I can agree with alot your saying. Most cars like the OP's car could be tuned quickly without even touching the VE table but the MAF would need adjustment. We had to do it this way for years when the tuning software was limited but you shouldn't feel any transition bogs ect when done right. To this day we still have alot of tunes out there that run the stock VE,raped(looks that way) PE tables ect on H/C/Blower cars. Nowadays we have better software to tune them in.

$500 is cheap for what you get most of the time. First you have to buy software (I've got over $35k invested) then you have to learn(minimum of 500hr's) then you need the dyno ($40-$70k). For $500 a tune it will take a minimum of 150 free tunes to pay for the equipment used, no pay for the employee.(roughly 600 man hours).

Look at it that way and you don't think tunes are that much $$...

 

I could see the price going $750 plus for a tough setup such as a high lift/duration low LSA cam that does not want to idle set up for nitrous with complicated timing tables. But adjusting the timing, MAF, and VE tables on a stock motor with a positive displacement supercharger and headers is FAR from difficult, especially with a dyno for steady state tuning. Come on man, what are you smoking? Hell, I am an amateur and it takes me less than an hour to get that done now on the street.

Hindsight being what it is, I never would have messed with going to someone for something this easy....and sorry, this tune was easy. Is it really incorrect to assume that a person that supposedly does this for a living would not have additional experience to know what works and what does not? Don't get me wrong, it is pricey just for the tuning credit and dyno, lets even go $250 there, are you saying that a competent tuner cannot tune a car in two or three hours? I just can't see it taking that long on a relatively simple setup unless the tuner is completely incompetent, which seems to be the case here.

Edit: BTW - I was NOT bitching that it cost $500, I have been in the game for a while and know you have to pay to play. I am bitching because it was not done correctly when it could have been done the right way very easily...oh, and he set every DTC to "No Error Reported" in an effort to cover his tracks.

 

You need to learn how to read. I said for heavily modded cars....

Prices should be structured for tunes. Simple bolt-ons cost this much. Head and cam cars this much, N20 / Forced Induction this much.

Yes seasoned tuners know what to do quickly but remember that is "their" benefit not yours.

 

There are people that have tuned for 10 years that still have no clue. I agree that for $500 you would expect it to atleast run correctly for being such a basic setup and those DTC's should never be set like that. It justs gets to me when people bitch about a tuning price which happens everyday. Wasn't to you directly.

FYI- we have a full load dyno and find the street alot better to part throttle tune.

 

I disagree and have been tuning for years. When I used to own a shop I charged the same for all tunes except N20 or boost I charged $50 extra for the extra time it took. Now when I tuned a stock or bolt on car it didnt take near as long but when I tuned say a 427 stroker motor with a big donkey dick cam and 80lb injectors in a camaro with 342 gears it may take 8 hours to get drivabilty correct. Some cars you made more per hour but in the end the easy ones just help make out for the harder ones.
Also on tuning you would never believe the number of hours I spent trouble shooting or fixing minor things that were wrong on customer cars just to be able to tune them. Or how many time I strapped a car on the dyno installed my wideband and was already to tune just to find something wrong on the base line pull.

I agree with how Slowhawk broke it down about the high cost. I easily had atleast $30,000 tied up in my HPT & EFI, plus another $5,000 in widebands then ad in the $30,000 for the dyno. Then factor in the hundreds if not thousands of hours learning tuning and then the countless hours you have to spend to learn the new ecm's every couple years when GM changes them. I always ended up buying almost every new model (camaro, corvette, TBSS, etc...) just so I could learn to tune them better.

I also agree with Slowhawk on about people tuning for years with no clue. I have seen tunes from guys who have been tuning for a living for many years and they are horrible. I honestly dont understand how someone cant accidentally get better when they have been tuning for so long. I think some of the tuning schools or classes out there dont help either. I have met several people who went to a 1 day class and then tried to start tuning for a living and thought they knew everything out there.

 

Quoted for 100% truth.

 

This is absolutely the most true and funny statement I have heard in a long time.

 

Serious non sarcastic question but what is different about the HPT or EFI live that you guys use as opposed to the off the shelf stuff that makes the price so ridiculously high?

 

my guess would be unlimited license cables. on a side note Bret (blk02ws6) is one of very few people out there that will go the extra mile to help somebody out. back when he was tuning for a shop in baltimore he tuned my car. he went above and beyond to make my car 100%. i would try to give him money and he wouldn't take it. he just wanted a happy customer and that goes a long way. he is a stand up guy for sure

 

Thanks Matt (outkast6991) and thunderstruck for the kind words! I always tried to make my customers happy when I was working at the shop - at least with the tuning portion (the only part I could control). I miss tuning (but doing it as a second job with a wife and baby daughter just doesn't work), so I still try to help guys out on here when I have time - keeps me involved in it to some degree and hopefully gives a hand to those trying to learn...

Everything the tuners said above is true... can't count the number of hours I wasted strapping down cars and installing a wideband only to find out the car was no where near ready to tune... true, sometimes it was the mechanics at the shop's fault, but many times it was the customer who did their own work. And then there are the people who put together a totally stupid combination of parts and then think I can work some kind of miracle with a laptop and make it all work together...

And buying unlimited cables, widebands, and dynos gets crazy expensive! Thats why after leaving the shop I worked at, I have a cable that I have to buy licenses for to do any tuning - a couple tunes here and there don't justify spending $10k on a cable...

It always amazed me that people would spend thousands of dollars on engines and parts, but bitch about $500 for the tune - without it, you have nothing - and if its not done right you could have a pile of broken parts.

If you need a tune, do your homework and find the happy customers with cars that drive right and make the power they should... then happily pay that tuner the price they ask - and if they do a great job, tell others so people don't get screwed by the jokers that are out there...

 

+1 what Bret, Ed and Lorenz said above...

the tuner has invested big money to properly and effectively perform tuning... a proper tune is time/equipment intensive and so will not (and should not) be cheap;

the customer needs to budget for tuning (in the same manner as he did for the engine build), and look for quality and not cheapness;

the customer needs to do homework (talk to other satisfied tuning customers); and the customer also needs to make an effort to rectify any physical problems (either diy in a proper manner with tools/manuals, or take it to a reputable repair shop); and not just engine problems, but the whole car (especially brakes/suspension and leaks);

tuning cannot fix physical problems... a good tuner knows he can't start tuning, so he goes about fixing the physical problems as a courtesy to the customer (i.e. at his own time/expense); meanwhile of course, the customer is oblivious to this;

and after the customer receives a proper tune, he complains that the peak HP is 7 hp less than his buddy's (and, lol, fails to notice the driveability quality )

 

huh??

 

Me too. running stoich @ WOT?

 

Yeah same here Ed.. I had to read that twice myself! Hmmmm...

 

...and sometimes, if you pay attention, your homework gets done for you...

 

Yep

 

Yeah, I am puzzled by his response...

anyone who uses HPTuners or EFILive has seen the wealth of information on both forums regarding WOT/AFR and the dangers of getting it wrong.

 

Just to add myself to the list of those that got screwed over by the cookie-cutter tuning by John Behe of Behe Performance, here's my horror story:

http://www.ls1gto.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12502194

 

Give us a call if you want to take a look at it for you.

 

Tuning isn't easy and won't make you rich doing it but charging 500+ to rape a tune is ridiculous.