Is buying a portable tuner such as the diablo sport a good buy, or should i go for a proffesional tune. All i am looking for is more *** in a daily driver. Your thoughts?

 

I was wondering the same thing. Probably depends on the skill of your tuner. On a stock motor, I don't think you can gain very much without giving up some driveability elsewhere.

 

I know I'm going to get stomped, but here goes...

I bought my car with the Diablo sport program in it, and the programer.

I've removed the tune, driven the car, and put it back in. It makes a decent seat of the pants difference. All they provide is a new generic map that uses up some of the tolerance that GM put in to start with. You also have the ability to make small trim adjustment. I'm sure you'd get more on a specific tune, but a lot probably has to do with what's been done to your car. Mine has an intake, exhaust, x pipe, no headers.

You also get to reprogram fans, turn off CAGS, and a couple of other useful things. You also can remove the tune, go to the dealer, and then reinstall - haven't done that, but with the CLB recalls and all, it might be valuable. I don't know if it's worth the money if you're paying $400, but the things do work, even if they're frowned upon by many in the CF.

mk

 

From my experiance with 2 diferant hand held tuners, they do not make much a delta on a Z06. I ran the same ETs on a diablo tue (vararam only mod) as the OEM tune, but my MPh was down by 3 Removed the tune and picked back the MPh.

Yes you can make some small changes, and you might feal it on a small modded car, but the biggest change comes on a A4. They can realy firm up the shifts and makes the car wake up.

If you are serious, and want a dyno graph to prove your gains, get a real tune. Then take it out to your track and see the gains. I dropped a ton of ET with going to LTs and a tune, and much of the gain was to the Lts but much was due to the tune too. Sooned or later the mods will get to a point where you need it anyways, so might as well get it tuned IMO. Have fun!
Dave

 

Exactly. With an automatic you can up your shift RPM and play around with line pressures and actual shift times. You will see a huge difference here. With our manuals the handhelds can only do so much. I have a buddy with a Blackwing and full Kook's system with cats. His car picked up 22 HP with a professional tune and you'd never get that out of a handheld. The 22 HP was on top of what he gained after the header install. Dynoed before and after the tune. Just my opinion and one set of facts.

Dave

 

I think a professional tune is the only way to go. The hand held tune is generic and has to be safe for all environments. I feel on any modded car the best way to go is with a professional tune. The tuner can take into account items for the places in which you live and how the specific mods work on your car.

 

Tuning on a dyno with a wideband A/F is the only way to go.

 

Well said
PLus it is a great timne to hang out at the shop, see what other projects are going on, and plan the next round of mods
Dave

 

Hi lastlancer -

Go for a pro dyno tune.

Money well spent.

best regards -

mqqn

 

How much are you paying for the first dyno tune, and then does it get cheaper after the first go round when you change something?

 

Hi zulatr -

I paid $400 for the initial tune, and when I did some mods and wanted it re-tuned, they charged me $100.

That was Ernie Francis at Breathless Performance Products.

best regards -

mqqn

 

There are problems with a dyno tune, or working off of strip numbers - it's only at WOT, with all the focus on the extremes of rpm.

What you really need, is more area under the torque curve, and throttle response, if your target is street driving, which is what the original post said. The extreme of that is drivability discussions that come with cam choices. Sure you can keep adding HP by increasing air flow through the engine, but when your torque has fallen off at 2500 - 5500 rpm, you're loosing drivability in the normal range for (spirited)street driving (when you have a smile plastered on your face).

It's all a compromise. GM did what they could for a wide range of conditions, to give us what we get with the car. You can narrow that range of conditions, use up some of the tolerances built in, and work with a packaged tune. You can go the preditor way, or there's a guy in C5 Parts, selling packaged tunes based on his dyno experience with different mods done to the car. Send him the ECM, he reprograms it, and sends it back. Probably closer to what you want than the preditor if your car has had many mods. If you do put in headers, then it may be worth getting a tune, because you may have made a big change in A/F ratio.

 

Hi zulatr -

Point taken, however, after my dyno tune the car is making over 300rwtq from 2000rpm all the way to 6500rpm - never dropping under 320 until 6200rpm, and staying above 350rwtq from 3600rpm to 5800rpm.

That seems to work pretty well in the real world driving I experience.

best regards -

mqqn

 

I paid 350 for my first dyno tune and then have been getting things adjusted for free since I always let Futral do the work.