I got a quote for a dyno test at 125, which seemed excessive.

Then I got a quote for a custom tune at 500, which seemed ridiculously excessive.

Can't you buy do-it-yourself tuners for like $300? Or am I thinking of something different?

 

I got my custom tune for $50, shop around.

Yes you can tune yourself with a DIY tuner, but you have to KNOW what you are doing, they are very complicated to use.

You can buy a computer now-a-days for $1000, you can build that same computer yourself for about $400.

Same principal, you are paying for the service.

Now IDK where you live, but look up the vendors that are doing canned PCM tunes, PRJ, ZZP, etc. If you live close to them go get something done.

 

50 is quite a bit less than 500

what exactly would a custom tune net me?

 

Depends on your modifications, but it will tune the car to run properly and how it wants. Plus a ton of various adjustments can be made... etc. etc.

Just look at the canned tunes and think of that stuff but more specific for your car

 

its $250 for a tune around here & usually $60 for 3 runs on the dyno

 

Thats about right, maybe a touch on the high side. Depending on how few dyno shops there are around, they can pretty much charge what they want. When I was back by Chicago, the places usually varied from $75-125 for 3 pulls- and some would charge a little extra if you wanted a wideband O2 added.

Many do them cheaper if you do it in a group buy with a local car club- that way they can have one guy there to run the dyno all day, and just do cars back to back.

It depends what you mean by a 'custom tune'. If by a custom tune, they scan your pcm, make modifications- and then reflash it, then yes- that is rape- ZZP, and many other vendors do this for $100.

If you mean by just doing a dyno tune with a few scan/flash sessions to get peak power- then its still excessive- usually that seems to run $50-150 + the dyno usage (they usually give a discounted rate though, especially if its the same shop).

However, a full custom tune involves easily a whole day's work- doing a bunch of street driving- scanning, reflashing, more street driving, more scanning- then finishing the day up with a couple dyno tunes to get the peak power dialed in- then this can easily be worth $300+ (I wouldn't feel bad about paying $500 for a professional shop to do this) depending how experienced the place is at doing a tune. If you go this route- you really better make sure you're done modding, because if you do more engine mods after this, you start making the tune worthless.

Yes, the DHP Powrtuner regularly sells for $300 used (no longer made). The HP Tuner software is $500 and can still be bought brand new. Obviously both require a laptop.

However, it boils down to how much your time is worth. Either tuner will take a lot of time learning how to use properly. The upside to this is, if you make more modifications, you can retune it yourself. I definitely would think you're going to need at least a month of playing with it and reading before you're gonna start making good progress towards better power. You need to learn what every little change does, how all the variables interact to simply perform 2 basic functions- how long to fire the injector and when to fire the spark plug. Then obviously you'll have to learn all the pitfalls.

If you're really into modding, I think this is a great option, but you just can't expect to gain the horsepower that a real professional who has spent years tuning could- at least not in the short term.


There are also a lot of people on the forums that have tuners that can do a tune for you, and many will do it pretty cheap- but you really need to find out first what kind of experience they have at tuning- its easy to make the car worse than better.