People who do not do tuning themselves are not seeing the total picture.

I see what your saying but my point is for your every day driver its not very cost effective to buy software to tune or pay 500 for one tune.

 

Say you get a LS1Edit tune at a shop. Is it always so expensive each time, or is it cheaper after you go back once you add other mods since it already had LS1Edit tuning?

Say you get a stock car tuned and then go back with long tubes and a cam for instance...

 

do you feelyou got 500 dollars worth of performance from it as opposed to say a nos kit?just seems to me that not the same bang for the buck

 

I think it depends on what mods you have done since the last time you had it tuned. For instance when I put my cam in my car it was detonating all over the place so I had to get it tuned. I am planning LTs in the near future (stored under the bed at the moment ). My tuners told me adding long tubes when I've already been tuned with a cam won't change much. but obviously doing a base tune will make a big difference. But hell I'm not sure, maybe someone else can confirm what I'm saying

 

You only have a few paths for tuning

Canned tuning - a black box like a HPP3, I do not suggest them for they do not give you full control or indpeth control to tune the car for either the mods it has or tune the engine or trannie the way you like it to be.

Going to a tuner, they do the tune - in this case with tuner products out there everybody with the money to buy one all of a sudden claims to be a tuner god so select one who has been tuning for a long time with good customer comments.

LS1edit - its the only full tuner product on the market right now.
It requires you to have a PC to connect to car via a RS232 port and you then have full access to most of the PCM calibration
This only requires you use common sense and frankly if your tuning stay off of the internet for there is more cyberspace hype as how to tune that people do not question and just do and in the end get confused or taught incorrectly.

In all three cases your best path is to also have a good quality PCM scanner/recorder and this is your eyes and ears into what the engine is doing good or bad with the changes that were made thus it can flag a function that was not tuned correctly.

I am not a chassis dyno queen so I suggest using real world driving and your scanner to overall tune for all engine conditions.

 

I agree 100%. I bit the bullet and had my A4 car tuned and it is much more fun to drive around, and really woke the car up.

 

I don't know how other shops do it but I give 2 years of free upgrades.The first tune is done on the street and then dyno'd.Each tune after that is free except the dyno charge if it is needed. I felt this is a good way to sell our service due to many customers keep modding..

 

Tuning is about far more than just power gain. If you have minimal mods (stock internals, no power adders, etc.), and are only interested in tuning for more power (meaing you have no driveablilty issues), then don't expect much from it, and don't blow $500 if you're on a tight budget. Hell, I've even seen H/C cars not gain any more than 12rwhp anywhere in the power band and no more than 5-10hp from 5000rpm to redline. But, I've also seen stock cars pick up 15rwhp at peak, and some H/C cars pick up 15+ hp everywhere in the power band. So yes, it's very true that you need to look at what's really happening with your car using a real time scanner before you decide if you 'need' (meaning cost vs gains) to have tuning for power only.

HOWEVER, if you have issues that go beyond just looking for every last ounce of power, then tuning can wind up being your best friend. I know my post is getting long but please bare with me, I promise there is a point to it

I had a very early Edit tune. Back in '01 when shops were just getting Edit, I sent my PCM to MTI to do a base 'general' tune for my B1 cam (B1 specific power tuning) and fix/mod some other areas of my PCM. They corrected some timing for that specific cam with my combo, etc. Back then, people didn't really know what to do with Edit to fix most driveability issues. I was 'ok' with just that till about summer of '02. Then, I decided that I needed to have my own Edit to go further. I spent the next year messing with different ideas and reading what other people were doing to try and fix everything from TC lock-up issues to warm start surging/stalling. The changes I was able to make, literally made the car a whole new joy to drive in every way. No more embarrasing stalling on warm starts at gas stations, I picked up TONS of throttle response, and I gained about 20-30 more miles per tank of gas, just to name a few. And I'm still learning, because I've never had the time to sit down and learn everything all at once, so there will be more to come for my car.

Now to the point, I have been able to clear up about 75-80% of the annoying issues that come along with having a cammed A4 LS1 car, and that is worth the investiment to me. Anyone reading this post that is having major issues with their cammed (or otherwise) LS1, trust me, you will be SOOOOOO much happier after you sort them out. I chose to do it on my own without a tuner, because I am a very hard to please person who wants things a certain way and wants to be able to change them on demand, therefore buying my oww Edit was my best option. That option might not be for everyone, but it was my choice. One day I may go to a dyno tuner just to see if they can gain me any more power over what the MTI mail order stuff did, but my main goal ever since getting cammed has been to fix some of my major driveability issues, because my car is used far more for cruising than racing.

Hopefully, this post will help some memebers to "find their way", so to speak.

 

Thanks... I wasn't sure.