No I wouldn't. The stock tune will be a good indication as where to point the finger. I do believe that your tune is the ultimate cause, without actually logging and seeing it we're just guessing. I don't know the LNF tuning that well myself yet, still learning. It's a huge leap from LS motors I've done in the past. What I do know, your ECM should've put you into limp mode long before anything started to glow! And glowing red turbo manifolds, it sounds like your DAL (desired air load) tables have been tinkered with and knock sensors are not responding. If you cross a threshold while tuning you may get more power out but at the expense of safety. Sounds like you're on the pwr side. I read an analogy about tuning somewhere that I really liked, maybe it was here. I'm sorry but I'm certain I'll butcher it, try and bear with me. And if it was your quote feel free and correct mine.

"Let's say your ECM's job is to keep the sky blue, it checks all its tables and yep everything is cool. Nice and blue. Now you go to tune it and you tell the ecm I want to make the sky green. Ok, we can do that. We tuned a few tables and now the sky should be green. Now while it's trying to make the sky green there are nearly 3500 tables that say, hey why are you making the sky green when it's suppose to blue! So what you end up with is a blueish/green sky.

From what I've seen, hp tuners hasn't unlocked all of our parameter tables. So the ecm is trying to constantly balance pleasing the tuner and factory tables


There are no vacuum lines to the charge piping. Only the lower charge has that. Do you still have the vacuum box located on the front of the engine under the intake manifold?

 

A 2 minute log with hptuners could have told you your hpfp was fine. What is your tune?

 

it is tuned by hp tuners

 

OP doesn't have HP Tuners. That would help a great deal

 

just sent an email to my tuner his shop is about 90 minutes away. I asked him when I can tow my car to the shop. He will be able to hook me up and take a look inside so I can get this thing fixed, most likely will have the boost turn down a couple degrees and see if he can pick up the horse power somewhere else.

 

Good to know Tim, it's better to be on the safe side. Keep us in the loop. Can't wait to hear his diagnosis. I am curious as to why the ecm would let things get so wonky.

215 isn't that high of temp. My old motor would teeter between 220-250, due to a blown head gasket.

Good luck Tim, fingers crossed

 

Tim, you have one beautiful car. I hope you get this sorted out so it will run as good as it looks!

I will be watching to see your progress.

Best of luck to you!

 

The ECM will do/control what it is programmed to do.

I asked a question in another post that is worth asking again, did you get the forged piston upgrade when you bought this motor?

HPTuners is the tool to alter the tune, it is the tuner who defines the tune. I have found that changing the pipes to and from the intercooler didn't effect the tune to an extent that the LTFT couldn't handle, certainly not enough cause the problems you are now seeing. If you were to change the pipe diameter after the MAF either larger or smaller that would have an effect but generally the ECM/car will throw a code and go into limp mode, boost limited <= 5 lbs....

Dbeluscak you are correct about the LNF. They are a torque based control, all the control algorithms are centered around that. The Desired Air Load (DAL) is for throttle control based on calculations using the desired torque and current RPM. The MAF or airmass is used for fuel control.....

You are also correct in saying that there are a number of tables that we don't have access to in HPTuners. One of those is the desensitizing of the knock sensor.

At this point if it were me, I would put, (write entire) a close to stock tune in it and do some logging. The logging will show where the problem/s lie.

Stick with it. If it were easy everyone would be doing it. The fact that your tuner is 90 minutes away and you are going to do it there.....

 

Couldn't agree more, as to your question. I can't exactly speak for Tim. But I know we got drop in gen3 LDK's from zzp. The internals are identical (other than the raised compression) forged crank, cast rods and pistons. So unless the chevy dealer tore down the new engine, I'd bet it's cast pistons.

ZZP claims that we are safe on stock internals up to 450whp with the gen3, 385whp with gen2. You'd need around 30psi to get there. If you ask me that's not leaving any room for error. I'm waiting until I get hp installed in the car before doing any hard driving. I have boost limited to 18psi. We'll keep it there for a few thousand miles.

 

Newer production engines are broken in relatively quick. With our race motors we would generally run a 20 minute break in procedure to seat the rings and start hammering on it. Rods and mains are/were never an issue it was getting the rings to seat properly. Oil contamination in the combustion chamber will cause detonation just as bad as a lean mix or to much timing.

I'm still a little Leary of high boost (above 23/24 psi) with cast pistons, but that's just me. High boost and detonation is a recipe for disaster. We raced large offshore boats, some with blowers, some with turbos and some normally aspirated. When we've broke them we would find engine parts up in the nose of a 46 foot boat. Wrist pins, rings pieces of the blocks... not a pretty site.