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97 Deville - VIN Y - +45 wheel horsepower - tuned


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I have full - as in - 100% tuning capability on the 1996-1999 Northstar and Aurora PCMs - including first gear lock-out disable. You know, when you turn traction control off? You lose 1st gear and take off in second on all 96-99 Cadillacs. It is very annoying to some people - this includes myself.

I have been tuning these PCMs for about 9 months now. As everyone knows there is trial and error, testing, tuning, development. Well I've been getting some incredibly positive reviews on the tuned PCMs. The latest customer has access to a chassis dyno at his place of work in Colorado. I asked him if he was willing to do a baseline run and a run after he swapped the PCMs.

Here are the peak numbers on the chassis dyno (at the wheels) on a 1997 Cadillac Deville - VIN Y motor (base).

Torque: 263 stock, 303 after the tune
Horsepower: 217 stock, 262 after the tune

This is a 40 ft. lb increase at the wheels and 45 horsepower over stock. On a VIN Y motor!

I feel comfortable using the baseline numbers and the factory rated brake HP/ brake TQ numbers to calculate drivetrain losses. So this is the result of the tune in calculated HP/TQ at the flywheel:

The results, on a VIN code Y (275 HP/300 FT LB) motor is as follows:

332 horsepower at the flywheel – 57 HP increase
345 foot pounts of torque – 45 FT LB increase


Customer was thrilled with the performance and told me his car is chirping between the 1-2 shift sometimes (3.11:1 gears).

I had almost had hard time believing it when a customer of mine told me he was keeping up to a 2001 Corvette (LS1/ 6 speed) to 70 MPH. I believe him. It helps that it was a 98 ETC / VIN 9. So we really need to get a VIN 9 car dyno'd yet and see what the gains are on those motors. I believe it might be even more than on the VIN Y.

Just keeping the Caddy world here on the forums in the loop.

All I'm going to say about the factory tunes on the Northstars - from the factory, they were severely de-tuned. 2004, 2005 and the 2000,2001,2002,2003s are next.

I won't go into full detail on how they're tuned from the factory or what I do to make them perform better. All I will say is ignition timing and AFR are key points. You can still keep the same fuel economy you had before the tune (or better) but have a lot more power when you need and want it.

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Impressive numbers !! 

With your ignition timing modifications and A/F mods are you using/requiring octane boosters or straight pump gas?

THERE IS ALWAYS ENOUGH TIME TO DO THE JOB RIGHT - THERE IS NEVER ENOUGH TIME TO DO THE JOB AGAIN !!!

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Barczy01 - $449 for a Stage 3 tune that gives the results as dynoed. On a VIN 9 I expect the results to be higher than on the Y because of the intake camshaft profile.

I'll put it this way. The factory rated HP number is something the big automaker had in mind; then de-tuned the car to reach that mark. They knew full well that little motor was capable of a lot more. I've been inside the programming and I can see this. It was no mistake; it was intentionally tuned to give less than full power.

 Sometimes I wonder why they de-tuned an engine that they could have had so much more bragging rights on. Well for one; most of the people that were buying these cars at the time were happy with the rated power. And secondly the less power the less possible abuse on the drive/powertrain. Warranty is always in the minds of the bean counters. You can't blame them for that; they were running a corporation and profits had to be reported to shareholders.

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I like that you have dyno results and that the dyno results were done independently by a third party.  It will be interesting to hear other results to see how much variance between Cadillacs, year models, etc.   I wish I still had my LH2 XLS we could use it as another example.  http://www.caddyinfo.com/wordpress/cadillac-xlr-tuning-lh2-v8-tune-5b-pe-ramp/

 

Bruce

2023 Cadillac CT4-V Blackwing

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