update, back to the drawing board...
I have connected the air injection system corectly but I think it's still leaking because after blocking the right bank the left vs right bank AFR imbalance have changed. Once I've blocked the right bank AIR injection pipe it finally went into closed loop. What I think happened before was the extra air pulled by the exhaust made the idle go very rich. I leaned out the entire table until I got 14.5 on the WB but it was going 20:1 while reving up the engine because at higher rpm there was no air pulled through the air injection valve and the engine was using my very lean table correctly.
Now I've installed the LT1 spark tables that are similar to what the engine manufacurer gave me (16base/34max). the BPW reads much lower as it should with the lt1 VE tables. I looked at the LT1 VE as a refference to divide the tables until getting close to the LT1 tables. INT/BLM is mostly substracting but sometimes the MAP is higher at 65 idling the mixture gets lean. I've added 115 everywhere in the VE calculator to reduce a bit all values then will see what happens.
after plugging the AIR the IAC went to 0 and I had to remove the offset of the TB screw and let it to stock opening. Now it stays around 80 so it needs a tiny extra opening

PS. after doing some VE adjustments I've ended up with 118 through 134 INT/BLM readings. I use the formula INT+BLM-128, basically the total compensation applied instant and BLM. IAC went to 160 so I had to add like 1mm to the adjustment screw. I set the idle 1500 cold 1200 operating temperature for smoother idle since I have the aluminum flywheel. spark was 25deg idle, 41-cruise -28 max. The EGT went a bit high, 370C idling 1200rpm and 570C @ 3500rpm neutral. It took a while to enter Closed Loop. Next I'll try the fine adjustmensts on VE table by extrapolating what I got (not too much data), and hopefully take if for a drive to see how the AFT WB reacts. I also want to try spark timing adjustments based on the manufactured datasheet: 16 base-34 total, so I did a chart looking at at mechanical distributor that reaches total advance around 3200rpm, and higher advance for cruise.I will use 32 total in the mid to high power range.


I've reviewed the table and figured there is PE spark advance, so I substracted those degrees to get 32WOT.

 

I’ve been tuning the ECM all this time using S-AUJP 4a now and went several bins that improved the driving little by little but yesterday I took the car for a 15 min drive home with traffic lights, about 12 mph average speed including stops and a few runs to 50mph. A few days before that I did two trips of about 4 miles with hard acceleration and deceleration as required for braking in , average speed was say 40mph this time and things were good, it stayed cool, but in traffic it started overheating. Coolant went up to 217F one day and today 195F with both fans turned on at 170F and rising so I had to stop. This may not seem too high but I think the cooling system should be able to do better than that. it could be something is not right with the engine. I’ve looked at the manifold and hoses through the thermal camera and measured 195 on thermostat pipe, 217 on the lower manifold base, pretty hot. The idle is set at 1200rpm for 180F and higher and 1000 above 220F. spark advance was 20deg now 26 and it behaves the same. The l98 has about 38 so I will try 32 maybe it keeps the exhaust cooler. I’m using now a spark table that doesn’t add extra advance when PE is active because I wanted the spark tables to show me the exact timing the engine uses. SAUJP example bin did the same thing. Extra timing on PE seems superfluous and confusing as you can’t visualize the tables easily
Another weird thing is when it gets hot with IAT also high, the AFR goes up although the target AFR stays the same and BLM 118. So I lowered the stoichiometric ratio in the bin file to 13.8 but I didn’t notice any change other than showing the target Afr as 13.8. I suspect a difference in the fuel or air delivery between banks. Both stock and WB sensors are new and seem to react normally and I suppose the NB isn’t that bad. So it idles with the right bank at 15.6-16 which makes it clearly rougher than when it’s colder at 14-14.7. I now want to try 13.2 as stoichiometric. the fuel I use is E10 so the stoichiometric ratio is 14.1. An additional WB sensor on left bank would be good.
The car behaved the same way with the old engine before the head gasket failed so it’s either happening again although I don’t clearly see how it could’ve happened either the cooling system has a problem or simply a coincidence because of inadequate tuning. The EGT I have installed shows 450C-500C at idle. with previous bins I had as low as 280C at idle but at 900rpm and in those situations it would enter close loop after a long time. I ‘ve read thet WB O2’s need over 600C. mine starts to show the afr when over 380C.

 

Maybe I'm off track here but in one of the Pictures above it looks like you are still using the factory Knock Sensor. Since the engine no longer sounds like an L98 its probably doing more harm than good.

 

yes it’s a new sensor designed for l98 except some guys reported it’s better to keep the old one because this one is too sensitive. However, mine seems to be ok. I get 1 or two knocks while cranking and a few knocks while reving the engine quickly and let it go quickly in neutral. while driving it rarely picks up any knocks and the spark retard looks very similar to the stock engine except for the knocks in neutral.

 

I also have built a 383. However, I am using Holley Terminator x to run the show. I'm using a Camshaft with 240 degs duration although there are some people in the country that can tune the ( 1990 ) ECM to get it to Idle I wasn't willing to trailer the car across country to go find them. I intended to use a Knock Sensor with the Holley, but they talked me out of it. I was told by EFI systems Pro techs the best way to utilize a Knock Sensor would be to build two identical Engines and put one on an Engine Dyno and run it into submission so that we could learn what the Knock sensor said. Then Run the second engine and dial in the tune a notch or two on the safer side. I have been told if you rebuild an engine completely stock and do as little as a different hone on the Bores it will throw a Knock Sensor off.

 

Thank you, I run on 100 octane e10 and max spark advance as provided by the manufacturer so I think there shouldn’t be any problems. I’ve checked the spark retard logs and sometimes there are a few degrees subtracted. Do you think the knock algorithm create problems?

 

I'm not going to say your Knock Algorithm is causing your problems one way or another. What I will say is that Knock Sensors are an OEM safety tool that works well in its application. I can't help but think of a person putting the cheapest gas they can find in their new leased high-performance car that they are going to turn back in when the lease is over is a great application. And the aftermarket has yet to develop the technology to use them on engines that are not built to OEM specs.

 

Thank you, that's good to know

I did some testing today, I want to run open loop idle (hacked bin S_AUJP v4a) because if I set the target AFR to 13.2 the NB o2 would need to average about 700mV and the ECM doesn't seem to do that. These NB being built for 14.7 I don't expect this to work on a lower setting. Alternatively, I could use my other NB on the right bank maybe it's a bit leaner on that side. I'll try it tomorrow because there were 2 parameters for open loop idle and I didn't know.
While I was monitoring the gauges a neighbour pointed out the lower radiator hose is too cold, basically the upper was like 160F and the lower was only around 100F, so it seems there is a coolant system issue. I have an aluminum aftermarket radiator I plan to install. The thermostat is high flow, could be that as well.

 

An engine that is idling is not making much heat. And it won't until it gets some sort of load on it. How far do you have to drive on a cold day till you start feeling heat through the vents. It's pretty hard to diagnose a cooling system without putting a load on it. If its got a 160-degree thermostat it had just opened. So, the Top hose should have been 160 and the bottom cold. This an L98 and not a reverse flow LT1-4 if I remember right.

 

Just to let you know if you want to use a knock sensor with the Terminator ECU you can. I've been using one with mine for a few years now. If you go on the Holley forums there are several threads that show how to set it up in the software so the knock counts and percentage will show on your data log and on the Holley touch screens. There are tuners there who have already done the testing to get the values pretty close. I will say it wasn't as good of a tuning tool as I thought it would be. But I'm glad mine works.

 

I did some more testing today, while continuing with the breaking in process and the coolant temperature was 208F on top hose and 165F on the lower hose, and rising before I stopped the engine. The overfill tank seems to keep at cool level while the top fill tank is full. I suppose 210F is not enough to exceed the vent cap setting. I’ll schedule the radiator replacement and hopefully we’ll see if there are any problems there.
There were some Knocks detected near WoT / max torque region that made me review the SA and I’ve found that I set the high load spark curve steeper than most mechanical distributors basically at 2400rpm it would reach max advance of 32 degrees and keep that to max rpm. I’ve reduced the slope to get to max advance after 5000rpm.
About fuel tuning, I’ve set the open loop threshold to 1300rpm and now the AFR jumps between 13.5-14.5 while idling. While I set the car in motion being in tbe 1000rpm/60-80kpa the AFR rises up to 17 and it starts trembling a bit if not taken out of that rpm region so I will add 15%more fuel in that area. Everywhere else the car feels good. While watching the AFR I’ve noticed anything above 15:1 it starts to be lean. The BLM has stabilized to 112 in that area of low rpm high load so if I let it closed loop it would keep running lean. Another thing I did was creating a lookup table for the o2 sensor that gives me the AFR based on the narrow band, don’t know how relevant is it but the average AFR on the history table seems close to what I’ve read from the right bank WB, 14 around idle and 17 for low rpm high MAP, 11 @ higher rpm higher MAP.

 

A 30+ degree drop in Temp shows the Radiator is doing what it is supposed to do. I still have not figured out if you're driving the Car to get these temps or if it's just idling. Sounds to me this thing is running so lean the Headers must be glowing red.

 

I let the car idle until water reached 185F, then I drove it for 3 miles where I did hard acceleration from 20 to 60mph in 2nd and 3rd gear, 2 stops at traffic light for 1min then parked it, waited idling for 1 min. Temperature was reading 208F in TP/ 205on HVAC display when I stopped the engine. Idling is set at 1200rpm @185F and 1000@2000F. both fans were started at 180F. idling AFR was ranging 14-14.5. while accelerating drops to 12, and further sometimes down to 10.5. Last time when I measured the exhaust if was 750F. A temperature sensor mounted at 2” before the left aide preconverter (these are racing FIA 100cpsi) directly into the exhaust flow, measures 905F@idle and goes to maximum 1200F when driving. On the thermal camera I got 200F readings on the thermostat pipe and hose, and hot spots of up to 217 on the manifold base.

 

17th Feb Tuning Log
I've did some changes to AE parameters to give it a bit more gas off the line. I've set this table AE Async factor vs Delta TPS to 1.5 at top down to 0.40 instead of 1 fin stock and AFR looks ok but there is now hesitation on throttle blip or acceleration. I've also changed this AE , Factor per BPW Vs. Ref. Pulse and I've put 0 from DRP 4 and further down by mistake and possibly that was the cause. My intention was to set it 3.98/ 2.2/,1/,0.5/0.5.. Then I've changed the o2 working windows instead of like 400-600mV, I've set it to 700 to 780mV. The target AFR is back to 14.7 because the WB is calibrated for pure gasoline and I want to aim for the values that would work for gasoline. The NB will basically be .45@lambda 1 and the real AFR will be 14.1 while the WB will read 14.7. For example if I see 12.5@WOT that in reality is a bit lower and should be ok for E10 fuel. With these settings I got smooth idle and good WB readings at idle around 14.7 and the NB lookup table gives me similar data. Here is a history table.

BLM ranges from 118 to 121 so I can do a little bit of adjustments. The BLM cell boundaries are different because the engine works at different MAP levels and idle is set higher. So I've set them by looking at log files so the computer can do adjustment in the regions I want. Previously I was running open loop idle to make it richer but with the o2 targets modified now I run it in closed loop. The NB readings are 'running average'.
The max coolant temperature today was 194F. After setting the heater to max and blower to level 10, it started to cool down. To me that kind of confirms the radiator is not doing it's job properly. Thermostat failure is not excluded. It is a high flow, that some people don't like them as some can stuck closed.
While doing the test drive, some else happened, I've started to smell gasoline. When I looked under the hood there was gasoline leaking from the no 7 injector at the rail. I've managed to remove the upped plenum (with the edelbrocks it's like 10x harder ) the bottom runners bolts were very loose otherwise it woul've require me to remove the valvecovers as well. after removing the injector I've found the problem. The top O-ring was cut. I suppose that happened when it was installed. It's possible it was leaking before but not sure about it.

About WB logging, I'm waiting for some ECM connectors so I can use one of the free pins of the spare ECM, but first I need to test the spare ECM and MEMCAL I got. The memcal needs a DIP socket so I can change the Eproms. I've bought a ZIF socket as well. I could either solder it to the memcal or to take a flat cable and install it remotely.

PS. 02/19 log
injector o-ring replaced; only loosen the left runner and removed the upper plenum. then I could raise the Rail enough
I've started the car, at cold it chokes with a throttle blip in idle. The tables for AE are from Corvette Forum from a user that has them on a miniram and are a bit too high (50%) so I've reverted most of them, only added l 10% above stock for the next bin file and will see what happens

02/20 log
l've made some changes to spark timing based on the engine builder analog distributor settings, basically more advance at low load and different ramp
I still get 17 AFR. on low rpm high load and occasionally hesitation but I've noticed INT at 140 in that region so I've adjusted the VE by 10% . Basically the BLM has low resolution (limited number of cells) and maybe it needs more data to be accurate. More over it needs adjustment of kPa limits because this engine operates in different regions

02/23 log. with the increased VE at load basically everywhere m, I get no hesitations and good AFR everywhere 14.4@low load 8%tps -11@high load. I will still do some more data-logging. One thing still needs adjustment is idle, the Afr is jumping between 14.5 and 15.5. when the engine is hot (190F /20 min driving)

3/03 log
I’ve made some more adjustments, based on AFR Wide band sensor. It’s wired on a free pin of the ECM A/1 pin 14 connector with an oem wire. BLM are close to 128 now, on most of the places. Sometimes I get up to 1 difference between the NB and WB at idle when it’s hot (195F). I’ve checked the PE and I’m looking to match a typical AFR vs MAP vs RPM with the PE /tps and I’ve lowered the tps threshold so I get it triggered at 70kPa which is only 20% throttle below 2000 and 30% above 3500rpm. I’ll test these settings tomorrow.

03/05 log
I’ve setup the highway mode to engage from 25mph with 14-13.5 AFR instead of 15-16, also reduced VE table based on low blm and now I get around 13.5-15.5 AFR which is what I want. the O2 thresholds are like .810V, a lot higher than normal. I thought it might not be a good idea to offset the O2 further where the accuracy gets too low for the purpose of reducing AFR and keep highway mode as it is designed. The only thing I want to adjust is the AE because it hesitates on light acceleration. I’ve noticed that behavior in racing simulators for cars with sequential transmissions maybe it can’t be fixed on engines with more aggressive cams !? Another thing I did was replacing the radiator with a double row Champion. While previously the coolant temperature would creep up slowly at idle towards 230F with both fans running at 14V voltage, now the temperature stays 160C at cruise and 200at idle with only one fan running. Oil was 186F but not sure if the calibration is correct in TP. The old one didn’t look dirty from outside but it was full of dirt, 15% of fins bent but good internal flow.
On a second look I’ve noticed the PE kick in much later at about 45-50% throttle while the settings are at 20% above 2000rpm. It seems odd, maybe some bug in the bin file (using s-aujp v1026) or something else. Maybe it interferes with the highway mode but that should deactivate at only 60kPa.
03/17 log
S_aujp v7 r2 installed
- fixed the PE; now I need to tune the high load PE using the AFR; there is less jerking after reducing the SA in the low load- low rpm- basically it’s now close to what the engine builder uses.
04/17
-currently I run stock AE, and 15deg off throttle SA so it ramps slowly when I press the throttle after DE and got less jerk. I could try even 10degrees.
-new high flow fuel pump installed
-I’ve set injection constant to 36lb/h because at higher rpm the VE would max out
-I got 12-13 WOT AFR last run, needs a little bit more tune. (my NB also reads very close obviously there are little imbalances between the banks-the upper plenum is not perfectly ported because of bolt holes)
- the thermostat is a 180, so I’ve set up the fans to keep the engine below 185all the time (fan 2 starts at 183).
-did some calculations based on fuel flow and got an estimated power at crank (net) 357Hp at 4500rpm but will see how much it makes when I take it to a dyno
04/27 log
- after tuning the car while driving in city with pulls in third for adjusting PE and getting the target values, having the new fuel pump, I went for a track day and while driving the highway I've noticed the AFR would go lean after a few seconds in PE. I reckon the engine needs testing in higher gears for tuning the PE. After arriving at the race track I've multiplied the the WOT above 2600 by 17% and got it to 12-11.8:1 AFR. But while going back home the I've noticed the low rpm high speed aroud 100mph - moderate load- was very lean so that needs adjustment.
-another problem after changing the fuel pump is fuel starvation in high G-force corners, only when the gas tank is below half full. This is annoying and potentially dangerous to the drivetrain because if after only 17 laps plus the trip to the track the gas tank is nearly 50%.
-new feature- OIL PRESSURE sensor hoocked up to the ECM. I get like below 400kPa( that's what I see on the dash(or 56PSI), but it is constant regardless of rpm, even at idle. I suppose I have a high flow pump that can pump fast at idle but at high rpm you don't get a higher pressure because of the pressure regulator.