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well, I'm going to give Matt (HITMAN) a call in the next few days to see when we can make a time for my tune. My reasons for going with him:

1. great feedback from people who've been there

2. I like the idea of dyno runs and road tuning

3. I hear he is very good at explaining what is going on

4. at $300 for a basic PFC tune his price is very reasonable.

in a maximum effort, no expense spared I might consider going to CRD instead but for now I'll give Matt a go.

Richard: I have also heard very good things about HITMAN, both from Skyline owners running PFCs and some other cars running Haltech ECUs.

'Dyno Dave' is also meant to be excellent and comes very well recommended.

Edit: I meant to say, I will be interested to see your results :(

LW.

yeah, I've met dave a couple of times and he is a very knowledgeable guy and a good tuner too.

I'll post up when it's all done. My only problem at the moment is the time to get out there.

  • 1 month later...

Well after hearing a weird noise in my engine bay last night (I was being paranoid, it's called a cold engine that hasn't been driven in 5 days) I went for a visit down to Hitman's workshop (being very very local and all...) and was quite impressed.

Great workshop setup, excellent location and extremely helpful. Had my bonnet up for a good 30mins looking over things and discussing some future options. I've definitely found my tuning mechanic.

He had an MR-2 on the dyno which had been tuned by another workshop and the gains in power he made by some simple cam gear adjustments was astonishing.

Matt quoted me $80/hr for labour/dyno time and $450-500 for a full PowerFC tune.

I think $300 would be for a quite basic tune, road only. if you want dyno time as well then price would be higher (ie the $450 that Ben mentioned for a FULL tune). Either way Matt will not rip you off. So the best bet is to speak to him for a real price.

Richard: I take it you have had your car tuned then?  Any before/after dyno sheet goodness? :D (Or did I miss the thread somewhere?)

LW.

yeah mate, I had it tuned by HITMAN. dunno about dyno graph as power figure wasn't really important to me. It did run 108mph at WSID which is a fair indication of horsepower. :(

Out of interest I will whack it on the dyno at one of the up coming dyno days and post up the graph (if it's good haha).

To be honest it didn't make a HUGE difference as I already had a Kakimoto ecu which was quite aggressively mapped with plenty of ign advance and fairly good mixtures. my tune now is quite conservative but it definitely woke up the top end and the car is quicker by a fair bit. feels great down low too, and not very laggy. car idles fine, does burn a sh1tload of fuel though which could be mostly due to faulty O2 sensors, or my driving style :D

I think SK said the datalogit was good enough for tuning? and that the Apexi created the software in response to the datalogit?!?! correct me if I'm wrong... I'll see if I can find the post.

yes the datalogit software is great for tuning. no apexi did not create their Power Excel tuning software in response to the datalogit. It has been around for a while. far longer than datalogit. datalogit was developed because Apexi wouldn't sell Power Excel software to anyone other than their approved Power Excel Dealers. Now however you can buy the Apexi software too. they have made it available to the general public, but I'm not sure if there is an english version.

yes the datalogit software is great for tuning. no apexi did not create their Power Excel tuning software in response to the datalogit. It has been around for a while. far longer than datalogit. datalogit was developed because Apexi wouldn't sell Power Excel software to anyone other than their approved Power Excel Dealers. Now however you can buy the Apexi software too. they have made it available to the general public, but I'm not sure if there is an english version.

Cheers for clarifying that Richard :D

sounding like Matt is the tuner of choice...

no worries. I personally think Matt is a pretty switched on guy when it comes to tuning. I haven't had work done at CRD so I can't say he's better than them. they certainly have some runs on the board and have much better facilities and a wider range of services. Matt is a tuning specialist.

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