[Gmecm] More '730/$8D tuning questions...

[Clair Davis]

So, the calibration I got stinks.  Actually, if I had a stone-stock
AL-headed 5.7L Vette engine in my Plymouth instead of an iron-headed 5.6L
with an aftermarket cam, intake, and headers, it might be perfect, but as my
sis-in-law is prone to say, "it is what it is".

Note*: I'm tuning/emulating with TunerProRT, and monitoring with a wideband
O2.

On my first long test drive Saturday, I found the car to be fairly drivable
at steady state most anywhere from 50-80mph (2500-3500rpm), and the ECM
appears to be able to correct to 14.7:1 pretty well.  With that said, BLM's
are under 100, and virtually any attempt to accelerate slowly or quickly is
met with bucking, snorting, backfiring, etc.  Enough so that the laptop shut
down towards the end of my 20-minute drive and I lost my dang datalog.  In a
fit of frustration, I did find that my WOT A/F ratios were in the mid-high
12's, so at least THAT'S safe from a melt-down standpoint.  The tires made
no attempt at hooking up, so it wasn't safe from a traffic standpoint,
however.

With the rant over now, I've got a couple general tuning strategy questions.

Note**: I've blended parts of the VE table with the known BLM points I was
able to scratch down on my tablet while driving, and I radically reduced the
ignition timing across the board to approx 24* max (plus 6* initial for 30*)
and keeping approx. 25* total at idle.  I haven't driven this combo yet.

1) is there a substantial benefit from tuning with INT/BLM if using a WB02?
My gut feeling is yes, from a safety standpoint, but my calibration seems to
be horribly rich except where I've tweaked the idle spark/VE range, and it
would be useful to see HOW rich it was without the back-calculate operation.

2) Is there a benefit/penalty to using an auto trans calibration with a
stick shift car?

3) Is there a benefit to using a different base cal, such as ANHT vs. AUJP
or whatever, as long as they're for essentially the same family of engines?

Thanks in advance as usual, and I really am glad to be able to drive this
old girl again, as frustrating as it is at the moment.

Clair
69 Plymouth Valiant, 340+730
Fort Worth, TX