Originally Posted by
TriPinTaZ
I've gone round and round with all of this stuff for years and to this day. I still find that my own intuition and simply following the torque PID's vs Desired Torque PID's and keeping a cushion on both adding and removing torque, make the ECU happy. Automatic Transmission cars are much more sensitive to the torque model. Airmass and VVE directly affect their respective Virtual Torque Models. I personally find it easier to leave the MAP Virtual Torque model unchanged or at least mildly changed for specific reasons and using the VVE table instead to affect that side of the torque model. The reason behind that logic is that typically the idle MAP changes with a cam but a lot of things under load still make a pretty accurate base torque model and there is a lot more granularity in the VVE table. The Airmass Virtual Torque side needs a lot more attention, especially if your touching the MAF curve....which is always touched. You always want Zero Pedal Torque around ~0 so that it has room to add/remove torque for the A/C, alternator load, power steering pump(in some cases) or when you put it in gear for Automatic Transmission cars.
Building custom tables and maths are also very helpful in dialing things in. Dynamic Airflow is important to pay attention to even if you have to set the dynamic airflow value to very low RPM's so that the ECU favors the MAF at all RPMs. VVE is still referenced in this case. Just when I think I have it figured out, I run into a car with a cam I haven't seen before and all of my methods only partially work and I have to make other changes for the cam to play nice. Sometimes the client wants some crazy chop added to a baby cam because its "cool". That throws everything we know about idle tuning right out of the window.
When it comes to Driver Demand, Gregs tool is very interesting. I think it is a quick way to get you a pretty good base DD table. I seem to have the best success when I keep it simple. I log torque PID's and measure them against Driver Pedal Torque and try to keep things in a certain "cushion" so that the pedal feels good to the driver. I don't like tunes where the tuner solves the issue by making 50% driver pedal equal 100% Throttle Position. It makes for a poor driving experience in my opinion.
I suppose TLDR; I still do it the old fashioned way. Custom graphs and intuition. I started tuning 20+ years ago and I still learn new things often. I only wish that HPTuners made a better effort to define more things in the Gen V platform instead of relying on paying users who then need specialized staff or help to locate User Defined Parameters. Then the ones that want to share the info with HPTuners might actually get a table added to the Beta. Unless you're a big name tuner that sends a TON of money towards HPTuners direction, they don't really care. I suppose there isn't anything in it for a For Profit business. And if you're wondering who gets the attention, its the very small group of shops that got Global B access.....as if the rest of us aren't intelligent enough to use it and open comprehendible tickets for bugs and issues. It's slightly offensive. But its not like any of us are going to go running to EFI Live. HP Tuners has no down side. ok ok offtopic. I'll get down off my horse.