Taking the next step
Taking the next step
25.18
| 00:00 | - It's Andre from the High Performance Academy and welcome back to the last in our series of free tuning lessons. |
| 00:06 | So far in this series we've covered the fundamentals of EFI tuning and we've looked at fuel delivery tuning, and we've looked at tuning and optimising the ignition timing. |
| 00:16 | We've also looked at some of the more advanced functions that are available in the current crop of standalone and OE ECUs such as launch control, traction control, and knock control. |
| 00:28 | Now if you're planning to take your car to a tuner and have them perform the tuning work for you, this is all the knowledge you're going to need. |
| 00:38 | This knowledge is going to let you speak the same language as the tuner, you're going to have a better understanding of what they're doing when the car's on the dyno. |
| 00:46 | Hopefully it's also going to let you choose a tuner that can do the job properly and give you the best results possible for your car. |
| 00:56 | A question we often get asked though is how do I learn how to tune myself? Now this doesn't really matter if you're wanting to tune just your own car or maybe a mate's car, or perhaps you're looking at starting a career in the EFI tuning industry. |
| 01:12 | And we feel there's a certain number of parameters you need a solid understanding in to become an EFI tuner. |
| 01:19 | First of all you need to understand the fundamentals, these are the principals behind both how an engine operates and how the EFI system works. |
| 01:29 | Now there's probably around 90% of tuners out there in the market who are tuning cars for a living and still don't understand there principals. |
| 01:39 | Understanding them is what separates a great tuner from an average tuner. |
| 01:45 | It's going to let you get the job done quicker, it's going to let you get the job done with better results, and it's also going to make sure you keep that reliability which is so important. |
| 01:57 | Now all of this information is out there already. |
| 02:01 | We didn't invent it, it's been around as long as the engine has been in existence, and as long as EFI has been in existence. |
| 02:08 | The information is out there in various sources, but the problem is you can spend hours if not weeks scrounging through the internet forums, across the internet trying to piece together what makes sense. |
| 02:21 | Trying to sort fact from fiction and figure out who to trust. |
| 02:25 | A question we often get asked, which is a great illustration of this, is what air fuel ratio should I run? Now if you simply ask that question on an internet forum, you're likely to get as many different answers as you have people replying to the thread. |
| 02:41 | It's very confusing and even if you question several professional tuners you're likely to get variable results as well. |
| 02:48 | And there is a good reason for that. |
| 02:50 | The reason is that there is no single air fuel ratio target that you can apply to all of your tuning jobs. |
| 02:58 | More importantly is understanding how the air fuel ratio that you're running will affect the way the engine is operating. |
| 03:07 | If you understand that and the way the engine is operating, you can then choose and decide on the correct air fuel ratio for your particular application and your particular engine. |
| 03:19 | This is where understanding the fundamentals makes it so much easier to do your job properly and get the best results. |
| 03:27 | Now once you understand those fundamentals, you're going to need a process to apply in order to tune an engine. |
| 03:35 | Now this is another area that a lot of novice tuners get really scared about. |
| 03:40 | When first presented with a car with a freshly installed ECU with absolutely no map it can be a really daunting job. |
| 03:49 | There's so much work to do and often it's hard to know even where to start. |
| 03:54 | This is where we're produced our own HPA 10 step process. |
| 03:58 | And this is a 10 step process that can be applied to any tuning job. |
| 04:03 | So it doesn't matter if you're tuning a turbo charged engine or a naturally aspirated engine, a V8, a four cylinder, or whether you're tuning for a racetrack, or tuning on the road. |
| 04:16 | It also doesn't matter if you're applying your tuning using a standalone engine management system, or reflashing the stock ECU. |
| 04:25 | This process is totally applicable and it takes you through the configuration step of the ECU, setting up and testing your inputs and outputs, setting up you base fuel and ignition maps, getting the engine running for the very first time, checking and setting your idle control, tuning the fuel and ignition in steady state, performing your full power wide open throttle ramp runs, and then finally confirming the tune on the road. |
| 04:54 | Now the 10 step process breaks that whole tuning job down into small bit sized pieces of work. |
| 05:00 | And what you quickly find is each of those pieces of the puzzle, each of those 10 steps, is actually relatively easy to work through and complete. |
| 05:09 | And all of a sudden you've actually completed the entire tuning job and it's all been performed correctly and smoothly. |
| 05:18 | One of the most important parts of this as well is if you follow the 10 step process through from start to finish it's going to make sure that you don't overlook any critical steps. |
| 05:28 | And I've been guilty of that in my career as well. |
| 05:31 | You get to the end of a tuning session, realise you've overlooked something critical, and all of a sudden you've wasted a whole lot of dyno time and you've gotta go back and do the job again. |
| 05:41 | So that's where the 10 step process that we present, is so important. |
| 05:45 | Once you understand those fundamental principals, and you also have a process to apply them to tuning your particular engine, you're also going to need to understand the software interface or the software you're actually using to make those tuning changes. |
| 06:01 | Now that does vary a little bit from one manufacturer to another, particularly between standalone and reflashed software. |
| 06:08 | With the reflashed software we're actually altering the mapping inside the stock ECU. |
| 06:14 | Particularly with standalone ECUs, aftermarket ECUs, the software is usually reasonably easy to understand and user friendly. |
| 06:24 | For example our Link G4 Plus software here, you can see we have our fuel table, over here on the right shown graphically, and we have the numbers numerically displayed here. |
| 06:36 | And we can change between our fuel and our ignition tables really easily. |
| 06:41 | If we press the escape key we get a nice easy to navigate drop down menu and you can click through the menu to find exactly what you're looking for and adjust the parameters to suit. |
| 06:54 | Now that's fine for a standalone engine management system. |
| 06:58 | When we're talking about reflashing, often the options that we have will be a little bit more tied in to the factory engine management system. |
| 07:06 | Here we have ECU Flash which is a popular reflashing software package used for late model Mitsubishi and Subaru engine management systems. |
| 07:16 | So in this example we have a very similar menu on the left hand side which shows us all of the available menu options, all of the available maps that we can alter and configure. |
| 07:28 | Just two of the maps that I've got loaded up at the moment. |
| 07:31 | Up here we have our high octane ignition timing table. |
| 07:35 | And below that we have our high octane fuel table. |
| 07:41 | Now as you can see there are differences between the way a reflash system looks and an aftermarket engine management system looks like the Link G4 Plus we just had a quick peak at. |
| 07:54 | However if you understand the principals, you're going to also understand that we're trying to achieve exactly the same thing. |
| 08:02 | We're altering fuel, we're altering ignition timing. |
| 08:06 | The user interface that we use to achieve those aims will vary slightly but it is the same things that we're trying to do. |
| 08:15 | So this is where it doesn't really matter what type of engine you're tuning or what engine management platform you're tuning on, the fundamentals and our process are still completely applicable. |
| 08:28 | So once you understand the fundamentals and you have a process to apply those fundamentals to your tuning job and you know your way around the software you're using, there's only one thing left to do, and that's practice. |
| 08:40 | Just like any skill, EFI tuning requires practice in order to get really good at it and become really comfortable doing it. |
| 08:49 | Now when I first started learning to tune, I started learning on a naturally aspirated Toyota 4AGE. |
| 08:56 | Now that was a great engine for me to get started on, because it was going to be pretty difficult to damage it if I got something wrong. |
| 09:04 | Now the fundamentals between tuning a naturally aspirated 4AGE and perhaps a 800 wheel horsepower turbo charged 2JZ, or even a 1500 wheel horsepower supercharged LS V8 are identical. |
| 09:22 | Sure the air fuel ratio targets we'll be running and the amount of timing that the engine will accept are going to be vastly different. |
| 09:30 | But the principals, those fundamental principals that we apply in order to find out what the engine wants, are exactly the same. |
| 09:38 | The problem is when we are learning, a naturally aspirated 4AGE like I learnt on, is very very tolerant. |
| 09:46 | It doesn't matter if we have our air fuel ratio a little lean or we have too much ignition timing in the engine, it's going to be quite difficult to damage the engine. |
| 09:55 | If we step up to an 800 wheel horsepower 2JZ on the other hand, while the principals are the same, everything is happening a lot faster, and our envelope for having the air fuel ratio and the timing correct is a little bit tighter. |
| 10:09 | This means that while we're learning, it can be easier to damage an engine like that. |
| 10:14 | So while we can definitely learn to tune on a turbo charged engine, you do need to understand that things are going to happen a little faster, and we do need to be a little bit more careful with how we're applying our fuel and our ignition timing, in order to keep the engine healthy and alive. |
| 10:33 | If you have the opportunity, a low powered naturally aspirated engine is an absolutely perfect place to start learning how to apply the skill of tuning. |
| 10:44 | So if all of this sounds like something that you want to get involved with and learn more about, I want to just show you how High Performance Academy can help you out. |
| 10:53 | Now right back at the start of these lessons, I said that we specialise in offering high quality, EFI training courses that are delivered via the internet. |
| 11:03 | So you can watch these courses anywhere in the world that you have an internet connection. |
| 11:07 | And I just wanted to take a moment to walk you through our website and how this works, and show you what you can expect when you become a member. |
| 11:16 | So here is our home page, and at the moment I'm already logged in, so I'm just going to click on my dashboard. |
| 11:21 | Now on my dashboard here you can see my profile information. |
| 11:25 | We've also got some information about some latest posts that have been posted up on our private forum, and I'm going to show you through the forum shortly. |
| 11:33 | We've also got some information about what's going on on our blog. |
| 11:37 | On the left hand side we can click on my courses, and this will show us all of the courses that we currently own or have access to. |
| 11:45 | So what I'm going to do is look right now at our practical dyno tuning course and I'll show you what you can expect from a course. |
| 11:54 | So you can see that the course is laid out, it's delivered via high definition video modules, and you can see that the course is laid out and broken down into small bite sized chunks that you can understand. |
| 12:06 | Now this makes it really quick to focus on just one task, so you don't have to scroll through hours of video in order to find one particular function. |
| 12:15 | The course is broken down into our 10 step process, and in this particular step here you can see we're talking about ECU configuration and testing. |
| 12:24 | And we cover the ECU configuration, we look at input and output setup and testing. |
| 12:29 | Then we look at configuring the fuel and testing, and then we do exactly the same for the ignition system. |
| 12:37 | Now each of those video modules is generally only a couple of minutes long. |
| 12:41 | What that means is you can watch the entire video, the entire course, and then when you're actually working on a car, setting it up, it's very easy to come back and focus on just the particular module that you need to know more about. |
| 12:55 | So we cover trigger setup, we also look at how to configure the base tables before we start the car for the first time. |
| 13:02 | We look at setting our base ignition timing, and our base fuel pressure. |
| 13:06 | We look at how to approach the initial startup for the car for the very first time. |
| 13:11 | We look at idle tuning. |
| 13:13 | Then we look at our steady state fuel tuning, steady state ignition tuning, and then finally our full power tuning, and confirming the tune on the road or racetrack. |
| 13:24 | It's worth mentioning that these courses are a general course that covers the principals applicable to any engine and any engine management system. |
| 13:34 | At the end of the course however we do have our worked examples. |
| 13:38 | Now at the moment we have a worked example first of all using a Motec M1 system. |
| 13:44 | And we also have a worked example on the Link G4 Plus system. |
| 13:49 | So these worked examples are a slightly more informal walkthrough of applying the whole process demonstrated by the course in real time on a dyno on a car. |
| 14:00 | Now these worked examples are also being added to all of the time so we will be adding more examples on different engine management platforms and different vehicles. |
| 14:10 | So just because your particular car or ECU isn't there right now, doesn't mean these aren't applicable to you and we will be adding to them over time. |
| 14:20 | So that's what a course looks like. |
| 14:22 | Let's click on the webinars page and we'll talk a little bit about that. |
| 14:26 | I know that once you've gone through the courses, you still need to expand your knowledge, there's still a lot more to learn. |
| 14:34 | And the webinars that we present are a little bit like the lessons that you've been watching that have been delivered via email. |
| 14:41 | Only this time they're live, so we have regular weekly live webinars where we have a car on our dyno in our workshop, and members can join us live. |
| 14:51 | We can focus on one aspect of engine management tuning, and if you've got any questions, you're free to ask those live. |
| 15:00 | So in our next upcoming webinar we have a tuning acceleration enrichment on a Haltech Platinum Pro. |
| 15:07 | We've also got setting up knock control on the Link G4 Plus and ViPEC platform. |
| 15:13 | And stage injection on the Motec M1. |
| 15:16 | Now if you can't join us live though, you can also watch these webinars in our archive. |
| 15:22 | And right now we've got 47 webinars sitting in our archive that cover a huge amount of information. |
| 15:29 | Most of these webinars run for around about an hour. |
| 15:32 | So there's over 45 hours of content already in there, and there's a huge amount of information that you can pick up and you have access to all of these archived webinars as an HPA member. |
| 15:47 | OK let's look at our forum. |
| 15:50 | Now again it's impossible for us to present all of the information and answer all of the questions you're likely to have in our courses, so that's why we have our private online forum as well. |
| 16:04 | So this is a community where our members can ask specific questions and get specific answers on your tuning problems. |
| 16:13 | Now I'm in there all of the time answering questions, as well as around about 2000 other HPA members. |
| 16:21 | And there's some really great content on that forum and there's some really useful discussion that you can get involved in if you're got specific questions about a tuning job that you're working on. |
| 16:33 | So if you've decided that EFI tuning's for you, I've got a special package that we're offering to you for signing up and watching this series of free lessons. |
| 16:42 | Now it's based on our starter package which you can find here on our website. |
| 16:48 | However we are adding in some special features for you for attending these free lessons. |
| 16:54 | Our EFI tuning starter package is valued at USD$417 and it includes a range of our popular courses, as well as some other content that I just want to cover now. |
| 17:06 | Now remember the first part we need to know in order to learn how to tune is the fundamentals, and we cover that in two of the courses included in this package. |
| 17:16 | First of all we have our EFI fundamentals, EFI Tuning Fundamentals course. |
| 17:21 | And this course will give you the core tuning principals and techniques you need to understand in order to tune EFI systems. |
| 17:30 | Now as well as that we also include our Understanding AFR, or air fuel ratio course. |
| 17:37 | This will teach you how the air fuel ratio affects the way the engine operates, and it's going to allow you to understand how to choose the correct air fuel ratio for you particular engine. |
| 17:50 | So we include both of those courses, normally valued at USD$99 and USD$89 respectively. |
| 17:57 | The next step was to understand a process to apply in order to tune the engine and tune the engine management system. |
| 18:06 | Now we're including two packages here, two of our courses here in this starter package. |
| 18:12 | Normally our starter package only includes either our Practical Dyno Tuning course, or our Practical Road Tuning course. |
| 18:20 | Those courses will teach you how to apply our 10 step process either on the dyno or on the road. |
| 18:26 | For you we're including both of these courses at no additional cost and both of those courses are valued at USD$229 each. |
| 18:35 | So they will take you through the 10 step process either on the road, now i actually started my tuning career with no local four wheel drive dyno, and I spent a few years perfecting the techniques to apply tuning techniques correctly out on the road without the benefit of feedback from a dyno. |
| 18:53 | Now obviously it's not the preferable way, in the perfect world we would be using a dyno, but there are many of our customers across the world in cities or even countries with no local dyno, so our Practical Road Tuning course is perfect if you fall into that category. |
| 19:09 | If you have access to a dyno however, obviously our Practical Dyno Tuning course is the perfect way to get the most out of your tuning experience on a dyno. |
| 19:19 | Now that covers our courses but as I've said already, once you've finished our courses you're going to need some additional support, there's going to be questions that you have that aren't answered in the courses, and we offer two ways of helping you out here. |
| 19:34 | First of all we're including 48 months, that's four full years of membership to our online community. |
| 19:41 | So this includes our forums as well as our live tuning webinars, so there's two ways of helping you out, expanding your knowledge and furthering your tuning understanding. |
| 19:53 | So normally that's charged at USD$19 a month, and our starter package normally includes 24 months, as i said for you we're extending that out to 48 months. |
| 20:05 | So all told there's over $2000 worth of value in this particular package and we're selling it for USD$417 On top of that we also offer a 60 day no questions asked money back guarantee. |
| 20:21 | So if you purchase the course, you purchase the package, and you get into it and you find out that it's not for you. |
| 20:27 | Perhaps you already know everything or perhaps it doesn't answer the questions that you were expecting, maybe it's just simply not for you, that's no problem, we will refund your money in full, with absolutely no questions asked. |
| 20:42 | So there's no risk of getting involved. |
| 20:46 | Now once you own one of these courses, it's yours for life. |
| 20:51 | You can watch the courses as many times as you like any time you like provided you have an internet connection. |
| 20:59 | So if you're interested in getting involved, you want to take us up on this special that we're offering you, all you need to do is go to our website, go to hpacademy.com and go to our starter package tab, which you can see right here, and then all you need to do is click on the purchase now button. |
| 21:20 | Now that will purchase you our standard starter package. |
| 21:24 | What we will do because we know you've gone through this series of lessons, we will then add those additional features into your package within the next 24 hours. |
| 21:36 | When you're deciding whether to get involved with High Performance Academy's training courses, I don't want you to just take our word for it. |
| 21:44 | So let's have a look at what some of our existing customers are saying about High Performance Academy and our training courses. |
| 21:51 | Here we've got Julius Bloem from Auckland, New Zealand, and he's just recently taken our AFR or Understanding AFR course, and he's commented that the course has built on his basic knowledge of air fuel ratio by delving into the science behind the combustion of air and fuel. |
| 22:08 | This has given Julius an in depth understanding of the effects of various fuels, air fuel ratios, and fuel compensations. |
| 22:16 | Above all this course has given Julius the knowledge to be confident when selecting and making changes to the air fuel ratio in real life tuning situations. |
| 22:25 | Now Julius in particular has learnt from High Performance Academy's courses, and he is now regularly tuning cars in his day to day profession as a motorsport technician at Possum Bourne Motorsport in Auckland, New Zealand. |
| 22:40 | Let's look a little further afield though, and we've also got a range of other customers from different parts of the world. |
| 22:46 | Niven from Mauritius Island. |
| 22:48 | We've also got Tommy from the USA. |
| 22:52 | Tommy's taken courses offered by other tuning schools, and as a lot of you will have as well, he's also read a lot of books on tuning, and spent hours and hours scavenging through forums for technical information. |
| 23:06 | He's been involved with High Performance Academy now for some time and he's learnt more with our EFI Tuning Fundamentals course, and our related webinars in simply a few hours, than he had in a full year using other resources. |
| 23:20 | So that's just a quick taste of a couple of our customers and what they've got to say. |
| 23:26 | if you want to head to our Facebook page as well and click on the reviews tab, you're going to see a number of reviews from our other customers. |
| 23:36 | All of these guys as well are involved in the forum. |
| 23:38 | These are guys that are regularly posting up in our forum, guys that are regularly adding to conversations, guys I've been able to personally help out with answers to their questions. |
| 23:48 | So there's some of our existing customers and what they've had to say, what their experiences have been with the courses and the webinars that they've undertaken through High Performance Academy. |
| 24:00 | This deal that we've put together is only going to be available for the next 48 hours. |
| 24:05 | Now we know what it's like, we've got a million and one things on the go as well, we've got emails coming in all of the time. |
| 24:11 | And let's be honest, we tend to procrastinate, even if it's something we're really interested in. |
| 24:17 | Chances are you're going to close this video, and in a couple of days' time you'll have forgotten all about this deal. |
| 24:23 | Now we don't want you to miss out. |
| 24:25 | We know that this deal represents amazing value for money and we're vested in improving your tuning knowledge. |
| 24:32 | So if you are interested you need to take action now, because this deal is only available for the next 48 hours. |
| 24:40 | So if you're interested in learning how to tune your own car maybe learning how to tune your mate's cars, or you're interested in getting involved in a career in EFI tuning, we believe that this starter package represents the perfect platform to fast track your EFI learning. |
| 24:57 | We'd love to have you involved as a member, and we look forward to seeing you online. |
| 25:02 | Thanks for joining us and I really hope you've enjoyed this series of lessons. |
| 25:06 | I hope it's filled in some of the blanks and given you a better understanding of what goes on on the dyno behind that laptop screen. |
| 25:14 | Thanks for watching. |
Click below to checkout the special Starter Package Offer. This package includes courses to tune using a Standalone Engine Management system and Reflashing the factory ECU. It covers all the information you need start tuning on the road and using a dyno and comes with access to support from our tutors to help you along the way.
