I had the car dynoed today at EB3 Motorsports in Chantilly. I'd heard alot of good things about them so I decided to make an appointment there. Ev the owner is really nice along with Nick and the other people there. His dyno is not an inertia one but an eddie current. I'd told him last time it was dynoed was in 2003 before headers with only the SLP Loud Mouth and a Whisper Lid and it was done on a dynojet. He told me all about the differences in those dynos and that my numbers would be alot lower then what I'm used to. At that time I had 323.3 RWHP and 335.0 TRQ and the guy running the dyno was a master at tuning cars.

Mods: SLP headers, LS6 intake, SLP Loud Mouth Catback, EGR! Stock MAF, Whisper Lid

Anyway the final numbers today were:

305.0 RWHP
310.3 TRQ

What it would be about on a dynojet is 322.5 rwhp & 326.6 tq

Not the numbers I expected but here's the problem. The car is too lean so I'm losing alot there. He could hear it when they did the first run and I have noticed for awhile that my car just seems to not have the HP from a dead stop start. He said he could probably get 15-20 out of it with a good tune to richen the fuel ratio. He uses SCT and said they're about to come out with something new for the LS1 (I'm sure there's people that know about this..but first I've heard of it)

The cost would be $800 though because you're paying for the handheld and then tune. Any tune after that would be $125. But he suggested doing it before the camalong with after as I had planned...just alot of money as I still dont have all the things bought that I need for the cam swap. I know other people do tuning for less so I'm not sure what to do

One other thing. Tim met me there in his Z and when we were leaving and turning left out of the lot onto the main road the back of the car swung really hard to the right like a sling but I managed to get it back straight but then I heard some loud noise like something grinding. At first I thought it was the rear but then it sounded like something dragging. I motioned for Tim to stop who was ahead of me.... I got out, looked under the car and the relocation bracket on the passenger side for the LCA had broken at the weld . Thankfully I was only 300ft from the dyno/shop. Tim drove back and came back with some zipties so we could get the car back to the shop where they welded it back for me. Whomever had done the previous welding had done a really crappy job.

Good thing he said it didnt break on the dyno!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I wouldn't pay $800 for a tune. Our local North East Florida tuning master Doc only charges 300 and that's with EFI Live.

 

Thats crazy expensive for a tune!Go somewhere else!

 

ditto, $800 for a tune is nuts. I wouldn't bother with the handheld unit. Get a good tune for a good shop and be done with it. If you're gonna do a cam change, wait until you get that done imo.

 

where are you at in VA?

 

Yeah I know that is crazy. At the time I thought I was buying a programmer with that price but after I looked up some stuff on the internet I see it's not the that. I know that fbody central charges something like $350+ and then you can get future tunes and only pay per hour. And Jeff Creech at Carolina is $350 flat rate for non-cammed cars.

I'm just disappointed that the numbers were about the same as before the headers and LS6 intake. I could get a tune now to see what it should be at before the cam so I know what my baseline is.

here's the sheet from last night




And original with only Whisper Lid and Loud Mouth catback

 

honestly i wouldn't be dissapointed...different dynos put out different numbers, as long as your car got faster you should be happy, by the way what size cam are you looking at?? I have one that i will be selling soon

 

Where's the A/F ratio on these charts? Was it recorded at all? I just see a straight line at the bottom saying AF

Headers w/out a tune isn't going to net you anything worthwhile, not to mention you're running lean. Running lean generally won't cause you to lose hp, leaning a car out usually gains hp at the expense of the motor. So, you wouldn't necessarily gain hp from richening it back up, but you will gain the hp you lost with a better tune for what you have now. I'm actually really surprised you're running lean instead of rich... Anyways, I'm not a preacher, but it's actually not a great idea at all to have major exhaust mods like that and not get a tune. It would be nice to see the A/F and actually how rich/lean you're running...

 

Jarad…(sorry)…The numbers are low for me because they are slightly lower then before I did anything with the exception of the catback and lid. I already bought and have the cam which is an MS4. Which one are you going with?

Arctic…..the A/F ration doesn’t show on any of the papers I have from them which I didn’t notice till I got home but I do remember that it was 13.5. When I had the headers installed by Tim in 2004 he did mention a tune but at the time I was going through a lot of personal issues and wasn’t nearly as knowledgeable as I am now about performance mods. I mainly focused on the appearance things of the car because that’s what I knew a lot about back then. Now since I’ve been with Tim ( ironically him installing the headers is what brought us together) I’ve learned a lot . So now I’m planning on Jason to tune it once the cam install is done.


Frost....I'm in Northern VA

 

That's just the way SCT does it. You have to purchase their XCal2 for $379 or so, then pay for the tune on top of that. The XCal is the interface that loads the program into the vehicles VCM. We still write the custom program via a laptop and their Advantage III software, but there's no way to load that file into the VCM without the XCal. The one nice thing about the XCal's are that they can store three tunes. So you can have a stock one for those of you that still have warrenty's, one for N/A, and one for Nitrous for example. We use SCT for Ford customer's (HPTuner's for GM) and they've been accustomed to having to buy chips ($200 or so), or an XCal/Preditor in order to get tuned. It's just something new for us GM owners.

 

Jason at FBC? Aaaanyway, not gonna get into that one, but good luck with whoever you go with.

 

Its funny that every shop someone recommends there's always the same amount of people that don't like the shop. Alot of people like FBC...some don't. Alot like CAM...alot don't etc etc

I do know of something that happened at FBC with someone I know..I think you know him too but it didnt involve any tuning.

 

Yea, that's why it's useless to argue it. Everyone should just go to whoever they're most comfortable with. I can only make suggestions, just like everyone else, based on a subjective opinion of personal experience. Although, I have yet to hear of anyone that got screwed over by Jeff at PSI, while I can't say the same about anywhere else...

 

I originally planned to go with PSI but they never answer the phones nor emails/pms

 

Yea, that's how it goes over there. I understand the frustration. Usually I just go out there myself cuz it's a waste of time to try and call cuz he's so busy.

 

If I remember correctly his price was a bit lower then FBC??

 

Yea, and free re-tunes IIRC for things like headers/intake/heads/etc. Basically it's just a one time fee unless you go FI or maybe even a healthy shot he might charge you for. I'm not 100% sure though. I know I got a flat rate for the tune then I got reworked heads with a better exhaust system and got free re-tunes for it. Jeff's a good tuner when you can get ahold of him I know it's a trek but you might want to just make a trip out there one day. That's the sure shot way to talk to him.

 

your going with an ms4..why such a huge cam?? isn't your car a daily driver? most people will probably tell you not to go with a cam like the ms4 from their personal experiences of daily driving it..but anyway if you hit jeff up on here he will pm you back. I have been talking to him for a while and he comes highly recommended so i am definately gonna have him tune my car

 

I'm also interested in the MS4 choice, especially on an auto daily driver. I think if I were you I would go with a TR224 on a 112, but then I again I have no clue what your goals are at the moment.

 

No the bird isnt a daily driver anymore. The MS4 is what I chose after reading about it. You can use stock heads and no need to flycut. It also is very streetable. I can try Jeff again closer to the time when I have the money for the tune. Right now I still am getting all I need for the cam swap