Bad tuning kills ET's. Help please

[5150DSM]

Well I went out to shoot for 12's and came home with mid 15's. :thumbdown I am having tuning issues the cause of which are escaping me at this point. I finally got my fuel trims to stabilize over several days of driving so I thought my tune was decent, however, I was dead wrong. After running my first 1320' my low FT shot up to 139% while the mid and HI were 101% and 104% respectively.
I was able to datalog the last run and the results are really strange to me, I could really use some help interpreting the log. The run was made on 92 pump at 14psi, spiking to 18psi.
I launched at 5800 and bogged slightly for a 2.0 60ft. First gear revved to 7968 rpm on a crazy spike that hit around 6500 (it hit 8grand before I could shift) I thought I had a 7200 rpm rev limiter, am I wrong? I had 7 counts of knock and 12* of timing advance and 02's at .75, with a shitload of popping and backfiring(I think the airflow from the spike caused the pulled timing) Second gear went to 7062 rpm with 4 counts of knock and 15* of advance and 02's at .88 (2nd felt great) Third gear also spiked at 6500 rpm and over revved to 8 grand with 11 counts of knock and 13* of advance 02's were at .84( again with the popping and backfiring) Fourth gear only made it to 4500 before the traps, where I had 20 counts of knock and 10* of advance with my 02's at .90. The thing that is getting me the most is the injector duty cycles... 1st gear IJDC was at 98% 2nd was at 78%, 3rd was at 86% and 4th went to 55%. I don't quite understand, is the 14b able to max out my 550's so easily, or is something else seriously wrong?
I know this is long but maybe one of the tuning guru's can make sense of it and offer an opinion. Thanks in advance for any help with getting this straightened out, I know my car has plenty more potential, I just can't seem to tap into it.

 

[kpt4321]

Your car has some serious problems.

First of all, injector duty cycle should not be higher in first gear, it should be higher in the higher gears.

Second of all, you are knocking, and you are not getting very much timing advance.

You need to pressure test your car, and tune it. You should be getting like 20 degrees of advance and no knock.

Work on that driving. Bringing the 60' time down to 1.7 or so will take half a second off your quarter mile time.

 

[saxrulez]

How are you accidentally hitting 8k rpms in 3rd gear on accident?

 

[5150DSM]

Sax: I don't know how it is hitting 8grand. I get a 20psi spike around 6-6.5K that pushes the revs to 8K right as I am shifting.

Kyle: I am well aware that the car has serious problems. I have read and tried every tuning technique that you outlined in your tech articles, to no avail. If I lean things out the car drives well on the street but won't perform on the track. When I richen things up to try and eliminate knock, the car runs like ass.(boggy acceleration, power loss, backfiring, etc...) Can you think of a reason that IJDC would be so high? If IJDC is based on airflow, and I am pulling back the airflow via the SAFC then why would the duty cycle max out like that? I'm obviously no expert, but it almost seems as if the car never goes into closed-loop operation. If it helps, my settings were as follows during the run I logged: throttle points: 35-65, Lo:-5%(800)-10%(1200-3600)-15(4200-7200) HI:0%(800-2400)-10%(3000-4800) -15%(5400-7200)
Thanks for the tip about my 60ft, unfortunately, I could pull a 1.5 and I would still be 2+ seconds slower than the car should be running.

BTW-I hear you about the leak test, all of the sudden I am only pulling 14hg of vacuum at idle and I am getting a strange resonance in my exhaust tone. The exhaust at idle makes a kind of high-pitched whining, almost like when you rub your finger around the rim of a crystal glass. What the hell could be causing resonance in the exhaust?

Thanks again for any help you guys can provide, I will do as Kyle told me and make sure there are no leaks messing with the tune, in the meantime any more opinions or ideas would be much appreciated.
Aloha,
Tony

 

[saxrulez]

THere is a good chance you have a boost leak. go to www.vfaq.com and intake to see how to make a leak tester. A boost leak can cause your turbo to have to push 20+ psi of air just to get 14 since you'd be leaking so much air out, which in turn can cause fuel cut or high IJDC.

 

[5150DSM]

Ok, checked for boost leaks and didn't find any, however, my downpipe was definately not bolted down all the way and I was leaking exhaust fairly bad. That's fixed but the car still ran like shit. I guess I should have understood the pocketlogger software better because I decided to tune counterintuitive to what I thought was correct and it worked. My LFT was going up to 139% making me think I was running super rich, no no no, I was running super lean. I used the SAFC to considerably richen up the entire RPM band in both the low and hi throttle settings and what do you know, the car runs right again, not only right but damn fast as well. I am now able to push all the way to red-line with no knock, no hesitation, no popping and backfiring, no boost spike and no outrageous timing advance(was getting as much as 44*) Now my logs look like this: 3rd gear- 7086 rpm, 0 knock, 24* of advance, 02's at .90, holding steady at 14psi all the way up. Thank you's to Kyle, your tuning guide was invaluable(even though I misunderstood it at first) and instrumental in helping me to tune my car. I am sure that I can refine the tune to a greater degree but for now the numbers and the butt-dyno say things are going well. Thanks again everyone, and to all those new to tuning, learn from my mistakes, it will save lots of headaches and may save your engine as well.
Aloha,
Tony