I have a 4th gen Camaro with a basically stock LS1 engine with a Hypertech handheld tune upgrade. I had a local performance shop install new ported heads, headers, free flowing exhaust, high lift-medium duration cam, and injectors. Lots of other little parts, but these are the parts that I would think effect tune.
On the dyno, it made 401 HP, 382 torque. The question I have is that he gave me a printout that showed the first run and last run of the 5 total runs. Except for the very lowest of RPM range, which he said took some effort, the last dyno run looks identical to first run except for just 10 hp/5tq more.
I guess I expected more NEED for the tune after having that many parts installed, and to see more gain by the tune. Is this normal? Are dyno tunes greatly overrated? Did I get a quick "that's good enough" tune?
I attached chart for more information.

 

If you payed for a tune then I'm sure you got a tune of some sort. Question becomes how good of one lol. Dyno numbers can vary so that's not always a good indicator. How does it run?

 

The afr was moved to a safer level so that is good and “needed” IMO. Hard to say how much he played with timing or what the baseline tune actually was he could have had a baseline on the first pull not completely stock.

Dyno I usually find the most helpful for dialing in the timing across the rpm range. There are a lot of things that can play into how much gain is shown on the dyno.

 

First run after new parts, no tune, is in red. 5th run, after tuning, is in blue.

 

More than likely, he used a tune from another car he had tuned as a base that was pretty close and didn't need much tweaking. H/C LS1 cars are pretty common.

 

That's what I was thinking. It shouldn't take too much time on the dyno to dial in something like that unless the tuner completely starts from scratch.

 

I appreciate the responses I received. It would appear that nobody else is surprised that after all those parts were installed that only 11 hp and 5 lb/ft of torque was gained above and beyond and inexpensive hand held tune that was installed on my stock motor a couple of years ago. If that is the case, I for one would never recommend spending the 5-600 dollars for a dyno tune. All the hype about tuners must be overrated.

 

I almost became a victim of performance shop tuning until I realized what a joke most of these places are.

Yep, throw a wide band in the tail pipe when the instructions for wideband install specifically call for it to be mounted just after the long tubes, but will they take the time to install you a bung, but the sensor in it, and then plug it if you don't have a wide band? No, that would make too much sense. And then they want to tune your car for 4 hours and be done with it? Unless the car is kept with them for a few days so that they can do cold starts and properly tune it, then it's a **** tune. These shops fool the average consumer because if they were to actually tune the car properly, it would involve them not being able to tune as many cars per day. So how do you find a good tuner?

Go to your local track and find out who's running the best times. Then find out who their tuner is and have them tune the car. My tuner who works for one of the best engine builders around has his own $60k dyno at his house. Not at a shop, at his house. That told me all I needed to know. I have HP tuners and I try to find time to learn it whenever I can. The software lets me see what changes he's made.

Did you tuner even ask what kind of injectors were in it? If not, what is he using for injector data? A set of injectors that hasn't been flow matched and tested to provide the proper data to input into the software is not what I would put in my car.

 

ya what Stroker said

I'm a Supercharger guy so my first impression looking at that sheet is way to lean. As for what did you get and why wasnt it more....

Custom tuning for common mods and common set ups is as easy as picking the mods from a drop down menu these days. With a mild to moderate powered vehicle it'll work in most cases. Working or running good does not necessarily mean getting the most power and ET out of it however. There lies the whole difference...

Some tuners play it safe, some run them on the edge, and everything in between. If your going for max power and a perfect running machine in all conditions you want a good tuner that knows your set up and knows exactly what to do when. It takes a lot more than a few WOT blast strapped down on a Dyno to have a great tune

A good tuner needs the vehicle for days as 5.7 said. Cold Starts, the transition from open loop to closed loop, timing, a/f, shift points and convertor lock up (if its an auto) all play a huge part. And the more power you have the more the tuner needs to street drive it and street tune it as part of the final tune. The results can be a world of difference...

 

I promise you that if you plug in that handheld unit and reverted back to that tune, you would see the value of the "dyno tune" very quickly. Cam surge, bucking, and hard starts ruin the fun of driving a cammed car.

Most of what you paid for was in dialing in the driveability of the car with the bigger heads, cam, and injectors. I can say with confidence that if the bigger injectors were installed, that first pull was not on the same tune as the handheld programmer and stock injectors. That first pull was likely on his "base tune", which was pretty close, and then dialed in the fuel and timing for best power.

 

first 300 for hyoertech vs 500 for dyno tune that 10hp for 200 bucks about the same value as 700 for a 224 cam kit that everyone pretty much roundly says is a good value.

Second there is a lot of drivability and safety in the tune you aren’t considering. I don’t think the first pull was the hyper tech tune I think it was a baseline your tuner put in. The first pull was to lean to send out the door it is too much of a risk to hurt the motor to leave like that.

 

I remember gaining exactly one horsepower going from a canned tune to a custom dyno tune on my old Mustang. Same dyno before and after. But guess what....the car was noticeably faster at WOT and of course the drivability was significantly improved. Point being, a "good" custom tune is almost always worth it regardless of the dyno number

 

You likely gained 1HP at PEAK. And a TON under the curve....

 

Actually not so much believe it or not. They overlayed the graphs and down low it gained around like 5 hp or so. The graphs were very similar all the way through, but the car was just faster. I knew that instantly when I left the shop and raced my buddy. He would always have a solid car lead when we did a roll...always. After the dyno tune it was dead even basically. Did two more runs with the same result. I was amazed lol

 

The dyno shop making the car idle right after putting on heads, a cam, injectors and long tubes is to be expected.

OP here's a thread that talks about how HP and TQ gains of H/C/I cars:

https://ls1tech.com/forums/generatio...h-c-i-ls1.html

 

While 5.7 makes some good points about most tuning shops, you must keep in mind that he is referring to "MOST" shops. You very much need a tune for idle and driveability reasons. The trick is to find a good shop and not knowing much about the actual workings of engines and electronic fuel injection can make this quite a task. I many cases driveability can be made very close by the tuner just knowing the specs of your build accurately. They use a large library of tunes they have done in the past to build a VE table and idle settings. They then use the Dyno to load the car's engine in ways that just aren't possible on the street and correct the rest of the VE table and in many cases the MAF tables. To point you away from getting a good tune is absolutely foolish. If you don't believe that, throw a stock calibration in it or even that hand held tune and go beat on it for a while. When it goes BOOM, then you'll know for sure. Just remember, the trick is to find a "GOOD" tuner. Good luck to you and keep the shiny side up.

 

If your tuner needs days to do a full tune, find someone else, he is clearly not well versed. Even for a "cold start" analysis, if he knows what he is doing, shouldn't need to do that.

 

So my tuner who works at one of the most successful engine manufacturing shops that makes and ships up to $150k engines around the world is not well versed? The same guy that is responsible for these engines being tuned and correct before they leave the shop? The same guy who has a $60k dyno at his home that insists I leave my car with him so that the engine can cool down properly during tuning which requires a few days then to complete the tune? He's not well versed? I guess I better inform the shop then that he's not the right guy despite his proven track record.

Again, anyone that tells you they can tune your car without leaving it with them overnight doesn't know how to properly tune the car.

 

^ This is 100% correct.

If you're taking a bolt-on car to a tuner and expecting some ridiculous peak HP gains then you're dreaming. And as others have said, I'd clarify with the tuner if he used a baseline tune from another car. I had a tune recently done and he did the same thing - took the 'final' version of a tune he did for another customer on a very similar car as a starting point, rather than wasting his time starting from scratch. It's even for safety of the engine so it doesn't pop on the first pull. My tuner worked his way up in increments from lower RPMs to higher as the tune got dialed in so there was no big failure, so if you have 5 power pulls on your sheet those could be just the final 5 full runs (not including the early work dialing it in).

But the main benefits of a good tune are the driveability of the car. Mine idled far too rich, had cam surge, searching idle, etc, and after the tune it runs and idles warm or cold almost like stock. Any gains aside, it's just more enjoyable to drive. Not to mention peace of mind knowing that the A/F ratios are dialed in and you're running the engine in a 'safe' zone always.

And like someone else said, $500 for 11 WHP isn't even a high cost. You can spend way more on bolt-on parts like a Kooks exhaust and not gain 11 WHP. Power doesn't come cheap, especially when you've already used the 'low hanging fruit'. I guess a lot of people think tuning is some magical thing that's going to gain them 50 WHP, but if you can get an 11 WHP gain and cure all of your driveability issues for $500, I think that's a pretty good deal personally.

That being said it sounds like you need to ask more questions of the tuner and get some clarification of what he did and what pulls were what. Knowing what he used as a baseline for pull #1 on the chart would help a lot.

 

I wouldn't say your tuner isn't doing it "wrong" or isn't well versed, but with something like tuning you can always make slight tweaks to make things a little bit better. If the car was there a week and run through multiple different scenarios I'm sure you could find very small things to change. I guess the question is what is the tuner gaining, and how much is changing after doing the extra tuning? When he keeps it overnight and then cold starts it the next morning, how often does he change things, and how often does he change nothing? It's obviously a more 'complete' way to tune, but at some point you have to say "I'm 99% of the way there, I am OK to stop now".

My tuner just took a few hours to tune my car (albeit the car was parked overnight and started cold), and one of my main complaints was cold starts and idling, and whatever he did, he did a great job with it. Car idles and cold starts much better now than it used to. Could it be a smidge better if he kept it overnight again? Maybe. But I'd rather pay $500 to get 99% of the way there, personally, than much more to get a very small gain. Not saying in some cases there aren't more gains to be made, but I'd guess in most cases after the first few hours things are very close to being dialed in. It also depends on the car and the mods and what the owner wants to get out of it.

Just my two cents.