I have been reading some threads about tuning and I'm just curious how long it takes you to tune a car? How many hard pulls do you make? Also it would be helpful if you include how long you have been tuning cars.

 

Not a tuner but it took about 1.5 hours to tune my car on the tune. Did 4 pulls total. The last two did make any more power so we call it quite. We also tune my afr for regular driving too in that 1.5 hrs.

 

There is so many factors in this your prob not going to get to many people to respond

When i street tune cars I make a basemap takes 3 min
Get it to idle 3 min
go drive around adjusting **** 15-20 min then its done.....

30min for me but this is setups under 300hp anything more is to fast for me to tune on the street (I tuned my 11.50 car on the street and almost died)

 

with issues or without ? lol

we always spend alot of time on the dyno's with both of our hotrod cars... its usually an all day thing. 4 hours at the least.

 

with no problems with the car and just one boost setting, about 1 hr to tune full throttle and narrow throttle. i been tuning for 3 yrs now

 

mine usually had minor issues but took about 3 hours depending on what went wrong. I would drive 2.5hrs to the dyno and then it seemed like I would be there all day long.

 

it takes a lot longer that most people will admit. maybe a track car that only sees full throttle takes 1 or 2 hours but a street tune requires partial throttle at various loads which could take MANY MANY hours. i was tweaking mine for about 3 months at different temperatures, humidity, gears, loads. a 100% tune similar to something you get on a factory tuned car takes a LONG time.

 

you cant do a proper tune in an hour unless you guys are tuning AFCs or something For real EMS I have never done one in less than 3 hours but many were more than 5.

I have watched some very good tuners tune Colin Mcraes and Travis Pastranas car from a working base map. Both took over 4 hours on our dyno and indicated that there would be some more adjustments on a private dirt track a few states away also.

 

of course, this is a simple thread complicated answer thing, so there isnt a simple one. skill, experience, and customer service all play a role. it'd be nice if we could spend less on the tuning aspect, but i'd rather leave it with the tuner, they all have individual routines as well, fast, easy, reliable, cheap blah blah you know it already

 

if there is one question that has no answer this is it!!!

the car im working with right now we are on day number 3.

obviously having lots of issues. i was using a EMS i wasnt familar with at first.....and thought maybe it was someting i was doing. put in a EMS that i use every day and had the exact same problem at the exact same RPM. tried different distributor, coil, ignitor, wires, you name it. no luck. quick phone call to tony and the next pull the car made 440....so that "tune" took probably 10 min lol.

put the other ems in, which i am now comfortable with and the we were able to duplicate the horsepower. just unfortunately have ran into more problems as well lol

most people who tune cars on a regular basis usually have a decent map to start with that saves a lot of time. once you start getting into higher horsepower cars, its not a quick easy in easy out type deal thats for sure. and running into problems is a whole different story.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by gogunkergorilla &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">it takes a lot longer that most people will admit. maybe a track car that only sees full throttle takes 1 or 2 hours but a street tune requires partial throttle at various loads which could take MANY MANY hours. i was tweaking mine for about 3 months at different temperatures, humidity, gears, loads. a 100% tune similar to something you get on a factory tuned car takes a LONG time.</TD></TR></TABLE>

this is completly true
i allways wonder about people who tune a whole ems from scratch in 2-3 hours or less. It's possible and it works... no doubt, but it's nowhere near a tune you can call "perfect" in relation to a production car.

 

Depends if the car has issues. And most the time. It does. Took me two days to tune an EVO IX recently. First we ran out of fuel pump. Then the turbo started to fail. I like to take a bit of time tuning partial throttle. Usually two hours depending upon the setup. Then the dyno. If I am just tuning low boost. An hour. If I am tuning high boost for pump gas, race gas, cam gears, etc. About three hours some times four hours. Couple minutes here and there for cool down. Let the gases get out of the shop. Such a broad question

 

for the normal 200-350whp car, which is about average car I tune, i'd say atleast 90% of them. 2-3hours. this is normally just because i've tuned enough setups, where whenever someone brings a car over with 550s, spoolin manifold, 50 trim and b16, yep, i've tuned two other cars like that, so its a nice start.

i like to do a number of WOT pulls in different gears to see how its responding. plus depending on the software, it can vary.

 

i only tuned my cars and a few friends cars over the years.


ive spent as many as 5 hours on a dyno for my car that had problems, and as little as about 45 min on a friends car that went smoothly. usually i can go from a rough basemap to something safe and make some kind of power in 4-7 pulls, either street or dyno

i usually spend a day or 2 driving around town messing with the vacuum portion of the map also, just tweaking things in between running errands and going to eat and stuff

 

Long enough to make it right ,no more ,no less.

 

I know someone that tunes OEM vehicles for Chrysler. Typically they spend a year tuning a car. This includes on an engine dyno, chassis dyno, and all over the country doing road tests in different environments.

 

Including partial throttle for street-trim, it'll take a few days at least to get it to that "stock feeling" range. On that note, I love K-pro when my laptop's not shitting the bed.

 

We usually take right around 3 hours to do a complete street tune and the car feels pretty much like stock. We do a lot of retunes for people where the car has been tuned by someone else and they think it is good, and then once e are through wonder how they drove around on the old tune. For the average tuner (or if I was by myself it would take a day or two to do this). I believe the reason we can lay down such good partial throttle tunes so fast is because 1. We have a lot of maps for similar setups from the past already, and 2. There are two of us tuning and I always drive the car while Adam works the laptop. Ive been in so many cars and setups now I can tell exactly what the car wants and how much to make it feel stock.

But basically to answer your question, if it is your first time tuning and you want a stock like tune, its going to take quite a few days or longer to figure it all out.


Modified by SOHCD16y8 at 4:51 PM 7/4/2007

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by gogunkergorilla &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">it takes a lot longer that most people will admit. maybe a track car that only sees full throttle takes 1 or 2 hours but a street tune requires partial throttle at various loads which could take MANY MANY hours. i was tweaking mine for about 3 months at different temperatures, humidity, gears, loads. a 100% tune similar to something you get on a factory tuned car takes a LONG time.</TD></TR></TABLE>

This was something I didn't know about back in 2001 and often wondered why my gas mileage went from 28-30 to under 20mpg with my "tuned" setup that was making some good power. No matter how gentle I was with the loud pedal, I could never get my **** to get good mileage.

I used to think a week would be ok to tune the daily drivability and maybe it is for a particular season, but if your car is on the road 300 days plus, it could well take a few months at least...

 

15-30 minutes to make it safe.

Then weeks/days/months after that to make it optimal.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by GetawayInMoscow &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">15-30 minutes to make it safe.

Then weeks/days/months after that to make it optimal.</TD></TR></TABLE>

For sure. It took me only four or so pulls to dial in the AF ratio and basic timing. After that I've been tweaking a bit here and a bit there for about 4 months now.

I datalog a ton and tune myself, so there's no rush, and I'm a perfectionist.

If I was paying for dyno time, I would do it a lot quicker.

 

it takes way longer than any of u are saying!

 

we just started street tuning mine this week...

It does take time.. especially if you arent tuning every day...
Fuel milage/street tuning is hard to get right..
big pulls are rather easy...

but like people said, it takes quite a while if you have any problems...
today we ran into some data logging issues... still not sure, there are discrepancies between my wideband and the datalogging we are seeing from log works /free log

 

Well I know this question was a bit complex, but I kept hearing people tuning their car from like a basemap in and hour or less. I'm not sure if I am just slow or way OCD about my tune but it usually takes me a few hours and even then I think there is places that need more work. It seems like I always feel a place in the map when driving that I think needs attention.

Anyways I know interface plays a role, and problems with the car but I was just looking for an overall average or good guesstimate on how long it takes for more cars.

Anyways thanks for responses! Seems like the "better" tunes take a little longer than some of the stuff I have heard.


Modified by Civicman86 at 3:36 PM 7/4/2007

 

Take your time. It's always fun to have customer's wives calling them every half hour asking how much longer, is he almost done, what do you mean another two hours, haha