My wife rode in the car first time since the tune. (Because we typically take her car when we go out together.) Anyway, as we were coming home I asked her if she could tell anything different about the G. She thought about it real hard, then said with a totally straight face, "Well, I'm not getting jerked around anymore."

Yes!!

I'm calling that a win, LOL.

 

Thank you for writing such a detailed thread with updates and advice! Really such a great thread to read. Specially for me since i am trying to learn more about tuning. I plan to go with Moncef though for a remote tuning. Hopefully my experience will go smoothly too.

 

You're very welcome. There really is a lot to learn, isn't there? All I did was scratch the surface enough to get it done. Moncef sure has the reputation to do a great job, he just didn't fit the moment when I was ready to move on this project.

 

I'll probably be contacting Eugene soon to see about a tune & updating the ECU software. Seems like you had a good result from him.

 

John, I went ahead and scheduled a dyno tune for the day after Z Nationals (since I'll be at Z1 anyway). Got some work to do to the car before I'm ready for that, but I've got time. *Some* time. I'm interested in seeing how their ECUTek process is different from Eugene's.

 

GL, Mike. That's going to be very exciting.

The difference will be in the nature of the log data and the approach taken for analysis. By that I mean, Eugene wants to consume as many hours of log file data as you can give him, which he feeds into his own software analysis program. That analysis takes in the whole range of driving conditions, cold, hot, WOT, rev-limited pulls, idle, cruising, etc. Whereas your in-person dyno tune will be an analysis of data log information specific to a series of WOT pulls in 4th gear up to the rev limiter. They will be tuning to a more focused and more narrow data set.

If I were forced to guess and generalize, (based on nothing whatsoever, LOL), your tune will be optimal for aggressive throttle, and perhaps Eugene's remote tune is optimized more for overall efficiency.

 

I thought they had a steady-state dyno (used for individual load cell tuning, not just WOT runs) but it looks like maybe they don't. Now I'm conflicted.

I know Z1s remote tune service is not... recommended. But I've seen that their in-person tunes are pretty good.

Now I'm doublethinking myself. The only real advantage Z1 provides is A. a bunch of store credit and B. I'll be there anyway and C. Z1 knows these cars very, very well. Eugene's advantage might be a more driveable tune. However, I've always been told that if you change the diameter of the MAF housing that you have to do a dyno tune.

 

Here's another way to look at it, no matter which approach you take odds are good will be happy with the results. So there's that.

 

Specifically a dyno tune? Or do you just mean a tune in general? Because you don't have to do it on a dyno. My intake tubing is 2.75" all the way through and Eugene just gave me a MAF adjusted "starter" map to load so it'll run, and then dialed in the MAF scaling after I did a few road WOT pulls.

 

I'm referring to several tuners (Z1 among them) that caution that they can't do an email tune for increased MAF housing diameter. Personally I don't know why, but maybe there's a limitation on calculation of airflow increase in the software... No idea.

 

That's odd. Eugene did mine just fine. I'm not sure if he used speed density to help dial it in or not.

 

Interesting stuff, about the larger diameter MAF housing. I genuinely have no opinion, but what Backman is saying here makes sense to me.

Two months now since the tune, and I'm far removed from being able to recognize the changes. Everything's just new normal now. Car is awesome, strong and a joy to drive.

 

It's four years later, and the car still runs great. Reading through my wrap up, I still stand behind the comments.

Figure someday when I sell the car I'll include the EcuTek hardware. I imagine the license just passes on, right? I mean, it's tied to the Dongle, the USB key, and the ECU... not the owner.

 

Geez, it's been four years? Yeah, tuning on this car (either on the dyno or via competent remote tuner) really makes them shine.

 

I know, right? Seems like this just happened yesterday. The years are slipping by, Mike.