Another Mopar Off My Bucket List - Barracuda Fastback
I finally got a call back from the shop working on the Roadrunner around 4:30 pm Friday. This time I was able to communicate with the guy that was actually working on the car.
I'm really confused now and not sure what's going on. He told me that he got the car to start easily and run fine but that he had no interface with the ECU where he could adjust the fuel & timing tables. He needed the injectors to pour in a lot more fuel when the engine accelerated under load. He kept saying that the 'Setup Wizard' was gone.
The original FAST EZ EFI 2.0 system we bought did have a Setup Wizard that you'd access through the hand held display screen. In it you would input engine size and other parameters and the system would apply a rough bunch of settings to get you on the road. Then it was supposed to 'learn' as you drove the car or you could go into the software and manually make adjustments to fine tune it yourself.
When we upgraded to the Sportsman edition, the Setup Wizard was no longer accessible. Instead we had to use a laptop to make adjustments. Our problem was that we didn't know enough about the fuel & timing tables to be comfortable doing it ourselves. That's why we outsourced the tuning.
After talking to the guy for quite awhile I realized they hadn't hooked a laptop to the ECU and didn't know it had the capability.They must have not gone through the literature we left with them.
When we dropped the car off I tried to go into as much detail as I could about where all the information was located. The problem is that I wasn't talking to the guy that was actually going to do the work and the guys I did tell weren't taking many notes. Nonetheless, the guys doing the work were supposed to be experts with the FAST efi systems so I figured they'd know what was going on even without my input. I left my contact number in case they had any more questions.
Once it was established that our system did use a computer interface the next question he had was 'Where is the software?' It took me awhile to refresh my memory but I recalled that FAST had failed to send it to us. Instead they gave us a link to download it from after we'd called to complain. The tuner was skeptical. He said that normally the software is tied to the hardware with serial numbers. - I do know that was all that FAST had provided for us. We had downloaded and installed it on our laptop but didn't provide the shop with a copy - figuring that they would either already have it or be able to download it themselves. We had included the link we'd gotten from FAST with the literature we gave them.
What bothered me the most about the call was that the tuner told me that everything was set incorrectly. I was certain we'd gotten the rotor phasing correct. We double checked it and the timing light agreed with the computer readout. I was also told that we had the fuel pressure set at only 20 pounds pressure but I knew we had it set at 43. Both Spencer and myself had kept an eye on it inside the car and had verified that the computer readout matched the mechanical gauge in the engine compartment. According to the guy, we had the initial timing set at 10 degrees after TDC. That didn't match the reading our timing light had shown. I wasn't sure if the guy was stringing me along (with whatever reasons he could think of) to justify the amount of time they'd had the car. It also could be that one of the other guys in the shop had messed with our settings last week.
The one thing above all others that made me feel that something didn't sound right was being told about that fuel pressure. If I'm not mistaken, - I don't think those injectors will fire with the pressure that low. - And we had always monitored it - right up to the point when we drove the car into their shop.
I guess I may never know for certain what happened but at least it sounds as though things will probably start progressing now.