Dyno run

[NASSTY]

Originally Posted by Plums

You are right, there's no real mystery to EFI tuning. For example, tuning a Wolf 3d or Motec ecu is fairly straight forward. Like you said, in a nutshell it's just fuel and spark.
Tuning the factory GM LS1 computer however, is a different story. Quote "For a factory EFI most of the work has alreay been done. A tuner is just tidying up the mapping as most factory cars run too rich at WOT." end quote. Most LS1 tunes these days tend to be MAFless. There are heaps of tables that need to be modified just to get it to run properly without the MAF. In fact, many tuners used to completely disable all Knock Retard just to get the engine to run with stable spark at WOT. Knock Retard is a valuable safety feature that should never be disabled (except perhaps on a race car).
Aside from normal MAFless tuning, try tuning a big head/cam car!!!

Firstly, I'm not having a go at any tuner on this forum. My comments are based on the experience I have had dealing with a few other "expert" tuners (not on this forum) who were full of it. From the testamonials of other forum users, the tuners on this forum don't fall into this catagory.

Originally Posted by Plums

I completely disagree with this comment: "Once a tuner has developed a tune which I dare say won't take too much of their time to do, all that's left to do is pay for the license of the software which the consumer does when the product is bought."
Developing a tune can be done quickly, if you just copy a program that you've previously used. That's not tuning, that called copying!!!
Additionally, when I tune a PCM, the consumer is not paying for a software licence. I paid that years ago, the customer is just paying for my time and experience

If an engine is not opened, as in Boxhead's case, then surely the starting point (or ending point in Boxhead's mail order tune) is a generic tune, of which all the tables etc that need to be modified have already been done.

I would expect that most tunes, perhaps the term should be generic tunes, are sold to customers who haven't opened up their engines yet. If that assumption is correct then most tunes start off as a generic copy, mafless or not. If someone then wanted to have a custom tune on top of that, again unopened engine, then I would have thought that that would mainly involve the main fuel map to be trimmed up, which wouldn't take too long on a dyno.

Once the engine has been opened then I entirely agree with you. This will sort out the real tuners from the posers. That's when experience will count.

While you paid for your license years ago, I was trying to suggest that the price of a tune has the setup cost, license and R&D, built into the price.

Originally Posted by Plums

I believe that I have a right to keep my "secret stuff" to myself. I tell the customer that fact up front and then the choice is theirs. I will still provide an unlocked tune, it just won't be quite as fancy as my locked program.

You give your customer a choice, nothing wrong with that.