Nathan

i'm tempted to get HP Tuners Pro...but i'm retarded

is it easy to tune?

or should i setup a full gathering at Tom's shop so we can all learn something together?


or if any other locals want to teach me.. that's cool too.

99blancoSS

iTrader: (115)

How much is hp tuners? a full dyno tune is about $425(at toms) and encompasses more than you'll ever do in your driveway with a laptop, Thats not to say you cant learn and get it right, its just you need to log at all rpms while under load and then look at the maps and make adjustments from there. Its learnable the question is how much time and money do you want to put into it. You can get an a/f meter and go by that if you want but it still wont be the same. I thought I had mine tuned perfectly because my af was dead on what it should be and held there at WOT. Then I brought it to tjwong and picked up antoher 20hp and better manors for the car. Theres no substitute for experience and equiptment. Toms got both. If I lived in Ellis' neck of the woods I'd be saying the same for him. But E man didnt tune my car so I'm not gonna lie. There are plenty of others here who had had Ellis fix their problems and get a proper tune as well so I'm sure you'll hear from them. IF you like to dabble and arent concerned about getting the utmost out of your car I'd say get hp tuners and do it yourself. But you'll still need to pay for a dyno to see where your at and what the results were of what you just did are. Plus once the car is tuned thats it. Its not like the old days where a distributor might walk a little bit after a while and throw the timing a bit. Once its tuned thats it. Unless you change something. My experience anyway.

WAHUSKER

iTrader: (4)

Is it easy? No. Can you learn how to tune your car with HPT? Yes. But it will take you a couple of months to get it all figured out. You can do quite a bit right off the bat, but guys like Ellis & TJ already know what to do, how far to push things, etc.

I have seen guys tune their own cars, then come to Ellis & he usually will make some changes that result in gains. But I've also seen guys that tweaked things too far, and Ellis corrected them resulting in losses, but their motors won't blow up now.

The risk in doing it yourself is based on your knowledge. You CAN hurt things....

I guess what I'm saying is if you know how to tune a car, and what NOT to do, then go ahead. Otherwise arrange for Ellis or TJ to tune it for you. And if you want learn how to tune, & they'll agree, buy HPT, download your stock tune for reference, have them tweak it, and then you can look at what they did & play with your next mods.

Racehead

I agree with what WAHUSKER posted completely, however from a slightly more "fearless" perspective. I've always believed in doing **** myself. Sometimes it causes me pain lol ! I simply accept that pain as the price of doing business You might not so I'll just say this.

If you want your car's tune to be perfect soon, get one of the guru's to help you as you won't get there yourself by next week. If you want to learn this stuff yourself then kudo's to you, it's doable. Just be ready to accept the consequences of the learning curve. This includes the smaller lessons like having your car run like crap, getting poor gas mileage, being a pain in the *** to drive in traffic etc to the slightly larger lessons of the added expense of having to put a set ( or two ) of expensive o2 sensors and/or spark plugs in your car when you foul yours out on the first day It MAY include REALLY expensive lessons like blowing your engine up as well

Are you REALLY ready to accept the consequences of your own actions ? If not, then the guru method is the only way to go

Robert56

iTrader: (2)

I agree with what Wahusker and Racehead said. It does have a steep learning curve, but doable for sure. One thing I learned was to always save your prior working tune. Actually, once I get something sorted out, i save it. then you can always reload if you mess the next step up. It can be frustrating if your in a big hurry, so take your time. I would be lost and broke, without my HPT, WB and the such. If your a heavy modder, then it's really a good investment, if not then a tune by Ellis or TJ would likely be more cost effective. Now, am I saying now I'm a pro tuner, no. I still go to the experts for advice and insight, but ultimately, do my own tunes.
Robert

WS6freak

iTrader: (3)

I agree with all posts. If you have the will to learn the ins and outs of this craft, take your time and do it...

I chose to have the experts do it - Ellis and TJ have so much experience and knowledge with this... I know just a few concepts, enough to be able to talk to them and ask a few questions (and sometimes those questions sound pretty stupid) but my car has been running so great since they tuned it that I have no doubts anymore - in their hands you car is 100% taken care of, always with reliability in mind.

Nathan

yeah, i'd be a complete beginner of it (tuning)

the HP tuners Pro is $649 (std is $499)
just released it for the Gen IV motors..finally.

i would need some in-person help.. reading the tech forums about it does me no good at all