From my research I see there are several different types of dyno machines. Which one works best with C5s? HP Tuners? I am tuning for autocross.

Not sure if it was previously tuned or not with the headers, CAI and Xpipe that was already on the car when I bought it.

 

Im not sure but ive had experience with a mustang dyno and dynocom5000 eddybrake dyno and hopefully will get a couple dyno pulls on a dynojet 248x with afr logging to confirm the tuner that tuned the car did tune it correctly (not lean) passed 12.7 and to get better dyno graphs. I read the dynocom is a dynoqueen and read the highest of all dynos but is merely for tuning purposes.

 

In your research of chassis dyno's you should have identified two types, my preferred is the loaded eddy current style. The other style is inertia that measures drum acceleration such as Dyno Jet. You cannot compare numbers from one brand to another, it's even difficult to compare the same manufacturer & model.

Gains & losses are what matters, before & after. Sustainable & repeatable results are difficult & important.

Loaded dyno's let you do steady state tuning & accurately reflect your vehicle's weight & drag @ 50mph. When you take your car to the track you should have very accurate fuel & timing calibration.

So, how might this apply to auto X. Using the dyno there is something called ramp rate meaning rpm/sec, slower rpm/sec will stabilize the motor & give more accurate AFR & timing numbers. Generally using a gear ratio close to 1:1, in auto X you are in lower gears so the ramp rate is faster. Using lower gears most likely the AFR is showing leaner than the way we would normally calibrate in high gear such as fourth. The learner AFR doesn't hurt anything because the load isn't high in the lower gear. Timing was also dialed to 1:1 load, much higher than the lower gear ramp rate.

I don't auto X anymore, when I did I was very serious & looked for those precious fractions of a second. Nor did I know what I just explained above, with HPT you can easily flash an auto X tune. Rather than tune for fourth gear, calibrate the fuel & timing for second gear. It would not be a huge gain & possibly not worth while.

A good auto X car is about set up & more power did not always translate into quicker times.

 

you want really sharp throttle response and power coming off corners in lower gears. Dyno isn't the right tool. Take and log the car going through the course and feed those numbers back to the tuner along with notes about how the car responds

depending on the track, what provides best power at WOT won't do much for you

You want a broad shouldered torq curve, not a peaky one.

as mentioned, the dyno is a tool, but typically all the pulls are done in 1-1 gear and I don't know dyno tuners that could do this justice in the lower gears.

street tune it!!

 

Assuming the tuner knows what he is doing, I doubt you will gain THAT much more to justify the effort of logging an autocross run, sending it to the tuner and then tuning with that in mind. Tuning is load/rpm/airflow dependent. All can be evaluated on a proper Mustang Dyno in the hands of a knowledgeable tuner that knows the dyno features and how to operate it. You can also load the car on a dyno that you CAN'T replicate in street driving. Plus, autocross courses change ALL the time, so one data log of one course is only a small screenshot in time of what the car does.


Mustang Dyno and DynoJet.
Mustang Dyno is considered more "real world". If you want higher numbers, find a DynoJet tuner.
ALL dynos are simply a tuning tool so the ONLY comparison you can make is multiple cars on the SAME dyno
Important thing is A/F ratio and keeping the car safe. The numbers in the end "are what they are".
One does not really "tune for autocross". MAYBE some tuners pay attention to low end 2nd gear load cells in the tune for on throttle corner exit power but generally the goal is to optimize TQ over all rpm. The sooner you can make more TQ and the longer you can maintain it, the better of you are. "Area under the curve" is key.

If it's a stock tune, or the tune sucks, a proper tune can make some gains ~20HP/tq possibly.

 

I agree that it probably wouldn't do that much,
All the dyno tunes that I see just do a 4th gear wot pull and aren't taking advantage of the load features
I've never seen anyone really use the dynojet to it's full capability. They for sure are the "truth tellers" and tend to give lower readings.

I also think they are more consistent due to the design. I've got a tuner that has one, and I'd like to do more with it!!

 

A dyno is a tool for measuring torque and power. They're typically buried and you drive your car onto the rollers. Some of them bolt up to the hubs instead.
Any of them will work fine with a C5. Hub dynos are better when you get to really high horsepower (several hundred horsepower at least) because tire slip isn't a factor.

HP Tuners is software for editing the tables in the PCM that govern fueling and ignition and such.

EFI Live is similar.

PCM Hammer is open source, and it's worth a look if your car is 1999 or later, and if you're technically inclined and interested in doing your own tuning or data logging.
But since it's free, there's no real customer support, just forums and Facebook groups.

 

Fixed for you lol.

 

If it's an inertial dyno, it measures time and RPM and calculates both torque and power.
Or if it's a eddy-current dyno, it measures spring deflection and calculates torque from that. And by that line of reasoning, torque wrenches don't measure torque either.
And bathroom scales don't measure your weight, they measure spring deflection and calculate weight from that. Heck, newer ones really only measure voltage.
Who cares?
People get way too hung up on the distinction between measuring and calculating.