How Was Your Dyno Tuning Experience?

[revhead347]

Tuning OBD 1 cars has become more challenging to say the least. I have never had much luck with dyno tuning. Keep one thing in mind when you go for a dyno tune; a dyno only tunes the car for wide open throttle, it does nothing for driveability. The only way to get good "street manners" is to deal with someone with a lot of experience. The current tune in my car was purchased from JMS in 1999. Stock Mustangs have less street manners than my car does. When I dyno tune the car on motor or on the bottle, I adjust fuel pressure and base timing. I have never had a chip reprogrammed. The last car I did, we searched the earth for someone who had any knowledge on how to do a chip. Guess where we ended up, back at JMS. The Cobra idles like a stock Mustang with a .544" lift, 512 sep. cam in it.

My advice on the dyno tune issue: If you have a serious street race car, and you are dying to get that extra 5hp out of it, spend the $1000 for a dyno tune. If this is a car you actually want to drive around (as opposed to one you drop off a trailer and run a 1/4 mile with), save your money and get a chip sent to you in the mail.

Kurt

 

[FoxMustangLvr]

@revhead347

This is purely a street car. When I stopped by on Thursday to check up on my lawn ornament of a car he said he only tunes on a dyno, he will not be driving it around to tune it. Another person I talked to says that a dyno will not tune a car to be 100% street worthy. He says you need to drive it around and the best thing to do is take it to the track for some WOT runs. I'm getting concerned now that I might be wasting my money on a dyno only tune. I'll be pissed if I waste $500 on a tune and I still need to dial it in myself.

Has anyone else had their car dyno tuned only and it performed well on the street? This is my very first experience with this so I'd like to know what I'm getting myself into.

 

[A5literMan]

I'm very curious to see your results/expieriences with this. It is one reason why I "cheated" getting the -MAF calibrated to injectors- and running stock computer(I know I know) If it idles/drives have way descent I can adjust the FP/timing myself(old school tuning?). I'm going to talk with the "tune" guy about what to expect before going there. He will even come out to the track and help tune the car(at a hefty hourly rate). At least he is accommodating in his approach and I know he has done a lot of cars over on *cough* the corral. I will wait and see how well I can get it to run first before calling. With yours being a different "tuning system" I would think they could do more than just tinker with wot.[/USER]

 

[TOOLOW91]

Tuning OBD 1 cars has become more challenging to say the least. I have never had much luck with dyno tuning. Keep one thing in mind when you go for a dyno tune; a dyno only tunes the car for wide open throttle, it does nothing for driveability. The only way to get good "street manners" is to deal with someone with a lot of experience. The current tune in my car was purchased from JMS in 1999. Stock Mustangs have less street manners than my car does. When I dyno tune the car on motor or on the bottle, I adjust fuel pressure and base timing. I have never had a chip reprogrammed. The last car I did, we searched the earth for someone who had any knowledge on how to do a chip. Guess where we ended up, back at JMS. The Cobra idles like a stock Mustang with a .544" lift, 512 sep. cam in it.

My advice on the dyno tune issue: If you have a serious street race car, and you are dying to get that extra 5hp out of it, spend the $1000 for a dyno tune. If this is a car you actually want to drive around (as opposed to one you drop off a trailer and run a 1/4 mile with), save your money and get a chip sent to you in the mail.

Kurt

Idk my tuner worked on my part throttle drivability first before he absolutely anything . Granted I also have a Pms and can change all of the parameters in it for that . After we did all the WOT stuff we took the car out on the street and drove it to make sure all was good cruising


Sent from my iPhone using my fingers while my auto correct makes me seem illiterate

 

[Onefine88]

Idk my tuner worked on my part throttle drivability first before he absolutely anything . Granted I also have a Pms and can change all of the parameters in it for that . After we did all the WOT stuff we took the car out on the street and drove it to make sure all was good cruising


Sent from my iPhone using my fingers while my auto correct makes me seem illiterate

Like your tuner, my tuner tunes my SCT chip "with my car on the dyno" for WOT max power and driveability. After WOT max power has been realized and he's happy with a safe A/F , he then spends more time dialing in every aspect of the tune for drive-ability. He will drive it on the dyno through every gear at low, partial, and WOT throttle simulating a drive. If or when he finds a hiccup of any kind, he'll shut it down, remove the chip and make adjustments. Then he'll drive the car on the street with me to see how it does. In the past we have found issues once out on the street. Again he makes more tweaks to my chip and off we go again. A few years back I realized after a recent tune that my SSC didn't run good at cold starts like it did once it had warmed up. I took it back and he made a few more adjustments for that. It ran perfect.
He sometimes shows me things on his computer attempting to explain what he's doing but I have no clue. All I see is the "Matrix". LOL
All I know is my car makes more than 500rwhp and has absolute perfect street manners.

 

[89oem]

Cant speak to the tuner yet as mines in que, I do know my SCT x4 tells me the Lambda is 1.00 98% of the time with some .99 and some 1.01 as expected and a pretty constant AFR of 14.3x to 13.9 to 14.36 on banks 1 and 2 which the tune will richen a hair.. as I understand 14.2 is lean enough....

What I will talk to is the Shop experience, I was lucky enough to have one of the Top Mustang shops in the country do my build, I was involved allot over the year it took and they were good with that and I made friends.... I cannot say enough about the awesome experience the finite details and collaboration it took and I wanted it done in a week, not happening ...

TIME is not your enemy, remember you've been dreaming and wrenching on that car for almost a year and you see it on the road smoking Camaros.. they see it as fixing a gremlin in a Moates build with custom wire tuck and some undefined gremlin.. They're busy - that's a good things - not busy usually= poor rep and work . If you like them just remind them you're hoping for it by X date, and see how they respond you'll know soon enough if youre talking to them face to face.

Just my .02

 

[mikestang63]

I think it comes down to the person doing the dyno tune- there are guys that tune it to get the best # on the dyno sheet and that results in poor street manners and also blown engines. I say talk to the person doing the tune and get a feel for what they will and can do. I can tell you the guy that did my tune spent several hours working on just the manners of the car and then once he was happy with that, then he tuned it for hp.

I'm more concerned about how the car drives than getting every last HP out of it and it bucking and surging.

 

[FoxMustangLvr]

I think it comes down to the person doing the dyno tune- there are guys that tune it to get the best # on the dyno sheet and that results in poor street manners and also blown engines. I say talk to the person doing the tune and get a feel for what they will and can do. I can tell you the guy that did my tune spent several hours working on just the manners of the car and then once he was happy with that, then he tuned it for hp.

I'm more concerned about how the car drives than getting every last HP out of it and it bucking and surging.

I'll see if the guy can create two different tunes, one for max HP if I ever decide to hit the track and one for just the best street HP with good manners and idle.

Cant speak to the tuner yet as mines in que, I do know my SCT x4 tells me the Lambda is 1.00 98% of the time with some .99 and some 1.01 as expected and a pretty constant AFR of 14.3x to 13.9 to 14.36 on banks 1 and 2 which the tune will richen a hair.. as I understand 14.2 is lean enough....

What I will talk to is the Shop experience, I was lucky enough to have one of the Top Mustang shops in the country do my build, I was involved allot over the year it took and they were good with that and I made friends.... I cannot say enough about the awesome experience the finite details and collaboration it took and I wanted it done in a week, not happening ...

TIME is not your enemy, remember you've been dreaming and wrenching on that car for almost a year and you see it on the road smoking Camaros.. they see it as fixing a gremlin in a Moates build with custom wire tuck and some undefined gremlin.. They're busy - that's a good things - not busy usually= poor rep and work . If you like them just remind them you're hoping for it by X date, and see how they respond you'll know soon enough if youre talking to them face to face.

Just my .02

Absolutely agree with you. Patience is not something I'm good at with these kind of things but then again I've been wrenching on this car now for 18 months and I'm almost there so I should just chill. I do however want to drive this dang thing and where I live most summer vehicles don't get driven after October. Snow can start flying around here late October or early November so I'd like to get a few miles on this car ASAP.

 

[7upstang91]

Your tuner should take it out on the street with you afterwards to fine tune the driveability of the car. WOT tunes are the easier part of tuning. Remember, the dyno is only a tool to simulate driving the car to make a WOT pass.

 

[revhead347]

If anything, experience is far more important than equipment. I had my car dyno tuned without so much as a wide band.

Kurt

 

[TOOLOW91]

If anything, experience is far more important than equipment. I had my car dyno tuned without so much as a wide band.

Kurt

Reading the plugs the old school way ?


Sent from my iPhone using my fingers while my auto correct makes me seem illiterate

 

[smkshw]

wow that sucks!....i got mine tuned in about 2 hours with 4 pulls,had the wrong plugs in wich he changed also,i would be in tears waiting for my car that long man!

 

[FoxMustangLvr]

wow that sucks!....i got mine tuned in about 2 hours with 4 pulls,had the wrong plugs in wich he changed also,i would be in tears waiting for my car that long man!

All I can say is that I will never put myself in this position again.

 

[smkshw]

All I can say is that I will never put myself in this position again.

ya bud,i feel for you having to look through the fence at your car!

 

[revhead347]

Reading the plugs the old school way ?


Sent from my iPhone using my fingers while my auto correct makes me seem illiterate

Not even that. Just watch the dyno and see what works.

Kurt

 

[90lxwhite]

3 times dynoed at the same shop. The first time I wasn't there and it cost an arm and a leg, like $700ish. WOT was ok but I had driveability issues (the ole buck n chug at low rpms) but after a rear gear change it had fair enough street manners. The second trip I was present for and I was there for maybe four hours and two of those hours I was spent waiting my turn. It cost me a little over $200 if I rember right. The end result was a little more hp and driveability stayed the same. The third and last time I went went pretty much like the second time for the exeception of this: As I'm pulling in the driveway I get a phone call from the shop. The guy on the other end says this, "uhh you forgot your chip". I was like come again? So he tells me he forgot to put the chip back and and asks If I can come back and that they're about to close for the day. The shop is about 20 miles and it took me about an hr and a half to get home in 5 o' clock in DFW traffic, so of course I told him no I can't make it. The traffic was pretty much bumper to bumper the whole way home so I wasn't able to "get on it" but I didn't have any noticeable issues. It was probably running pretty lean but I was too tired and frustrated w/ the traffic and the Texas heat to notice, but it didn't overheat or anything. The next morning I drove er gingerly to the shop so they could put my chip back in. The return trip was traffic free so I let er run and all was well.
The biggest gripe I have about my place (well besides the forgetting the chip thing) is that one has to schedule an appointment way in advance. I think they only tune two days a week, say you called them today for a tune they might not have an opening until Sept 1st.
As far as the WOT tuning and "street tuning", I think what my guy does is after he gets the WOT tune down he makes an "educated guess" as to where to set the rest of the tables or whatever. So far so good on that part I guess but the buttjoles did forget to put the chip back in. I use these guys. HPP Racing 972-395-9844 - DFW's Ford, GM and Mopar Performance Experts
As far as remote tuning goes, I was looking into it not so long ago and it didn't seem like there were too many wanting to mess with OBDI

 

[FoxMustangLvr]

3 times dynoed at the same shop. The first time I wasn't there and it cost an arm and a leg, like $700ish. WOT was ok but I had driveability issues (the ole buck n chug at low rpms) but after a rear gear change it had fair enough street manners. The second trip I was present for and I was there for maybe four hours and two of those hours I was spent waiting my turn. It cost me a little over $200 if I rember right. The end result was a little more hp and driveability stayed the same. The third and last time I went went pretty much like the second time for the exeception of this: As I'm pulling in the driveway I get a phone call from the shop. The guy on the other end says this, "uhh you forgot your chip". I was like come again? So he tells me he forgot to put the chip back and and asks If I can come back and that they're about to close for the day. The shop is about 20 miles and it took me about an hr and a half to get home in 5 o' clock in DFW traffic, so of course I told him no I can't make it. The traffic was pretty much bumper to bumper the whole way home so I wasn't able to "get on it" but I didn't have any noticeable issues. It was probably running pretty lean but I was too tired and frustrated w/ the traffic and the Texas heat to notice, but it didn't overheat or anything. The next morning I drove er gingerly to the shop so they could put my chip back in. The return trip was traffic free so I let er run and all was well.
The biggest gripe I have about my place (well besides the forgetting the chip thing) is that one has to schedule an appointment way in advance. I think they only tune two days a week, say you called them today for a tune they might not have an opening until Sept 1st.
As far as the WOT tuning and "street tuning", I think what my guy does is after he gets the WOT tune down he makes an "educated guess" as to where to set the rest of the tables or whatever. So far so good on that part I guess but the buttjoles did forget to put the chip back in. I use these guys. HPP Racing 972-395-9844 - DFW's Ford, GM and Mopar Performance Experts
As far as remote tuning goes, I was looking into it not so long ago and it didn't seem like there were too many wanting to mess with OBDI

The a-holes I dropped my car off with mentioned something about insurance covering them while driving a customers car on the road. I ended up getting my car towed back home and I'll tell every person that will listen to me that Exhaust Solutions are a-holes and a rip off.