How Good is Your Tuner?

The 1UZFE EGR Delete Kit is available for sale here.

Zuffen

Super Moderator
Staff member
Last year I had my car tuned by the man everyone is Sydney considers the best.

Well the engine died for a number of reasons but it showed bad bore wash form too much fuel and the mains were suffering from running in a strong fuel/oil mix.

Today I dropped the car off to be dyno'd by the shop where I assembled the new engine.

They've never worked with an Autronic system but got in and had a look to see what was going on.

When they plugged into my Autronic the engine was running an AFR of 10:1.

The first thing they did was drop the fuel load by 50% up to 2,000rpm and it settled into a nice smooth 1234rpm idle and it smelled much less rich. We'll get the idle down further but this was just a learning thing. We didn't go past 2,000rpm today as there are other cars to be tuned before mine.

The ECU told me my temp guage is 20 degreesC out. When the gauge shows 100 degrees the ECU is saying 81 degrees. I won't stress so much now when the temp creeps up to 100 degrees.

I also found I was running intake temps of 62 degreesC where last year is was way over 140 degrees. I put this down to the new W2A intercooler I installed.

An interesting side light was I told one of the shop employees of the effectiveness of the intercooler and he held his hand on the pipe from the cooler to the manifold and he was impressed. He then placed his hand (palm down) on the hot side pipe of the intercooler and removed it very quickly, but not quite quick enough. Nice burn.

This experience fly's in the face of all the advice we all give of finding someone who is good with your ECU and using them.

Hope to have the car back next week and I'll post up some figures. I'm doing this run with very aggressive and heavy 35" mud tyres on it so I don't expect any earth shattering figures.
 
Comes down to care and attention Rod....even a great tuner can do a shit job if he's not 100% on the job. Dunno why you had that bad experience as the effort in your build should have been enough to impress any tuner and have them keen to deliver a good result?

Hopefully you get luckier this time around :)
 
I have no trust in any tuners around our parts. I have learn t what there is to learn about all the systems I have ever used and some new ones Im busy with now.
I will fill my fuel tank to the brim and after setting up basics and getting a good quality idle I will hit the road. The Innovate 4 wire is connected and my programming takes place on open stretches of road.
The dyno will only be used once to ascertain max ign. timing requirements. I am still fine tuning my personal systems after many years as under very extreme situations I would feel something strange, mostly in the map that is not accessed often during normal driving and use.

There is just no way these tuners can setup a car in a day on the rollers and say its good. Just no way.

The bore wash problem above ? Ive just had an engine which had rather large injectors fitted, larger than the engine wanted.The increments needed to set the fueling up properly was not available with these large injectors and the engine suffered serious bore wash and related bearing problems as mentioned by Rod.A rebuild, correctly sized injectors and its all perfect.
 
Rod, I had essentially the same experience as you, with one of the "big name" AEM tuners years ago. That tuning experience resulted in a car that was undriveable, and a ruined motor.

I really like the way Mitch does a tuning session. He's very methodical and logical in his approach, and it just illustrates the shortcomings of many other tuners who just dive right in with the high power pulls.

I've come to the conclusion that most of these highly rated tuners are only good at tuning for high HP, and are pretty lousy at tuning for driveability. Mitch is very good at both.
 
Yes it is a bit sobering when you spend good money and lots of work building a killer engine and then pay good money to the "best" tuner you can find and then get an engine back on death's doorstep and running like a dog.

I never had the feeling the engine made great power as the vehicle could spin tyres but only if provoked to do so. I really expected traction problems, particularly in the wet, but it would only spin up tyres in the wet and then only when provoked.

Bring on next week.
 
Rod Ive had 2 or my race cars at Yavus at Unigroup Engineering at Girraween. First was a Nissan race engine runing twin 40 webers and second race car was a Sr20 with quad throttles and SM4. Both engines made exeptional Hp for their work and size and perfromed equally well on the track. I know Sideshow is now doing electricals for him now, but Yavus is an exeptional engineer and a great price.
hope this helps...
 
Yavuz is the person who tuned my last engine before it died.

I think my opinion is a little different to yours!
 
I have a bit of an advantage here. My own workshop with a dyno so we do our own. I also employ another excellant tuner. Rod maybe you should bring it over. haha. Cheers
 
Plenty of dyno jockeys out there with big tickets on themselves.......

I have tuned all of my own cars, In the early days it was with a basic o2 sensor stuck up the exhaust pipe with the wire taped to the outside of the car and an analogue o2 meter on the passenger seat. That was in the days of jets, points and dizzy's....

Now I use an Innovative wide band hooked into the Adaptronic 420c and use the data log feature to check the tune. Street tuning this system works fantastic and the afr's follow exactly as programmed in the software. I run 15:1 at very light cruise and all the was down to 11.5:1 at full noise at 11 psi at 7,500 rpm. no det at all, tip in is instantaneous and the wheels will spin at will with the traction control off.

Piss poor preparation kills engines. If you are relying on sensor feedback to trim timing and add fuel etc and your sensors are not calibrated or working correctly all the way through the entire range your on the loosing side to start with. I spent a weekend calibrating all of my sensors before I even started the engine. Easy to calibrate the sensors with coolant put in the freezer overnight to get the cold end and hot cooking oil to get the high end. I used a digital meat thermometer to check the liquid temp as it either warms up or cools down through the range and clicked learn at the relevant temp. MAP sensors can be checked with a medical syringe and digital pressure gauge to check both vac and +ve pressures.

I believe a good steady street tune will get you 95% there and the last bit can be done on the dyno if you wish.

I have never used a dyno and I have never killed an engine. Sounds like a big smart arse statement but it's true.

I'm probably a few hp down right at the top end compared to an "expert" engine tuner but I know of several people that have paid big $ for a pretty dyno graph with big numbers and a car that is a pig to drive with no temperature compensation in the tune at all. Doesn't sound like good value to me.

Good luck Rod and my biggest advise is to be looking over their shoulder and question everything, not because you don't trust them but because you want to learn.
 
Cobber,

I think you're right in doing your own tunes.

Mine was "mushy" to drive. You could crack the throttle and it would rev but not like it wanted to rather like you were making it.

I'll be there for every turn of the wheels.
 
Speak to Scott at Insight motorsport, great guys and takes his time.

His co op with the the owner leaves alot to be desired though..
He'll NEVER ring you back..
Tunes Autronic well ...

Maybe tune is richer due to better mech engine condition where it maybe pulling more vacuum ??
 
With the porting it should also flow more air.

It's always been very rich.

It would never idle properly and if you walked behind it it would gas you.

I have black patches on my garage floor from the rich mix when I start it up.

I once noticed a nice black cloud behind it, sort of like an old diesel 4x4 would leave behind!

35or so litres/100k wasn't anything to get exited about either.
 
Mine is pretty damned good, and he is now really getting comfortable with the nuances of the Autronic SM4....Mr. Motorheaddown (Scott Davidson).

Ryan
 
Having a successful tuning on the dyno or first day on the street doesn't mean your tuner is good enough. Initial impression from your tuner may fade out pretty quick.

Honestly speaking, it's kind of hard to know if your tuner is good until you take your car out on the streets and you really drive it for a while. I'd say for a couple of weeks of driving hard until some bugs start to come out. Then how reliable your tuner is to get in touch to sort out those bugs is another part of saying "how good your tuner is".
 
Jem Did Adam's T88- GK soarer. good tune nice to drive. Motec M800
Try and get in contact with Insight as he is very good and takes his time to get it spot on.
 
Rod Im sorry you copped a raw deal from Yavuz. With the time and money invested in engines and cars these days it easy just to put our hands up in the air and say Ive had enough..Let me know if you find someone good. The reason I stayed with a std ECU setup on my boat was due to the fact dyno time is bloody expensive.... i could change 4 1UZ engines and still be in front compared to going to an A/M ecu and dyno time.
 


Back
Top