Dyno Tune - Group Discount - Ric Shaw - Probable date 29/4/03.

[Merli]

I had my car tuned by Jim @ CRD.

He charges double what Ric Shaw does, but then again, my car was on the dyno the *ENTIRE DAY*.

It was on the dyno from about 10am till about 4pm, it was first given an extremely comprehensive tune at low boost, then checked at high boost... All the time, Jim was writing values down on his clipboard to compare how they affected the car. This took perhaps 3 hours all up including giving the car a rest now and again...

Then adjustable cam gears were installed and tuned, which took another 3 or so hours...

My car started pinging at full boost last thursday at Eastern Creek, Jim happened to be there and told me to bring it back so he can have a look at it and tune it a little more.

This is the reason why you need to book at least a week in advance for a CRD tune... He only books one or two cars a day to get full tunes done.

[carlo]

Merli did he take your car for a road tune?

[Merli]

Originally posted by carlo

Merli did he take your car for a road tune?

He took it for a 10 minute drive to check for detonation and see how power delivery could be improved on the road, yes...

Unfortunately my clutch was slipping by the end of the day, so he couldn't do the final runs at high boost... Hence he wasn't able to check it for detonation at high boost... He told me to take the car back when I got the new clutch in so he could finish the tune.

Thursday was the first time I ran the car at high boost since I got it tuned, so I'll be taking it back to him when I get the chance.

[red900ss]

Originally posted by T0nyGTSt

Jim/Theo won't piss on you for $250...

T.

They fixed my car for $50.00

[Roy]

Hey Merli, are you runnning Power FC??

I would have thought those of us with exhaust/filter/boost would only need minimal tweaking of air fuel and ignition maps, as the base Apexi maps are already superior to OE Nissan.

I can understand why your car would need plenty of dyno time to get right, considering the base maps would only good for starting the thing and running off boost.

If this is a wrong assumption then i might have to re-think my plan of attack.

[T0nyGTSt]

Originally posted by red900ss

They fixed my car for $50.00

And they dyno tuned it for $50???

I'm not saying CRD are not worth the $450 they're after (they are good).

I'm just saying they won't match $250...

T.

[Merli]

Originally posted by Roy

Hey Merli,  are you runnning Power FC??

I would have thought those of us with exhaust/filter/boost would only need minimal tweaking of air fuel and ignition maps, as the base Apexi maps are already superior to OE Nissan.  

I can understand why your car would need plenty of dyno time to get right, considering the base maps would only good for starting the thing and running off boost.

If this is a wrong assumption then i might have to re-think my plan of attack.

Yes, I'm running a PowerFC...

Contrary to popular belief, quite a bit needs to be done to teh base maps that come with PowerFCs, even for standard cars.

If you plugged in your PowerFC with APEXi base maps, and drove the car in anger, you'd be detonating all over the place. The ignition timing it too advanced for our fuel, and the entire fuel map needs to be checked over... That's 800 load points that need to be looked at...

Some tuning shops will give it a quick tune, and floor it on the dyno at full boost, and make sure it doesn't ping during those full power runs, but that only covers perhaps 5-10% of the tuning map... What about when you drive around normally at half or 3/4 throttle? They haven't checked that on the dyno where they only do full power runs.

All I'm saying is that some shops take an entire day to tune cars, other shops take 2 hours to tune cars. Obviously there is going to be a price difference of several hundred dollars associated with the two different tuning shops, purely on labour/dyno time. I won't venture to say which one is better, because I don't want to start a shit fight.

For more "light tune" cars, perhaps 2 hours on the dyno is adequate... But no matter what modifications you do to your car, it all comes down to the tuning to make the most of those mods. Tuning will make or break a car. Quite literally.

[T0nyGTSt]

Keep this in mind - Dan organised this for the benefit of others.

Whether he's done something 'wrong' it's all good for us.

I'm definitely interested in the tune.

T.

[Silver-Arrowz]

Man, I got screwed over hard! Mine was only an hour (possibly less) and tuned at 8psi. Needless to say I was disappointed when I found out why the car was only 8psi with the restrictor removed.

[Roy]

Thanks Merli.

I would have guessed too much ignition advance for our fuel, but didnt fully appreciate the qty of load sites, but im assuming the Power FC has some pretty strong interpolation software so that every load point doesnt require addressing.

Food for thought though, even at whatever figure we may get the Ric tune thing done at, it will at least get me out and about, then when budget permits, perhaps some more accurate light load tuning.

[red900ss]

Originally posted by T0nyGTSt

And they dyno tuned it for $50???

I'm not saying CRD are not worth the $450 they're after (they are good).

I'm just saying they won't match $250...

T.

On the dyno at a dyno day. May have even been less. $20? $40?

No mention of urination either....

[Majanal]

Yes, some very good comments. I'll see how many people we get interested. I must say I thought the same as roy... but having looked a bit at all the points on dads hand controller it makes sense what merli is saying.

Maybe it might be best to limit it to one or two cars a day. I'm sure we will still get the discount.

So Far we have:

Me

Roy

TOnyGTSt

judd

Bonkers

[judd]

count me in....

[judd]

i gave him a call....i dont think more than 5 in one day.

i want him to spend time tuning the car...as its timely..yes heard *undisclosed*. they are v. good. but i have heard plenty of stories, of tuning car. (undisclosed source, said he waited for his S15 to get tuned $600. was told get there 9am, he got there at 8:30am to be safe. Wanted to watch his car be tuned, then waited and waited finally reached 12:45. they just finished lunch they put on dyno gave about 4-5 runs. Tuned in less than 30mins. took off he drove, had another source check the maps they were not far off the std maps....1 week later the car started pinging badly. had to pay another 250$ to get it cleaned up at another place)

I dunno...i have heard good and bad stories.

[Majanal]

Judd,

Please remove the name of the tuning shop from your post.

I'll put you down mate. I had thought of maybe 4 cars in a day max... as you said... I want to get my car and imagine every wants their cars tuned properly. Maybe less having heard others comments.

[Bonkers]

Yeah Dan I am interested in the tune.

As Andrew correctly points out Apexi base maps are based on standard cars using standard Japanese fuel which starts at 100RON.

Generally the time taken to do the tune will depend on how much the car varies from standard and what the tuner knows about the mods, many imports have unknown modifications which of course mean the tuner has to spend more time analysing the responses from the car as each adjustment is made.

Any tune is a compromise because a street driven car operates under such a wide range of conditions - chuck in additional variables that we enthusiasts subject our cars to such as a day at the skid pan - 400m dash - track day - nasho run and you would really need to go to a Motec ECU or similar and cart around a laptop with data for ALL the different applications if you expect to get close to maximising the cars performance everywhere.

Dyno tuning itself will never simulate actual driving conditions.

Carefully consider where you want your car to give it peak and make sure whoever you get to tune your car knows this. If you want it to be spot on for track days, then expect it to use extra fuel and not burn it all when driven on the road, like wise if it is tuned for the road it may ping when driven hard on the circuit or strip.

Ric Shaw is located at 35 Parramatta Rd Five Dock NSW. If you know where E & M Unique Motors is then Ric is back up the hill about 100m and there is a pub opposite E & M so you won't need cards - just someone to pick you and your car up at the end of the day.

[judd]

thats right!...but then again why not make more power than you need, for everything then get pretty general tune and then from there best application is ur right foot. goes the same for boost controllers...best boost controller is ur foot

[judd]

Any one interested in a PFC for the tune too...i can get them $1250 new or $1650 with hc.

[Roy]

Hey Judd , can you also get them at that price for the R32 GTSt. Im paying more then that for a 2nd hand one.

[judd]

nup...they dont make new R32 GTS-T PFC's n e more..sorry pal