I clean the MAF as part of the routine maintenance about every 20,000 miles. What I am talking about is if I go out and disconnect my battery for about 15 min, hook it back up and take off down the street, for the next several days, there is a very noticable, quicker response to the throttle. Has nothing to do with shifting. The tunes shift great. I'm talking about engine responsiveness. Over a period of weeks, it gradually gets less reponsive until I have to disconnect the battery again.

 

I know what Bluejay is talking about... I don't make it a habit to unhook my battery to correct it because I assumed that the adaptive learning is purposefully cutting some performance to save a good amount of fuel *shrug*.

Is there a way with a custom tune to turn off adaptive learning so that you do not loose performance like Bluejay is seeing, and if you could... would you want to?

 

I must confess I don't know much about the edge and it's capabilities. If you can data log, you might want to see what's happening with your long term fuel trims. It might be something you want to discuss with PHP and query them on your observations. It seems to me it's making a correction that is detracting from performance if you notice marked improvement after clearing memory. Are you using any other device besides the old butt-o-meter to measure the difference?

 

If you read those two articles I posted, it makes good points of not doing that. A dirty maf is a good reason for adaptive controls to make changes. I have known guys that have done that, but the real solution is building a better transfer function for the MAF to interpret air flow data. I really can't see the Gotts mod affecting the stock transfer function, but then I don't know if PHP changes the transfer function as part of their programming. A transfer function is a table that tells the PCM how much air is flowing through the MAF so that PCM can make calculations. It's based on a voltage signal from the MAF that equates that to air flow. If the actual air flow is different from the programmed air flow, the O2 picks up a lean or rich signal while driving and this is how it makes corrections. The corrections are made based on closed loop operation, but then it takes those corrections and applies it to open loop. The diminished performance is likely happening during open loop.

Bluejay, how old are your O2 sensors? Their switching capabilities can start deteriorating over time which can have an effect on corrections.

 

It has nothing to do with the Edge or Bill's tunes. It did it before I ever got the Edge. I thought all these PCMs did it. When you reset by disconnecting the battery, it then takes several driving cycles to adapt to your driving style. If you are taking off easy, then it sort of "detunes", adapting to that.

I can disconnect the battery and when I hit the gas it jumps out, ready to go. Three weeks later it still jumps a little but not as much. The more I have to drive in heavy traffic, the "calmer" it gets until it reaches a leveling off.

 

It has done this since it was new. I put 70,000 on it before doing the Gotts mod. 30,000 on it before I got the Edge. I got the custom tunes at about 60,000.

 

One other thing, it will do it too when switching between programs, I just hardly ever do that.

 

Is it at all throttle positions that you notice diminished performance or part throttle or full throttle? I don't notice any difference when I reflash mine when I make changes, which does the same thing. I do notice changes in the low speed shifting routines, but that's the extent of what I can really feel.

I have say that it would be rare for a tuner to depart from the stock transfer function on a stock truck, so it stands to reason it would do it with and without the tune if it's related to adaptive control.

Can your edge datalog? If it can, you might compare logs right after clearing memory and when you notice performance dropping off and seeing what's happening or what's changed. That's all I have for suggestions.

 

You're probably clearing memory, if the edge works like an SCT device, when you do a reflash.

 

You mentioned cleaning O2 sensors, what is involved it that?

 

You can't clean an O2 sensor. You can only replace them. If you do that, I recommend Motorcraft parts. The main reason for adaptive control is because of inconsistencies in the various components. So you probably have something out of spec and adaptive controls are bringing it back in line with programming, which seems to be detracting from some performance aspect. Read my question regarding when it's occurring (throttle application) and post what driving conditions that it's most obvious.

 

It's at part throttle and most noticable at take off from a standstill. Much more snappy. Not the shifts, the engine response. I always figured it lost it over time due to having to drive like grandpa around town. The adaptive memory adapting to the driving style.

 

Ok just to clear things up, the adaptive learning is only when the truck is set to stock. When it is programmed the adaptive learning is pretty much turned off otherwise the performance characteristics of the tuning would be lost over time. If you notice the loss in power with the truck programmed it is probably caused by other factors like fuel quality and such. That is why you do not have p1000 codes or the need for drive cycles after you program (to a power level, stock is just "returning to stock").

The standard Edge datalog capabilities are 6 PIDs for 1 minute last time I checked. Bill made software for the regular gryphons that can datalog 5 PIDs for about 5-6 minutes. At the moment neither the CS nor CTS Edge/Gryphons have the datalog capability and the Edge probably never will.

All PCMs nowdays have the adaptive learning capability. A friend of mine drives an 05(ish) chevy colorado and it does the same thing. The truck is lethargic until he disconnects the battery. Then he can spin his 35 inch tires.

The reduced performance is only in closed loop operation (normal driving). At open loop (WOT) the pcm does not use the signals from the O2 and other similar sensors. That is why on the programmers you can set your WOT fuel to whatever you want.

 

I don't know about the edge, but SCT tuners leave adaptive controls turned on in tunes. It's common practice to turn off adaptive controls to build the MAF transfer function, but it's turned back on when the tune is complete. Most of the performance parameters changed for a tune, like reducing the delay time to open loop, modifying the timing curve, and allowing open loop at lower throttle openings will not be modified by adaptive controls. Adaptive control will only modify fuel metering. What ever you command for fuel in open loop will not change, however if adaptive control calculations a correction in closed loop, it will apply that same change to open loop.

 

Interesting, I'll have to ask Bill at PHP about it next time we are on that topic. I only know the gryphon programmers because I've never messed with the SCT.