It's all about the tune

Tuning your car is a must. You can unlock lots of power, make your car run cleaner and smoother, and increase driveability. I'm curious, what do you all have/use for tuning your cars and why?

-mail order chip
-hand held tuner
-dyno tune
-engine management systems
-something else?


Right now I have a custom dyno tune, but am debating a programmable engine management system that i can tune myself. This way I can have separate presets for water/methanol injection, daily driving, and track conditions.

I have an Apexi Neo... essentially just allows you to play with A/F ratio through the gears... I still went to the dyno and had it tuned. Its really all I need with I/E/H.

I know someone with a tiburon who is running a HYDRA, which replaces the whole ECU and lets him play with everything in the car. However he is also sitting on a built block with a MP90 blower, ice box and meth injection.

By the way chris, how are you doing MPG wise and how much does it cost you a week now to drive?

Ricer wrote:By the way chris, how are you doing MPG wise and how much does it cost you a week now to drive?

The cobra is pretty much serving as a weekend car. Otherwise it's garaged.

gallon of gas = $4.30
gallons per visit to the gas station = 7 (I don't let it get under half a tank)
visits to the gas stations a week = 1 or 2
money spent on gas in a given week = $30-$60

I usually drive like a normal person and get about 15-20mpg city, but when I'm on it tho, I get about 8mpg lol (and the boost is going up next week, so more air = more fuel haha). Good thing is I have the t-bird as a daily driver and I fill that up like once every 2 weeks. Not too bad at all

93cobra670 wrote:

Ricer wrote:By the way chris, how are you doing MPG wise and how much does it cost you a week now to drive?

The cobra is pretty much serving as a weekend car. Otherwise it's garaged.

gallon of gas = $4.30
gallons per visit to the gas station = 7 (I don't let it get under half a tank)
visits to the gas stations a week = 1 or 2
money spent on gas in a given week = $30-$60

I usually drive like a normal person and get about 15-20mpg city, but when I'm on it tho, I get about 8mpg lol (and the boost is going up next week, so more air = more fuel haha). Good thing is I have the t-bird as a daily driver and I fill that up like once every 2 weeks. Not too bad at all

Cost of Fuel sucks.....we are around $4.50 in some places in Chicago and going up. If you get on the Cobra, i swear to god you get about 3mpg

As for Chips.....I am going to get one........but idk when
I am waiting for this tuner to release a NA upgrade package, and they will require me to send my ECU out to them (In Canada). My other option is GIAC USA, who is a very respected tuner.......but no complete package, so less power......sigh.......waiting sucks

And i refuse to believe that you drive like a normal person chris....

Damn.. gas is that expensive out by you Ian... here it is 3.75 still...

93cobra670 wrote:Tuning your car is a must. You can unlock lots of power, make your car run cleaner and smoother, and increase driveability. I'm curious, what do you all have/use for tuning your cars and why?

-mail order chip
-hand held tuner
-dyno tune
-engine management systems
-something else?


Right now I have a custom dyno tune, but am debating a programmable engine management system that i can tune myself. This way I can have separate presets for water/methanol injection, daily driving, and track conditions.

Without a doubt tuning is the most important thing you can do to your car. Even a stock car can gain significant power from having it tuned as most cars are undertuned from the factory for a myriad of reasons, emissions being one of the main reasons. I'm a little unfamiliar of how a mail order chip works, I would assume that you would want a tune customized to your mods and your car. The way i do it is I have my own tactrix cable which allows me to do my own logging through software i have on my laptop (evoscan). I also have a program to re-write the stock ecu (ecuflash). So i do my own logging and send it to a tuner who based on my logs adjusts my ecu map accordingly, he sends it back i load it up and repeat the process until we are both satisfied with the results. I feel dyno tunes are a bit overpriced for the simulated conditions that often do not reflect real driving. I paid for a road tune for my first tune and was very very pleased with the results...it is dangerous and I do not support wreckless driving but you can road tune my evo on 3rd gear and you usually redline at about 80-85mph so its not super excessive speeds. My .02 cents.

Stand alone engine management systems...can do so much with them...but so costly...me want...