Need some help guys...

[ugstang17]

^^^ Sounds like you guys dodged the bullet. I thought we had to until I woke and looked out this morning. Of course my wife is jumping for joy. My mind naturally goes back to my glorious 7 years of living in San Diego decades ago when the snow hits here now. My first Christmas there I went to the beach. There was what is known as a Santa Anna blowing in which makes the temps above normal (above 45-55F for winter). So it was 80 degrees and sunny that day.

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[Burkey]

Went to drive it this morning. Didn’t have a temp reading. Car hard started. Cranked, sputtered, cranked, finally started in a plume of rich smoke. Before you ask, yes, I gave the fuel pump a chance to prime before I pushed start. Settled down and ran fine, still without temp readout. Drove it to church (with my wife following with the kids in her car ) and it ran fine. Came back out 2 hours later and it started right up and, wait for it, showed IAT. Seriously, wtf?

I don’t even know how to respond to this
Hopefully that’s the end of it I guess?
@ugstang17
Yep, I’m about done with the heat. This week we’re looking at temps ranging from 108-120 in the shade

 

[Kona 18]

At this point I suppose PBD or Lund could probably fix this if it comes down to it

Rob@PBD will have access to a working Edelbrock file

 

[Jobodizo]

Rob@PBD will have access to a working Edelbrock file

Good to know. I'm not really familiar with how these things work...would it still have the same incomplete RTD curve for the IAT sensor?

I'm hoping I get some resolution from Edelbrock soon. It doesn't seem like it should take more than a day to output a complete sensor curve. Today marks 2 weeks that I've been in a rental.

 

[Jobodizo]

Well, this isn't particularly encouraging. Received an email from Edelbrock's tuning department. The long and short of it is "we tested it, there's nothing wrong." They're also asking what the "actual running issue is" like there's been little or no communication between the call tech, the forum presence and the tune department. Their email and my response below:

__________________________________________________

J******,

We’ve been performing some test this morning to recreate and verify the below freezing temperatures you’re encountering. The data logs you’ve provided us match the readings we are seeing in house which tells us the IAT scaling is in an acceptable range (4-6F variance). Even with our 2015 Mustang reporting -2F IAT it starts and idles without issue at this time.

What we need to know is what the actual running issue is you’re experiencing, is it still happening and can that specific running issue be recorded for us?

Edelbrock Calibration Department

For technical assistance please contact (800) 416-8628

____________________________________________________

Hello,


My run issues with the car at this time can fall into at least 1 of 3 of the below categories at any given time:

1. Hard cold start.
   1. The car has been sitting for some period of time, generally overnight.
   2. I press the power button to enter accessory mode and give the fuel pump a chance to pressurize the system.
   3. I press both clutch and brake and push the start button.
   4. The car cranks, sputters (after having stopped cranking), cranks, slowly coughs to life while spewing a large cloud of rich exhaust.
   5. At this point the idle starts to level out and the car can operate, generally, normally.
   6. I have yet to capture this in datalogging, but I will keep trying.
2. P0113 IAT High Check Engine Light.
   1. Everything hardware related has been replaced at this point.
   2. There’s a new sensor, I’ve squeezed the female terminals at the sensor for better contact and added dielectric grease, I’ve replaced the plug and play harness, I’ve soldered the new harness directly into the MAF harness.
   3. The car may or may not do what it’s doing in bullet point 1, but it throws a P0113 CEL.
   4. The car idles poorly and I have to turn off the ignition in order to use the X4 to clear the code.
   5. At this point the idle starts to level out and the car can operate, generally, normally.
3. The dash cluster displays no or unusual IAT temperatures.
   1. The most likely thing displayed is a temperature between -74 and -70*F.
   2. Sometimes the dash displays a reading of --- (dots, no numeric amount).
   3. Sometimes the dash displays a normalish temperature, but the number disappears when the car has started, replaced by dots.
   4. Usually, this doesn’t affect drivability unless accompanied by P0113.
   5. Regardless, it should display an accurate IAT as it is quite important in FI applications.

Thank you,

J*******

_______________________________________________________

You guys think that's straight-forward enough? I'm starting to wonder if they'd refund my circa $800 for their tune ($1100 difference without programmer and tune, X4 is like $300) so I can go to a local dyno tuner and just get my damn car fixed. I appreciate that they're trying, but we're not making any progress!

 

[ugstang17]

As straight forward as it gets. Again I think its time to get your distributor involved here as well. After all they sold it to you and reap the benefits of the profit. I'm completely out of ideas for you... sorry you are having to go through this.

 

[Jobodizo]

I was able to get a datalog of the car and a hard start. It's not as bad as I've seen (doesn't pause cranking and then have to continue it) but it's there. @ugstang17 I don't know what I'm looking at. I'd appreciate it if you could take a look when you have a moment:

 

[Draklia]

Feel for you bro, hope they get it figured out. From my experience the manufacturers usually do a poor job at writing tunes. They design and build their system and then get their shop car running good so they can send it out for CARB certification and that’s about all they do before selling kits for a bunch of vehicles that most likely won’t work on the exact tune their shop car runs on. They do this because they know the buyer isn’t going to uninstall something that took all that hard work to install and can be made to run great with a custom tune. So, to them, mission accomplished, they sold the hardware (which is their end goal). Hoping they can figure it out for you, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

 

[ugstang17]

Looks like you didn't use livelink to datalog but rather chose to use the X4. Unable to ascertain much. Idle rpm level looks good considering the OAT. Also keep in mind that the fist initial start after a reload of a tune will crank for while. Idle seems typical for an FI setup cold start.

Advice - Stay off the throttle on a drive by wire car during the start cycle, Plenty of guys want to cycle the peddle before starting the car like its it linkage throttle carb'd hot rod. Its not. Simply start the car and allow it to idle down on its own. In cold weather on an FI setup it will take a few minutes. Give it the time. Not doing this can cause rich starts in my personal experience on some tunes. My FI car with cams and LT's would start fine and find idle as long as I never touched the throttle at start up and gave the car 2-3 minutes to settle before attempting to rev the engine or drive the car. It was like that on 2 different tunes. It would rich start and not hold idle for up to 3-4 minutes if I tried pumping the throttle like I was priming the carb or crack the throttle soon after startup. Leaving that throttle alone I never had any issues. Taught me a valuable lesson with these drive by wire cars.

 

[Jobodizo]

@ugstang17 I actually did use the LiveLink software. I just looked more closely and realized there's nothing populated for AFR. Very strange.

Trust me, I have to audibly remind myself in these situations not to touch the throttle. These cars aren't like the 50 yo classics in the garage, and all that would do is lean out the attempt to start.

I don't mind extended crank time or giving the car time to settle into idle; quite frankly I let the idle drop to ~750 before taking off even when it was NA. What's getting me is the STRUGGLE to start. It feels like a car with a points distributor that hasn't been started in months trying coax itself to life. More specifically, the dip at about 7 seconds on the chart below where it seems like it's going to die before it finally builds RPM.

 

[ugstang17]

send me the excel file so I can look at it on Live link II.

 

[ugstang17]

Yip. That I see. Probably as mentioned it has to so with being 50 state C.A.R.B. compliant would be my guess. That all would be in the tune. THe Canned tunes for these turn key packages aren't the best in the world. Even if they put down a dyno number the power is hampered from getting to the ground through all kinds of nanny strategies and soforth that on the track the car runs hardly better than it would stock.

Case and point - My 13 had the 575HP phase one package on it. Full turn-key with warranty protection I purchased because I had bought into the internet hype about how bad the MT-82 was for failing on the S197. So the day came that I was ready to see what the car would do on the same street tires that I had run the car on stock. I improved none though MPH was up about 5mph on the big end. So I found a 17" rear wheel DR setup and returned the next week and made a few passes. I picked up only .4 sec due only to a better 60ft. (1.8 vice 2.0). All advance trac was off however there were torque limiting strategies at work limiting the cars ability to put the power down. So I did some research and that led me to a third party tuner in Florida who was able to confirm what the turnkey provider would not........you guessed it protection strategies. They retuned the car and stepped me down to an 82mk pulley vice the 85mm that came on it. We kept the closed air box. We picked up a few ponies from the original pull, and that Friday on the same tires and into a 25mph headwind the car picked up .7 tenths running the same 60ft. The tranny never did give me any issues and was put back to stock and traded (I decided to go auto). It's somewhere in NJ today the last I heard.

 

[Jobodizo]

@ugstang17 sent. I'm not happy with the communication with the tune department. It amounts to "now push this button and see what happens. Now push this button, wait, push it again and see what happens."

I'm about 1 phone call with Edelbrock away from getting a different tune. I don't get the powertrain warranty anyway because I'm at like 42 months of ownership. There's the local guy here that does dyno tunes, there's Brenspeed that has their own tune specifically for this eForce setup, and then of course there's Lund. I wonder if there's a chance in hell I could get the $400 difference back between tune/no tune kits...

 

[ugstang17]

^^^^ Uh not likely. If you do I want to know about it because I want that break as well.

Brenspeed will be pretty much a one and done canned tune. It's not a remote tune but may be (notice I said may be) an alternative for you. My setup has additional mods that I believe are better served through a full remote tune process like Lund or VMP or AED.

I've remote tuned through VMP and done updates requiring them to revisit the tune and want to see a track pull, or dyno pull, or back country road 3rd or 4th gear pull. It takes time. I'm planning to retune this time and just give the car to FInishline Performance and tell them to do it right and take their resonable time.....no rush....but get it right. I'm changing tuners and going to an Ngage. Want to try other options. I just want to drive it at this point and enjoy it. DAG autos can be a PITB!

 

[Jobodizo]

Alright, scheduled a dyno tune on the 7th. I've called Edelbrock twice today and been unable to get to the guy I've been working with, and the calibration department never responded to my email from 5:30 this morning. I'm done.

I appreciate the support of everybody who's responded to this thread, especially @ugstang17 and @Burkey. I'm fairly confident at this point that all of my issues (even though now much more minor in scope) are tune related. I'll update back once I get it on the rollers. What's more money at this point?

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