If we're only talking about dyno tuning here, the tuner should be able to tell after a couple pulls where he can be making power, advancing timing, leaning out fuel, cam gear adjustments, etc. If you make a pull and the tuner looks at your maps and doesn't see much room for improvement, you'd be on and off relatively quick. Now, if it were my shop(based on my ethics alone), I would not charge the person for an hour of tuning if I only took 20 minutes to make a pull, click some buttons, and call it a day. I would at least discount him something. Thats just me.

Now on the other hand, after all these replies to this thread, I think we can just leave it at, some people think the tuner should be paid, others don't. This is one of those cases where neither side will ever be convinced otherwise, like politics, abortion, and the chicken and the egg.

Fact: You do NOT pay per horsepower gain.

with that said, i think its a strict matter of opinion as to not whether or not you do pay but how much, if the tune ends short due to a good tune already or if there's just lack of results for whatever reason.

 

So let me get this straight. For me to put my car on your 100k+ dyno, take your time and your effort and use all you equipment I have to pay. Wow screw Dyno4mance lol!

 

I wish you had a shop and if you did and you ran it like this you would be out of business. There needs to be a flat rate to work, when you go anywhere say Honda you pay that $65 for a diag right? I know I just paid $440 for a starter on my Avalon and it took them 20min and labor was $160 because that was the book time. Should I of *****ed so they turn the tools slower and take the full 2 hours?

 

As always Hillarious

 

Like I said in my post "(based on ethics alone)" I would. I know what its like to own and run a business. Theres far more overhead than any customer ever sees so cuttin prices like people think everyone is capable of doing is not always in the cards. What I was talking about is the rare occurance that the guy really has a tune that you dont need to touch. You can't tell me that if you cut that guy a dea(i mean a deal, not a blowout, btw, like $100 bucks off a normal $400) that it wouldn't be far more beneficial to you in the long run. You'd now have a guy tellin his friends, "Yea the guy was great, he even knocked off $100 bucks cuz he didn't actually have to tune the car, it was already done nice. The guy was really honest with me." as opposed to just "He was good, but I'm kinda disappointed I only made 3.2 hp and 0.7 ft. lbs. after his tune." Personally I believe its almost like payin $100 bucks for good street advertising. Once again, this is just my take on it. I fully understand why people have flat rates and dont change anything but I just can't fathom cuttin off some money for someone(even if you have to take a little hit) to have that kind of good feedback floating around about you and your shop. Everyone knows what happens when people start spreading the word about their horrible experiences with shops...

 

Hi guys,
Everyone has a point here. But one thing to remember is while we charge 1 hrs worth of tuning for a tune job that may only take 30min, we also (more of then than not) charge 1hrs worth of tuning for jobs that take much longer than 1hr. Rarely have I ever charged for more than 1hr and anyone who has come to a dyno day ca attest to the fact that its not unusual for me to spend 2hrs on a car if necessary. Much to the dismay of others who want to keep to a schedule of course

shiv

 

+1.

This is what I'm talking about!!

-M

 

Ya, I remember when you were doing Todd's Car at Andrew's shop and did 50+ pulls and I think you chaged a hour only. I can say you have been fair at all the dyno days that I have been too.

 

Can I get a witness!?



I can verify this as fact.

 

BOOSTEZ, I would do this.

I would take the car to Vishnu to get a base line. After, the baseline, I would have Shiv look at the results and tell you if he thinks it optimized already. If he thinks the tune is already good, just pay dyno fees. If he thinks its not, then pay regular tuning fees (and the baseline dyno fee). If he gets a good gain, then your good and if the gains are not that great, I would say its was still fair, even though you paid money for small gain.

There is also a different side, If you got a tune from tuner X and he tunes for drag stuff and get 300whp. Then if you got custom tunig from Vishnu, I bet even if Shiv's tune only made 300-305whp, it would be more of a "road race tune", which is alot safer. In this instance, you would be paying for the safety and not the power.

But all this could be avoided by just have Shiv tune your car first, and no one else. If you already have the other tune, theres nothing you can do bout that.

 

Shiv, in fact, did tune my car. We'll see what happens on dyno day. It will be interesting to see him top himself..

-M

 

I'll give you an example of an instance where it was true, and that was with my stage 1+ setup at the '04 Chicago Dyno day. I was running an XEDE with the 93 Octane stage 1 map that I downloaded. Prior to the dyno day I had AMS install a set of HKS 272 cams and I was worried that my tune would be off. Turns out that the stage 1 map was almost dead-on. All I "gained" from the custom tuning by Shiv was a whopping 1whp and I actually lost a couple of wtq, but if you look closer at the dyno plots, two dips in the power curve were smoothed out by the custom tune and I gained the peace-of-mind that I needed to be able to push my car w/out having to worry about my tune.

I've never really understood people that go around trying to squeeze every last whp from their car. Invariably you will step across the line of having a safe tune if all you're searching for is more and more power with the same setup, because usually the only way to try to make more power is to either run more timing, more boost, or leaner AFRs ... all of which, if taken too far, will cause problems.

A good tune is about much more than the peak numbers. IMO a lot of factors should be addressed by a good tune:
- good power at WOT w/out compromising safety (e.g. reasonable AFR/boost, no knock)
- part throttle driveability
- idle
- fuel economy

As far as the payment discussion goes, I strongly believe that, unless otherwise stated by the tuner, you pay for their time/product, regardless of the dyno result. I don't even think you can fully quantify if you have a good tune unless you go out and drive the car for a bit, since the dyno will only show you your peak numbers.

l8r)