DTS Performance Tuned -- the 4/2009 Test

[Bruce Nunnally]

[orig test thread]

TexasJim and I met this morning and ran some new performance tests using the AP-22 Performance Meter with his DTS in the same place as last year's test, and will TexasJim driving again.

I captured the results on the Blog here with Details from Each Run.

Best run: 0-60mph in 6.55 Sec, with indicated wheel hp of 271 whp. Assuming 20% loss through the auto transmission / drivetrain, this means around 339 net hp at the crank.

Bottom line: Quicker this year, and better wheel wheel hp measured results. My conclusion is that the PCM calibration helped acceleration.

Chase car view:

[Texas Jim]

Thanks Bruce...

for the photo, the video and posting it all.

I appreciate it.

[Bruce Nunnally]

I put all the orig photos on the Caddyinfo gallery site here.

Click the thumbnail, you get an 800x600 version, but also a link to "dowload the original" so you can grab the 3k x 2k if you like.

[Texas Jim]

Bruce,

I am surprised that we have no comments yet...

The next time we get together, I want you to drive the DTS...to see the difference in driveability that it has now. It is so much more responsive to partial throttle inputs then it used to be.

You drove it a little the last time, so you know how it USED TO BE.

I would really like to get your impressions on it NOW...after it was tuned.

No one else has ever driven it except my son...for a short distance..just here in the neighborhood...and that was before it was tuned.

And if we JUST HAPPENED to find a quite little road somewhere...see how bad your CTS would beat it from 0 to 60 or so.

I love the exhaust sound that your CTS has.

I have thought of a different exhaust for the DTS.

What has stopped me is...I don't want noise in the cabin and for sure, I don't want the DRONE I have had with some other cars.

Neither Corsa nor Borla makes a replacement catback system for the DTS.

[Bruce Nunnally]

Well, sound is a personal thing. I changed just the mufflers on my 96 STS [Click here for article], and it was loud, but not excessive (in my opinion). But when say a Valet drove it they would smile a lot. Louder all the time vs 0.2s quicker can be a tricky trade on a long distance touring Cadillac.

I need to get an updated 0-60 time on the CTS. I meant to do that yesterday, but after I get the new RaceLogic Performancebox in this week I'll get out and run it. I may have to swap back to premium fuel now while gas is still reasonable so I can keep my times low. I want to get a new baseline anyway for acceleration also before I start on the suspension changes.

Looking at the results the CTS and DTS are very close in quickness now. My 2005 CTS initial results were 6.26-6.56 sec, improving to 5.95-6.05sec after I added the Volant Cold Air Intake.

[BodybyFisher]

Nice test guys, this is a big jump in HP at the wheels. I am surprised that, more time was not trimmed off, what do you guys think

[Texas Jim]

Nice test guys, this is a big jump in HP at the wheels. I am surprised that, more time was not trimmed off, what do you guys think

IT WON'T LAUNCH HARD.

Darn it.

That is the only problem with it.

I love the way it drives and runs now. It is much more responsive now than it was before.

It runs like my first one did...maybe better.

Before the tune...it would kinda bog off the line with all the torque management that the new ones have.

Now..even if you get it to spin a little coming off the line...the Traction Control kicks in and kills you.

Turn Traction Control off...it pulls the timing a little bit and STILL keeps you from launching hard.

If it spins very much with Traction Control OFF...the StabilaTrac kicks in and overrides the Traction Control OFF.

I have ordered the COMPLETE SOFTWARE SUITE from EFILive..."I WILL FIX IT."

It is going to take me a little time to figure it all out and learn the program...but I WILL FIX the launch problem.

It has ticked me off now.

IT WILL BE FIXED.

[growe3]

The HP increase looks nice, but did not seem to improve the times proportionately. From your comments on take off, it sounds like other forces are at work, preventing you from using the newly found power. I wonder if the answer is in transmission management?

My 04 DTS takes off solid, shifts firmly, and and has very good response. My 93 STS jumps forward, has very solid shifts and excellent response. As the PCM (I think) controls the shifting, maybe the answer is to program the transmission to act like its cousin, the STS. The DTS seems to be programed for smoother more controlled response; as opposed to the STS.

I reviewed EFLive to see what was there. Their site is a little confusing to me, not quite sure how things work, or what product to look for. All of the "talk" of the different systems left me lost. I have know idea what system I have in either my STS or DTS (other than OBDI and OBDII). It does seem that they do not have anything listed for my 04 DTS.

-George

[Texas Jim]

The HP increase looks nice, but did not seem to improve the times proportionately. From your comments on take off, it sounds like other forces are at work, preventing you from using the newly found power. I wonder if the answer is in transmission management?

My 04 DTS takes off solid, shifts firmly, and and has very good response. My 93 STS jumps forward, has very solid shifts and excellent response. As the PCM (I think) controls the shifting, maybe the answer is to program the transmission to act like its cousin, the STS. The DTS seems to be programed for smoother more controlled response; as opposed to the STS.

I reviewed EFLive to see what was there. Their site is a little confusing to me, not quite sure how things work, or what product to look for. All of the "talk" of the different systems left me lost. I have know idea what system I have in either my STS or DTS (other than OBDI and OBDII). It does seem that they do not have anything listed for my 04 DTS.

-George

I will be getting the V2 version.

http://www.efilive.com/index.php?option=co...t&Itemid=57

I believe that you are right about the transmission being the problem.

Mine has TWO separate controllers. One for the engine and another for the transmission.

I am going to concentrate (mostly) on the one for the transmission.

Starting in 2006, the cars are loaded down with a lot of (for lack of a better term) NANNIES.

They control what you can, and more importantly, what you CAN'T do.

Mine takes off well...unless you STAND ON IT, from a dead stop.

It shifts more firmly, (now) and in general runs and responds a lot better than before the tune but I am real disappointed that the increased HP didn't translate to better times than it did.

I had the same experience when I took it to the 1/8th mile drag strip here locally.

Times after the tune were better...but not what they should have been.

60 foot times are almost identical...after the first 3 or 4 car lengths...it is much better.

[Bruce Nunnally]

Nice test guys, this is a big jump in HP at the wheels. I am surprised that, more time was not trimmed off, what do you guys think

The gadget measures hp at various speeds, so I feel good about the consistency of the resulted hp measure. I will get more data out of the gadget from a serial dump of the runs, and post that later.

The 4T80e is a strong transmission but has a ton of torque management in 1st gear and 2nd gear. HOWEVER, I suspect if you remove all the torque management then you will likely

eject the transmission as well. So even with more power *available* at the top of the rev band you can't get it out to the street 0-30.

We should really be running quartermile times and looking for the difference there. The bottom line of course is if the car feels better on the street, but I was glad to see some difference in the metered performance as well.

[growe3]

The HP increase looks nice, but did not seem to improve the times proportionately. From your comments on take off, it sounds like other forces are at work, preventing you from using the newly found power. I wonder if the answer is in transmission management?

My 04 DTS takes off solid, shifts firmly, and and has very good response. My 93 STS jumps forward, has very solid shifts and excellent response. As the PCM (I think) controls the shifting, maybe the answer is to program the transmission to act like its cousin, the STS. The DTS seems to be programed for smoother more controlled response; as opposed to the STS.

I reviewed EFLive to see what was there. Their site is a little confusing to me, not quite sure how things work, or what product to look for. All of the "talk" of the different systems left me lost. I have know idea what system I have in either my STS or DTS (other than OBDI and OBDII). It does seem that they do not have anything listed for my 04 DTS.

-George

I will be getting the V2 version.

http://www.efilive.com/index.php?option=co...t&Itemid=57

I believe that you are right about the transmission being the problem.

Mine has TWO separate controllers. One for the engine and another for the transmission.

I am going to concentrate (mostly) on the one for the transmission.

Starting in 2006, the cars are loaded down with a lot of (for lack of a better term) NANNIES.

They control what you can, and more importantly, what you CAN'T do.

Mine takes off well...unless you STAND ON IT, from a dead stop.

It shifts more firmly, (now) and in general runs and responds a lot better than before the tune but I am real disappointed that the increased HP didn't translate to better times than it did.

I had the same experience when I took it to the 1/8th mile drag strip here locally.

Times after the tune were better...but not what they should have been.

60 foot times are almost identical...after the first 3 or 4 car lengths...it is much better.

According to the information on the link to the V2 Scan and Tune, it just might work for my STS and DTS. I will contact the company to see if it really will work for them.

Please keep us posted on your efforts and results.

Good Luck, George

[Bruce Nunnally]

I posted the details from each session and run for TexasJim's DTS in a new blog post here. The Blog handles table data much better than the forum.

What I see in the data is that the Session 1 and Session 2 times differ principally in the 50 mph to 60 mph acceleration.

The Session 2 times are 0.2 sec quicker in THAT RANGE than the Session 1 times.

Basically the new peak hp numbers are showing up around 55 mph, where the previous tune peaked at 45 (top of 1st) or at 75+ (approaching redline in 2nd).

Jim, did your redline/shift point change? So that now you can go to 54-55 mph in 1st gear and hit a higher RPM/HP number perhaps?

It is also possible that the tune changed the quality of the shift from 1 gear to 2 gear enough to take 0.2 sec out of the normal 0.5 sec shift time or similar?

[Texas Jim]

I posted the details from each session and run for TexasJim's DTS in a new blog post here. The Blog handles table data much better than the forum.

What I see in the data is that the Session 1 and Session 2 times differ principally in the 50 mph to 60 mph acceleration.

The Session 2 times are 0.2 sec quicker in THAT RANGE than the Session 1 times.

Basically the new peak hp numbers are showing up around 55 mph, where the previous tune peaked at 45 (top of 1st) or at 75+ (approaching redline in 2nd).

Jim, did your redline/shift point change? So that now you can go to 54-55 mph in 1st gear and hit a higher RPM/HP number perhaps?

It is also possible that the tune changed the quality of the shift from 1 gear to 2 gear enough to take 0.2 sec out of the normal 0.5 sec shift time or similar?

Yes...the shift point redline has been raised to 6800 RPM.

It now shifts to 2nd right at 55 mph and it now shifts to 3rd at 88 mph.

Some of the torque management has been removed from the transmission and the shifts have been firmed up a little.

I wish I had borrowed your AP22 meter.

I expect to have the software by next weekend.

[Bruce Nunnally]

Good; that's why we're seeing a new high HP value at 54-55 mph then. Winding out 1st gear makes a difference in acceleration if the engine will still make power

out to that point, which yours apparently does. I think the quartermile mph would be a better measure, but we didn't get before measures for that due to the safety issues

with running 96+ mph on public roads.

We should have seen another hp peak around 88 mph then but due to the wind resistance factor whp is reduced by our testing method.

The Performancebox is supposed to be here Mon/Tue. The AP-22 is a bit fragile but I'll show you how to handle it and should be no problem. You are welcome to borrow it for tuning. It really needs a new battery holder put in, or a bracket around the one in there now to reinforce. They offered to fix back when but I decided to live with instead of mail back and forth. You open the case to change or reseat the battery (suboptimal) and have to be careful to locate everything after.

[Texas Jim]

Good; that's why we're seeing a new high HP value at 54-55 mph then. Winding out 1st gear makes a difference in acceleration if the engine will still make power

out to that point, which yours apparently does. I think the quartermile mph would be a better measure, but we didn't get before measures for that due to the safety issues

with running 96+ mph on public roads.

We should have seen another hp peak around 88 mph then but due to the wind resistance factor whp is reduced by our testing method.

The Performancebox is supposed to be here Mon/Tue. The AP-22 is a bit fragile but I'll show you how to handle it and should be no problem. You are welcome to borrow it for tuning. It really needs a new battery holder put in, or a bracket around the one in there now to reinforce. They offered to fix back when but I decided to live with instead of mail back and forth. You open the case to change or reseat the battery (suboptimal) and have to be careful to locate everything after.

Thanks...I would, of course, be very careful with it.

It may be a couple of weeks (or more) before I need it or would have time to use it.

Just got a call that my Sister in Law has been taken off life support.

Now it is just a matter of a couple of days and we will probably be going to South Carolina for a few days.

[Bruce Nunnally]

Very sorry to hear about your Sister in Law. Please extend my regards to your Wife.

Good time to drive to SC all in all with the weather and gas prices holding. Grab interstate 20 and head across.

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