[sik20fan]

In one month's time, I'm having my JRSC installed and tuned by Innovative Motorworks, specficially by Derek who I've I heard great things about.

He told me that he will be doing the tune on the dyna-pack and then will take a drive on the street and make adjustments if necessary.

I am sure he will do an outstanding job, however, during my test on the street, I want to make sure that I put the car through its paces to determine that the tune is as perfect as it can possibly be. I want to have the knowledge while driving the car to point out things that we be as a result of a "glitch" in the tune (i.e. where some correct need to be made).

What I mean by that is: (These are all things that I can think of on the top of my head , but what i'm looking for is what pro's always talk about which is STRIMS being off or fueling is off, Is that even possible to realize while driving the car or is that something that can only be realized after examining datalogs?)
Cold-Start/Warm-Start:

• No Idle Fluctuations
• Fires up right away instead of cranking a long time

WOT Acceleration

• No hesitation
• Linear pull as is with S/C power delivery

Partial Throttle Acceleration

• No hesitation
• No Lag in throttle response

I would really like some advice from the professional tuners | people with lots of experience with boost vehicles i.e. (vitviper, mucter, bulliedog)

Once again I'm sure i'll be getting great service from IMW. I'm just worried that my over joy and excitement of finally being boosted will take away from my ablility to recognize slight issues that might need tweaking.

Thanks in advance.

 

[sik20fan]

bump for answers!!

 

[e78704]

I am not a tuner but do get my car tuned by one of the best in the country.

No firsthand experience with the tuner you will be going to but I am sure he will do fine with the car.

These are my thoughts, to which you can assign any value you want.

No matter how great your tuner is, you now have a modified motor and you have no made the decision to place power ahead of comfort and tameness. You can tune your car to the Nth degree this month but it will idle differently and behave differently under part-throttle once Spring arrives, when you get a tank of bad gas, or the humidity drops by 30%, and so on.

Your tuner can set the cranking fuel to fire the motor immediately when it is 50 degrees out but it will turn over several times before catching, once summer gets here. or vice-versa.

My point is that if you are looking for the whole "Lady in public, whore in the bedroom"-thing, then you may have an unrealistic expectation. YOU made the decision to stick bigger injectors, a fluctuating MAP signal, and so on, to your motor. And there are concessions with that.

 

[sik20fan]

I am not a tuner but do get my car tuned by one of the best in the country.

No firsthand experience with the tuner you will be going to but I am sure he will do fine with the car.

These are my thoughts, to which you can assign any value you want.

No matter how great your tuner is, you now have a modified motor and you have no made the decision to place power ahead of comfort and tameness. You can tune your car to the Nth degree this month but it will idle differently and behave differently under part-throttle once Spring arrives, when you get a tank of bad gas, or the humidity drops by 30%, and so on.

Your tuner can set the cranking fuel to fire the motor immediately when it is 50 degrees out but it will turn over several times before catching, once summer gets here. or vice-versa.

My point is that if you are looking for the whole "Lady in public, whore in the bedroom"-thing, then you may have an unrealistic expectation. YOU made the decision to stick bigger injectors, a fluctuating MAP signal, and so on, to your motor. And there are concessions with that.

Thanks for the response.

See I'm not sure why I have an unrealistic expectation because isn't the ECU suppose to compensate for things like changing IAT values (i.e. the change in weather).

I've been using a tune from Flashprotuning.com for the exact I/H/E combo I have and it has been perfect in the summer and I would even like to say better in the winter with the cooler air.

In my profession as a developer, I'm always looking for things to "break" my projects. There are little things that i know that normal users would never think of if they were to test an application. I was hoping to get some responses from people that know the car inside and out (with respect to tuning) so that when I go for my ride, I can point these small things out and get em fixed on the spot. I'm just trying to maximum all that I can with the money i'm spending, as anybody would generally.

 

[e78704]

If that is the case, then it sounds like you should also teach yourself about tuning. My wife is an engineer and likewise more obssessed with the process rather than the result: "If the process is perfect, the result will be perfect".

That is not always how it works in real-life but it is what she fixates on. Our cars are the same way. I can set my car up to behave a certain way one day and then when a cold front rolls in the next day, it behaves differently. That is not to say that it does not make smooth power, drive well, etc. Just that if "perfection" (which is what you seem to want...) is the goal, then the car will need to be in a constant state of tuning rather than just "done" at once.

I hope this makes sense.

 

[Dan0974]

If that is the case, then it sounds like you should also teach yourself about tuning. My wife is an engineer and likewise more obssessed with the process rather than the result: "If the process is perfect, the result will be perfect".

That is not always how it works in real-life but it is what she fixates on. Our cars are the same way. I can set my car up to behave a certain way one day and then when a cold front rolls in the next day, it behaves differently. That is not to say that it does not make smooth power, drive well, etc. Just that if "perfection" (which is what you seem to want...) is the goal, then the car will need to be in a constant state of tuning rather than just "done" at once.

I hope this makes sense.

Absolutely correct. I've been tuning my car (although a lot less frequently over time) for over 2 years and I'm still making little tweaks here and there to make it feel better.

 

[sik20fan]

If that is the case, then it sounds like you should also teach yourself about tuning. My wife is an engineer and likewise more obssessed with the process rather than the result: "If the process is perfect, the result will be perfect".

That is not always how it works in real-life but it is what she fixates on. Our cars are the same way. I can set my car up to behave a certain way one day and then when a cold front rolls in the next day, it behaves differently. That is not to say that it does not make smooth power, drive well, etc. Just that if "perfection" (which is what you seem to want...) is the goal, then the car will need to be in a constant state of tuning rather than just "done" at once.

I hope this makes sense.

Absolutely correct. I've been tuning my car (although a lot less frequently over time) for over 2 years and I'm still making little tweaks here and there to make it feel better.

I've done some minor tweaks to the fueling portion, but I am to nervous to mess around with other stuff, and especially considering boost, I'm letting the professionals handle this one.

I guess I didn't clearly define perfect but you do make absolute sense. The car will never always behave the same on different days. I guess what I'm looking for is a medium between maximum amount of horsepower/realiability and fuel efficiency. If that is generally achieved on a day to day basis, then I consider my car to be perfect.

 

[w00t692]

To most of those things, a proper partial throttle and WOT tune will fix you up. The cranking issues can be intermittent and only show their heads once a certain weather pattern hits but it's fixable.

And as far as short trim and fuel being off at part throttle being noticable. If it's very bad (horrible fuel trims at tip in and letting off the throttle, very rich or lean while holding a certain rpm, too rich at very low loads, etc) those will be noticable and might make the car very jerky, might make it buck, or might make it feel very unresponsive to throttle input.

 

[e78704]

Absolutely correct. I've been tuning my car (although a lot less frequently over time) for over 2 years and I'm still making little tweaks here and there to make it feel better.

It is impossible (at least with current technology) but more than "temp compensation", I wish there was a way to create "humidity compensation".

Here in Central Texas, we can see one day with 80-degree weather and 70% humidity. A week later, we can have a "Blue Norther" front roll down off the Plains and drop the temp by 40 degrees but more importantly, drop the humidity by 40% as well. Especially on crappy winterized gas, the car will knock like crazy on that dry air.

I've done some minor tweaks to the fueling portion, but I am to nervous to mess around with other stuff, and especially considering boost, I'm letting the professionals handle this one.

I guess I didn't clearly define perfect but you do make absolute sense. The car will never always behave the same on different days. I guess what I'm looking for is a medium between maximum amount of horsepower/realiability and fuel efficiency. If that is generally achieved on a day to day basis, then I consider my car to be perfect.

Your tuner will be able to accomplish that for you, no problem. What you are really paying for is the cam angles. Tuning for that is what it is most time consuming and challenging on the street. Ignition and A/F are easy. Just have him give you the kal once you are done and then you can play with it to your taste. You can tweak cranking fuel, idle fuel trim, temp comp, etc. to your taste after that point. The tuner will give you the "baseline" to work from, if that makes sense.

Best of luck to you.

 

[sik20fan]

Thank you guys for all your responeses. It helps ease my mind a little.

If anyone else has some useful tips, please feel free to share!

 

[My5tiC4L]

I recommend doing both a dyno tune and street tune. A dyno tune may be expensive but in the end it is well worth it. A dyno tune will dial in things that a street tune would not be able to do. A street tune after the dyno tune will fix up the little things here and there that could not be done or missed on the dyno especially by constant datalogging the car.

I took the route of going dyno tuned first then on to street tune. IMO, that was money well spent with the results I got. I am still doing new revisions for the street tune currently.

I had my dyno tune done at Church Automotive by Daniel. He is a very good tuner and I highly recommend him for people near SoCal. Then I had a second tuner, just as good, VitViper help me with the street tune. Basically having a second tuner's perspective was a plus. I am still sending datalogs back and forth with VitViper even with my busy schedule etc etc.

My car drove awesome after the dyno tune. With the street tunes that I am doing right now, my car drives better and better with each revision. I didn't think it could get any better after the dyno tune. My gas mileage has also improved from the street tune as well.

Long story, short, get both. It is worth it.

 

[sik20fan]

^ I think thats probably what I'm gonna do. It makes sense.

When you went from dyno -> street tune. I'm assuming your "base cal" was the dyno tune and small adjustments were made from there, or else If you started fresh then the dyno would be useless.

 

[My5tiC4L]

^
Yes, my final dyno tune which was I think my 7th revision on the dyno became the "base cal" for the street tune. If I did the dyno tune, tossed it, and did a street tune completely separate from the dyno tune then dyno tune would have been useless.

 

[e78704]

Conditions are ever-changing on the street. That is why the little tweaks feel better. The little tweak that was done yestrday might actually make you go backwards on power next week. Not saying that's a bad thing, just saying it's all subjective. The gearing I use on my road bike for a given course could be different from one day to the next. Wind, temp, tire conditon, etc. That is why.

 

[sik20fan]

^ that's true.. maybe i'm just being to analytical over this subject.

 

[e78704]

...maybe i'm just being to analytical over this subject.

Yes.