Questions for all the tuners on here.

[KurtP]

im curious which of the tuning companies on here are willing to engage some of these questions.

1- when tuning, do you wear knock ears or do you just use knock sensor data?

2- what AFR’s do you target at cruise, part load, high load?

3- at what IAT do you start pulling ignition timing?

4- what is your boost/rpm curve for a pump gas car? Did you use a turbo speed gauge to determine this curve?

5- what do you do with false knock recovery settings compared to stock?

6- what do you do to monitor cylinder pressure, and what do you consider the safe limit?

7- what do you use as your limit for cylinder temperature, and what does your map do when you hit that temp?

8- what do you consider an acceptable level of KC?

9- what changes do you make to ecu learning/trims learning? (Aka how much adaptation permission has been left intact?)

lets see where this goes!

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[Rocksandblues]

Are you starting a tune shop?

 

[KurtP]

Are you starting a tune shop?

no ive just seen a lot of bullshit in maps i look at, and Im curious who here is actually doing work and who is just a WOT bandit cranking out “bro tunes”.

i considered all of those things when i wrote files. I confess my skillset is out of date sufficiently i wouldnt try to write my own file from
scratch anymore on a modern ecu without some coaching. Tuning has gotten more complex, and you can look at the maps between two ttners and see which one is worth their salt. Yeah, on the stock turbo youre probably fine with a “bro tune“ that adds some fuel, adds some boost, adds a little timing. it feels fast and puts down good numbers on the high correction factor dyno the shop uses. The youtube smooth edit reel looks great. Tuner doesnt have to do much with cams cus the small turbo spools. Not too much with ignition advance because the stock file just needs a little spice. But if youre building a new base map for a larger turbo, it takes more knowledge than that.

if you arent asking those questions of someone tuning your car, Id encourage you to consider it. Especially if youre going to a larger turbocharger. It matters to me on who i let tune my car, but ymmv.

 

[KurtP]

My surprise meter at the lack of responses is hovering on zero. id challenge people who got tuned to start looking at their files.

See if your knock sensors are turned way down or just straight up disabled.

is your timing curve dynamic? Or did they just load it up across the board?

 

[Tsar]

My surprise meter at the lack of responses is hovering on zero.

I am not surprised either but probably for a different reason. I equate the thread to receiving a question from a friend of a friend who is in a different state (or best one I got was from a different country) regarding some legal issue that someone is facing and wanting me to break down their options. I generally ignore those cause for variety of reasons. I think you'd get a better response if you actually contacted one via email and was paying for their tune/time - then I could see them answering.

Side note, wtf are knock ears? Most tunes nowadays are remote and your email just dings when it's ready lol (genuine questions actually cause it sounds funny).

 

[MYA90SUPRA]

Side note, wtf are knock ears? Most tunes nowadays are remote and your email just dings when it's ready lol (genuine questions actually cause it sounds funny).

I had an idea what they were from the name, but I had to look it up. From what I gathered you hook up sensors on the engine and they hook up to ear phones and the tuner physically listen for knock sounds. I don't know what is more accurate knock sensors or ears.

I will say this when I got my 06 Evo dyno tuned with aem standalone the tuner (company will not be named, but I will say they are one that is extremely popular) didn't have those on.

 

[KurtP]

I am not surprised either but probably for a different reason. I equate the thread to receiving a question from a friend of a friend who is in a different state (or best one I got was from a different country) regarding some legal issue that someone is facing and wanting me to break down their options. I generally ignore those cause for variety of reasons. I think you'd get a better response if you actually contacted one via email and was paying for their tune/time - then I could see them answering.

Side note, wtf are knock ears? Most tunes nowadays are remote and your email just dings when it's ready lol (genuine questions actually cause it sounds funny).

I understand what youre saying, but i think we as consumers need to demand more transparency from tuners. When i wrote files - and the people i worked with- were totally transparent with our customers on what we did. Yes they were locked to deter piracy, but we’d show the client And talk them through it. If a tuner wont talk to me about his tuning strategy going into a session, he isnt tuning me car.

trust me. There are *A LOT* of garbage tuners out there that dont know what they are doing.

knock ears are a specific kind of headset that filters out sound down to the detonation event and connect to the KS. A Proper ignition has a very specific sound that you can hear when its right. Its the most precise way to tune a kill mode tune that you then adjust your knock sensor to.

you can get a good remote tune if you have the ability to watch lambda, afr, cyl pressure, egt, and knock. Most remote tuners admit their remote tunes arent as good as their in person tunes unless youre renting dyno time and sensors and feeding them the data. If a tuner has a done a few killer in person tunes, they can do a solid e-tune of the same engine on similar mods.

 

[KurtP]

I had an idea what they were from the name, but I had to look it up. From what I gathered you hook up sensors on the engine and they hook up to ear phones and the tuner physically listen for knock sounds. I don't know what is more accurate knock sensors or ears.

I will say this when I got my 06 Evo dyno tuned with aem standalone the tuner (company will not be named, but I will say they are one that is extremely popular) didn't have those on.

correct. Its the best way to have a safe tune, and you can take it to kill mode on a daily drive tune if you do it that way.

many, many, many tuners dont use them. It isnt ALWAYS an indication your tune is bad, but a tuner that does ALMOST always is an indicator it will be good.

 

[KurtP]

Im not trying to start an argument with any tuner here. Im hoping this turns into an opportunity for the one or two tuners here that do it right to set themselves apart from the crowd.

 

[max]

lets see where this goes!

Hmmmmm??? Not looking to be a tuner but have spent time with piggyback. I know this does not compare to actually tuning tables but did a lot of "homework and study" mainly to understand what my engine was doing at different times whether cruise, low load, high load, etc. I paid more attention to "lambda" vs. AFR because it will tell the story regardless of fuel or fuel quality. Again, can't touch your knowledge no matter how long you have been out of the game.

However, I will say this from observation. A lot of folks on this forum and others have no business messing with tunes/piggybacks or anything else for that matter.....TBH! most in that group are mainly out to be "stoplight" warriors or "Scatpak" hunters and have no clue what is going on when the engine is operating outside the stock parameters. A good tune should not only produce a "gain" in performance but unless tuning for track use only, the tune should compensate for the majority of the time the engine will be run which is "cruising".

Anyway, just my thoughts and love to quote a saying: " the smartest person is the one who knows what they don't know." It sounds like you (OP) could get back in the game with a minimum of "coaching".

 

[KurtP]

ive been thinking about it. It would be a side gig for me at this point, but ive been thinking about it.

i could probably book a full day on the dyno on a saturday, and as long as it wasnt anything crazy beyond a P800/GC; crank out 3-5 cars a day as long as none of them had anything weird going on. I need time to get the cars super hot to know what theyre doing when its bad...so its dyno, road, dyno. I used to require clients book a one hr tech inspection with the shop a week or two prior to dyno appointment. This minimized issues and gave peopel a chance to fix anything prior to tuning...it kept them from
wasting their money from me saying “your shit’s broke” and spared others who invested time/money from
having an appointment trashed because someone brought in a shit box.

 

[Loco38SUP]

I think most tuning is done from OTS files. You just use the files based on your Mod variables. From what I’ve seen for tuning the GR Supra is that a lot is based on removing torque blocking guard bands put on by the factory. That and every tuner adds their own little spice to Fuel and Timing maps.

-RJM

 

[Suggs.OR]

Im not trying to start an argument with any tuner here. Im hoping this turns into an opportunity for the one or two tuners here that do it right to set themselves apart from the crowd.

As someone who has doesn't know anything about tuning i feel like if you have this many questions you should be asking tuners directly, not over the forums. There are plenty of tuners not on the forums (at least in the PNW) that I have seen a lot of successful tunes.

 

[Ghostop]

im curious which of the tuning companies on here are willing to engage some of these questions.

1- when tuning, do you wear knock ears or do you just use knock sensor data?

2- what AFR’s do you target at cruise, part load, high load?

3- at what IAT do you start pulling ignition timing?

4- what is your boost/rpm curve for a pump gas car? Did you use a turbo speed gauge to determine this curve?

5- what do you do with false knock recovery settings compared to stock?

6- what do you do to monitor cylinder pressure, and what do you consider the safe limit?

7- what do you use as your limit for cylinder temperature, and what does your map do when you hit that temp?

8- what do you consider an acceptable level of KC?

9- what changes do you make to ecu learning/trims learning? (Aka how much adaptation permission has been left intact?)

lets see where this goes!

Great thread I’ll be following. Let’s maybe add a list of Tuners that are acceptable for this platform as well?

 

[KurtP]

Great thread I’ll be following. Let’s maybe add a list of Tuners that are acceptable for this platform as well?

i say let the tuners self-select. The Longer this goes the more it tells us about who is on here.

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