All I wanted was a stroker

[bionicredneck]

Yeah I know that unfortunately the "can" tune is a best guess, but as I said Arrington locked the PCM, so a handheld tuner such as a Diablo couldn't be hooked up to it to fine tune it for air/fuel, spark, etc to even get the truck to idle. I bought a Diablo i-1000 hoping to be able to do this once it was up and running, but with the PCM being locked the only way to tweak the tune is to send the whole PCM back to Arrington until they send it back unlocked.

 

[bionicredneck]

I'm staying NA, but maaaaaaaaan it sure would be sweet to have a supercharger. One can always dream though lol!!

 

[KGBIGCOUNTRY]

I'm going to assume the shop made sure the timing was 100% right between the crank and cam. A tooth off can cause similar issues in a stroker with a healthy cam.

 

[bionicredneck]

I certainly hope they did. Do you know if it would throw any codes if that was the case?

 

[CKH]

Sometimes it will, sometimes it won't. Folks have done cam swaps in the hemi cars and the timing set was a tooth off and didn't throw a code but the car ran like crap.

 

[bionicredneck]

If the tune isn't able to get the truck running right after tweaking, I will definitely look into that. Thanks for the info.

 

[charonblk07]

Yeah 1 tooth off can be a PITA, but it's something you can look at yourself if you've got a pulley puller and an impact wrench. It's easy to do as well, I've managed to do it twice now Good news is I can disassemble my engine in under 1 hour now and know where everything goes back too, lol.

I understand why Arrington locked their PCM, hopefully it's now unlocked and you can email tune with them and get everything sorted out.

 

[KGBIGCOUNTRY]

Its hit and miss on it tossing a code, just keep that in mind if you reinstall the PCM and its acting wrong still.

 

[bionicredneck]

Will do. Thanks again.

 

[bionicredneck]

Just got the PCM back from Arrington and the truck is still acting the same way. It idled for about 5 sec and then idled down and started to die. I can keep it running by feathering the gas as before and have to feather the gas to start again afterwards. Any other ideas other than the cam and crank possibly being 1 tooth off? I'm trying to eliminate all of the simple stuff before tearing the accessories and timing cover off of the engine.

 

[CKH]

I think it's probably time to check the timing set.

 

[charonblk07]

If the tune revision didn't help then you're down to mechanical issues. If you're dead set on not pulling the timing cover, do a compression and leak down test, this will let you know if you're building/holding pressure in the chambers and tell you if you have a leak anywhere that's causing your issues.

If that comes out clean then you're left with pulling the timing assembly and checking that. Did you replace the chain tensioners when you did the swap? If they were worn or damaged then they could be allowing a lot of slack in the chain. 5.7L chain tensioners were common on stroker builds in the 3rd gens before they modified them for the vvt block. A 6.1L tenisoner and thrust plate were the solution to that issue.

 

[bionicredneck]

Right on. I'll try and do a compression/leak down check and I'll have to look into the chain tensioners. To my knowledge they were not damaged and not replaced. It's also the stock timing chain.

 

[CKH]

In my humble opinion, it is a bad idea to reuse the stock timing chain/tensioner. The only difference between the 6.1 set and the 5.7 set is the tensioner. The 6.1 tensioner has 4 springs instead of 2. Moparonlineparts.com has great prices on them, the 6.1 set is the same price as the 5.7 set on their website. I used a 6.1 set when I did my cam/head swap.

 

[Redtruck-VA]

Do you know what the AFR is at idle? Can you tell if it is going lean/rich?

 

[bionicredneck]

Unfortunately I don't have a clue on the AFR. I haven't tried to hook up my new Diablo intune to it yet because I was waiting to see what kind of word Arrington would give me. I'm still running the stock 5.7 injectors and was going to wait until I could find out if I needed to upgrade to the 6.4 injectors. If it looks like it isn't going to be a tuning issue, I probably will go ahead and order a new timing chain for it since I'll be pulling the timing cover anyway to check the timing.

 

[charonblk07]

You just need the tensioner and thrust plate assembly. I wouldn't have reused the stock plate either for this very reason, it's a very weak link in a built engine.

Stick with the stock injectors until you are 100% certain you're running lean, there is no need to upgrade and swapping injectors will make the tuning process harder until you get the new pulse width dialed in, which took my truck 3 revisions to do with just the SRT4 stage 2 injectors.

You really need to get a wideband gauge installed asap. Last thing you want to do is lean out, even with a forged piston.

 

[bionicredneck]

Any suggestions on a good gauge?

 

[bionicredneck]

Thanks for all of the help from everyone.

 

[CKH]

I was under the impression that you would need new injectors with a stroker because the stock 5.7 (before 2009) weren't up to the task. You may want to call Arrington and see what they recommend and talk to them about the injector scaling in the tune. When I was researching a stroker build for my Charger, I was told I would need 6.1 injectors, I beleive the injectors in the eagle 5.7's are the same as the 6.1 injectors.

I also beleive that if you were running lean enough for the engine to protect itself by shutting down on you, you would be getting a check engine light and a code for a lean condition. But an AFR guage is the way to go for monitoring it if your tune isn't being done on a dyno.