No he said everything worked good including fuel pressure. When you step on it now it burns the tires off 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. If you are doing 35 to 40 mph and nail it, it lights up the tires and goes sideways. It pulls like a freight train now.

 

Then there isn't a reason to change anything, You won't gain anything.

 

Bro!! Chuck sucks!!
That shop is not that great from word of mouth from what I here.

Let Horsepower Factory tune your car or Pat G in Victoria.
If you need any work done let Hangman Performance do the work. They specialize in Fbodies and have a GREAT reputation. Also, Bad Chad does GREAT work and is well trusted here in Houston.


I'm going to spend some big cash coming up with a LS3, trick flow heads, cam, intake, FTI 3600, Performbuilt 4L60-E, MWC 9in, suspension, and Hangman will be doing the work. They use Horsepower Factory to tune. I want to use Pat G for the tune, but let's see. The car will go there right after getting a new paint job. I say all this, so you can see the trust I have in these shops.


I live in Houston and can help with any local information if you are not here. Feel free to PM me and we can chat.


Also, get some long tube headers and good exhaust. What kind of air intake do you have?

 

After paying $850 for a dyno tuning, I think I will just drive it for awhile. I realize tuning costs a little bit but I think that fee was high. Is that price high or is it the average price? To me it seems high.

 

That price could be high depending on time spent and if they had any issues to resolve. Not all tuning is the same, I was quoted $450 by a local tuner but that was if everything went as planned and it only included dyno tuning and no street tuning. I ended up buying the Holley system and did the tuning myself.

 

GEN 4 truck intake, long tubes, e85 if you have it. I bet with truck intake and long tubes you'll knock on mid 350's to 370's rwhp and upwards on TQ with Chuck's tuning. Personally there are better cams out there but you can improve your combo to get the most out of that cam

 

That's high for a basic N/A build in my opinion (No offence). If you were forced induction I could see that price and it would still be on the high side.
Pat G one of the best tuners in the country charges $600 N/A.
Average tunes down here for N/A are around $500.

Did they have trouble with the tune?
Who built the motor and installed it?

 

Do you mean like a TBSS intake? I know long tubes do better. I think I will drive it for a little while as we spent a lot of money on the restoration. Just tracking down the seats cost us 1k. We redid the whole interior and had the rear end done, sub frames (not the cheap ones) welded in, floor pans, carpet, console and shifter, the list goes on! lol

 

No trouble with the tune that was the price up front. Vic's garage there in Kingwood by my parents house did the restoration/Build. He did good as far as I'm concerned but the price of the tune floored me.

 

I found out about the Holley system after the tune. Are you happy with it? Did you use it for your transmission also? I will go to that I think before I pay out that kind of money for a tune.

 

Very happy with it, Easy to tune, I use the Dominator ecu so it can control the trans but I have a 6-speed, I went with it for possible future changes. It has a ton of inputs and outputs. Right now it controls the fans via PWM, controls the reverse lockout of the trans/ DBW/Flex fuel / Intercooler pump and I have it hooked to my supercharger so I can cut boost if needed, I use the 7" screen for all my gauges and virtual toggles panel. I also have a 12" screen but saving it for my 51 Chevy truck build I hope to start soon.
I also installed A Dominator ecu on my son in-laws 73 Nova a couple years ago and it controls a 4l80e, I'm hooking up flex fuel and paddle shift this week.
You can download the software and there are quite a few video's to see what it's all about.

 

Is it user friendly to wire up and program? Like if you change injectors or exhaust will it detect and readily program the new device?

 

It's very easy to wire up if you have basic wiring skills. The harness will come prewired for all the sensors on the engine. There are a few things you'll need to wire up yourself. You'll have the hot and ground wire that runs to the battery, You have a switched 12 volt, You'll have to wire up a relay and fuel pump setup. If you run electric fans you need to wire them up also. If you buy a setup to also control the transmission you'll plug the trans in and if I remember correctly you'll have a couple lose wire to connect there also. As far as injectors it's a little more involved than just changing them, You'll need to make a couple changes in the software but it's not that difficult.
When setting the system up they have some base tunes that you can use but you will make some changes to it for your combination, It's not as simple as plugging everything in and boom it's done, You still have to have a basic understanding of the software and tuning. The one thing that it does that makes tuning much easier is the fuel side of the tune. You put in your engine combination including the injectors/ The fuel pressure you're running and then set your target AFR and it will populate the fuel table for you as the engine is run under different loads and conditions.
I suggest anyone thinking of running it go to the Holley website and download the software and see if they understand what they are looking at.
In my mind it's a fairly simple process to get it setup and have a decent tune done with little to no issues but I have been working on/ diagnosing/ tuning cars as a hobby since I was 13yrs old. Most of it comes natural to me where other people struggle with basic things like changing a part. If you are mechanically inclined and have a basic understanding of tuning then you can learn to do it with the Holley system and have great results. If you can do most everything yourself and have a problem there are quite a few running it that can help you through it.

 

When you're ready for a great tune at a reasonable rate:

https://www.guerragroup.com/lsx-perfromance-tuning

KW

 

Most vendors have the instructions posted online so you can read through ahead of time. Give you a good idea what will be involved.

 

Yeah, it should be like that. I should give the house of power some bad ratings on google maps. That price was ridiculous for the work performed. And then on top of it the low HP ratings. Lesson learned but I'm still not happy with the owner of the place.

 

I'm an aircraft mechanic so I can do all that but it's the programming that I have no experience in. I can do updates to the gps systems and things like that but does the Holley system have instructions on tuning?

 

How does one not even get the spelling right on their own website name?

 

They have instructions on how to use the software to tune and suggested starting points on your tune, They also have preconfigured tunes in the software. Basically you can start a setup from scratch or you can look in the preconfigured tunes and see if there is something similar to your combination to use as a starting point.
It doesn't take long to get it up and running decent using a preconfigured tune but you'll probably do a little tweaking for your combination.
There is a learning curve but for me it took longer getting familiar with the software than actually fine tuning my setup. There are some videos online you can watch to give you an idea of how it works and what it's capable of. If you run a cam with a lot of overlap then tuning in the idle area is a little more time consuming but if you run a mild or stock type cam you can almost call it plug and play.
If you're seriously considering it then download the software (it's free) and play around with it, There are two help buttons at the top of the software that will direct you to all the help files. One says "Help ?", That one is pretty handy, You right click it and your pointer will have a question mark floating with it, You can then move your pointer to anything on the screen and right click again and it opens the help section for that particular topic. Holley put a lot of thought into making the software/system user friendly for beginners and still have all the features for advanced users.
One thing that is really helpful is that you can save your tune like you would any file you save on your computer, That allows you to make changes on your tune and if it's runs worse or you simply screw up you can go revert back to your old tune in a matter of seconds.

 

Agreed! Maybe a 'professional' web-designer screwed it up.

In any case....from several first-hand sources....they do great work!

KW