I definitely agree with your statement. I was definitely overwhelmed for the first couple of months I was learning to tune because I didn't know what all of the tables meant. Some of it does take quite a bit of knowledge and understanding when you start having to mess with idle issues. But there's enough info on this forum and others like it that you can pretty much figure out anything now if you put the time into studying and learning.

On the other hand, making changes to the fuel and timing map (which is the very basics of of tuning, and not rocket science) is pretty simple, and it's scary that these so called pro tuners would tune a car with a map that looks like a mountain range.

 

You guys can't completely blame the tuners for bad tunes, its both parties. Most of ppl that complain about a bad tune don't do anything to fix it. If they paid for a tune that turn out to be junk, why don't they take it back to the tuner ASAP. Instead they just keep beating on it until it blows or posts a thread crapping on the tuner. If its bad again or they won't fix it, go somewhere else.

Since prices on evos are dropping, kids are buying poorly maintained half-*** returned to stock cars. They waste $XXXX on mods and don't do any maintenance, get tuned, and it doesn't make the power they expect. So, they cry "I want more power" until the tuner gives they an too aggressive/unsafe tune or tells that's it. Yes, I understand that some have gotten a outright bad tune.

I am not a tuner, but I have my own tuning laptop and logging cable. I don't see why ppl are being cheap and skimping on this essential mod.

 

I think the tunes haven't gotten any better or worse lately, I think it's more the fact that people have their own tactrix cables and log their cars more often than they did in the past, so a bigger percentage of the funny tunes are uncovered and made public.

 

Tuners should actually inspect the cars they are tuning to make sure that it's in good mechanical condition (within a reasonable amount of time) or at least advise the customer and offer a fee for a check up. A lot of people just tune a car in bad condition and then wonder why their customers bad mouth them.

 

I think it's because some tuners charge cheap, and the unknowing customer will ask himself, "a computer chip is a computer chip, right? Why should I pay $300 for tunerA when tunerB charges only $75."

 

Haha yes - it's the point of case . But seriously f/e here in Poland in last time are "born" few Evo tuners which are giving cheap prices but they pretty experimenting with customers cars... It's just sad

 

This is where its really important for the person to research on who they want to tune their car first. Even people that charge lower prices like myself can get it done and you wont ever find anything unsmooth, blocked, or bad from me.

I figure ill raise my price once i get to the point I'm losing hair over frustration.

I should show you some stuff i have over here Freddie if you wanna see some bad maps. ill contact you on facebook sometime and show you some stuff.

 

you get what you pay for...

$300 isn't a lot for the amount of time/effort I put in...

 

i only charge $150 for base tunes (1map) and have spent over 5hrs non stop on cars before (with speed density, or troublesome cars in general). I know people that charge 350-450 and spent 30 minutes and give you a block tune with not even complete injector scaling.. so no you definitely do not get what you pay for in those situations.

 

well at the moment on the current car I am tuning I have probably spent 2 hours JUST on the injectors... 8 ROM revisions to get them as close to perfect (+/- 3%) as possible..

on Boba's car we were upto 109 ROM revisions, but a LOT of that was the injectors (2000cc) and MAF (4") and also getting into the MinIPW patch stuff..

anyways each to their own

 

i charge 300, and for most tunes, its not nearly enough. the single most important thing about a tune is seeing the car your tuning. i would say 75-85% of the cars i tune, i have to fix mechanical issues before i consider it tuneable. going off what people say over the phone/email just doesn't work for me because most of the time the people on the other end are not professionals and don't know what to look for (thus the reason they are paying someone to tune the car). thats why you'll never see me email tune a car i haven't physically worked on and seen in person.


the other hand of this, i think the internet/evom has way over hyped the whole "knock count is bad" thing. i turn the knock light on for people and get a phone call the second it blinks with them concerned the engine is going to blow. there isn't a tune on the planet that will be 100% knock free ( i soppose you could make the filters extremely strong, but that defeats the purpose of knock control). people aren't able to grasp that if you want a fast car, you'll have to live with a knock light on occasion (if you insist on having the light enabled).

 

Yes i wasn't saying what i said in regards to you though.. I have no doubt you get the job done.. hell everyone that tunes uses your patches.

I'm saying you cant just assume someone is better because they cost more $. i have customers here with 100 rom edits also. i get 20-30 rom edits alone when adjusting knock sensors to cooperate with the vehicle sometimes.. its tedious but its not something that can be rushed. tuning done right definitely takes time..

anyone can edit a timing or fuel map, but when it comes to making sure the car is sound 100% that takes some time. good cold start, warm start, idle, functions with loads like ac, good mpg, no cels, no stalling, no sputtering, no idle dipping. list goes on and on. i know you know what im talking about. like you said bigger injectors need ipw min modded, lots of tedious stuff.

i pride myself in smoothing maps though.. thats one thing im extremely picky about. i know your maps are very smooth i dont even have to see that to know.. because you're a very smart person.

i feel you on the injector scaling.. and customers hate that part of it also.

 

Ive been in import performance for a long time.so long ive had carburated cars.What ive been seeing lately is a lot of copy and paste tunes.Ive barely ever seen a tooner check timing with a timing light or check spark plugs or even do a compression test.Back in the no dyno days we did wot pulls and check plugs to see if car needed more timing or had too much.We also checked for fueling and adjusted jets accordingly.Ive seen the youtube tuner tune a car that ran like crap.He came to my buddies house to setup his Aem ems.He told him that the tune is good enough to take it to his dyno about an hour away.Let me tell you that car bucked like a bucking bronco because afrs were pegged at 21 and this was at no boost just regular driving down the block to put his car back in the garage.

 

if you spend enough time you can tweak the sensor to be perfect and wont read any false knock.. but its very time consuming.

as for the mechanical issues.. yes they are extremely a pain in the *** when doing remote tunes.. i find myself being a car dr more then a tuner half the time.. i have made a separate website specifically to teach the customer what to look for and check before even beginning the tuning process. i spent alot of time making it so i can get consistent extremely strong tunes via remote and my process seems to be working.

im spoiled with a 1920x1200 resolution screen on 24" lcd so when it comes to using a laptop its horrible for me with the tephra v7 big maps, because i map with the 3d picture showing so i can make sure everything looks good.

also i agree even $300 isnt even enough for the frustration you get sometimes.. $450 would be perfect imo. at that rate 2 cars has you almost $1000. I slowly will raise my price.. once my hair starts falling out then ill know its that time.

 

youtube tuner. i know who you're talking about. i cant say any names tho its disrespectful. i do enjoy watching his videos though. its *** ** right?

he uses a sea of 7's and 8's hes well known for that. just goes to show you how strong 4g63's really are to take daily tuning abuse like that.