Now now. I'm not questioning the ability of speed inc and their tuning abilities. but, is it worth my 400 bucks to have my car tuned. i have the mods in the sig. it doesn't feel like the 350-380rwhp it's supposed to be. I had a mail order tune but I'm not sure if it's up to par.
should I, A: get it dynoed at a local shop and send back the A/F ratios for the mail order tune to be reworked?
Should I, B: spend the 400 bucks and let speed inc get it up to par?

I'm just affraid I'll get to speed inc and they will only be able to tune it another 5hp. 5hp is not a very good investment for 400 bucks. what do you think???? thanks

 

Learn to tune yourself... that's what I did. IMO that's the only way to make sure that everything you want will be done precisely as you want it, kind of like at burger king. You will spend as much or less on tuning and diagnostic tools and you will be able to tune at your desire. Plus on very heavily modified cars a mail order tune just gets the car to start and run half decent. You really need it properly tuned... so I'd say first choice - do it yourself. Second choice - have the shop tune it. Third choice - mail order. Good luck.

 

I currently have tunercat and i know how to do the very basics. but when it comes to fuel tables, spark tables, etc. there's soo mnay variables. there's spark vs. temp, spark vs. rpm, etc. Is there any place i can learn up on this stuff? I'd like to be able to tune it myself in the future, but for now, i'll guess i'll go speed inc.

 

If you have tunercat then you more than likely have datamaster. If you are unsure about doing it yourself, you could just datalog the car and email the file to pcmforless or madwolf and they can do the tune based off your datalog. Just contact them first and see how much data they need as far as wot and cruising. Then you email them the data you recorded and they email you a tune you upload. Ive heard of guys going this route and getting within 3-4whp of a dyno tune.

 

Believe me tuning is simpler than it appears. I'd suggest learning how the computer works instead of trying to learn what a bazillion tables do in tunercat. Then when you want to change a characteristic of the tune you know what part of the PCM logic process to attack instead of saying oh yea I need so and so table. Am I clear or just confusing you?

Go to para.noid.org/~lj

There is a pcm tutorial there that explains how cells work and open/closed loop and all that good stuff.

 

i did download the free trial of datamaster, but i couldn't figure out how to get it to work. I'm not soo much bothered by my WOT tuning on the car now, but part throttle sucks. i have excessive surge and really bad low rpm jerking. i just need tuned completely. how to i get datamaster to work?

 

I see both sides of view. The big pro of dyno tuning whether yourself or paying the shop is its control conditions.

Im still learning LT1 edit and understanding it a little better.

One can buy a wideband 02 but at the track where its legal, you are not going to be effective since you can only tune in 3rd gear (Auto) which is one to one ratio.

The initial poster of this thread...Im in your boat and weighing many options.

Daniel

 

this is what i figure.... to tune it myself, i will effectively need the following.
A) a good knowledge of how to do tuning.
B) a wideband O2 setup. 200 bucks or so.
C) datamaster. 100 bucks???
D) dyno time for complete A/F ratios, spark curves, etc. 90 bucks for 3 pulls or 100/hour.

I know all these are'nt mandatory, but a nice thing to aid you. the way it all adds up, that puts me right to 400 bucks or so, plus i still have to learn this tuning thing a little better. I guess i'm going to speed inc.

 

A wideband with datalogging capability is at the minimum 200 for the Innovate LC-1 with a required laptop to datalog. Other than that you are looking at about 350-400 minimum for any of the others (Innovate LM1, Zeitronix, PLX M-300, Tech Edge etc.). IMO, the PLX m500 unit is one of the best in terms of functionality and datalogging capability, but a little more pricey at around 500 bucks.

Dansean1:

Tuning on a dyno does have certain advantages, but some would argue that controlled conditions are undesirable when tuning, because you don't drive the car under controlled conditions...

Why can you only tune in 3rd gear??? I don't understand what you are trying to say.

 

Tuning it yourself could help you in all the ways you listed. However, you could also have the possibility of not doing it correct and that could have catostrophic consequences. If you think your mail order tune could only be bettered by a few HP, then IMO $400 for a dyno tune is NOT worth it. I can say from my personal experience with Speed Inc's tuning, that they do a good job, and will get you a good safe tune. Ultimatly, its your call.

 

You'll never know how to do it until you try... obviously you should have a good grasp of how things work and ask a lot of questions to people that know what they are doing before you start tinkering with **** you don't understand.

After tuning my own car, I can see why shops charge so much for a dyno tune. You are essentially paying for their knowledge and experience, both of which you could attain for yourself given time, and be able to apply that knowledge whenever you want for the rest of the time you own a car. I like to do things myself, I know not all people are like me.

 

my thoughts excactly. with time, i feel any good tech can tune a car, but my problem is now. It's not really too much fun to drive the car with the way it runs right now at part throttle. I honestly don't know how much I'll gain from dyno tuning at WOT. I'd say 10-20 rwhp would be right. I know my current mail order tune is rich and the timing is not perfect. it's off a tad.

 

The innovative LM1 is like $400 and its portable from what I understand.

The reason I brought up the 1:1 ratio is that I was told and have learned that all tuning on a car, at WOT (or not) is done when the car is in 1:1 ratio.
Is this not true?

thats why I made the point that dyno tuning has its advantages of controlled conditions; One may run out of track once you get into 1:1 ratio, for me in an auto, 3rd gear. The dyno, you can just keep rolling thats all, so to speak.

 

Tuning can be done in any gear you want. 1:1 ratio gives you more data points because it takes a longer time to get through the rpms compared to a lower gear. And on the dyno I assume that you don't want torque multiplication but I don't know much about it.

The innovate LM1 can be had for about 350-370 but the portable unit does not log. It's more like a giant bulky gauge. To log, you would need to plug the cable into a laptop. I don't know why the LM1 seems to be a favorite... it really doesn't have any features that make it special. It is the cheapest I guess but not by much.

 

To the original poster of this thread:
Please be aware that alot of shops (in my experience) do not do much at all about your idle and part throttle tuning.
What they're after most is the end all hp/tq numbers to make you feel you got your moneys worth, and you may leave with a poor idle/part throttle tune.

Just my $.02.