Hello All,

Well, I had been considering getting tuned by an e-mail tuner but with my tight budget for 2012 and looking to buy R-Comps I'm probably going to have to do with either no retune or retuning it myself.

I currently have a Buschur mail in flash, stage1 and running a EBC to up the boost a little bit. Nothing much at the moment 21psi. I have all of the stuff to go ECU controlled boost (grimspeed/jdm sensor) and I am interested in going that route and upping the boost a little more to say 24psi and at least going with the RS mivec table or something similar.

I suppose what my question is would be how hard do you all think it is to tune this car yourself, with ECU controlled boost on Teprha v7? Keeping in mind I've never tuned before. I read up on Merlin's guide and watched Recompiles videos and it doesn't seem overly complicated, but am I getting over my head?

I appreciate any help/advice. Thanks!

 

kind of a loaded question .. its hard to answer without knowing your current background and learning curve in general. there's certainly enough information out there for someone to teach themselves though.

im curious in knowing your budget though if you want to pm it to me.

 

its not as bad as you think. i went through the same thing, after the first revision or two you feel a lot more comfortable.

my advice tho, is to not start out on tephra, having so much resolution can bite a beginner in the ***. much better to start on a regular map, get where you want, then convert to tephra and fine tune it.

 

Don't move to V7 just yet; start out retuning your current map, at the same time you'll get more comfortable with ecuflash and all the tables and what they do. When you're used to that then switch over to v7 to dial everything in, like the dangerous penguin said (This isn't the first time I've poked fun at your name is it killerpenguin? )

 

If you do decide to give tuning a shot, my first suggestion would be to make two copies of your current flashed rom. keep one as is and don't alter it. keep it in a seperate folder, and use the other one to tweak. GL

 

nope lol. sometimes its tough to ditch a screen name you started using at 12 years old...for everything lol.

 

OP. There are lots of vendors on here, that make their bread and butter selling tunes, and they provide excellent skills and experience. likely nothing you or I could amass unless you tuned hundreds or thousands of cars first. So their added value is the experience they bring. However, on a car like yours, similar to mine, with relatively light mods, its not in the complicated realm of EVO tuning. So its the right fit for a first timer. I'd say the possible cutoff might be having CAMS and doing a first time tune, and injector scaling. That can start to be too many complicated things at once for the light hearted.

The information on the forum is very clear and helpful, but where you are going to make up the difference in value is that you can log and log and log some more, and then log, and then make a change. A tiny change, Then log some more. The satisfaction of altering some values based on what you read, and feeling your butt dyno respond is truly addictive. You will then be hooked....and spending lots of time.

The keys to success of doing it yourself is time, in that you take the time to read and comprehend, then the time to log and log some more, so you can master your data and reviewing it, then time again, by making small changes and log the differences you see, so that you can predict and then confirm the behavior that came from the changes.

I did my first real tune based on the information available here. I did take several weeks, but the overall changes I made were actually very small, for impressive results. I used the RS MIVEC map as starting point too, and then went lean and then rich, and then more timing and then less, just to see how the log behavior and butt dyno lined up.

The way you make up the difference of the fact that you don't have the experience compared to the pros, or mail in guys, is you put in time. That equals out the equation. You get it for free, and get the satisfaction of doing it, but you have to pay (in time).

Good Luck, but I encourage it. The EvoM community is amazing.

Oh, and I don't yet use the Tephra v7 either, and would probably agree with Raptord. You don't likely need that initially so go with the KISS thing. Keep It Simple Stupid. I used the basic stuff that allowed the JPM MAP sensor and the xml settings to make that all work for boost tuning, rather than load. Once you have mastered the comfort with that you can move up and add the features that the Tephra stuff brings. The counterpoint would be that his support I read is very good, and for a relatively small donation you do really get a lot of value/attention.

 

Hmm makes sense, thanks all. It is quite daunting considering doing a first tune all then way on v7. I suppose I could just go ahead and do the mivec tuning and fiddle with it myself till later on in the year, perhaps by then some funds will have opened up.

 

If you follow the how to tune and evo thread you will be fine. Those instructions are clear and conservative. I suspect your tune from BR is already really good, so you will just be making tweaks for the JDM MAP sensor and turning up boost. This is exactly what my tune was about.

I had who knows what tune before, because I bought a salvage title car. It wasn't stock, and from what I could tell I was running 28psi. That tune didn't match the parts I had for sure. I flashed to stock, saved the other tune, and worked on the stock one. At any given second I could go completely back easily. I followed the thread and found that once I did the boost, I had to go back and go everything else again. Every map, or behavior impacts another function, so you need to fine tune after more logging. Some threads on hear comment about what is the correct order of systems to modify, but the reality is that you just need to do everything more than once. This is not a Saturday and never again project.

That is why I noted the key is logging and log some more and log again.

 

I will say I know enough to do some tuning on my car, but I learned alot when I had tscompusa tune my car for me. I had tried three tuners before him and his tune is the only tune that came out to be what I wanted. Mostly because he actually listened to what I wanted my car to be. He's a great tuner and I'm sure you would gain knowledge from watching how he modifies your tune to suit your upgrades.
Tscompusa ftw!

 

+1

 

Im thinking about doing this myself, considering cars has always been a hobby of mine. Now the next step.. tuning lol Only problem I would have starting off is that my car isn't heavy modded but it isn't lightly modded either. Im currently running S2 cams and E85 with 1450cc injectors with a stock ecu & turbo. so this is going to be a challenge..

 

Yep, that's decided it for me. Going to have to do an e-mail tune on it so I can get all that I want put in the tune.

 

I have no experience with tsc, but he has numerous times come to the aid in tuning questions for me and zillions of others. DIY or tsc, you will be supported. Looks like you chose email tune so far. A quality tune makes worlds of difference .. :thumbsup:

 

All consistent info. A quality tune is also safe, or safer beyond just being able to make a huge difference on the hardware you've got in the car. Any tuners that also help out on the forums should get the nod to be supported as well.

Its also true that reviewing a purchased tune is a great opportunity for learning. If you save your stock map, and then compare tables, and even get a chance to communicate with the tuner, the lesson itself is worth the money for the tune.

You can't go wrong either way. I am a self hack tuner that always needs forum help, and I spent a zillion hours, but a purchased tune is also a good way to start. Whatever makes you more comfortable, and whatever fits well into your time management.