hustler

iTrader: (6)

Is it the kind of deal where they are also going to charge me for an hour of labor if I want to change plugs or crap like that...even when I'd like to do the work? I have the option of following the instructions of the dyno operator (on spark tuning) at a local dyno for $300-max, or going to you guys...with a 4-hour drive.

I'd rather take it to someone who knows the software (like you guys), but that may not be financially feasible. All I will need to do is tune spark and fine tune fuel. Everything else will be road tuned.

Machismo

iTrader: (1)

You really meant to say "butt tuned"......

hustler

iTrader: (6)

AFR doesn't lie. Tone down the disrespect.

shuiend

iTrader: (24)

Hustler after jsut driving 600 miles to DIY to have them tune my car. I will say driving 4 hours to have BEGI do the tuning would be totally worth it. 150$ and hour isnt a bad price either for getting a tune done profesionaly.

cueball1

iTrader: (13)

Congrats on the Promo Tim! Of course now you get to bear more of the blame for problems. Not that BEGI has ever had a problem...

Still lovin my car. I'll send you my latest MSQ file. Idle is good, afr's are good, car runs great both in and out of boost. Always tweaking to make it better though.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

well, the problem with that is how long it takes. Some want 6 hours to tune...I don't have that kind of money. I could probably get it done in 2 hours with supervision. Then, if I want to do a pull with new plugs...bam, another $120 in labor just to switch them out. When turbo to manifold studs start backing out...there's another $120 each time they tighten them. If they want to just drop my car off at this shop for tuning, they have no reason to do it as quickly as possible...they could probably do the work in an hour or 2, and they'd still charge me $1000.
Aside from exatorq in Dallas, everyone else quotes me the same garbage prices if I tell them "i only need spark tuned" versus "I don't know what I'm doing and I need you to do everything." It doesn't take 6-hours to make a spark table, if it does you need to reevaluate you skillset. Only one place has given me a realistic price-range.

I don't think begi would rip me off...but they're farming it out. At this point, I'm tempted to load up the miata and drive to hotlanta.


Most importantly, I want to learn how to do it, not just cut a check.

Atlanta93LE

iTrader: (5)

Mach929

iTrader: (3)

go to the dyno for tuning after you've done 90% yourself, should be a ton cheaper. borrow someones spark map and let mlv do your fuel.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

I have no problem getting everything set up, aside from spark. I've done it on my car, a friend's car, and a turbo car.

Let me give you a quick run-down of how it works when you try to get a ballpark price.

call #1:
"how much to just tune the spark table, and make minor adjustments?'
"well, blah blah blah you're **** is not adjusted right, we'll fix cold start."
"no, how much to just tune the spark table, and make minor adjustments?'
"$1000 or 6-8 hours, and extra to do stuff like change plugs"

Call#2, to the same place, a couple months later:
"i'm dumb and need you to set up everything on my car"
"$1000 or 6-8 hours, and extra to change the plugs"

I've found one guy who said he didn't know MS, but wanted to work with it. He said he'd work the dyno, and tell me where to add or pull values. I think I just answered my own question.

shuiend

iTrader: (24)

Hustler that was the same situation I was in when I was deciding to get my car tuned. Local shops in the northern virginia area want 200-250$ an hour for profesional tuning. I was able to find one shop that would let me do it all myself at $100 an hour.

I sent DIY an email about tuning because I wanted it done right. They gave me a price for $125 an hour with an average tuning session lasting between 4-6 hours. At the end of the day Jerry only ended up charging me 3.5 hours for tuning. He said that with the godspeed radiator things went alot faster then normal. He didnt have to wait for the car to cool down as much. Apperently that is one of the big issues with the miata. Heating up on the dyno and letting the car cool down. Jerry did not charge extra for regapping sparkplugs or for making sure my timing was set correctly. I believe that fell into the normal cost of dyno tuning.

The biggest part of getting tuned by Jerry was the amount of knowledge that he had. He could easily answear any question that I had and would explain what he was doing. I am pretty knowledgeable with the megatune software but what Jerry was doing was very much above my skill levels. After spending the money on a profesional tune done by someone who knows what they are doing with megasquirt I have realized that it was money extremely well spent. I will definately be going back down next year to get retuned when I am running a larger turbo and a built engine.

At the end of the day if BEGI says $150 an hour for them to tune I would not hesitate to pay that if they were the best tuners available in the area.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

did you bring the car in with a solid road tune?

Like I said earlier...its going to suck when I have the car road tuned really well and they tell me it took 6-hours to make a spark table, and $400 in labor to **** with plugs, which I'm capable of doing.

shuiend

iTrader: (24)

I had a pretty solid road tune. By no means perfect, but it safely allowed me to drive 600miles to Atlanta.

Tuning that spark table when you have a decent road tune should not take 6 hours. I would not even let a shop tune my car if I was not able to be there the whole time. I simply dont trust a shop with my car with no acountability. With DIY and I am going to ASSUME BEGI they let you stay and watch them tune. This allows you to guage how things are going. I spent a total of about 5.5 hours at DIY. I was only charged for 3.5. I felt that was fair. Jerry and I spent a fair amount of time talking and going to lunch and other such things. I would seriously give BEGI a call and see how they do things. Bring up the issues you have an see how they would handle them. Also if you plan on changing spark plugs make sure you bring some gloves. They got hot after running on the dyno.

johndoe

iTrader: (5)

What are your idle AFRs now? I cannot for the life of me get it to idle leaner than 11-11.5 with out it popping like crazy. My idle kpa is also pretty low at 28kpa. Haven't figured out what the solution is yet.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

My biggest worry is that I'm going to get some of what I've seen in other cars locally and around the nation...tuners who throw fuel at knock, rather than pull spark because they want to make those big, huge #'s so everyone thinks they're hot ****. I have a buddy with an evo x making 335whp...and its running 10.5:1 AFR's from one of the ****-talking EFI-101 instructors.

$700 for a tune is really going to suck.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

try upping the req fuel to get more resolution out of the table. Suddenly this thread belongs in another forum.

I got a guys 1.6 to idle at 14.7 with 460's last weekend.

cueball1

iTrader: (13)

Johndoe and Hustler,

Hustler's right we've gone way off subject. Worth another thread in the MS section. Someone start it! I'll try and post up my latest msq files when that thread gets going.

I called a bunch of dyno's in my area looking for someone familiar with megasquirt. The place I went to specialized in Fords. Mustangs and diesel trucks! Tuner has been using ms in a bunch of misc. cars. $150 per hour. $100 for hook up and 3 pulls. With my street tune he looked at the 3 pulls and said I was pretty much as good as it would get. He played around some but didn't do much. Just charged me the basic fee.

Since then I've done a ton of logging and analysis and have refined it a little more. All the track time I have created a rich/safe track file for lot's of full throttle too. Log and analyse a ton. It's gotten me pretty close. Always looking for better though. It's a sickness.

y8s

iTrader: (8)

if you're going to tune your spark on a dyno, there's no point in having a "road tune" first. you can tune a fuel curve on a loading dyno in about 5 minutes.

I find that it's real hard to do a "stay in a load site" method of tuning spark. better to do various rpm runs at different loads. basically paint lines across the map. you'll start to see trends in power output as you change spark (and fuel).

so maybe what you want to do is use the same off-boost spark as everyone else and then set your boost to various levels and run through the RPMs that way and tune each boost level individually.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

https://www.miataturbo.net/forum/sho...322#post294322

y8s

iTrader: (8)

saw it sorry