IMHO......
It is important to verify the “Tuner” is ASE certified in ECM & Trans programming & current. Plenty of persons advertise their programs to be the best & offer custom tunes, but very few have credentials in these areas. Some of these “geniuses” have caused damage to a few vehicles- just jump over to flatratetech.com & read comments from the MSE techs!
Roush Dyno Tune Posted August 26, 2012
Bad situation-Need help! - Vintage Mustang Forums
To make an extremely long story short. I need someone to tell me who to talk to for help. I have posted several times and got a lot of help. Got my engine build finished in May. Ran great. Took it to Roush Racing for a tune. It is a 93, efi, 302 with several upgrades. Went to get it from Roush and the water hose had blown and torn up my brand new hood I just had painted. It can be fixed. Drove the car home and it would not start the next day. Finally found the adapter between the TPS and painless harness was missing. Fixed that. It would not idle consistently. Took it back to Roush. They said it was fixed. Went less than 1/2 mile and it was idling at 2500 rpm. Took it back. They were lost. I need help. I am totally disgusted. If you need to talk, PM me and I will give you all my personal contact info. Thanks for any help. I am out of options.
What is equally important is the parameters that can be adjusted are set by the OEM vehicle software…so there is really no “magic” in what the "mail order tuners" are doing anyway. If you look at the dyno charts from many of these supposed HP/TQ increases, they are typically around 5%-7% at peak rpm ranges…….guess what, 5% is a standard deviation even amongst mfg dynos and if you go to this link
http://www.fordracingparts.com/download/tipsPDF/EnginePerformanceTechTips.pdf the engineers at Ford racing have a article on just exactly how these “tuners” play games with the hp/tq ratings, how calibration can cause misleading dyno results, & some of the “tricks” that are used to gain supposed power increases when in fact, mis-managing your engine and ij straight talk…damaging your engine, auto trans, etc... and the most important item is……these “expert tuners” (at least most) do not have or choose not to test their results (in comparison to the oem intakes) during actual vehicle motion (or simulation- such as a wind tunnel) as the oems do nor are these "mail order tuners' regulated like any other auto repair shop in the US...so if they "damage" your car...gee, sorry...sue me!
IMHO, if you live near any major city there are excellent tuning specialists with dynos who for the same price (if not less) will tune your vehicle taking into consideration your specific needs including environmental conditions, for your specific vehicle. IMHO, the best bang for the buck!
If you are comfortable and understand how to tune a vehicle, you can also do this yourself. There are several software programs available, that “Speak Common English” that will allow you to tune your vehicles ECM. One company is HP Tuners, they have a website….they offer two core programs, one for those who are doing dyno tuning and one for the home-garage mechanic (which is priced at about the same as most of the “canned tunes on the market) …this version limits the span of adjustments as a safeguard against doing something outside of the oem scope……basically, keeps you from doing something “too stupid by accident” (grin) and Sniper Delta Force Tuning Software.
With regards to a CAI- the car is already equipped with a CAI. Now for the science....I know, physics and certified testing...
Testand Corporation conducted an ISO standards test on automotive air filters which can be viewed at this link:
Duramax Air Filter Testing * - Diesel Bombers. All I can say is this explains in detail the reason for
(Arlen) SPICER wrote,
“Now that I am not doing the tests and my objectivity is not necessary, let me explain my motivation. The reason I started this crusade was that I was seeing people spend a lot of money on aftermarket filters based on the word of a salesperson or based on the misleading, incomplete or outright deceiving information printed on boxes and in sales literature. “After only 24 minutes the K&N had accumulated 221gms of dirt but passed 7.0gms. Compared to the AC, the K&N “plugged up” nearly 3 times faster, passed 18 times more dirt and captured 37% less dirt
If you do the math 9formulas for both flat panel and cones are available on the net, you will see that unless you have increased the engines max RPm by 500+, there is NO PERFORMANCE THAT CAN POSSIBLY BE GAINED BY JUST INSTALLING A LARGER AIR FILTER. The oem unit will flow more than the engine can inhale....physics....just basic physics.
You have an issue...fix it or by just turning off the lights (so to speak) you will pay the price later.
