Hmm, I've never heard anyone say anything bad about PCmforless.com....ever......

 

Personally, I won't say anything bad about mailorder tuning. I think that for a lightly modded bolt-ons car, it is great because you don' t have to spend the big bucks to get a pretty good tune on your car. Yes, you could squeeze a couple more horsepower out of it on a dyno tune, but I wouldn't say it's worth it at that power level. However, on a car with some serious work done or a power adder, I'd strongly recommend it. When I bought my car from the previous owner, he had paid a LOT of money getting several tunes from Ed Wright. Now granted Ed charged a lot for his tunes, he's still relatively well respected, or at least was when the tunes were done. But when I took it and got a dyno tune done, it was like a night and day difference. However, my car happens to have a non-intercooled supercharger running high psi. From what I've heard, even from Bryan, with power adder cars it just needs to be done on a dyno. The dyno operators, in my opinion, saved my motor from a lot of unnecessary wear and tear by reducing boost and playing with other things to give me about the same power at a much safer psi level. This is just my experience. Hope it helps.

 

I agree that mail order tuners do a very good job with bolt on cars or standard set ups such as CC306, stock heads, & bolt on's. But, when you have a non-standard set up with comperssion changes, ported heads, cubic inch changes and such a dyno tune is the only way to go. With each motor being very unique when built on a one off basis you need unique tuning of fuel maps and spark curves.

That is where LT1 edit and a wide band dyno pays off.

 

100 bucks or so in CIncinnati, hehehe

 

Hes not mail order though. he plugs in a lap top with lt1edit. only problem is he lives in cincinnati so if your too far away it wouldnt be worth it. We also have another guy that does it for 150. he ownes his own f-body race company. but neither are mail order.

 

Does that price include time on the dyno? Around here, for time on the dyno it's anywhere from $100-$130/hr for time on the dyno, plus the $150 or so fee for the tuning charge. It usually takes about 2 hours or so for them to do the tuning, so that's where we're getting $350 and up prices.

 

no, no dyno time. has to be done on your own for us here. or run it at the track. I guess that makes sense then but 600 wheww thats alot compared to what im used to but if your getting a dyno pull then 350 sounds good to me

 

Hi Guys,
Just wanted to throw my opinion in here Like many have mentioned common setups such as bolt on cars, hotcam and stage1 heads, 306 cam and stage 2 heads, etc... can be tuned very close thru the mail as I apply fueling and spark curves I have proved in with dyno tunes. Each car is different, but most times even something like a 306 cam and big heads car will only find up to 10HP more on the dyno. This is mainly due to the fact that tuners like myself, Ed W, Zimmer, Turbo Shop, etc... have to go slightly conservative as we are not there with the car and minor details can affect the tune and do not want to cause any damage to your vehicle. But, I have found most setups are very repeatable and even mixing and matching parts(say 306 cam and stock heads) can still be very well predicted. BUT, as also mentioned, if you have a very large cam (solid roller); cam heads and a supercharger, or large turbo, etc.... there are big benefits to a dyno tune, both in power and safety to the motor. Now say a standard supercharger kit on a fairly stock car, that is very repeatable as well unless an FMU is used. On heavy modded cars I can and have sent mail order tunes and the customer stops at his local dyno shop and gets me a printout with air/fuel ratio and faxes or emails me the runs. I can then modify the program from that and it is just like dyno tuning.

Things to avoid to keep your tune as accurate as possible...

PORTED MAF- In all honesty I did this myself 4 years back or so and it really isn't a good idea. The MAF is a very calibrated piece of measurement equipment and is very crucial to fueling. By porting it you are throwing out the calibration.

IF SUPERCHARGING- Go with larger injectors instead of an FMU or Superfueler. These are unpredictable as well and the whole idea of the FMU would personally make me nervous of failure of the FMU and then the motor running really lean.

Fresh O2 sensors- Since a lot of these cars are nearing 10 years old and 100K miles, don't forget fresh O2's. The can be found at some of our AC Delco/GM Parts friends for $30 or so each and are a vital part of our closed loop system. You might even pick up enough of a gain in mileage to more than cover the cost of a fresh set of O2's every 50K miles.

Dirty MAF's- An over oiled K&N filter, or even a properly oiled one can pass oil thru to the MAF wires which then attract dirt to stick to them. Since the MAF works by heating the wires and then the airflow cools them, dirty wires (sensors) will cause false readings. Cleaning the MAF with some electronics cleaner which can be found for a few dollars a can is good preventative maintenance.

I dont' get to the bulletin boards often and just want to say a quick thanks to all of you and let you know I really enjoy working on your cars and helping you in your quest for more HP and enjoyment of your car. If we've talked on the phone you know how I can get talkative when you have questions. Sometimes I even miss a few calls on the other line because I am in a conversation, sorry.
Thanks again,
Bryan