Topic: Tuners

[Jim]

With the purchase of the WR-3 turbo, I will soon need a good tuner and would appreciate any recommendations you guys have to offer. I was considering BYT and have read good things about his tuning abilities and some bad things about his service/support but I haven't ruled him out as I have contacted him and he was quick to respond.

Since I'm getting the turbo from PAW, I have also considered using their tuning services which includes continued support on the tune and I know that I will eventually add meth injection and possibly the 5th injector down the road so this may be the best route for me to take since they are a supporting vendor and will be available later this year, next year and hopefully for a long time in the future.

I do have HP Tuners VCM Suite and the Trifecta canned tune is currently installed in the car and I have the cable for it also so my plan is to remove the Trifecta tune when I get the tracking number from PAW and make sure that the ECM will communicate with HP Tuners before doing the turbo swap.

I will also upgrade the valve springs and lash adjusters in the future (when my wife goes on her girls only vacation) so I will be keeping the stock redline until August but still want the most out of the tune that I can get without having to worry about blowing something up. If I thought I could do the valve springs and adjusters in less than 8 hours here at work, I would probably just go ahead and do them now but when I add up the cost of the parts and tools, I'm looking at another $600+ and think they can wait until August.

What tuner would you guys recommend if it were your car? While I do have the HP Tuners VCM Suite, I'm not really too interested in trying too much out on my own right now. I'll take some baby steps and keep reading and progress at a snails pace....My only tuning to date was on my old aircooled VW motor that was a 2276 turbocharged, fuel injected, wasted spark setup controlled by Megasquirt and I had a pretty good base tune to work with and didn't have to change much at all. I'd like the same with the new turbo and HP Tune.

Thanks in advance!

[Critterman]

Read down the right side of this forum.  Several tuners there.  All come highly recommended.  My personal thoughts are to stick with the one who took you to the dance.  If you are getting everything from one vendor and they will support your tunning needs via HP tuners (since you have it) go with them.   They know what you got.

[DeepBlueGXP]

3 options:
1. You can pay for Trifecta to re-tune for the new turbo.  Not sure how much.
2. Find a local tuner (not sure where your at) and use your HPtuners on a dyno.
3. Call Lyndon and pay for his supporting member forum discounted w/lifetime updates. 

[DeepBlueGXP]

The Trifecta tune will have to come off to use HPT.  You can't download the tune with it installed.

[Jim]

The Trifecta tune will have to come off to use HPT.  You can't download the tune with it installed.

I will remove the TF tune as soon as I have the tracking number from PAW. Don't think I'll go with the TF tune only because their service through WOT isn't very good. I think Critterman hit the nail on the head plus I like dancing.  Thanks for the suggestions!

[Yelloboy504]

Gmtech and Term2 from what I've read are great tuners. I plan to reach out to one of them once I have my car ready. I've seen Gmtech on the roadster forum and he's been a great help and has a great deal of knowledge on kappas. Haven't seen him on this forum tho. To my surprise....... seems like kappaperformance is more about performance and mods compared to the others?????

Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using Tapatalk 2

[GXP_Matt]

Something something 60-100 mph runs to the pharmacy...  if you search you'll find it...

[SKY888]

I was considering BYT and have read good things about his tuning abilities and some bad things about his service/support but I haven't ruled him out as I have contacted him and he was quick to respond.

are you talking about backyardturbo?

I considered him before.....but be aware....he kinda pissed off some balt owners.

He suddenly disappeared and can't be contact.

where are you located?  if you can drive to our supporting vendors ....they can dyno tune your car...which will be the best.


just FYI.

[Dave@DDMworks]

Read down the right side of this forum.  Several tuners there.  All come highly recommended.  My personal thoughts are to stick with the one who took you to the dance.  If you are getting everything from one vendor and they will support your tunning needs via HP tuners (since you have it) go with them.   They know what you got.

Definitely if you can get the tuning done remotely through HPtuners you will get the best tune, it is always nice when a customer has HPTuners, makes things so much better than a can tune that has to be sent out.

[Jim]

I'm in southern New Mexico so nowhere near any of the vendors. Closest dyno is 200 miles to boot. I've contacted Nick at BYT a few times and he's always been quick to respond but I think I'll go with PAW to do the tuning since they're selling me the turbo.

[LatinVenom]

I would also go with PAW since as has been said, you are buying from them.
Once they do the initial tune and a couple of follow ups with logs then you can considered someone else

[elff]

Gmtech and Term2 from what I've read are great tuners. I plan to reach out to one of them once I have my car ready. I've seen Gmtech on the roadster forum and he's been a great help and has a great deal of knowledge on kappas. Haven't seen him on this forum tho. To my surprise....... seems like kappaperformance is more about performance and mods compared to the others?????

Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using Tapatalk 2

I am going to disagree on the GMT part of your statement.
Including his own bent rods in which he is replacing his engine with a V8, I just don't trust his EGO or his tuning.
That's all I am going to say, and I am sure his cronies will attack me on forums in which he isn't banned, but screw it.
I would not trust him with anything on my car.  I don't how much he claims to know.

My Sky is tuned from 2 Dave's
Dave @ DDM
and
Terminator who is also another Dave.
I won't let anyone else work on my Sky.
Period

[Gentleman Jack]

I've worked on your Sky. Therefor your statement above is false and you are untrustworthy. Not to mention short.

[elff]

and I had to remove all of my suspension

[Jim]

From what I've read lately, Term2 isn't tuning any new customers - only existing ones. Once PAW has me in the ballpark after some good logs, I will feel comfortable taking over - just not quite ready to start from scratch on my own though the videos posted on HP Tuners by Cobalt Overbooster are great and I could probably make my way through but would rather pay a pro to get it tuned good and then work on making it better as necessary.

[Yelloboy504]

I am going to disagree on the GMT part of your statement.
Including his own bent rods in which he is replacing his engine with a V8, I just don't trust his EGO or his tuning.
That's all I am going to say, and I am sure his cronies will attack me on forums in which he isn't banned, but screw it.
I would not trust him with anything on my car.  I don't how much he claims to know.

My Sky is tuned from 2 Dave's
Dave @ DDM
and
Terminator who is also another Dave.
I won't let anyone else work on my Sky.
Period

sorry I had no knowledge of that...

Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using Tapatalk 2

[Jim]

For those of you that have added larger turbos, what did you have to change about your tune? I would assume that the fuel and spark would really be the only required changes since the larger turbo is flowing more air per rpm than the smaller one so I'd appreciate hearing from anyone that upgraded to a larger turbo and tweaked their own tune.

Hopefully I'll find the time to play with HP Tuners this weekend and get the TF tune off of the car and run my own HP Tune until the new turbo arrives using the info/videos from the HP Tuners site.

Thanks in advance!

[Kelu]

IIRC the tune itself was done on the dyno and fine tune on the street. Lambda, spark, extending some tables which were defined only up to 6500rpm and some other things.

The most time consuming was the calibration of the MAF because of a completely new intake, I had to drive about 4h with my tuner in the passenger seat.

[Jim]

Thanks Kelu!

[Yelloboy504]

IIRC the tune itself was done on the dyno and fine tune on the street. Lambda, spark, extending some tables which were defined only up to 6500rpm and some other things.

The most time consuming was the calibration of the MAF because of a completely new intake, I had to drive about 4h with my tuner in the passenger seat.

Now, that's a good tuner! And that's what tuning is all about! Every engine is different. It takes a good tuner to tune your engine to your specs!

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[L-N-Fn]

I tried Trifecta and a Werks tune, I didn't like either!!

[Jim]

Who was it that did your tuning L-N-Fn?

[L-N-Fn]

He doesn't want me let people know, he has a very busy full time job. I offered him 1,000 for my initial tune and he didn't say no. And he's no longer on this forum.

[Jim]

No problem - was just curious. I've got my mind set on who I'll use and will be able to take over myself afterwards.

[Jim]

Removed TF tune and installed HP tune. Working great so far and at only 20psi is pulling harder than TF at 23psi.