throttle control. It taught me something, so I'm glad I did it, but it was a little scary. One time I started it up and the throttle went wide open without touching the pedal! Again, I half expected it, and I was ready for it and shut the motor off as soon as I started it. It's kinda like being a test pilot, you gotta push the limits to learn things, but sometimes the wings come off in the process! This is serious chit, it's not to be taken lightly. You're gonna be out on the roads with other people, just be very, very careful when you're messing around with this stuff. It's not impossible, I figured it out and I'm sure others can too, just try to be smart about it. There are a lot of guys with an HPTuners cable that are not ready for this stuff, you just have to be OK with that and stay safe. It really takes a rather in depth understanding of engine tuning to mess with tables like this. If the E69 in your LNF is your first attempt at tuning, I would STRONGLY recommend against messing with these tables.

I'm gonna leave an empty post window next to this one for log screen shots. I'm going to post the cold start/idle one I have to show what ign timing and throttle can look like when tuned properly. I'm not sure yet if I'm gonna post screen shots of my Optimum Spark tables. I know what will happen if I do, they'll just get copied and pasted into everyone's tunes and who knows what will happen to those cars. This isn't something that you can just say "Here, put this number in this cell". You really need to get up to speed on ALL of the other table's interactions to know what values to plug into these tables. I will say this, EVERY cell in all 4 of my Optimum Spark tables has been modified from stock since literally a week after they were released to us over a year ago. Every rpm and load cell has the power to control things in your tune. This isn't going to be a situation where I tell you what to do, I just can't. All I'm saying here is these tables are VERY powerful, and so far, have been unused by every tuner I know or tune I have seen. Learn about how tables like this work, even on other ECM's, and you can absolutely solve many, many issues in the LNF E69 ECM. A good place to start is idle ign timing. That should be pretty safe for most guys to experiment with. Let's see those cold start logs with Cat Warmup shut off and a nice, smooth 15-20 degree ign timing and solid throttle plate readings! Sorry it took so long to pass this stuff along, I honestly figured somebody else would have figured it out long ago. Oh well. Now we'll see how many tunes end up with these tables all jacked up!

Thanks for reading all this, I hope I explained it clearly enough. Sorry for the retarded analogy! Have fun and be careful.

John

[gmtech16450yz]

(Saved for log screen shots and other garbage prolly...)


Here's what a cold start on an LNF should look like. Cat Warmup turned off, 37 degree outside temp with EFR turbo and E47. Notice the nice steady 20 degrees of ign timing and rock solid throttle plate position. Getting the interactions correct between the Optimum Spark, main ign timing, ECT/ign timing, DAL's and idle speed tables is what gets you this.

[|V3nom|]

i have a feeling these tables arent for me yet lol.

thanks for sharing this information with everyone john! even though im not compitent enough to use this information im sure someone else is and can benefit from it.

[cobaltssoverbooster]

i knew these were dangerous and had nice power gains but did not know they fix so much.

i think im gonna research these slowly over a long period of time and see if they pick up the torque in my ported head motor
when i say slowly i mean realy realy slowly lol

[Freakotec]

Interesting. I just came on to actually research these tables a bit more because I'm REALLY in the dark with these bad boys and BOOM.... gmtech comes through.

Now if only I can figure out what each value true represents. As in, (for example) is it based off of the values for the corresponding cam table multiplied by the corresponding spark table at a given ect? Or is it just a sum of specific corresponding tables at a given ect? Without just shooting in the dark and plugging numbers, I'm a little tentative to just start fiddling. Personally, I would far rather understand how to correctly adjust these tables and how they actually interact rather than have gmtech just post his tables and just try to plug in the same values and hope for the best. BUT at the same time though, I would be pretty curious to just compare the tables to see if each cel is absolutely specific and there is no real rhyme or reason, OR is there a bit of a gradual and liniar curve with values slowly increasing or decreasing. Maybe I'm just making myself sound like a dope here, but I'm just throwing thoughts out there to see if maybe something sticks and clicks to help me understand these tables a little better.. lol

[|V3nom|]

im guessing you dont copy and paste whatever the highest table is into the other 3 tables like you would with the main spark advance tables? since theyre lookup/compare tables and dont control anything you dont want them all looking up/comparing the same thing right?

[Freakotec]

OK, so I know I'm a bit of the new guy on the block here and I'm still cutting my teeth with tuning, but I figured I'd at least try a couple of small tests and see what I could come up with. I made a few different changes in my Optimum Spark tables, one of which was to test a few cold start idle conditions as gmtech recommended, and I also tried a few small changes in my WOT areas with some interesting results.

As far as the cold start idle changes go, I DID in fact see a noticeable difference in particular to my actual spark advance AND it actually helped my small vacuum issue I had been noticing for a little while (I already leak tested the system so there was no actual vacuum/boost leak to cause this) where it would hold at only 18inhg at idle, but now it holds 20inhg SOLID.

In the first screen shot below you can see that with the stock OptiSpark tables I am logging zero and even negative spark advance, which is FAR from what is being commanded. In the second screen shot I made small changes to the OptiSpark table in the idle areas and you can clearly see the timing differences along with a few other differences.

[IMG][/IMG]

[IMG][/IMG]

Now, it's quite obviously not perfect yet. The timing does bounce around a bit and it does seem to take a few moments for it to actually "ramp" up to the 19-21* and I can't seem to get my commanded cam timing at idle just yet....more tinkering needed. I did also notice when I was out testing that a couple times when I deceled in neautral or with the clutch in the idle did seem to hang around 1300rpm for a few moments and eventually settled down. So needless to say, I still need to do more work here.

[gmtech16450yz]

.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!

You get the award for being the FIRST other person to post a log showing 20 degrees ign timing at idle! Do you know how many guys have tried to figure that out and failed? Tons.

Keep working on it. On just about every ECM out there, idle control (and decel, as you found out) is a delicate balance between throttle and ign timing. Too much of one, and you'll lose control of the other. In other words, give it too much ign timing and the throttle will end up being closed or too far closed to try to maintain the requested idle speed. Give it too much throttle, (or airflow in the E69) and the ign timing will go way too low. This is exactly what happens when guys try to give it too much DAL's at idle to try to raise cold start rpm's. The ign timing goes negative and you get a bunch of surging and a cr@ppy cold start. Sound familiar? This is what guys have been fighting for over a year, cold starts with the Cat Warmup turned off. These tables are the absolute 100% answer to those problems.

For all you guys fighting with cold starts- turn the Cat Warmup back off if you gave up and left it on. Raise Optimum Spark values around cold start idle areas. Work on the idle areas of your DAL table to balance ign timing and throttle angle. (I crack up when I see guys and "professional tuners" tunes and the DAL table ONLY has changes to the right two columns! USE THE WHOLE DAL TABLE DAMMIT! I don't think there's a stock value in a single cell in my entire DAL table. It's a powerful table, learn how to use it other than just maxing out the right columns.)

BTW, the cams are parked at idle. I've heard of guys saying the cold start fix is in the cam timing settings, wrong. Your cams should be parked at idle.

Good job freakotec! Keep working on it and post up more screen shots to show guys what you're doing.

edit- freakotec- Look at your ECT vs. ign timing modifier tables, that's probably where you're not getting ign timing for a while on that start. I bumped requested ign timing quite a bit around cold start IAT and ECT modifier table areas.

[cobaltssoverbooster]

ericmir is slowly making changes to rid his timing dips and has found good results.

i wish i didnt have 45 mph signs everywhere. its making it hard to get results.

[cobaltssoverbooster]

Made 500 adjustments to my ported motor and it runs 20* but no matter what the deals are it surges like a mf. Goes 15-20-14-20-15-20. Il post s log shot when I get to my room. And it only happens when the ac is on otherwise it runs pretty steady at 15*

[gmtech16450yz]

Made 500 adjustments to my ported motor and it runs 20* but no matter what the deals are it surges like a mf. Goes 15-20-14-20-15-20. Il post s log shot when I get to my room. And it only happens when the ac is on otherwise it runs pretty steady at 15*

My quote-

idle control (and decel, as you found out) is a delicate balance between throttle and ign timing. Too much of one, and you'll lose control of the other.

Look at your DAL's around that area, they're probably too high. Throttle plate position should be around 2% to 5% at idle. If it's up towards 8 or 10% it's gonna surge. All you guys should be logging pedal position and throttle position by percentages. Anyone that wants to use my config just PM me, or I'll post it up here I guess.

BTW, I've gotten tons of PM's about all kinds of stuff, everything from tune help to "can you fix my brake problem?". I'm not really good on PM's, too easy to ignore, sorry. I also just can't respond to every request for help, I just don't have that much time! I do what I can, but sorry if I don't reply to your PM's.

[cobaltssoverbooster]

shoo i thought it was too much air.... throttle plate is around 10 right after startup, and when tps fluctuates i see it go from 4-13% with the ac on and with it off 9-11%.

this ported head is so frustrating being the only one of its kind and it never does anything that anyone elses motor does. all i can say is that i really stepped in it with this project. i will work it some more but i basically raised the optimal until it got close to the commanded then i tried to move dals and ignition to smooth it out and as you all can see from this log file it doesnt seem to care.

log notes:
ac turned on at 1:14
idle with fuel trims using both ac and no ac at 10:20 much smoother with tps at 6-7%
yes it kr's alot i know

screenshot: basic gmp spark tables at idle and mostly factory dal table.
(yes i know the whole table isnt changed because about 4months ago i pretty much gave up on this stupid head project)

[cobaltssoverbooster]

My quote-

Look at your DAL's around that area, they're probably too high. Throttle plate position should be around 2% to 5% at idle. If it's up towards 8 or 10% it's gonna surge. All you guys should be logging pedal position and throttle position by percentages. Anyone that wants to use my config just PM me, or I'll post it up here I guess.

thanks, will help alot knowing this.

[|V3nom|]

heres my cold start.

honestly i dont know what i should be looking for so any info in regards to that would be greatly appreciated.

everything ive done has been through the help of cbss videos and making new threads for new problems lol. slowly starting to get the hang of this. hardest part is remembering what i learned so i can apply/recall it at a later time.

oh and i havent touched any cam or optimum spark tables because i dont know what they do and dont want to mess with them until i get my tune straight. pretty much just the basics. im reading up on the cam threads so when i get to that point ill have a small understanding of what im changing and how it will effect everything else.

[Freakotec]

Oy.. I have a freakin optispark headache right now.. lol

I've been trying a few different combinations over the past few days and so far I've got the idle dialed in like butter, and I think I'm finally starting to get somewhere with some of the WOT areas, but I haven't quite been able to figure out how all of the tables intertwine together yet. I'm really not sure if I'm just not making large enough changes in the areas I'm testing or what, but at the same time I'm also trying to err on the side of caution a bit as to not make TOO drastic of a change and potentially damage something. I'll be sure to post some screen shots of some logs tomorrow. I'm quite honestly just way too tired at this point to go through the hastle of making screenshots.. lol

Any suggestions as to what direction I should maybe be heading in as far as dialing in more power up top and mid range gmtech?

[gmtech16450yz]

As far as range of adjustment, my "show differences" numbers are anywhere from -15 to +35 away from stock values on these optimum spark tables. There are places that a change of 1 or 2 will make enough of a difference though to do what you need or to get something dialed in closely.

Freakotec- you can bump up the midrange load and rpm numbers a fair amount if you're not getting smooth changes in your ign timing and throttle response log readings.

[Dayhoff35]

great write up might make a few changes at idle tomorrow and see how it goes, i understand the whole concept, just need to feel outhow big of changes should be done within the table. Also sucks to see ignorant people run you off of css and other sites, when you offer so much help.

[Dayhoff35]

hovering between 13-15 at idle right now, got to ot in thecar so i had to come in, working on a new file now should be able to try again tomorrow. Raised idle up a little as well.

[Ch1ck3n]

Great info gmt, can't wait to get a chance to try these out. You need to be issuing homework assignments or something haha. I'll post some results once I get a chance to give em a try.

[gmtech16450yz]

Thanks guys!

Here's another tidbit...

I mentioned decel ign timing control with these tables (and it also effects throttle position), I was thinking about it as I was on a "spirited" drive through the hills of Mexico last Friday. One of the things I've really worked on in my tune is a smooth transition between on and off throttle when going through the twisty's or road racing. You really need smooth throttle control, and when you're trying to control ~480whp it can be tricky. I don't like a car that has too much engine braking, and too much off idle response. If those two things are too obnoxious, you'll end up with a driveline that is being constantly loaded and unloaded sharply. And that means the tires are constantly going between losing traction from decel, and then losing traction when you touch the throttle after decel. Or worse, you'll get the dreaded jerking on and off power that you can't control because your foot is being yanked forward and back by the car! On dirtbikes we call this "Whiskey Throttle"! It's when you grab too much throttle, but are being pulled off the back of the bike so you can't help but pull even MORE throttle!

This is another thing these tables can fix. When I was driving through the hills last Friday I was so thrilled with how the power was so smooth and controllable on and off the throttle. I can take it to 6k, let off and it feels like the motor doesn't care what rpm it's at, 6k or 3k, it just revs freely anywhere. Kinda feels like a Honda, or maybe even a rotary motor, smooth and free revving everywhere. Coming out of turns is also a big deal with working these tables, you don't want the power to jump in harshly the second you touch the throttle. Work these tables in the decel and right off idle cells and you can get an amazingly smooth transition when you're trying to feather the throttle in a tricky situation or turn. My son had the best explanation of how the throttle on my car works, he said it has an "exponential" feel. Very smooth and controlled between 0 and 1/4 throttle, but builds quickly as the pedal or rpm's go further. These tables are a big part of that, along with ign timing, cam timing, MAF tuning and DAL's. Keep working on getting them dialed in, and NOT JUST THE CELLS IN THE FAR RIGHT COLUMNS! There's more cells in all these tables than just the ones on the right!

There will be a chapter quiz on this Friday.

jk.