Project EVO IX, Getting Lots of Power From the 4G63 With Link Engine Management Part 2

When we last left of, we had tuned our Project Evo IX to run on a Link Plug and Play stand alone ECU and had done some preliminary dyno work with the combination.  It was there we discovered that the 4G63 Engines MIVEC variable cam timing and idle control system were not working.  This was pretty odd because the car had really low milage, less than 9000 miles and had been in storage for a few years. Perhaps the systems got gummed up from sitting.  Even with no variable cam timing we got some impressive results. On 91 octane pump gas, our engine put out 400 wheel hp and 310 lb/ft of torque.  This was a 29 hp increase from our engines last tune from just the improved tuning ability of the Link ECU alone.  Due to the MIVEC not working torque was down 43 ft lbs however.

We replaced the MIVAC intake cam gear and the stepper motor for the engines idle control and proceeded to finish tuning the engine to use more of the Link ECU’s capabilities.

Read more about Project Evo IX here!

Once again we headed out to DSport Magazine’s awesome headquarters so we could borrow there AWD Dynojet chassis dyno.  Link’s Jason Oefelein prefers Dynojets for tuning and DSport is one of the only AWD Dynojets that we know of in our area. DSport also has some pretty wonderful facilities including some state of the art machining capabilities.  We will be featuring some of that later for other projects.

Jason quickly confirmed that he now had cam advance and retard, and idle speed control.

Jason retuned our pump gas side of the maps with MIVEC working and remapped the MIVEC system as well.  Next we pumped out the gasoline and filled the tank with E85 and Jason went to work tuning for ethanol.

Good tuners like Jason spend a lot of time tuning the part throttle and low rpm driveability parts of the maps. Once Jason got our tuning and driveability down, it was time to work on launch control and no lift to shift. This was loud, made fire and was fun!