Sportsman First Impression

84BuickGNYorkPA

Daily Driving Buick V-6 Turbo's 1979 - Present
Joined
Jul 5, 2005
1) The installation was straight forward with the help thread. I let the IAT temp where it was for the turbo tweak chips which is before the alky spray. The Sportsman will tune around it no problem, next time I pull the intake I will put some NPT holes toward the fire wall for a few sensors and vacuum lines.
2) Ok you will need Cal for the startup run down as there are several areas to verify and address. Starting with the communications with the laptop, very easy, very windows oriented software! Checked for any faults. After about 10 minutes we were ready to turn the key on.
3) It started right up!!
4) With Cal on the phone we got the idle tuned in pretty quickly, just had to wait to see what it looked like warmed up and both in gear and Park.
5) Still with Cal on the phone we started right in with the fuel table at just above idle 1st row and then again on the 2nd row, bam that's pretty much it. After that the Sportsman will adjust the fuel table from there!
6) The edash has a crystal clear screen not sure on the dpi but no complaints here.



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Update: The help page in the FAST program is very educational, I have been logging some pulls and adjusting base fuel cells, having fun with it...
 
Update: The car is running great, knock alarm never goes off, 22.31 mpg on the way home from the game Saturday.....This is my all time best mpg in 140,000 + miles of driving the car. I need to get to the track or a dyno and work on the top end tune... still have much to learn...

Chuck
 
Update: The car is running great, knock alarm never goes off, 22.31 mpg on the way home from the game Saturday.....This is my all time best mpg in 140,000 + miles of driving the car. I need to get to the track or a dyno and work on the top end tune... still have much to learn...

Chuck
22 mpg is impressive. I get no where near that. I don't get on the highway much so it is mostly around town, but still that is really good.
 
Update: The car is running great, knock alarm never goes off, 22.31 mpg on the way home from the game Saturday.....This is my all time best mpg in 140,000 + miles of driving the car. I need to get to the track or a dyno and work on the top end tune... still have much to learn...

Chuck
Those are great numbers. What's your Target A/F ratio?

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15.3 a/f ratio and bumped the timing up one degree in the cruise area only. I’ve since taken the a/f up to 15.5 with no issues.


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22 mpg is impressive. I get no where near that. I don't get on the highway much so it is mostly around town, but still that is really good.

Thanks I was totally happy with that highway cruise on a non lock setup. But around town I can’t get above 15 but then again I don’t expect to either.
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Im really wanting this as well. Did I read the injectors are batch fire? How would mpg go up, im a little confused about that part?? Also, will this eliminate my cold weather tunning headache right now in the midwest?
 
Im really wanting this as well. Did I read the injectors are batch fire? How would mpg go up, im a little confused about that part?? Also, will this eliminate my cold weather tunning headache right now in the midwest?
The injectors fire sequentially in pairs. Not batch fire. You can play with your mpg but adjusting the target air fuel ratio and timing during cruise. Essentially, you can target leaner than 14.7
I'm unsure what your cold weather headache is, but this system is fully tunable with plenty of correction tables for cold situations

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The injectors fire sequentially in pairs. Not batch fire. You can play with your mpg but adjusting the target air fuel ratio and timing during cruise. Essentially, you can target leaner than 14.7
I'm unsure what your cold weather headache is, but this system is fully tunable with plenty of correction tables for cold situations

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I've adjusted the TT parameters alot lately due to air temp swings of 50 degrees..... I am getting kr here and there. I am not looking to squeeze every bit of horsepower out of my combo, but would like to get in it without my eyeballs glued to the scanmaster. Im well aware of the car and its needs, just thinking this modern computer could make it a little easier.
 
I've adjusted the TT parameters alot lately due to air temp swings of 50 degrees..... I am getting kr here and there. I am not looking to squeeze every bit of horsepower out of my combo, but would like to get in it without my eyeballs glued to the scanmaster. Im well aware of the car and its needs, just thinking this modern computer could make it a little easier.
Since it's ALWAYS in closed loop and the learning is enabled, you can't get in too much trouble.

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The Sportsman let me pull out the 1987 computer and replace it with a 2017 model, coupled with the e-dash and the self learning feature it's been painless. Saying that I could drive the car and forget about the tune, but most of us Turbo Buick owners honestly can't leave our fingers off all the parameters and tables in the tune. The nice thing is that with a Windows laptop you can save the original tune that Cal will send you with the Sportsman and treat it as your own personal base tune, I made a copy of it so I actually never touch the original. So I go about adjusting this and that here and there, the trick is to save your tune as you make each individual change, oh I have a ton of tunes saved. Another feature is say you really mess up a table in the tune, instead of starting over you can import that table from your original tune that came with the Sportsman or you could go back to the last tune, save that particular table and then import it into your current tune. It's very user friendly and for me it filled the gap of not buying the full FAST XFI 2.0 package but yet get the modern computer in the car with less features. Also Cal has shared his knowledge of the product through a free Internet Webinar Training session which has been recorded. This webinar really help me understand the big picture of the product and showed me how to safely tune my car to my personal preferences.

Chuck
 
Agree, and ordered one. Looks like tapping the upper manifold is the preferred location for the iat sensor? I already have a wideband/bung on the dp. Should i do anything else before taking the car out of commission?
 
Nope. Jist tap the plenum where you like it best and that's it.

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My autometer electric fuel and oil pressure gauges have outputs for an autometer logger. Will this output work with fast as well? Pins #4 (-) and #10(+) if anyone is wondering.
 
My autometer electric fuel and oil pressure gauges have outputs for an autometer logger. Will this output work with fast as well? Pins #4 (-) and #10(+) if anyone is wondering.

Just remember, one of the few downfalls/quirks with the sportsman is the ability to log only one extra sensor. It only has one extra input. That and it can only hold one log at a time.


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Just remember, one of the few downfalls/quirks with the sportsman is the ability to log only one extra sensor. It only has one extra input. That and it can only hold one log at a time.


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Slightly annoyed because i tried to compare it with 2.0 on the fast website but it just wouldn't work. What if I were in the 10% of ppl that needed it to do more? I dont know and you wont know until you start using it. I assume it was designed with fuel pressure in mind for this extra input? What else do you need to log?

Will the autometer output work?
 
Slightly annoyed because i tried to compare it with 2.0 on the fast website but it just wouldn't work. What if I were in the 10% of ppl that needed it to do more? I dont know and you wont know until you start using it. I assume it was designed with fuel pressure in mind for this extra input? What else do you need to log?

Will the autometer output work?
The Autometer will work.
I can answer any additional questions comparing the two. Most of the information is here on tb.com
If you start using the Sportsman and decide you needed the standard XFI, I will take it back towards credit on the XFI

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