I've got a question for you corvette guys/girls. Is it really worth Getting my 05 corvette tunned at the vette performance shop? I've been told that i can get up to 20 more horsepower and quicker response time, etc. They have quoted me 400.00. Is that a fair price for dyno and tuning? and is it really worth it?

 

yes, sounds correct pricing

 

Will you even notice 20 horsepower? Doubtful....

 

I would save the money and do it when you do a cam or heads or rockers or whatever.

 

Do you need 20 more hp? I wouldn't waste my money.

 

would doing cams or heads make a noticable power difference?

 

heads and cam on any lsx engine will be night and day.


Honestly, if you do full exhaust (long tube headers, xpipe with high flow cats, cai, tune) you're looking at probably 380rwhp or more with a good tune on an ls2 and you'll notice a huge difference on your car

 

If your car is stock, I would wait until you have some other upgrades like headers, cold air, etc to really take advantage of the a tune. I went with a mail order tune from chuck cow after having put cold air, 160 stat., cat back, throttle body spacer. Let me tell you, it was a different beast!!!!

 

Your are better off doing some minor bolt on stuff and then tune it. Headers and Vararam and then tune, you will pick up 40-50 which is very much worth it. There are other benefits you have to realize from a tune other than just HP, eliminate the Skip Shift, better throttle response, slow the rate of timing retard for high IATs in the summer, and automatics really benefit from removing Torque Management.

 

Very worth it.....But, depends entirely on who is tuning it.

Chuck CoW

 

$400 is not a bad price and if the shop is halfway decent they'll usually do minor adjustments to it later (i.e if you were to install headers or an intake) without charging you again (at least that's how I do it).

Either way, I definitely think it's a worthwhile investment as I just tuned a guy's almost bone stock C5 (he had an aftermarket air intake of some unknown origin) and by the time I was done there was a noticeable SOTP improvement and he texted me afterwards to say that the car can now break traction in second gear.

The key to getting this done however is how they go about it. A lot of shops can easily bump up your timing and change a few settings but the key to doing it correctly (as well as safely) is to make sure that if they're doing any sort of changes related to the airflow of the car, it's an absolute must they use a wideband O2 sensor because otherwise they won't be able to tune your WOT settings correctly. If somebody tells you that they can safely adjust your AFR (air fuel ratio) without using one I would recommend running away as fast as you can because the truth is they can't.

Both C5's and C6's are set to run notoriously rich from the factory and using a wideband allows you to bump up your AFR while making sure you don't go overboard and end up with dangerous engine knock.

Here's another example of how much difference a good tune can make:

Last February I installed an LS7 in my car and with the exception of LS2 headers (which are roughly equivalent to a stock Z06 exhaust, hence they don't provide much of a HP increase) the engine was completely stock. I made several passes in the car to see what it would do with the stock GM tune and the car ran 10.8's. After hooking up my wideband I noticed that my AFR at WOT was in the low 11's. At first I thought my wideband was hooked up incorrectly but after verifying it wasn't, I bumped up the AFR to around 12.5.

The results? In a single pass the car picked up two tenths in the quarter mile. Oh, and for the dyno numbers crowd out there (which I'm not one of) the engine dynoed 426 rwhp with the stock tune and 459 rwhp with the tune I set up while making passes at the track.

Feel free to PM me if you have any other questions.

Christopher