I know it sounds like a stupid question but I have to ask this. What really makes a good tuner a good tuner?

For the guys that get your car tuned by others, i'm just curious why you don't tune it yourself?

Lupe is an example, I know Steve tunes your car with excellent results, why did you go the Steve route rather than tune the car yourself, you seem to know a lot about everything needed, just curious....

I've seen many timing maps and under boost almost everyone is the same for advance and split, maybe a few deg off here and there. Air Fuels are easy enough to adjust and now widebands are cheap but I still see everyone having others tune their cars.

Anthony

 

Timing and split map are NOT THE SAME. People might run the same CONSERVATIVE timing and split maps, but every engine is DIFFERENT. So every engine takes different timing and airfuel settings.
A good tuner must know when to stop before the timing is too much. He must know the balance of air, fuel, and ignition to achieve a certain goal ( dyno queen, roadrace car, driftcar, drag car, etc). A good tuner must be closely familiar with the standalone you have so he can tune you cranking, starting, idling, cruising, accelaration, full throttle, AC, traction control, safety maps, etc....
That is how I do it, that is how many of the best tuners do it... Just plugging a FIXED timing map and adjusting airfuel to a set number does not make you the best.
It is all about knowledge and experience, in both building the engine, and then tuning it.
And when we actually tunr not just 13B and 20B cars, but the rst of the piston engines, then it gets interesting...

 

My reasoning....... I spent 6 years and literally blew up 10 motors trying to tune myself. I eventually got the hint

I decided to spend the $350 to have Steve Kan tune it. At the time I though that was alot of money for just a "tune". Boy was I wrong.

You can have the best of the best installled on your car but if you don't have a tune, then you don't have **** (Pardon my language).

Paying to have Steve Kan tune my car was the best money I've ever invested in my car PERIOD.