chiefbob

The club I belong to is having a guy from FL (Horsepower Sales) come up our way and offered to do street tuning (no dyno, obviously) for the members at a reduced cost.

The owner states: "The difference is very noticeable. The car runs cooler, has much better throttle response, and the difference in the way the transmission shifts is like night and day. The car is so much more fun to drive and the money spent was well worth it."

"You might not be picking up a ton of horsepower on a stock car, but it does make a big difference in the low and mid range as you optimize the fueling and spark in those areas. Better drivability, smoother running, better MPG, more power, snappier throttle, increased SOTP feel, etc, etc...there are no downsides...except of course you will probably be bit by the mod bug once you feel it."

I have a 2004 automatic, 350 engine. No mods on it. So is it worth getting it street tuned for the stated benefits in quotes above?

Does it need to be tuned again after a certain amount of driving, or is it "one and done"?

cmiller8006

As long as there is a way to measure air fuels I don't think one way is better then the other. Big difference is some dyno shops car control air temps and what not in the bay. Also you can visually see the gains on the charts so if one thing don't work like the other you can change back, on a street tune you could measure the time frame from beginning to end of run to see improvement.

chiefbob

Thanks. I missed this part in the original email:

"He does drive the vehicle during the street tune process to first datalog what the vehicle is presently doing performance wise. He reviews this file (aka-"stock file") and will then make changes to many portions of the file to enhance the overall "fun factor" of the Corvette."

dankhts

A good tuner should always take the time and effort to finish up the tune on the street...... My last go around was 4-5 pulls and then about 2 hrs on the street fine tuning such other things as shift points shift speeds, pressures, etc.... And those guys have a good rep I'm sure you'll be happy....

Sleezy E

go for it!

You'll be happy you did

chiefbob

Thanks to all for the good insight. I signed up.

Blow Torch

Sounds like you are already in, but;
As a general rule, if you are planning to mod the car in the future, it is a waste of money (hp wise) if the tuner will not re-tune it for a reduced fee after the mods.
That being said, by tweaking the VE tables, adjusting shifts and firmness, removing TM, etc, etc they can make the car MUCH more fun to drive

RonSSNova

I'm doubting he is going to screw in a wide band and tweak air fuel ratio.
VE table tuning is very time consuming on the street. MAF tuning not so hard.
Shift points, fan temps are easy, and no doubt he has canned numbers for these.

Do report back on the results.
Would be curious to know how much this costs......

Supercharged111

The term "street tune" initially shyed me away, until I read the verbiage. Sounds like, if he knows what he's doing, he'll give you what he claims. GM's timing maps below peak torque tend to be a bit soft, so there's some throttle response to be gained there and you will probably notice fewer downshifts as the car will just lug a gear and go.

kp1

Dyno tunes aren't usually tunes at all. It's just sticking your car on a dyno and making a few full throttle runs to try to make more peak HP to impress you and make you feel good about plunking down $500 or more for 15 minutes on a roller.

What is referred to as a street tune is typically fixing driveability issues on cars with modified cam, heads, intake, throttle body, injectors, etc.

For a bone stock C5, I wouldn't dick with it.

chiefbob

Well, your post seems to contradict quite a few others. My 2004 automatic doesn't have any issues and is stock. One of the other posters mentioned the company has a good rep and the guy that will be doing it will be adjusting the stock GM settings.

Not questioning your expertise at all, just confused at this point. To answer another poster's question about the cost, it will be done for $200 (as a discount for the members of the club I belong to).

If it does what others (and the guy doing the tuning) say, I'll be happy.

Cheers,
Bob

Gordy M

Since you will be 95+% of your time driving on the street, a good street tune would be preferable for you. With the Auto trans there are numerous changes to make the car come alive, and as stated above drive ability below the peak torque can easily be improved. Without some exhaustive scans/programming time it is extremely hard to dial in exacting VE efficiencies using the narrow band O2's which are stock.

If you have not changed you Oxygen sensors in the past 5-6 years, you would notice a better response from from replacing them before you have it tuned. The original O2's were not calibrated for the sustained use of unleaded fuels we put up with today. GM later made changes to the specs to minimize the degradation they were seeing. HTH

DOUG @ ECS

Every tune I do starts on the street, and that's where most of the tuning is done. The dyno is only used for one small portion of the tune file, WOT.

That said, a good tuner can do a great street tune IF he/she can run the car to red line, same as the dyno. If that's not happening then the car was not fully data logged throughout the RPM band.

The flip side to this is that an inexperienced tuner on a dyno can do a much worse job then an experienced tuner on the street.

Hope that helps.

chiefbob

Gordy, did you mean ethanol fuels rather than unleaded? We've been using unleaded for years now and I even thought that Detroit adjusted the engines for ethanol fuel when that came out?

I have been running ethanol-free since I got my 04 last year. But, the O2 sensors I'm assuming are original from the first owner back in 04.

Sirk17

Be prepared to make several red line runs on the street. If your ok with that and the cost is 200ish id go for it depending on your mod. If your are 100 stock id save the money. I had a buddy street tune after my long tubes and vararam and colder plugs. it was noticeable difference as he increase timing from pull to pull.

Also HPS has a pretty good reputation down here. I was going to have them tune my cam install before I sold the car for the TT I now have.

Edit...I see you are an auto car.....the biggest help will be the shift point changes. They will lean the car out a bit and increase timing too. As I said before $200ish ide say why not but much more than that is getting pricy.

RonSSNova

$200 is worth the risk! Go for it.

Ron

0Extreme Dimensions

As others have said, for 200.00 you just can't go wrong.

For reference, my track car ran 14.8 from the factory. After building it up I was able to run 12.8, 11.6, and finally 11.2. All on street tunes and street tires.

myredhead1

Absolutely do the tune. A tune woke up my 95 and my current 00 coupe, both automatics.

RonSSNova

I tuned my modified 2000 A4 car on the street and at the dragstrip.

Best of 10.99 @123.7

I have recently become a dyno operator/tuner at a Mopar performance shop. Go figure....

I'll have an opportunity to put my C5 in the rollers and see where it is and see if I can make improvements.
Should be interesting!

Ron

Gordy M

Yes I meant to say ethanol.