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tuning?s

D

double_u_4

Veteran CEG'er
Joined
Oct 7, 2009
Messages
897
Location
romeoville, il
i have a full 3L swap in the car & it is untuned. i am planning in the next couple of weeks or so to get a tune done to it but im not sure what all i need or what kind of tune. i know i need an Xcal tuner. does it matter if its the Xcal2 or 3. i know i will need to take it to a performance shop to get it done but what would i tell them that i need done & about how much would it cost to have a shop do it. im sure its different all over but those of you that have had it done how much did it cost & about how long does it take to get done
 
I too have a 3L swap and am in need of a tune, I have priced a couple of places in NY and in VA and you are looking around 5-600 for a dyno tune(best option IMO) you can buy a mail order tune but based on what I heard I wouldn't go that route, but that is just me. Those run about 200 bux from what I have seen plus the xcal. I just bought a used xcal2 from a ceg'r
 
I too have a 3L swap and am in need of a tune, I have priced a couple of places in NY and in VA and you are looking around 5-600 for a dyno tune(best option IMO) Shop needs to know what mods you have on the car to tune from that. you can buy a mail order tune but based on what I heard I wouldn't go that route, but that is just me. Those run about 200 bux from what I have seen plus the xcal. I just bought a used xcal2 from a ceg'r....
 
I'd much rather have a mail order tune from a proven Contour tuner like NPG than a dyno tune from a local shop that has never tuned on our platform before.
 
There isnt really any info, you hook up your xcal to your car and then to a laptop with a certain program running and you do a couple pulls recording it and email it to NPG. Then NPG sends a tune to you, and hopefully its not dropping crazy spark like mine did.

Someone had their full 3L with a mail order tune from Brenspeed for $75, might look into them if your looking for the cheap route. If it was me a dyno tune would be well worth the money.
 
i would also never do mail order...i actually had the dyno shop send me a mail order tune so i can actually drive 500 miles to their shop. and they were pretty damn close. it ran much smoother, and all i did was give then all my info about my motor and what the stock ecu was tuned for. but until i got the dyno tune it felt like a day and night difference. i actually wanna go back after i get a y-pipe and have them work on it a couple more hr to get some extra power out of it.

remember...a tune is what brings the most power out of any car. even stock cars. therefore a tune is the most important. i would not wanna spend alot of money on something that will be off, when i can spend a little bit more and get it perfect.

i spent 260 on a full dyno tune. and 60 on the baseline so i could actually get there. so as you can see its not that much more.
 
a tune is th emost important part of you car. dont cheep out. my dyno tune ran me 260 bucks...id rather have a tune perfect. then close enough. since a tune is basically what wil bring all your hp out. bolt-ons nor an engine swap will ever do that itself
 
aboythatskates said:
a tune is th emost important part of you car. dont cheep out. my dyno tune ran me 260 bucks...id rather have a tune perfect. then close enough. since a tune is basically what wil bring all your hp out. bolt-ons nor an engine swap will ever do that itself
Click to expand...

Thats dirt cheap for a dyno tune. I assume for that price it doesn't come with any sort of handheld.

Your email tune was just a simple starter tune. Not designed for permenant use. A skilled tuner can get an email tune close to 100% with one or two datalogging sessions.
 
sorry for the double post.
no it did not include a handheld.

also, a mail order wont be even close to 100% without a wideband. which is another 200+ dollars. and then still! a dyno shop has a wide band, that he can see excatly how much a/f ratio with a certain rpm. a mail order tune cant see what your car is doing at a specific rpm and blah blah its all basically guesses. when your car is on the dyno, the tuner can pinpiont exactly what needs to be done and make changes such as flatten out the torque curve.

like i said before, the "guesstimate" mail order tune that i got was only a baseline to have the car run smoother. it was idling horribly and stalled constently, it was non-driviable. and i had to make a 500 mile trip to the dyno shop
 
I like the idea of the tuner sitting in the car running it as much as he likes on a dyno rather than seeing numbers on a computer screen on the other side of the country. It's all personal preference tho, some people love a mail order tune and some people hate them. I think it has a lot to do with personal experience and budgets.
 
for me its not about hate. its about getting what your paying for.

getting all horse power at the right places>getting some of it, who knows where, for about the same price
 
my CEL is on for banks 1 & 2 rich so i was planning on changing out my o2 sensors & making sure the code problem is fixed b4 i get the tune. i was also planning on changing plugs & wires too. are there any other things that might be a good idea to change out b4 i get the tune done
 
ur cel is on because you are running rich! changeing out the o2s wont prevent the cel from turning off. nor will it prevent a rich running engine
 
im guessing its rich i had the code pulled & it was P0174&171. saying banks 1 & 2 are lean or rich. i have black soot on the exhaust tips, its getting about 150mpg/hw. & @ times it feels like its being flooded with gas when i drive. so im thinking im not lean. i thought getting the tune will be able to adjust that so it wont be so rich. well i was planning on changing them anyway. i bought the car last year & i dont know when they were changed or if they ever were.
 
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