Installed Wester's, noticed no performance gain.

99GMCZ71 · March 7, 2004

Well, I just installed my Wester's ECU/ECM and felt no performance gain what-so ever. I opted for the dual tune 89-93. The truck doesn't even shift any better. I did ask him to firm up the shifts a little.......nothing. All the truck does now is rattle real bad when you get on it. I run 89 normally, and tried some 93 octane the rattle isn't as bad, but still noticed no performance increase. With all the great things I heard about Wester's, I'm pretty disappointed. I guess I'll give him a call tomorrow and see what he says.

bansell · March 7, 2004

Really? When I put in my wester's I was amazed at the difference!

Do you have stock tires size on your truck? any other mods?

J-rod · March 7, 2004

I noticed a difference in mine as well *BUT* it wasn't really immediate ... I think I'd put pretty close to 100 miles on mine before the change was pretty noticeable. The shifts are a bit firmer and quicker than before. Tow/haul is much more fun now! hehe

Anyway, I'm guessing you truck just needs to "learn" a little and then you'll see more change and no more detonation. Hope that's the case for ya!

PewterC3 · March 7, 2004

I'd have to say something's not right. My truck drives like a different animal with the Wester's, roughly 1/2 second faster in the quarter if I were to guess. My nephew dyno'd his 2500HD and got a 27rwhp gain with the 93 tune.

99GMCZ71 · March 7, 2004

Really? When I put in my wester's I was amazed at the difference!

Do you have stock tires size on your truck? any other mods?

Tires are stock, I'm getting a Magna flow cat back and have CAI. Drove around for about an hour. I know that's not to long, but the way everybody talks here, I would have thought I would notice a difference right away. Maybe it's the 89 to 93 tune. I'm sure that's not as good as say the 91 "hot tune" but i do tow with my truck, so I didn't want to go to far. I'll give it a day or two and see how it goes.

o4yukonxl · March 8, 2004

All the truck does now is rattle real bad when you get on it. I run 89 normally, and tried some 93 octane the rattle isn't as bad, but still noticed no performance increase.

Sounds like you either have bad gas or something else is going on. What you describe is detonation and the PCM is designed to cut way back on the advance, which means less power, under those conditions. Have you checked your initial timing? If that was ever set to more advance, then you'll be dialing in more than you should with the Westers. The only other possibility is that you got the wrong tune. Lyndon keeps track of all the programs he sends so he can tell you what is going on. I have some dyno results for the Westers in my 8.1 with a mild tune, it's being upgraded but you can see how the first tune performed. It's in High Performance.

99Silver6.0 · March 8, 2004

Knock retard is BAD. I think the PCM will pull a max of 8-9* of timing if it picks up knock. Then again you may have too much timing. Is there any way for you to see how much timing the truck is actually running or how much knock retard you are getting? Im not really fond of that "dual fuel" stuff. Pick an octane and stick with it. Try a lttle higher octane gas and see if it goes away. If you want you can mix some Xylene and 93 to get 100-102 octane. There are mixture methods all over the net. The Grand National guys around here run their fuel that way. Has it been a while since you changed your fuel filter or cleaned your Mass Air sensor? If you are running a K&N the oil gets sucked through and coats the filaments. It knocks things out of whack. Get some electronic parts cleaner and spray the filaments off. If that doesnt help, you better get in touvh with Lyndon.

Shaners · March 8, 2004

Has it been a while since you changed your fuel filter or cleaned your Mass Air sensor? If you are running a K&N the oil gets sucked through and coats the filaments. It knocks things out of whack. Get some electronic parts cleaner and spray the filaments off.

I had to do this with mine... K&N and a dirty MAS = funky readings sent to the PCM!!!

99Silver6.0 · March 8, 2004

Has it been a while since you changed your fuel filter or cleaned your Mass Air sensor? If you are running a K&N the oil gets sucked through and coats the filaments. It knocks things out of whack. Get some electronic parts cleaner and spray the filaments off.

I had to do this with mine... K&N and a dirty MAS = funky readings sent to the PCM!!!

Ive had to do it a few times with mine... I had some nasty KR issues till I cleaned my MAF. I had to desensitize my knock sensors too. I was picking up false knock for a while. Something about the 99 trucks having something written into the PCM that made the KS's overly sensitive. Few guys on LS1Tech had told me they had the same problem. They had used 2 10K Ohm resistors inline with each sensor. I tried it and by dam it worked. I got back the 9* of timing the PCM was taking. And my sensors will still pick up real knock.

99GMCZ71 · March 8, 2004

Thanks, I'll check the MAF sensor. There's not much I can do with the timing on this truck unless I get LS1 edit or something. The knock sensor sounds like something to start with. I have done a little programming with my 1994 Z28, but thats OBD1. I haven't really checked into any programs for OBD2, like some kind of logging program to see what the maximum advance is and so on. I will say I noticed some difference with the tow/haul button on, seems a little different than it use too be. Like I said in my last post, I think the dual tune just isn't as radical probably as the other tunes., and i may have spoken a little hastily. Plus reading a few other posts, it may need to learn some more too. I'll keep you posted.