I have to ask about this. I might get flamed, but i have to know.. every tuning is different, but it might fall on a price range depending on mods and complication, i am guessing. There is a guy by where i live and he charges 700-800 to tune my fd with my mods.. he has a dynodynamics dyno.. i can list my set up, but i think its too expensive. I have to call other places and see.

 

$650, car is mostly stock

 

I paid C$450 at our local top tuner in the Vancouver area. They also rebuilt the engine, but the line item for the tune part was the $450. When I went back after break-in, the two owners spent three hours on the tune including a number of dyno runs.

 

Thats what i am saying, i dont mind 500-600, but 800? I am going to call some places tomorrow, if i have to take a trip to Orlando and get it done by rotary tuner there, i will.

 

I guess at all depends on the reputation of the tuner. IMO I would gladly pay more to someone who is reputable and stands behind their work, as opposed to saving some money and risking potential premature engine failure...I dunno

 

I am 100% with you there, but the tuner does 99.9% piston engine.. he says he has done rotary engine as well. There was another guy who said the same thing in orange park a year ago and he only played with the throutle and charged me $100 and told me to go back some other day.. freaking joke...

 

I believe I paid 4-450 for a tune by my builder/tuner plus dyno time (3rd party dyno). I think I paid around the 600 mark including dyno time.

 

I got my FD tuned at Speed 1 in PA with Dave around $500 something, I forgot, last year.

 

We have a number of tuners/engine builders that are regulars on this site. I would be very interested in what they have to say.

 

Our rate is $200/hr. for dyno tuning on our in-house Mustang dyno. The amount of time it takes depends on the level of power the customer is looking for and the ECU. A twins car with bolt-ons and PFC tuned to 12-14psi is a couple hours. Another example is Microtech tuning a car to 500rwhp is very time consuming and can take 6-10hrs depending on the setup. If we have to set up 6 different boost setting, tune water injection, multiple fuels, etc the time increases accordingly.

If we have built the car tuning usually goes very quickly, since there is little to no troubleshooting.

 

Banzai, that sounds fare to me. A single turbo, dual waste gate, id1000 and id2000 injectors, pfc, 13 psi on 93 octane,. I know it depends of any complications, but i would aim it at max $600?

 

It all comes down to the hourly rate. There are also tuners that start with a flat rate, then increase by the hour after a set time. Example $500 for 1-3hrs then $XXX after that per hour.

We do not operate that way, if a car is setup properly and I can turn it around in an hour it is $200.

Also if a tuner needs to rent dyno time, the overall cost will vary. Before we had our own dyno I would have to pay $125/hr or more to rent a dyno.

I have a lot of cars trailered in for tuning that were previously tuned at other "shops". Cutting corners trying to find a budget tuner is not a good idea. You have thousands of dollars invested into parts for your car, why put them at risk for a bargain basement tuner?

 

Banzai makes a good point, so many times tuners have to deal with cars that aren't sorted out at all. People think they can just take it to the tuner and magic happens.

Stuff like boost controllers hooked up wrong, clogged fuel filters, leaking intercooler pipes, vacuum leaks, poor wiring, etc. The tuner then has to waste a lot of time troubleshooting that to get the car running right so it can actually be tuned.

Dale

 

Also, it depends if they are going to take it out on the street afterward or try to sort through cold starts, hot starts, etc. OP's setup sounds pretty straightforward, but if he had E85 then ideally he would leave the car so the tuner can do some cold start tuning.

If the shop doesn't have a load bearing dyno (just do basic WOT pulls with a lower end dynojet) then there are more limits to what can be accomplished on the dyno.

 

We are talking about a car ready to tune, no a broken car. I dont expect the tuner to grab wrenches and fix my car. If that , he will tell me to go and fix it and come back when its sorted out, believe me, i know.

 

i charge $125 per hour and live in florida.

 

Everyone thinks their car is ready to tune. I do a pre-tuning inspection on all cars that I have never seen before, I can tell you that I have sent 100s of cars home without any tuning and the owner has a grocery list of things to fix. I am not going to endanger myself, my equipment or someone's car for a couple hundred dollars. I have had people show up with cars leaking everything and even cars with blown engines that "just needed tuning". I have a car here right now that was dropped off from another shop, came in not running. Got it to fire up to find they had installed a shabby oil accumulator directly behind the driver, that dumped a quart of oil inside the car. I told the owner to take it home and fix all the problems, he opted to leave it here.

 

if you're doing it in house you're better off just quoting them for repairs and getting the additional income, since many of the repairs that were shabbily done were by the owner in the first place. in some cases it is simply issues that the owner was unaware of, like fuel pressure bleeding off under boost, which is hard to find if you aren't boosting the car hard prior(most people ignore the dead head fuel pressure test and think that if it can get to 40psi it should be fine).

 

Our tunes start at a $699 flat rate. This is typically for a pump gas tune and 2 boost settings if applicable and includes dyno time. Some cars can be tuned in couple hours, some take longer. The price remains the same unless there are pre-existing mechanical issues that pop up and need to be resolved. We tune with safety and drivability as priority. Peak power is always secondary. We cover cold start, hot start, idle, tip in, drivability, and finally power. We have a very robust fan setup ensuring adequate airflow and each car is given ample time to cool down between power pulls. I feel we provide one of the most thorough tuning services in the industry. This takes time. Anyone that tunes one of these cars in less than an hour and thinks it is complete is doing you a disservice. 99% of the tuning is done on our in house Mustang dyno. The load control allows a very close replication of what the car would see in the real world. This unfortunately cannot be said for some other brand dynos which are good for little else than full throttle horsepower pulls.This may work for drag racing, but leaves a lot left off the table as far as a properly tuned car that performs well in all conditions. After the tune is completed on the dyno, the car is road tested with the customer whenever possible to ensure there are no missed spots in the map, or conditions specific to how each individual drives their particular car. Each customer receives a printout of their best runs. Pictures and video are also available upon request free of charge.

Some ecus and setups require significantly longer to tune and therefore the pricing can be higher. A stock turbo car with a Power FC is usually a quick tune. Once you get into ecus with more feature, the 500hp + range, and start dealing with things like flex fuel, multiple engine protection parameters, traction control, boost-by-gear, etc the price can be slightly higher.

I can also attest that the majority of cars that come in "ready to go" are in fact not ready. Very often there is an issue that would make the car unsafe to tune. I recommend that every car that comes in that we did not personally build receive a pre-tune inspection. This is typically 1 hour of labor and for a rotary includes a compression test, timing verification, boost control verification, checking fuel pressure, any leaks, and a general lookover to make sure everything is solid. The last thing I want is for the car to break down and to waste the customer's money and our time to fix something that could have easily been addressed prior.

 

I respect you experience banzai, but my car was tune before, i only change the turbo charger. Thats why i know is good to go. I am agree withbanzai that the tuner inspect the car before tuning so they can go and fix what is wrong and try some other day.

 

Most opt to leave their cars to have them properly sorted, but there are always DIYers that want to do all their own work or can't afford the repairs, those are the ones that go home without any tuning. Over the last 20 years I have helped push a lot of cars back on trailers.

 

Irperformance, if i would get all that you mention i would do it for that price, the tuner in question did not provide any of that info.. thats why i am here.
thanks for your input. Like i said i will have to drive a couple of hours to get it done by a rotary known tuner.

 

I've done the same. Many times I've had to politely decline tuning a car when I could see it had a condition that would make it unsafe to tune.

 

Any reputable tuner should be providing everything mentioned. A car is not completely tuned if it can't start reliably and be driven around town, peak power is only a small part of tuning a car, unless it is strictly a drag car and just needs to run 1320 ft very quickly and nothing else matters.

Dyno Gallery

 

Here is a clip of part of my dyno run.