Tune updated Aug 29, 2014. Read the entire thread before tuning to ensure you have all the information. No tl;dr allowed.
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One of the biggest things I see people commenting on HPTuners, and tuning in general is very few people share the knowledge about how they finally tune their cars how they want. I can see professional tuners who spend a lot of time on a car not wanting to give it away for free, but there always seems to be this shroud of secrecy. Well no more, here is everything you wanted to know.
What I'm about to post I've learned through trial and error, input from knowledgeable SOF members, the help files and from some of the tutorials that are readily available on the HPTuner forums. I do not claim to be an experienced tuner, this info may not be the only way (or even the best way) to achieve your desired goals.
Don't be a dummy, do not use this data if you don't know what you're doing, continuing to read this means you accept the responsibility for your actions, and if you blow up your engine you can look right in the mirror for the person responsible.
Now that that's out of the way, there are ten tables you need to change. After these changes I took my car to the dyno and a/f and KR were still spot on. Even after the changes below, a/f hovered right around 11.5:1 which is a little on the rich side for peak power, but rich is safe and I didn't want to tune it to 10/10ths. I actually did not change any base fueling or timing tables so fuel and timing should still be as safe as stock although there is probably some HP to be gained with those tables.
These changes with stock injectors should keep your IDC below 95%. Always verify your changes for safe operation though. If you upgrade to 42 lb/hr injectors the only table you will need to update is the Flowrate vs Pressure table which is covered in my build thread here.
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First table is Peak Engine Torque:
It's pretty obvious what the changes here are. The reason the value in the changed cells is that high is the HPTuner help file says "For the throttle to remain 100% open and the turbo wastegate to be fully closed, the driver demand (predicted) torque request must always exceed the calculated engine torque"
For this reason there are a few torque tables set to values that will ensure they are not interfering with my desired goals.
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Second table is Max Engine Torque Limit, looks kinda familiar:
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Third value is Rear Propshaft Torque Limit:
Interestingly enough, this is the default value for automatic equipped Sonics, for some reason the manual transmission Sonics have a value of 369 ft/lb.
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Fourth table is Driver Demand A:
As is probably obvious, below 100% pedal position it drives very stock.
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Fifth table is Turbo Base DC:
This is the table where you fine tune your boost psi.
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Sixth table is Max Boost Limit:
Be warned, this table can be overridden by other modifier tables.
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Seventh table is Allowed Pressure Delta Factor:
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Eighth table is Turbocharger Knock Max Airmass:
The -25 column is OEM, the -3, -1 and 0 columns were set to 1.50 from 2000 RPM to 6000 RPM and then I interpolated from -25 to -3. And finally, I changed the 6000 RPM values for -5, -3, -1 and 0 to 1.20.
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Ninth value is Turbo Overspeed Airmass Limit Minimum:
This value is actually lower than OEM and it controls how much you will peak past your set boost limit before settling down. I didn't want my Sonic overshooting the max boost as much as it was so I lowered this value.
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Tenth table is Desired ECT:
Most, or all of the other tuners also lower ECT from 221* to 198* because more power means more heat and this will help keep temps safe.
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There you have it, not very complicated. I dyno'd at 151 HP and 201 TQ at the wheels with these changes and since then I've raised the Turbo Base DC table a tiny bit more from 4000 to 6000 rpm so HP should be closer to 155 - 160, the Turbo Base DC table pictured above shows these most recent tweaks. My boost psi peaks around 20.75 to 21 and by 4000 rpm settles to around 19.5 psi up to 6000 rpm and drops off from there.
Several of these tables can be changed to suit your wants, for me I wanted it to drive very stock below 2000 rpm AND below 100% throttle, which it does. That makes it easy to still get stock fuel economy if I'm driving normally but once you floor it and rpms get over 2000 it gets super fun!
