Mild 6.0L Build Suggestions?

[Dantheman1540]

Awesome helpful! I will make both graphs match for the spark advance (low/high octane).

I'll have to research a way to force truck to skip 1st gear all together in the transmission. That would be INCREADIBLY helpful. I can do a 2nd gear pull up to pretty high speed. I think even 75 / 80 mph. Just a little concerned about reving too much with the new motor build? Not sure if I need to finish breaking it in yet, wait till I have around 1000 miles on it?

Kind of wondering about stopping with my MAF curve tuning and switching to speed density.

Another guy claims I have my short term fuel trims on, but HP tuners says "closed loop" off in the VCM scanner parameters list. I think he's just picking on me / wants to complain about my novice but I cannot tell. I'm not sure how to share the files here but followed goat rope garage tutorials to the T. It shows short term trims in my log file but I believe it's not using them in the fuel adjustment, otherwise I'd think my MAF error (AFR error) wouldn't be getting closer, I'd just be fighting it the whole time in the tune.

When the Scanner is hooked up if you go to the "special controls and functions" tab at the top. It should have a spot that allows you to command a certain gear and should have no issue starting in 2nd that way. I wouldn't worry too much about over-revving a new build, as long as it has a dozen or so heat cycles and your not blasting it with a power adder I'd say it's probably G2G but, watch those AFRs at high rpm because you won't know how maxed your injectors are until you push them.

If you are within 2% on the MAF I'd switch to SD and get to the real fun. I run all my stuff SD only and have no issues. I agree you STFT must be off or you wouldn't be making any progress.

Sounds like you are getting there! I think Goat Rope typically says to turn timing down and focus on MAF & MAP until they are dialed then play with timing. Of course, if you need to pull timing from the start then that's the priority, I just wouldn't start sprinkling in any more timing until fuel tuning is complete.

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

Awesome thanks! Yeah I tried to pull timing from the low and high octane tables. I pulled 5 degrees across the map, but it wouldn't run, so I reverted it to factory.

Honestly, I really think I needed to copy the LQ9 tables in there. They seem to resemble the changes I made in my current map.

I think I will copy the VE table for MAP tuning from the LQ9 bin for my baseline and start from there when I switch to Speed Density Tuning. It cost me quite a bit of time fiddling with the spark.

I'll look at that setting in the scanner to force 2nd gear and give it hell haha Damn this thing moves for a truck, especially in 2nd gear. Although, I've also got my vette which is a completely different animal.

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

I'm doing the MAP sensor tuning now. It's coming along okay. Curious about a few things.

First: (A) Do I have to be PERFECT about slowly opening the throttle and sweeping the RPM rage? Has been super hard with traffic haha and I worry that slowing down to get off the interstate after a pull messes up the data. (B) I also was curious, just cruising around in town if I collect data, is it of any use? - UPDATE FOUND MY ANSWER ON GOAT ROPE GARAGE CHANNEL. I DUG AND FOUND A FEW VIDEOS ON COLLECTING THE DATA / HOW TO DRIVE.

My MAP Adjustments from Baseline today to Final Run (note I swiped the LQ9 table from 2002 Escalade for baseline)

I'm still getting a little knock on occasion. I made the low octane and high octane tables the same. Before I started tuning the Spark I tried pulling 5 degrees across the table but it wouldn't run. So I put the regular table and pulled timing where I saw it was knocking. Pretty well got it cleaned up running on MAF but now running on MAP I'm getting a bit of knock... Not sure what made the difference. I suppose I need to pull this out somehow. SECOND: Does this mean my data logging MAP error is bad?

I errored out the MAF Sensor under
Engine Diag->Airflow->MAF Freq Fail High to 0Hz
and Engine Diag-> DTCs->P0103 (Mass or Volume Air Flow A Cricuit High to MIL on First Error
That was what Goat Rope Garage Tutorial said to do to disable MAF while tuning MAP.

THIRD: Does the MAF error have any meaning while tuning the MAP? I still collected data on it and it looks REALLY bad haha when running MAP only.

FOURTH: I'm starting to hit just under 84% injector duty cycle. I wonder if I do need bigger injectors? It's at partial throttle, 5000+ RPM. If I decide to really give her hell, I'd think they'd max out around redline up there? I don't really plan to really beat on this motor, at least until I can beef up the transmission so maybe a mute point for now?

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

I have done 14 runs collecting data and refining the MAP table. It's not perfect. Under 4000 RPM seems to generally be within +/- 3%. Hard to say if spikes in logged histograms are transitions (on and off throttle etc). The higher RPM above 4000+ needs more cleaning up some of it is a bit lean but I get worried to hammer on the transmission.

I turned back on Narrow Band O2's and all that and logged some data for sanity's sake. Not sure what would be normal?

Also it runs like a pooch now haha. Not sure why. REALLY hesitates down low. I think I'll copy the 6.0L Spark table into my tune.

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

Did another big run today. I also Swapped Low Octane Spark Table from LQ9 to my high Octane Spark Table. I know they say you shouldn't do spark and fuel at the same time... but it seems to not be causing any issue. I'm getting close to having under 3200 RPM done. It's a little spooking going up to 3500+ RPM as this thing REALLY moves. I'm afraid of the wear I'm putting on the transmission, although it's not heating up too bad...

Latest MAP data run...

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

Holy COW am I having a hard time getting decent advice on HP Tuners forum. Are there any other good turning forums? Some dude keeps posting on my threads, he's critical of my tuning, but never answers my question. He's completely off topic and I cannot get anything answered

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

Transmission did something REALLY weird. Here's what happened: I would rev up the motor in 2nd gear to 75 MPH or so. It held strong. However, when I let off the gas, it acted REALLY weird. It was as though compression was holding me back for a moment then let go. Transmission behaves normally otherwise.

I think I'm pretty well done with MAP tuning up till 3600 RPM. Everything is falling to within around 3% with wideband to commanded. Really worried about pushing the transmission too hard before I can get another one built. I don't have a ton of data up past 3600, my last pull when transmission started acting weird is screen captured at bottom.

I went through idle tuning setup in HP tuners. I just blindly copied all the idle configuration from the Gen 3 LQ9 stock tune file I have... DANG it idles WAY better, and has power from a dead stop now.

Should my O2 Sensors behave like this? I've never seen this graph on another motor before. The purple and aqua lines are the two precat O2 sensors. They appear to be in disagreement like this quite a bit. Note this log screen captured below is OPEN LOOP / no Short term or long term fuel trims used.

Note I did hit rev limiter on some pulls before transmission started acting weird. It would easily pull beyond 6000 RPM. I think rev limiter is around 5800 though.

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

Well I figured out the O2 sensor part, kind of.... O2 sensors do that when you run open loop. I turned on closed loop and they both match up much better.

However, I logged data for sanity sake on open loop. It was really good for about 15 minute drive. Then I started truck again and got P1133 and P1153 codes. I noticed both O2 sensors were stuck high (rich). My Wideband was also reporting rich. I don't know what caused this. I did switch from a Bosch to a Denso sensor. I assume they are both the same thing?

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

Latest trouble, my wideband readings tend to spazz out from time to time. It does this:

Video of wideband gauge

- Narrow bands seem to be working fine.
- There are ZERO exhaust leaks
- Wiring seems decent (although maybe I have noise on my power lines?).
- And I'm letting sensor warm up despite is the newer bosch 4.2 sensors.

Separate note, I think I may have fixed my Bank 2 narrow band O2 sensor. It appears it was a leaky EGR valve. I tested a block off plate and it seems to correlate much better now with Bank 1.

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

Learning quickly here haha... From experience and yes Goat Rope Garage tutorials. That guy is spot on with his tutorials on how to setup the MAF and MAP tunes (tune fueling). However, there's some people that REALLY shouldn't be answering questions on HP Tuners forum who are. I noticed the same on LS1 Tech. I sorted out the narrow band switching issue. There were a couple things that contributed to it...

1. Leaky EGR valve.
2. My tune was too far off of commanded AFR.

I noticed when I got the tune dialed in, with closed loop (ST and LT fuel trims off) the O2 sensors switch beautifully on their own.

Here's a picture of my latest MAF tuning. Another thing I also noticed... Is it's important to take the logged graph and check cell counts (C above the chart). If the counts are like say 15 or 20, don't use that cell. You need to have 100 hits or so especially if the value jumps in that cell.

Additionally, for MAF tuning I noticed that it's a LOT easier to do when the torque converter is locked up. So I had to do a lot of it on the highway. This is my last MAF tune, I'm not quite to within 1% but getting very close.

I think my MAP is pretty well dialed in. I'm going to probably validate the MAP with another run or two and call it good. Tuning the MAP / Speed density is hard without hammering on the truck to get into upper pressure and RPM ranges.

Long story short, I'm having fun! Hopefully somebody finds my rambling good in their build. I'm not quite ready to unleash the power (dial in the spark). I fiddled with it but fuel was way off and kept tripping engine codes.

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

About ready to scream. Anybody here have experience tuning timing / spark advance on Gen III LS / P01 controller? Damn I'm having a hard time. Put everything back into closed loop with the fueling dialed in. Then picked back up my old spark tuning tables and started dialing in advance in both Low and High Octane tables.

I cannot make heads or tails of this. I added a bunch of timing down low like under 1200 RPM but 1600 to 2000 part throttle (0.52+) is all goofy. I pull timing there as I log knock. However, there's a massive hole in power right there. I cannot even maintain highway speed. If I punch up above to 2500 or 3000 rpm its find with light knock registered here and there which I can tune out I think. However, getting past that hole is a PITA / pretty hard & dangerous. I couldn't merge on interstate or even a road with 50 mph speed limit.

STARTED WITH THIS MAP:

AFTER ABOUT 12 RUNS AND 1/2 TANK OF GAS - 1400 to 2000 RPM sucks bigtime, no power and cannot figure out how to fix it. Add timing it knocks, reduce timing, no power.

 

[Stonefort]

Can you actually hear the knock? I would look into trying to figure out if it's actually knock or the sensors picking up false knock. If you are pulling so much timing that it's barley making enough power to move, that would seem like it's false knock.

 

[Stonefort]

About ready to scream. Anybody here have experience tuning timing / spark advance on Gen III LS / P01 controller? Damn I'm having a hard time. Put everything back into closed loop with the fueling dialed in. Then picked back up my old spark tuning tables and started dialing in advance in both Low and High Octane tables.

I cannot make heads or tails of this. I added a bunch of timing down low like under 1200 RPM but 1600 to 2000 part throttle (0.52+) is all goofy. I pull timing there as I log knock. However, there's a massive hole in power right there. I cannot even maintain highway speed. If I punch up above to 2500 or 3000 rpm its find with light knock registered here and there which I can tune out I think. However, getting past that hole is a PITA / pretty hard & dangerous. I couldn't merge on interstate or even a road with 50 mph speed limit.

STARTED WITH THIS MAP:
View attachment 297381

AFTER ABOUT 12 RUNS AND 1/2 TANK OF GAS - 1400 to 2000 RPM sucks bigtime, no power and cannot figure out how to fix it. Add timing it knocks, reduce timing, no power.
View attachment 297379

Hey bub, here is a good video on gen 3 false knock and how to determine if it's false knock and what to do about it. This is Hp tuners specific for you.

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

@Stonefort THANKS I really appreciate the help I'll watch Goat Rope's video. On a similar note, half my battle was the tune. I used donor PCM from a 5.3L. That wasn't a good idea! I tried to tune from that baseline. I rebase lined my PCM with 6.0 LQ9 tune from 2003 Silverado SS. It's still producing a little knock though. Trying to figure out if it's a fueling issue. I do recall when I was tuning airflow I observed virtually no knock what so ever. However, it started creeping in when I turned back on closed loop.

On another note, I'm wondering about ordering one of these cold case radiators HERE as well as installing the oil cooler lines. This engine runs a bit hotter. It hasn't really been an issue with it overheating, I just notice it climbs to 212F really quick and stabilizes there. Also it is 115F outside here right now *sigh*

 

[Stonefort]

@Stonefort THANKS I really appreciate the help I'll watch Goat Rope's video. On a similar note, half my battle was the tune. I used donor PCM from a 5.3L. That wasn't a good idea! I tried to tune from that baseline. I rebase lined my PCM with 6.0 LQ9 tune from 2003 Silverado SS. It's still producing a little knock though. Trying to figure out if it's a fueling issue. I do recall when I was tuning airflow I observed virtually no knock what so ever. However, it started creeping in when I turned back on closed loop.

On another note, I'm wondering about ordering one of these cold case radiators HERE as well as installing the oil cooler lines. This engine runs a bit hotter. It hasn't really been an issue with it overheating, I just notice it climbs to 212F really quick and stabilizes there. Also it is 115F outside here right now *sigh*

Welcome! How easily are you going into power enrichment? Ever since I lowered the threshold to enter PE through the rpm and MAP I am getting into PE/ open loop a lot easier and it really scoots well now with less throttle....and it's 95 here. I'm not logging any knock retard on stock tune. Haven't even touched timing or fueling on my tune. If it's not false knock...it could be the commaned afr not being not rich enough (cool enough) to support the timing advance?

You can see when it goes into PE by watching commanded afr/eq. The command will quickly drop from 14s ( or 1 if looking at lambda ) to 12 something / .85

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

Great advices! @Stonefort

My PE settings are below. Factory had the delay disabled. Somebody on HP Tuners said to set it to 1500 RPM and short delay.

Then factory had both hot and cold tables set to 90 PE Throttle Position. I tried 65 and now the 75 with no real noticeable difference.

I'm testing the false knock theory now. I REALLY don't want to desensitize my knock sensors so going about it a different way. First I added 91 octane and am running the Low Octane tables in the PCM only.

I still got knock. However, I could hit the cells on the data log again and not get knock the next time. It's also showing up in somewhat random places, basically, never really a guarantee I'll get knock the next time I hit that pressure and RPM.

I started instead fiddling with other systems on the drivetrain to see if they are creating noises tripping the sensors. I tried tow haul on transmission and manual shifting. Those seemed to affect it. However, I last tried to turn off my AC. I was driving back in my neighborhood when this came to mind. Then I beat on the truck. I mean I would go to WOT, drop down into drive, hit brakes, click tow haul, really just fidget to TRY and get the computer to register knock. It hit virtually all the cells that had previously shown knock but didn't register any this time. However, all of this was under 30 MPH.

I'm wondering if my AC compressor is creating noise that's tripping the knock sensor. It's so damn hot here though... I'm going to do a run again at highway speed and see what happens.

PS. on another note, was cool to hit the gas at 15 MPH and have the tires break loose! My 5.3L certainly couldn't do that!

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

I may have figured this out...

- Put in 91 octane gas. Knock persisted.
- Tried driving with and without AC. Knock persisted.
- Saw events starting at 0.48 cylinder pressure, so 0.48 and above I removed nearly 6 degrees of timing and added 5% fuel across board. Knock persisted, magnitude of which remained unaffected.

Next I decided to start logging what gear I was in. Knock almost always seemed to follow shifts. I drove around trying to educe gear shifts after I noticed this. My knock magnitude increased as I did it. However, was surprised transmission temperature wasn't rising. I dug deeper. Selecting 1st gear didn't seem to have any effect on knock. Next forced 2nd gear through VCM Scanner. Applied throttle on slight incline. Once rose above 0.48 cylinder pressure the knock started to come back. And then transmission temperature did rise a little bit. I then forced direct drive / 3rd. No knock.

I suspect my 2/4 band is slipping. Amazed, that makes enough noise for the knock sensors to pickup? I can sometimes feel it in the pedal when it does it. It's a vibration and hesitation to accelerate.

 

[Stonefort]

I may have figured this out...

- Put in 91 octane gas. Knock persisted.
- Tried driving with and without AC. Knock persisted.
- Saw events starting at 0.48 cylinder pressure, so 0.48 and above I removed nearly 6 degrees of timing and added 5% fuel across board. Knock persisted, magnitude of which remained unaffected.

Next I decided to start logging what gear I was in. Knock almost always seemed to follow shifts. I drove around trying to educe gear shifts after I noticed this. My knock magnitude increased as I did it. However, was surprised transmission temperature wasn't rising. I dug deeper. Selecting 1st gear didn't seem to have any effect on knock. Next forced 2nd gear through VCM Scanner. Applied throttle on slight incline. Once rose above 0.48 cylinder pressure the knock started to come back. And then transmission temperature did rise a little bit. I then forced direct drive / 3rd. No knock.

I suspect my 2/4 band is slipping. Amazed, that makes enough noise for the knock sensors to pickup? I can sometimes feel it in the pedal when it does it. It's a vibration and hesitation to accelerate.

That's interesting. I wonder if there is a way to log the suspected 2/4 slip with some math parameters set up like I have seen folks set up scanner to log TCC slip? Here in a bit I'm gonna snap a pic of my PE settings and also my knock sensor settings. Would be interesting to see your knock sensor settings. Brb

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

That's interesting. I wonder if there is a way to log the suspected 2/4 slip with some math parameters set up like I have seen folks set up scanner to log TCC slip? Here in a bit I'm gonna snap a pic of my PE settings and also my knock sensor settings. Would be interesting to see your knock sensor settings. Brb

Oh wow yeah I was curious about that too. I imagine lockup should take place within a certain time window. The VSS sensor could be compared to input RPM and if the lockup doesn't occur within that window then a fault could be realized. That level of sophistication is WAY above my head in VCM scanner haha

Side note, just logged 150 miles of overlanding for first time with new motor. I got 15 MPG which is stellar. Not sure if that'll hold for future trips but dang. I was getting around 12 MPG with old 5.3L.

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

My muffler fell off on the trail haha... I still need to get this engine tuned up. However, finally got a decent audio clip of the engine. You can hear the lifters when I rev it up. They sound totally awesome.

Damn engine has SOOOOO much power that I didn't even realize I was climbing up a rock in that video hahahaha It EATS up these trails when before with 5.3L I had to put the peddle to the floor to get up some climbs... here I just crack the throttle. Even climbing up that granite surface in 4 wheel drive, I just barely cracked the throttle. It's an absolute beast.