CALC.PIDs

[Rich Z]

I'll pass on your comments.

The tutorials have become outdated as we (the users) did new experiments and read/learnt new stuff...

the software tools have been progressing just fast enough to outpace tutorials/manuals...

and this hobby/business is very much a hackers' universe

Yes, you're right, up-to-date tutorials/manuals will present a better image and make a good first time experience, but it takes a great deal of manpower.

I understand about the manpower thing. But this is the age of the internet. Word of mouth spreads like wildfire, and can either multiply the dollars spent on advertising, or completely negate it. And let's be frank about this, EFILive is a runnerup on an installed user base compared to HPTuners. Why? Apparently because many people are touting that HPTuners is easier for a newbie to learn. I had to choose between one or the other when I went with a COS tune. And from what I understand, HPTuners locks the PCM to their product once you go to a COS tune with them. This might just be rumor, as I have not verified this. But mainly I went with EFILive because I had a shop destroy three PCMs in a row. Claimed my car was responsible and I had to eat that cost. At that time I had both HPTuners and EFILive. I went to EFILive and explained the situation, and they immediately sent me a replacement license. HPTuners, on the other hand, said tough luck. So to hell with them. If a company doesn't look out for it's customers, I don't have any need to do business with them.

Anyway, off topic, but I want EFILive to be the best there is for tuning. But they need to clean up their act when us newbies buy their product and just want to USE it. Getting started with GOOD tutorials and/or an intuitive learning curve will make all the difference how someone feels about the product a week into ownership.

[slows10]

I guess we are not going to agree on what I believe the PURPOSE of a tutorial should be, then, and who the target audience will be for them. Tutorials that are inaccurate or incomplete are a guaranteed way to frustrate exactly the people they are written for to help. Which are precisely the people who won't KNOW what is wrong with the tutorial. All they will know is that it doesn't work.

IMHO.

You are incorrect.This is a pro orientated program, not some spend 5 minute thing and bam your car runs great.You are way behind the times in mechanical and technical aptitude. Basically way way over your head.You better read 4 hours aday on basic efi tuning for a few years then come back and tell us how efilive sucks for the lazy spoon fed types. Your problem is that you dont even know the basics of a pid file. Have you ever read codes out of your ecm with a basic scanner? Have you read live data with a $125 bare bones autozone scanner? Surely you must have purchased one of these 10 or 12 years ago?? If your answer is no then stick a carb on it and go from there. Your biggest problem is you really have no idea on how to ask a question relavant to the subject. A beginners guide to ADVANCED fuel injection may help you some more. You really need to think on the level of advanced fuel injection theory from a technicians standpoint before jumping into tuning.

[COONDOG96]

Can't wait to see the replies to this!!!!

You are incorrect.This is a pro orientated program, not some spend 5 minute thing and bam your car runs great.You are way behind the times in mechanical and technical aptitude. Basically way way over your head.You better read 4 hours aday on basic efi tuning for a few years then come back and tell us how efilive sucks for the lazy spoon fed types. Your problem is that you dont even know the basics of a pid file. Have you ever read codes out of your ecm with a basic scanner? Have you read live data with a $125 bare bones autozone scanner? Surely you must have purchased one of these 10 or 12 years ago?? If your answer is no then stick a carb on it and go from there. Your biggest problem is you really have no idea on how to ask a question relavant to the subject. A beginners guide to ADVANCED fuel injection may help you some more. You really need to think on the level of advanced fuel injection theory from a technicians standpoint before jumping into tuning.

[joecar]

Can't wait to see the replies to this!!!!

lol, good one, I have not seen this much excitement in a while

[joecar]

slows10 has some very good points:
- the software tends to be suited toward the more advanced tuner (and the threads may reflect this);
- the new user has a lot of research/reading/practicing to do, especially "outside" reseach (e.g. how injectors really work);
- if the user wants to advance then he/she has to dig into things like calc pids, scantool maps/filters, tunetool units, V2 configuration;
- new users are expected to read the user manual pdf's (these explain a lot of things, like maps/filters);
- new users are expected to reread the various threads (e.g. Calc.VET contains everything that is needed; same with the Idle tuning threads);
[ he maybe wrote with a harsh tone, but we're all big fellows with thick skins ]
[ but then again, you can't easily infer tone from written words/sentences ]


Rich has some good points too:
- the tutorials/manuals have not been updated over time (manpower);
- for a new user it is not necessarily clear which threads/tutorials to follow;
- the organization of various threads could be improved (but this does not become apparent until some forum usage time has elapsed);


But in all fairness, the information is all in the threads...

for example, these threads contain everything you need to tune an NA application:
- Calculating-Injector-Flow-rate
- Calc-VET : correcting-MAF-and-calculating-VE-(in-a-single-log)
- Calc-MAFT : correcting-VE-and-calculating-MAF-(in-a-single-log)
- CALC-VET-Summary-Notes
- Summary-Notes

( idle requires a few threads, see post #13 of Collecting-links-to-scattered-material )
( boost/nitrous is similar but requires a bunch of "outside" reading )

[ of course, sometimes it requires a lot of digging to find the information buried in various threads ]

now those threads assume that the user is already familiar with various things:
- EFI acronyms;
- how EFI operates an engine;
- what AFR/timing best suits various engines (e.g. LT1 vs LS1);
- how to diagnose physical problems;
- how to operate the EFILive scantool/tunetool (the user manual pdf's);
- how to operate his/her PC/laptop;
- how to operate his/her vehicle (you'll be surprised);


now if those things are not apparent to the user then there is a lot of research to be done...
on the forum here various questions can be search for or posed/answered...
but a lot of prerequisite knowledge is specifically required/assumed.

[joecar]

In all the excitement, I forgot to say this: pdf's seem to become out-of-date the moment they are published

[Blacky]

Anyway, off topic, but I want EFILive to be the best there is for tuning. But they need to clean up their act when us newbies buy their product and just want to USE it. Getting started with GOOD tutorials and/or an intuitive learning curve will make all the difference how someone feels about the product a week into ownership.

I understand your frustration about docs and tutorials being out of date. They will always be out of date, that's just the nature of software that changes very quickly. I'll be the first to admit that they are too far out of date and they need to be updated. But right now we have a very large user base that is waiting (and some have been waiting for years) for us to release the latest V8 software. We are pouring 95% of our manpower into the V8 software. The V8 software is (will be) different enough from the V7 software that the tutorials cannot be used with V8. So our decision is, spend lots of effort to get the V7 tutorials up to date, only to throw them away once the V8 software is ready, or spend that resource getting the V8 software ready sooner rather than later.

A little history may put things in perspective. EFILive originally was designed to tune the LS1 gas engines only. Over the years it has been extended, modified, coerced and cajoled into supporting 20-30 other controllers, gas, diesel and hybrid, along with the roadrunner real time tuning. Plus it supported the AutoTap hardware, the first FlashScan V1 hardware and now FlashScan V2 and AutoCal hardware. All those changes required updates to the docs and tutorials, right now we don't have the manpower to keep them up to date. The software has grown very large and unwieldy, the only reason it has not been end-of-lifed yet is because V8 is not ready yet. V8 is a clean re-design and re-implementation of the software taking into account all the things we learned (usually the hard way) over the past 15 years. Once V8 is released our workload will reduce and we will be spending our efforts making sure default settings, user configurations, tutorials, docs etc are the best they can be. The V8 software will not have to evolve as rapidly as the V7 software had to. So it will be more stable with less changes and it will be easier to keep the docs and tutorials up to date.

While the software is in a sort of limbo between V7 and V8 we are spending whatever spare time we can on the forums answering questions in real-time (or as close to it as we can - since we're nearly on the other side of the world).

One last thing, I do chuckle when I hear comments like "upper management". EFILive is a 6 person operation (in Australia and New Zealand) with a bunch of high quality distributors and a resellers that support our product throughout the world (and Joecar who works tirelessly on threads like this). So there is not really any upper management - but hey, I know what you mean, those people in charge (i.e. Ross and me) really need to make sure our new users are not left out in the cold.

Regards
Paul (part owner of EFILive)

[Rich Z]

You are incorrect.This is a pro orientated program, not some spend 5 minute thing and bam your car runs great.You are way behind the times in mechanical and technical aptitude. Basically way way over your head.You better read 4 hours aday on basic efi tuning for a few years then come back and tell us how efilive sucks for the lazy spoon fed types. Your problem is that you dont even know the basics of a pid file. Have you ever read codes out of your ecm with a basic scanner? Have you read live data with a $125 bare bones autozone scanner? Surely you must have purchased one of these 10 or 12 years ago?? If your answer is no then stick a carb on it and go from there. Your biggest problem is you really have no idea on how to ask a question relavant to the subject. A beginners guide to ADVANCED fuel injection may help you some more. You really need to think on the level of advanced fuel injection theory from a technicians standpoint before jumping into tuning.

Oh, I see. Sorry, I wasn't born the genius that you believe you are. You were never a newbie at anything, now were you sport? So according to you no one can decide to jump into this RIGHT NOW with no prior experience and try to learn it without being treated as a piece of crap here? This is the kind of "support" they can expect on the official EFILive forum?

Wonderful.. And I thought outdated tutorials was the biggest problem here. I wondered why this forum is nearly dead, so now I guess I know why.

And for the record, "tuning snob", screw you.

[Lextech]

Hey RichZ,
Stick around. This is a great forum and EFILive is an Excellent Tuning Software. When I first got my V1 in 2006 (I now have the V2), I would spend probably 4 hrs a night studying the tutorials and studying the Forum. I would read a thread and open a tune and follow along in the tune what was being covered in the thread. I still do that. I still have difficulties but that is due mostly to my "toddler like" PC abilities. We all have disagreements at times---That's just life. I don't always agree with my wife but, I have NO intention of getting rid of her.

Jeff

[joecar]

Yes, maybe CALC.DAT is not mentioned in the tutorial, but the tutorial does mention dynamic air temperature (in the form of the pid GM.DYNAIRTMP_DMA)...

and when you study the pid CALC.VET in calc_pids.txt you will see that it uses CALC.DAT....


[ do not go blindly by what a tutorial says... but rather analyze/question why/what is going on until you understand it ]

I guess we are not going to agree on what I believe the PURPOSE of a tutorial should be, then, and who the target audience will be for them. Tutorials that are inaccurate or incomplete are a guaranteed way to frustrate exactly the people they are written for to help. Which are precisely the people who won't KNOW what is wrong with the tutorial. All they will know is that it doesn't work.

IMHO.

Rich,

I'm hoping anyone who reads the Calc.VET thread actually learns what is going on (rather than just learning the tutorial steps).

To do any tuning, following a tutorial is not sufficient... a person needs to understand the underlying principals... the tutorials are out-of-date and inaccurate, but by learning to understand the underlying principals (talked about in the threads I mentioned) tuning can be done with good success in spite of any tutorial; this does require a lot of reading because there are many concepts and and components and subsystems involved.

Don't be upset with what was said, slows10 was harsh in his comment, but he is trying to push you to the next level.