Mail order or dyno tune?
 

Would a 'mail-order' be appropriate with the stuff in my sig (cam and full bolt-ons)? Who does a great mail-order tune?

Or would a dyno-tune be the right thing to do, instead?

:huh:

every car acts different. You would be better off spending the extra few $$$ and taking it to a shop and having them do a dyno tune.

Ed Wright at Fastchip here in oklahoma does mail orders i believe, but im with him, let a shop dyno tune it

Dyno or else buy software to do it yourself.

I've never had a dynotune, and my car runs great...

NoGo is da man.. He works with you until the car is just like you want it. Make sure you have ATAP so that you can give him scans of what the car is doing.

PCM forless i have heard is good.

Not that a mail tune won't help, as they can do a pretty good job, but a real dyno tune is always going to give you a better chance at realizing the full potential of your car. With a realatively small cam like yours the diff b/t mail and dyno tunes will be smaller than a radical cam but it's not all THAT much more for the dyno and you will be sure to get every last bit of power and drivability out of your car and all the money and work you have put into it.

PS: how do you like the converter? That is the one I secretly wanted but the SSF was much cheaper and does pretty dang good for itself. :drive:

How about the future (100 dry shot)?
 

After a good tune, will I have to later have it re-tuned for a NO2 kit? I don't have that kind of money right now.

I upgraded the injectors awhile back to 28.8's, so, the injector load should be OK IMO. I think I could go safely up to a 125 shot, but, I want to be safe and do a 100 dry shot. It's just that I can't do it right now, becauase I have the money set aside for a tune. If I wouldn't need a tune with NO2 does it make sense to do the NOS and wait on the tune?

Seeking voices of experience ... any suggestions? :confused:

blkZ28spt

... TC hits hard and drives nicely around town with 3.73's. Creates a major traction problem, but, I guess that's a good thing.

I also vote for a dyno tune. As far as adding a dry kit later, just let the tuner know ur planning on adding a kit later and he might tune you w/ a few degrees retarded for the spray or give you a good N/A tune & let the pcm handle the nos itself since its a dry kit and the maf will take over. Or you could get a timing retarder that'll pull timing when u decide to gas it. General rule of thumb is 1 degree retarded for every 50hp of nitrous i believe. it shouldnt be a problem. U might wanna get a bigger pump to go along w/ those injectors as well, like a 255lph. Just to make sure ur not starved for fuel if you plan on going up to 125hp or beyond
Just IMHO cuz im no expert!!!!

I have a mail order tune from tsp. My car runs great with it. I do agree a dyno tune is better. Why did i go mail order? Convenence. I have modded my car twice since the tune. Each re tune has been 50 bucks. So im still well under what a laptop and tuning suite would cost. A dyno tune here costs 500 bucks. Thats too much in my opinion. Its over kill for me as im not a hardcore racer looking for every last hp.
I i were serious i would find a guy to tune my car by driveing it around with a laptop. I dyno suposedly does not work the car the same as if you were driveing it around town.

Jeb: Talk to a local tuner, most places will give you a retune for like $100 down the road. Or something nice like that.....they know it's not usually a one time deal.

Mike Norris' folks seem to be about the only reputable dyno tuners in Central Florida that I know of (for LS1's. It seems like a good dyno tune in this area costs about $500.00. TimZ28 tuned mine last time and did a pretty good job. $350.00 for that tune, so, I guess I got a pretty good deal. I'll either hook into somebody that will do it and give me good prices 'down-the-road' to tweak my tune for changes I might make later to the car.

Maybe I'll just buy HPTuners and do it myself ... ????

if your local then talk to Jeremy from RevExtreme, he is $450-500 and i think $50 for a retune, not sure on the retune price so dont quote me on that, but he has done 99% of the cars from www.need2speed.com and has had no problems, IM me and i can give you his number.

Local to Orlando area.
 

Is he in Central Florida, if not, anyone else you know of here? I'll PM ya' when I get home tonight. Thanks for the help ...

madz28.com is also good for mail order tunes. You can get a mail order tune for whatever combo you have, get it dynoed, then send the tuner your dyno sheets with all the data, and he can then get it near exact. I paid $225 for my tune, then I have 3 months of free updates, then after that, it's $50 per tune. When I do heads/cam in the future, this is most likely what i'll do as it'll be ALOT cheaper than a dyno tune and get the same results.

Jason

Ed Wright did a hell of a good job on my stock internals car.

MTI hit my H/C setup dead on. Even with the X1 cam in a A4 car.

Quote: "Ed Wright at Fastchip here in oklahoma does mail orders i believe, but im with him, let a shop dyno tune it"

Unless Ed Wright has changed their policy, the tune is locked.

No matter where you go or get a tune, you do not want it locked. Make sure they give you copy of your stock tune and the modified tune, so you can go back to the stock tune if necessary.

A good mail order tune can be better than a poor dyno tune (it all depends upon the expertise of the tuner).

I blew $450 for a poor dynotune in addition to the fact that the business failed. It cost another $300 + $450 for LSEdit to get it retuned (the vendor didn't supply his own LSEdit). Quite frankly it sucks to pay $1250 for a suspect tune (still pings).

Make sure each is reputable especially the local's. Make sure they provide A/F on the dyno graph. Make sure they tune for driveability as well as maximum hp and torgue.

Food for thought...if you have a fairly normal heads/cam car you might check out the handheld by Vincii. It's the best handheld on the market.

http://www.vincihighperformance.com/

For a mail order tune give Jason @Texas speed a call. I'm very happy with his tuning. Just give him a list of your mods within your dynosheet and you will be happy with the results. The Cost is about $250 but it's worth it :)

im not a big fan of either for most mail tunes your car will be down for an extensive period of time waiting for you to send it out & get it back then most recommend you hit a dyno or at least have a w/b a/f gauge track your readings and then send it back for fine tuning...as far as a dyno tune goes i had major issues in the past with my dyno tune and would never recommend it again to anyone...at least make sure they take your car out. Personally id rather the person take the car to the track & tune it there with a wideband...for 99% of auto guys that would be best considering how some combos/trannys never shift when you want them to the first time at the track...you can get a good estimate from past cars if your a dyno tuner but until the person hits the track with you never really know where its going to shift, remember you have to compensate for tire growth and tranny slippage. Also keep in mind TC lockup surging that probably wouldnt be able to be corrected on a dyno(mine wasnt) as well as other driveability issues that would be easily found with 5 mins of street/highway driving.