That is what I was thinking, since all of my upgrades that I plan on doing to the car will have been done before I get it tuned.I can always learn the ins and outs of tuning it myself in the meantime, but I would feel a lot better having a professional tune it the first time and then just have to tweak it a little if I decide to change anything in the future.Thanks for the advice.

 

I dont even know how pissed I would be at myself if I popped my motor trying to tune my car myself. After having driven my old FD with a pettit unlimited ecu, and now my new 7 with a Kan tune the difference is amazing. Not the power output (the two cars are much much different in terms of mods), but the overall smoothness of the car. Its amazing how much different they are even just at cruising. $300<New motor. Also $300< Datalogit, wideband, and laptop. It just seems too simple to me.

 

I haven't read this whole thread, but from experience it can cost anywhere from 500-600. If you factor in tuning costs...$350 + dyno time $150-200 + Race gas (if needed) $100 you're looking at anywhere from $500 - $650.

-Dan

 

I've been back and forth with this myself for some time. I did pay a local guy in Marietta who was supposed to know what he was doing with RX7's. . .my learning from this: make very, very sure the person knows their stuff before letting anyone touch your car (no damage done, just didn't run very well and barely idled after he was done with it! Now I have datalogit with input from lc-1; Innovate lc-1 with xd-1 guage in car (worked out really nice putting the gauge in the Pettit steering column gauge pod -- as someone said, a/f is just good information to have at all times), and actually found an old Compaq presario (win98) that works fine for this but really isn't very useful as a PC any longer. I've been reading, taking it slowly with tuning, bugging Chuck (cewrx1) occassionaly and my car is just getting a little better every time I have time to work on it! Now is it worth all of that to really start to learn and understand these fantastic cars, or would it be better to just pay someone? That's a personal decision for each to decide!

 

Just to dispell that a good Piston tuner can get you a good baseline, I had AEM's ECU Instructor come over from AEM to Gardena, Ca. (next town Over) and figure out what was going on with my ECU, since it wouldn't hold a Tune (P.O.S.) He returned it talling me that the EProm's were bad batch... and proceeded to try and re-establish the base tune, which he later on tried to charge me $200 or so for, which he told me nothing about... (Long Story) Anyhow, bottom line:
AEM Certified EMS Instructor, base tunes my car, and it gets 11.5 AFR on decel down a hill, gets maybe 90-100 Miles per 18 US Gal. Fillup, and stalls on occasion at stoplight, due to too much fuel...

I can understand he was scared to blow the motor but dousing it in fuel !?

Bottom Line, Milage will vary, with any tuner, and you have to figure out if the Risk of tuning is worth the savings. In the Long run yes it may be, if you never blow your motor, but ask steve, or any rotary mechanic that tunes for a living, how many motors he/she has blown before they touched custumers cars ! I guarantee you it's more than 1.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if good tuners had blown multiple motors. I would think it would be very hard to have someone come to you with an unknown setup. Specifically, I would worry about whether or not things like injectors had been cleaned and balanced recently, fuel pump and fuel filters were good. If they have blown motors I would say it would be related to setup than anything else. Look at A-Spec, I don't believe they tune vehicles that they didn't build the setup on.

 

None of that really matters from a tuning point of view. Having dirty injectors, a clogged fuel filter and possibly fouling plugs will do is hurt power numbers. If you have a good tuner, they should be able to notice a car not making the power it should and possibly pinpoint the problem.

-Dan

 

so its 2020 heading into 2021 soon. what is the average tuning session cost these days??

 

SBG charges around 1k for a tune.

 

I decided to go the self-tune route and it has worked out very well so far. I picked up a WBO2 and joined the PFC google group. It takes a bit of reading and learning to get into but once you understand how your engine works and reacts to different inputs it becomes a rewarding experience. I already had a laptop for school so it was relatively cheap to get into. It also allows for easy modification to your map when new mods are installed. If you're up for a bit of learning I'd recommend tuning it yourself.

 

I've spent about 200 on average tuning my cars myself mainly just dialing in ignition timing, boost curves, and AFRs after countless hours of street tuning. When I used to pay people, it was around 600 bucks. This is in Oregon as well.

 

We don't have any rotary shops here. A few people used to get together and fly a guy in from Toronto once a year. At the time, he was charging around $600 per tune plus flight / hotel / dyno time. I don't know what he's charging now.

 

I called and met with tuners in the south east and Texas for quotes recently:
$650 for a PowerFC tune on the tuners dyno
Another tuner wanted 6 hours of shop labor + dyno cost on someone elses dyno for a powerFC
2 hours labor + dyno time for a microtech
$300 + dyno time for a Haltech