CMDP while going back to stock intake manifold?

So long story short.... my car needs to be seen by a CA state referee in order to pass its next smog check. That means I have to remove my Ford racing intake manifold and going back to stock manifold. (Thanks to the stupid CA smog requirements).

I've read up on what the CMDPs do. Besides the slight performance it provides, is it truly necessary for the peace of mind so that I wont have the butterfly valves break under boost? Car has Vortech centri blower. I believe I have a slight tune issue with my engine to begin with ( see my previous posts), so I'm taking this opportunity with the manifold swap and upcoming dyno session to hopefully get it all squared away. Just also wanted to see if I should throw in the CMDP while I'm at it.

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It's definitely a good idea to delete the CMCVs for both of the reasons you've mentioned, and you can easily do it yourself:

http://www.angelfire.com/my/fan/Mustang2006GT/CMDP.html

Another reason for deleting them is that they get gunked up with carbon/oil deposits causing them to stick. If your engine doesn't already have catch cans, this is a good opportunity to consider adding a pair.

So my tuner may be available as early as next monday. I've been talking to his guy at the shop about doing the CMCV delete right now, but he mentions that due to me needing smog, he's not sure doing the delete will somehow cause a CEL or not letting the emission monitoring to reset (emission monitoring currently off due to high flow cats in place, but this will also get reconfigured back to stock). Does he have a point? Personally if I'm stuck with the stock intake manifold I think I'll want the delete done, but at the moment getting the car back to an absolute by the book smog legal config is the priority.

Afterwards I may not mess with the manifold again but I'll probably do the catch can since it's an easy item to swap

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The CMCV delete can be written into the tune, and it has nothing to do with emissions monitoring. It was the second performance mod I did (together with Steeda underdrive pulleys) after the JLT 3 CAI and I haven't looked back.

Dino Dino Bambino said:

The CMCV delete can be written into the tune, and it has nothing to do with emissions monitoring. It was the second performance mod I did (together with Steeda underdrive pulleys) after the JLT 3 CAI and I haven't looked back.

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To clarify, I am leaning towards having the delete done as you said. I was talking to one of the mechanic at the tuner shop, not the tuner himself because he's not there everyday. I'll try to get the tune that accounts for the CMCV delete now so I dont have to redo it later if my tuner thinks the same way too. I really want to just get the smog done in one try because of this covid 19 craziness, most of the state referee stations are closed and its next to impossible to get an appointment.

Per the state ref that I had spoken to over the phone, they could see that the previous owner of my car had attempted a smog check a few years back with emission monitors turned off with high flow cats, and that caught their attention in their system. On their written instructions they say to uninstall any aftermarket tune if you have them and return to stock tune. I'm thinking, if I'm going to get a tune that has all the factory monitors back on line, it will be as good as stock and they cant see the difference right?



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Someguy said:

I'm thinking, if I'm going to get a tune that has all the factory monitors back on line, it will be as good as stock and they cant see the difference right?

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Yyyyyyyup.

Well now that the stock intake manifold is back on the car and dyno'ed (also ditched the faulty BBK 62mm TB a while back but never tuned for it), the car is down about 25hp/ 25ftlb at the wheels compared to the last dyno. Although the previous problems of low rpm sputtering and hesitation before engine fully warms up had seemed to gone away. I no longer had to either wait for engine to warm up or be really careful going into traffic while cold. The emission monitor for the cats stays in incomplete status now that its turned on, but im guessing that's because I currently have high flow cats. I have CARB legal cats on hand ready to put on soon, and I assume this will be fixed too once these actual cats are installed

With an old problem solved now comes a new one. After about 70 miles of driving after getting tuned, CEL comes up with the code P0021. I reset it once and it came back shortly. Also noticed there seems to be a flat spot in power between 2.5k and 3k rpm. Holding steady throttle as the rpm climbs there's a slight pause while passing that rev range.

Guess I'm screwed for the moment to try to troubleshoot this when I have time to look under the hood.

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Your tune mess with the cam timing? Aftermarket cams? Or an alternator issue.

Someguy said:

Well now that the stock intake manifold is back on the car and dyno'ed (also ditched the faulty BBK 62mm TB a while back but never tuned for it), the car is down about 25hp/ 25ftlb at the wheels compared to the last dyno.

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Did you have the ECU retuned?

Quick update since i last posted... So i had reset my CEL one more time and then it threw both P0011 and P0021 after about 5 miles of driving. I contacted my tuner, explained the situation and he revised a tune for me with no cam timing adjustment done. He was somewhat certain that there's something actually wrong with my engine valvetrain because he said the range of adjustment he can do regarding cam advance is really small, and while he's not convinced his revised tune may fix it he gave me one anyway.

I've loaded the new revised tune to my car, did a 15mins drive on city streets and an half hour freeway drive since then. No CEL so far. Hopefully it's really just a tune issue all along and wont come back. Hope i can drive it a couple more times this coming week to confirm. I really dont need a CEL now because i need to install the CARB legal cats and go get the car smogged at a referee station.

Dino Dino Bambino said:

Did you have the ECU retuned?

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So this is the first dyno the car has seen after i owned it. Compared to last known dyno the last owner did (490rwhp@6250rpm, or 520@ raised redline of 6700), i had removed the FRPP intake manifold and BBK 62mm TB that were on the car, and also pulled ignition timing. My dyno came to be about 468rwhp@6250. Looking at the hp curve it's still a linear steady climb to redline, and i can probably have 20hp more if i also raise the redline but i decided not to. So with my current setup and tuned i lost over 20rwhp

Is this the exact same dyno as before? Same person tuning it?

The previous numbers are pushing it for a stock short block, especially the numbers at 6700rpm level. The current numbers are about where you want to stay unless you have a spare block and a few grand to build it.

The timing is probably more responsible for the power loss than the intake manifold. You can make a lot more power by adding timing but the stock rods are so fragile that the smallest bit of detonation can send it through the side of the block leaving not much of the engine left to salvage. The previous tune probably added timing to make up for the lack of low end power from the FRPP manifold in the mid range.

RED09GT said:

Is this the exact same dyno as before? Same person tuning it?
.

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It is done by the same shop, tuned by the same person. I didnt ask but it doesnt seem like they have upgraded anything in their shop recently.

Yes i've read up on the limits on the stock short block and i for sure dont want to push my luck with that raised redline and timing, so i am content with the hp I'm making now with stock timing and stock redline. With the previous setup and dyno there were a dip in both hp and torque curve at 4.5k rpm, now the current dyno shows the curves are smooth and the dip is gone. My goal now is really have this car pass the stupid CA smog check. I likely wont modify it any further for the time being and just enjoy it, but wont rule out selling it if someone comes making me a good offer. (not that i really want to sell it but it could be a good opportunity after all the work done lately, plus getting a state referee to look the car over carefully and deemed it fully CA legal ). And if anything "major" that happens to the engine, i'll fully consider just rebuilding with a built bottom end instead of doing bandaid fixes to keep it going. At that point i'l be gearing up for hp and not selling the car anytime soon

Can you post the dyno graphs? I'd be interested to see the shape of the torque curves. As long as you're not over 450rwtq the stock short block should be fine with a safe tune.

Here attached is the latest dyno sheet. Torque is low at 396rwtq and it's right around redline because it's a centri blower. My previous setup on the last known dyno is about 421rwtq also around 6k rpm. I was never near that 450rwtq figure

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Well i did 2 more drives to work and CEL came back twice with code P0021. Both times it came on after 3-4 miles of street driving to get the temps up, and then about 2 miles later after i got on the freeway. One was done with a heavy right foot merging on the freeway and the other was very gentle with the gas pedal and stayed below 3k rpm. CEL came on regardless in either cases.

So i think with the revised tune i can rule out it being a tune issue. Only thing unknown is I actually dont know what cams i have in the car. Previous owner claimed it has cams. I never verified or bothered to check as i never had problems that led me to believe i have to look into it, until now. Could it just be a coincidence i'm having an actual mechanical problem at this time(VCT solenoid, cam phaser etc)? Or could i have had aftermarket cams/phaser lockouts this whole time and not know it, and if so is it something a tune can fix? I'm guessing my next course of action, to fix the issue I'll start with pulling valve covers regardless?

BTW engine now has around 1226xx miles. The hestitation and occasional stumble at low rpm (getting the car moving from a stand still) before engine fully warmed up is almost nonexistent compared to the old setup, but happened a couple times still. And also it appears i have bad gas mileage, probably worse compared to the old setup. Not sure if any of these observations mean anything as far as trying to troubleshoot my current CEL problem

If you have cams and the tuner hasn't adjusted the injector timing, it will have issues.
Ask your tuner if the previous owner gave him the info from the cam cards.

Someguy said:

Here attached is the latest dyno sheet. Torque is low at 396rwtq and it's right around redline because it's a centri blower. My previous setup on the last known dyno is about 421rwtq also around 6k rpm. I was never near that 450rwtq figure

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You have maximum HP (which was still rising) at 6400rpm (134mph) and maximum torque at 5500rpm (116mph). This was a 4th gear run with the HP & TQ curves crossing at 5250rpm (110mph).
Judging from the dyno curves and boost numbers, I'd say your engine is bone stock apart from the supercharger even right down to having stock exhaust manifolds. If your engine was N/A, it would have been producing maximum TQ at 4300rpm.

Someguy said:

So i think with the revised tune i can rule out it being a tune issue. Only thing unknown is I actually dont know what cams i have in the car. Previous owner claimed it has cams. I never verified or bothered to check as i never had problems that led me to believe i have to look into it, until now. Could it just be a coincidence i'm having an actual mechanical problem at this time(VCT solenoid, cam phaser etc)? Or could i have had aftermarket cams/phaser lockouts this whole time and not know it, and if so is it something a tune can fix? I'm guessing my next course of action, to fix the issue I'll start with pulling valve covers regardless?

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Hi OP,
I would think that your tuner has kinda verified that your issue is mechanical when he gave you a tune w\ the VCT disabled (PCM will not be giving VCT commands to the VCT solenoids so the VCT solenoids should be maintaining 0* cam timing on both B1 & B2 cams whether engine is running or not) & you still got a P0021 DTC so this says to me after taking all the given info into account that you have either a bad VCT solenoid on B2 (plunger moving due to weak spring in solenoid from increasing EOP causing the cam phaser on B2 to rotate out of phase w\ cam phaser on B1 far enough to set off the DTC) or a restricted VCT solenoid on B2 (one side of B2's VCT solenoid screen is restricted so the EOP is applied unequally to the B2 cam phaser chambers causing the B2 cam phaser thus B2 cam to walk out of phase w\ B1 cam phaser thus B1 cam far enough to set off the DTC).

Technically a cam phaser can't move the cam unless it's VCT solenoid is allowing unequal EOP volume to be applied to it's chambers. The other way is if the cam phaser's tone ring is broken & is rotating independent of the phaser itself...……….

If you have a means of datalogging the VCT CMP sensor signals to see if B2 is actually moving w\ the VCT disabled this should verify it.....or you could just pull both VCT solenoids when you pull the valve covers, check the oil passages for debris then install 2 new VCT solenoids as a matter of course as if the screens are actually restricted the only way you gonna know is to pull the VCT solenoids & IMHO if you go that far I'd just replace them w\ new ones if they're the originals w\ this much mileage on them. Then retest to see if the issue is resolved.

Sometimes you'd be surprised at what you can find when you pull them:

This is what I found in my B2 VCT solenoid in the lower screen in my engine along w\ a broken cam follower on 1 of the intake valves on #7 cylinder after experiencing a similar loss of HP\TQ found from 2 dyno session results...……….

Watch this FordTechMakuloco video for some context on what you're seeing:

Hope this helps.

Dino Dino Bambino said:

You have maximum HP (which was still rising) at 6400rpm (134mph) and maximum torque at 5500rpm (116mph). This was a 4th gear run with the HP & TQ curves crossing at 5250rpm (110mph)........

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You are right, at this point it's basically a stock engine plus the supercharger. It actually also has shorty headers from the previous owner but i was never convinced that it makes power anyways, and as you guessed it doesnt.