German Euro Ford Tuning as first tuning project - USA

Greetings everyone! Hailing from Dallas, Texas I am embarking on my tuning journey with a 1989 Merkur XR4Ti which has morphed into an autocross/track car and slowly been modified along the way.

My background for my day job is in engineering, so the fundamentals of tuning all stem from a lot of the classes I've taken and it all makes sense; I'm going through the EFI Tuning Fundamentals course to start. Hopefully I can build from there and see some improvement in the car moving forward (It's HOT in Texas, and already just being able to monitor some of the engine data has proven useful and informed changes to the car from a heat management and sensor placement standpoint).

The car is running on a stock block and head from an SVO mustang (same engine that the car had originally), stock manifold, stock turbo but upgraded turbo exhaust housing, 3" exhaust system, Deka 80 injectors (stock injectors saw 95% duty cycle at 10psi and not even at full throttle), and the engine management is a Microsquirt (MS2)-based plug-n-play system developed by Stinger Performance to use the stock harness, using Tuner Studio on the laptop.

I'm excited to be here and learn more and discuss things as we go. Seems like a great community with a lot of good information.

Hey there Ryan, your day job is certainly a great help. When is your next autocross event? Usually that's how things go, start small and snowball haha

My next Autocross event will be the 20th of October but I'll be running my Miata in the "stock" class as its first outing on good tires while working on trying to get the XR4Ti tuned. Unfortunately I haven't had a lot of time lately, but I should have a bit more time starting mid-October. Thankfully the off-season in Texas is fairly short so I should be able to get it out before the end of the year and start early next year.

Oh nice! Great to have options in the meantime and good things take time. I have a wee MX5/Miata here too that I've been tinkering with for a year or so. Fun cars, but nothing compared to the XR4Ti I'm sure ;)

Yes! It's always nice to have options. Funny how much a year makes, the XR made its on-track debut on stock suspension, brakes, no intercooler (stock setup), etc. Now it's got a roll bar, Coilovers, upgraded brakes (rears converted to disk, fronts upgraded), wider wheels (7in vs 5.5in), Cosworth intercooler and manual boost controller, BOV, standalone ECU, and the injectors and such listed above. Embarassingly little drive time however...

The MX-5 will stay stock for now, even leaving off a roll bar to keep the weight low. The XR will be the track car for now, and the daily (mk7 Golf R) is too expensive to modify and too much consequence to break or crash!