New Car, lots of Newb questions

[geosok]

Hey there everyone, I'm new here but have been scouring the forums for info for a couple of weeks. I just snagged a gorgeous and very well built 99 GSX but I am looking for answers to a lot of questions that have come up. Luckily, I was put in contact with the mechanic in Phoenix that did all the work and he has been awesome but I want to learn as much as I can and second opinions are usually a good thing. Most importantly I want to keep my car in tip top shape for years to come.

She was built as a weekend racer and has 10:1 high compression pistons. She's only been using above 100 octane but I would like to use it more as a daily, there is a dsmlink ecu installed so I'm assuming tunes should be easy enough. Any opinions on running e85 or some variant with this setup. Or better to run pump gas with less boost as I have read in some posts?

Other specs that may help with answers, 400 LPH fuel pump with 850cc injectors. T-28 Garret Turbo. 2.4L block with a fully built 2.0 head. All sorts of other goodies, I'm very impressed with the work done to be honest but being a new owner I am looking for as much info from the gurus out there as possible.

I'll stop with the craziness for now. Thanks in advance and glad to be apart of this awesome club finally.

 

[geosok]

Thanks again for the reply's and all the great info

 

[1990TSIAWDTALON]

My 10:1 2.0 can run a MAX of 8* on 91. Anymore and I get lots of knock. I can try to richen the mix but it is still present. Lean it out and it gets dangerous fast. On E85 I run 18* all the way to 8500. If I had lower compression, I could run more timing on gas for sure. E85 will show you, as you add timing, where the power falls off but still doesn't show knock, at least not on my car.
Link will blend 2 tunes if you set it up with TimingMaxOct/OpenLoopMaxOct for E and TimingMinOct/OpenLoopMinOct for gas if you run the flex fuel sensor and set it up to interpolate the 2 tunes. Or, like others have said and I do this too, have a gas tune and a E tune. I run only E but if I had to roadtrip I can put in my gas tune and be fine.

 

[geosok]

Im back with more questions for the guru's out there. Can't thank you all enough for the info you've supplied so far. I finally found a dyno tuner here in Vegas that has tuned DSMs a bunch and knows dsmlink very well. I didn't get the adapter/cable with the car when I bought it and am running a dsmlink v2.5 ecu. The tuner here said he has the cable but I'm wondering will a different cable work with my ECU or is it hardware specific? Will I have to buy the v3 from dsmlink to make this all work?

Also, doing the e85 tune for sure and possibly a second 91 map, I got a screaming deal on 1200cc high impedance injectors and was planning on running new fuel lines so the e85 doesn't eat them. Is this necessary or am i reading too many forums?

Thanks again

 

[91talonts1]

I would upgrade to v3. Much more features than v2.5, but that could be something you could do later down the road. As far as I remember the v3 cable is v3 specific. Because when upgrading you send in the old cable for a new one, but I could be wrong. The cable your tuner has very well may work, if he's experienced with ecmlink he should know what he's talking about. If you send an email to ecmlink, they can probably get you a replacement cable.

For the fuel lines, yes I would advise replacing them with ethanol resistant hoses, if you run ethanol. There's plenty of different ways to go about that, from an setups, to regular old fuel injection hose. There's a few write-ups on this site and others to guide you through it.