Is Tuning for anyone?

[ratlover]

Not just in tunning but everything, I've had enough "pros" that do subpar work that I've stopped trusting people just because they have a big shop, lotsa marketing $ spent, or lotsa previous customers. And while "you get what you pay for" rings true some times......I've also spent big $ for crap.

Some pros are very good, some ok, and some just suck. JMOH in what I have delt with from tuners.

I would trust some "back yard" tuners over a lot of "pros" is all I'm saying. A lot of guys buy a tuning system and go do tunes for people though and screw stuff up royaly though.

Please disregard the rant.....I'm replying from a bar lol

[bumblebeecamaro]

tuning these cars w/o the proper knowledge could be suicide for your engine. there's way too many variables in programs like HP Tuners for any non-seasoned LSX tuner to know. I know this because I have HP Tuners and I've seen the crazy amounts of data, variables in different tables and so on. certainly not anything I would mess with.

I bought the program so I could see and record what the engine is doing. I can send these runs to people like Ted Jannetty so he can make any adjustments as needed.

[danhr]

Originally Posted by ratlover

Not just in tunning but everything, I've had enough "pros" that do subpar work that I've stopped trusting people just because they have a big shop, lotsa marketing $ spent, or lotsa previous customers. And while "you get what you pay for" rings true some times......I've also spent big $ for crap.

Some pros are very good, some ok, and some just suck. JMOH in what I have delt with from tuners.

I would trust some "back yard" tuners over a lot of "pros" is all I'm saying. A lot of guys buy a tuning system and go do tunes for people though and screw stuff up royaly though.

Please disregard the rant.....I'm replying from a bar lol

this is very true. a lot of big name tuners kind of just half ass their way through tunes, because there is no real "quality control" for tunes, or a way to get a refund.... you kind of just give them money and hope for the best.

i'd prefer to find someone who knows what they are doing fairly well, and have them thoroughly go through my tune. I'm going to end up driving 8 hours to a guy to get this done in my car, but in my opinion, it is well worth it. and is much better solution than having a big name person just half ass their way through my car, to get to the next.

[WICKEDSS]

Ya i understand...... I spoke with the guy that has the EFI LIVE and from what he has told me he has done many LS1,LS6,LS2.......Im going to see if i can get it touch with a few of the guys that he has tuned for and get some feed back..... I do thank you all for the feed back on this information

[DSteck]

Originally Posted by ratlover

What's up with all this crazy talk of algorithms and such? Don't scare the guy! Just use efilive and the VE table builds itself

*just joking with Dsteck, things are definatly NOT that simple and I'm not saying hptunners is bad. Just some friendly razzing

HP Tuners is definitely cheaper, and the Virtual VE feature of EFI Live just doesn't justify changing for me. Both are incredibly capable interfaces, though! I've heard that the Virtual VE in EFI Live doesn't always back-calculate correctly, though. I have zero proof of that, and it's purely hearsay.

Originally Posted by ratlover

Not just in tunning but everything, I've had enough "pros" that do subpar work that I've stopped trusting people just because they have a big shop, lotsa marketing $ spent, or lotsa previous customers. And while "you get what you pay for" rings true some times......I've also spent big $ for crap.

Some pros are very good, some ok, and some just suck. JMOH in what I have delt with from tuners.

I would trust some "back yard" tuners over a lot of "pros" is all I'm saying. A lot of guys buy a tuning system and go do tunes for people though and screw stuff up royaly though.

Please disregard the rant.....I'm replying from a bar lol

If it's split into "pros" and "backyard" tuners, I fall in the backyard category. I do it as side work, and got into it because I didn't trust anyone to do my Z06. I have found that a LOT of shop tuners get blown away by the abilities of private tuners because the private tuners are more concerned with results and less about the money.

Originally Posted by danhr

this is very true. a lot of big name tuners kind of just half ass their way through tunes, because there is no real "quality control" for tunes, or a way to get a refund.... you kind of just give them money and hope for the best.

i'd prefer to find someone who knows what they are doing fairly well, and have them thoroughly go through my tune. I'm going to end up driving 8 hours to a guy to get this done in my car, but in my opinion, it is well worth it. and is much better solution than having a big name person just half ass their way through my car, to get to the next.

This has been what I've seen. Some shops are more concerned with just getting a car in the door, and then getting them right back out with just a dyno number. That's why so many of them just wreck the PE table and hardly change anything else. Shops that spend lots of time getting EVERYTHING dialed in have to end up charging a ton of money, which people aren't willing to pay . I can totally understand why shops will half-ass a tune... it's because customers want a dyno number, but want everything for free. In order for a shop to do a GOOD tune, they need many hours to precisely take care of everything, and most shops will charge $100-$125 per hour for this. It could easily hit $1000. People that do side jobs have no problem making far less money while doing a full job. That's just my experience.

I'm not saying that ALL shops do half-ass tunes. Just most. There's ONE shop around St. Louis with a tuner who knows exactly what he's doing. It's not cheap, but you definitely get what you pay for.