Can we have a thread on MS tuners?
 

We should have a thread posting up all the qualified MS tuners (who don't blow shit up, and have a good track record with track cars). As far as I know the closest to me is Andre at Pina Motorsports. Although I did have my MS tuned at a shop here in Vancouver, BC (Blitzkreig Autowerks) and my shit didn't blow up bombing up a hill climb and a few track days.

So lets heard em'.

Post a location, tuner's name and shop name.

95% of the MS users on this forum tune their own shit.

Great idea, I second the request. I can't find any tuners locally who know MS. And by tuner I mean a shop with a load bearing dyno, and some talent.

C

i have talent. just need a dyno or a lot of open road ;)

Most tune their own cars and most of us are thousands of miles apart.

I've heard of tuners logging into computers and tuning over the interenets.

Yes, but those 95% of the members are broke OR have a lot of time on their hands and what to learn it. I don't. :D

I want a tuner to tune my shit so it's reliable ON THE TRACK not daily driving.

When you're dropping $6000 on a motor/FI setup, you want it done right. I don't claim to know anything about tuning which is why I leave it to the professionals. Personally I would rather spend $600-$800 on a real dyno tune session than "hope" I got it right on my own.

The idea of this thread was more for future people who are looking for an MS tuner in their area. We make a list... sticky it and leave it be! Who would have thought.

Exaclty!

Jerry down at DIYAutotune in Atlanta is an excellent tuner. Also very reasonably priced.

I've been asked to do this and declined immediately.

You can tune it yourself, be a man.

falcon -- I was just talking about starting a thread like this. I've had a lot of customers have bad experiences with tuners, and a thread like this might avoid that for some people. Anyways, here's a few that I can recommend:

In Indy, Shane Benson (aimtuning.com) is very good.

In Virginia, I've heard that Peter Florance (pftuning.com) is also very good.

In Seattle, Kito Auto Sport seems to do a fine job. But you might want to have them spend a little extra time getting the air/fuel curve flat.

I also have a list of tuners that have no idea what they're doing, but I guess I won't post those :)

I met Peter at the last Megasquirt Megameet. He does indeed know what he is doing with MS. He was fuxoring around with settings on my MS3 that I had no clue what they were and he had never used an MS3 before. While he knows what he is doing in MS, he tends to just do full throttle pulls for tuning instead of going cell by cell on a loaded dyno. For a street car I would probably use him, for a track car I would probably not.

We're often pretty busy using our dyno for R&D, so we often refer people in the Atlanta area looking for commercial tuning to Ed Senf at Balanced Performance. While they don't have a load bearing dyno, Ed is talented enough to make up for that.

If you're near Omaha City, Scott Clark can sometimes be hired for tuning and does great work. He used to work with Spectre's eMS-Pro program.

In the Los Angeles area, I've heard a lot of good things about Shawn Church at Church Automotive.

Matt, Would you give a run down of what you would tune, and about how much time your avg tune takes.

I think it would be nice to know what we should expect to have tuned from a tuner competent in MS. I had my car tuned by a person familiar with MS, but by know means an expert with all of the nuances. This resulted in tuning the car with some things turned on/off that shouldn't have been. i.e. enrichments (accel, MAT)

Are you guys tuning all of the enrichments?

In the PNW:

Andre at Pina is a fantastic tuner who is familiar with the MS.

Bob @ driftoffice is also good with MS and seems like a pretty legit guy.

There are also several skilled tuners in the area who could give you a very good street tune for cheap if you would like to go to a dyno with a well sorted car to save some cash on setup time.

shuiend, I actually met Peter at an autocross in Virginia, and subsequently ran into him again at a race in Nebraska. He's done a lot of race cars with good results!

He's good at fixing fried MS3 boards too.

I am not saying he is not good. I know he does a lot of autocross cars down in the 757. From talking to him about tuning though he normally does not go cell by cell and tune each one. If you are in that area and need a tune, then yes use him.

No matter who you choose, rest assured that no one you pay will take the time and effort required to make the car run as nice as you could by doing it yourself.

Here is a good example:
My first $300 tune:
http://i53.tinypic.com/auihpz.png
Why did they let me drive a car home with 100% duty on the injectors? I made 198whp at 16psi, lol.

My 2nd time at $600:
http://i51.tinypic.com/2rx9mpy.png
It still shot fire and bogged while getting 15mpg on the drive home...it melted the bumper and tail light and puked enough fuel on cruise that it made me vomit on the way home, while hte car was moving. I had it towed home and decided to do this myself after the shop insisted, "that's just how a $500 engine management drives!!!"

I finally manned up and did this:
http://i51.tinypic.com/34g3p02.png
After more road tuning I'll put it up against any OEM turbo car in drivability...and it made 260whp at 11psi.

That last tune looks like ass ;)

I'm starting to think the same thing. The amount of dyno time to do an appropriate tune would probably cost 2k-3k. This is why I asked Matt what they typically tune at there shop. Being one of the MS people, I would expect that they perform one of the better tunes.

Jerry at DIY tuned mine also. Great tuner and good pricing. Matt updated my MSPNP in like 10 minutes and got started on the dynapack. Didn't even seem to mind much that my engine puked oil all over their floor.

Good thing I got in before they got crazy busy with R&D.

It kind of depends on what you've brought in. If we have time available for tuning, and you brought in a fairly typical MSPNP equipped Miata, you'd probably be looking at about the same cost as Shawn Church's $375 flat rate (see his rates page) for tuning. I don't do the tuning myself, but that would definitely include VE and spark tables, and should also include acceleration enrichment.

I just looked back at my logs and lol'd. The first two run ~13* of spark at 5000rpm+ with no consideration given to achieving MBT in any capacity nor regards for piston speed...spark angle decreases with RPM for some reason.

My tune runs 25* of spark in the same range and increases angle with piston speed...how the hell were the first tunes so bad?

If I had my car brought in for tuning, I would want:

fuel
spark
AE/EAE
closed loop idle
closed loop boost
MAT correction
over run fuel
warm up enrichment
Ego setup

This to me seems like a tune, A fuel and spark tune is just getting the car going. I think defining "tune" is important. If you can dial in all that I listed, then you can "tune" my car. If you are just dialing fuel and spark only, then you are wasting my time and money. Adjusting fuel and spark only, will allow the car to run perfect at the temp and pressure at the time of calibration. Everything will change with the weather.

Most of the Miatas we've tuned are on MS1 variants like the MSPNP. Here's a couple comments about the features you're asking about:

Tuning the EAE is pretty much a matter of tuning the VE table right. There's a little more to adjust but not much.

Not much need to put it on a dyno for this, but it certainly could be done. This is one that you'll need a shop familiar with the MS though - it's not like fuel and spark table tuning.

On the MS1, this is pretty much untuneable - the processor isn't fast enough. Certainly could be dialed in though, and this is one that's best to dial in on a dyno.

Some points may not be reachable depending on the weather.

If you're talking part of the VE table, it would normally be tuned. The overrun fuel cut is pretty trivial to set up.

You are NOT going to get this fully dialed in at a normal dyno shop. You'd either need to dial it in over the course of several days at the lowest temperature you need it to start, or you'd need a shop with a car-sized freezer. OEMs have these, but it's unheard of at dyno shops.

That's really just the AFR target table and basic settings, no big deal there.

Matt,
Is the need to adjust MAT correction typical? I'm a few tenths lean when cold out at cruise.

Some tweaking to improve hot starts isn't too uncommon; usually it doesn't need much tinkering though.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. I do insure that full load pulls have optimum timing and AFR for max TQ (and of course HP). Do I sit on a brake dyno and manually tune each cell? No I don't do that.
Part load stuff I use VEAnalyzerLive for finer tuning or the VE Table math operators for gross changes. Part load is really important (timing and AFR) as it really changes how smoothly and quickly cars spool up. Also makes them much easier to drive.

I do a lot of BMW's. Here's one of TCD's kits on 1980 528i (water/air intercooler) doing a few pulls at Abacus Racing Service
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaeOkRlZPAg
And NB Miata (thanks Abe for the board) running at Little Creek (sorry about the sound; GoPro not great for that)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP2IbLrxdsc

I will travel to tune; I tuned an ITB BMW M20 at Synapse in New York in summer 2009.

Justin, thanks for the kind words!

I don't have a laptop that works really so I took it to the dyno guy at our shop.

I tried reading up every bit about tuning and the software but I proved to be a retard despite all my hours reading and (trying to) understand the theories.

In Phoenix, I went to Tim at Xact Dyno, the tune is solid so far and he hooked it up.
So for the same amount of money as tuning it myself, I had someone who does it for a living save me from blowing up my car.

Could my tune be better with many hours behind the computer? Sure

Am I happy with my result? yes.

How much spark do you take out of the table for "safety"? Do you tune for MBT and leave it there? How much do you pull if you get detonation? How do you listen for detonation?

How do you adjust spark for the <WOT cells if you don't use the dyno?

The turbo BMW's I tune have very good IAT control and reach MBT before detonation. All my Miata's have been NA; I suspect a set of det cans are in my future if I end up doing some turbo Miata's.

Do Miata's often detonate before MBT? What sort of IAT's are you seeing?

I really have had only one car that detonated (BMW E30 track car) and that customer built the motor with higher than stock CR (against my advice) for forced induction. That car went through several head gaskets...:dunno:



I normally calculate part load timing based on full load timing and predicted squish. I have pretty good database of NA tunes and have found that helpful to gauge where to go with it. I figure turbo cars off-boost may need more than stock timing as the VE is so poor at those points.

I'm not sure, I've never seen detonation in my car other than phantom detonation I could only hear with headphones in cruise with lots of advance. I ended up running less than stock spark advance in the cruise cells, went with less fuel, and picked up lots of mpg.

On the dyno I see 10-30* over ambient thanks to the stupid floor fans, it's more like 5*f or less over ambient on the track.

The reason I ask about headroom is because of a buddy with a turbo 300z track toy. It hit MBT (and MBT+4*) fine on the dyno, they left it there, and after a season the motor lost compression and there was tons and tons of minor detonation on most cylinders if I remember correctly. He pulled 4* behind MBT on teh new motor and did not have that problem again.

edit: I read my first post again and I sound angry, lol. I'm actually just a layman who tuned my car because I could not find anyone who did a decent job. I've pulled 6-8* of spark behind MBT for the sake of keeping the motor around and I suffered a large loss in output. I could make another 15whp and 15wtq if I put all that spark back in but I'm scurred because I don't really know what goes on when everything turns cherry red and if I'm flirting with disaster. I'm making 242whp now, it made 258whp on 11psi at MBT.

I should also say this: the best tunes are probably by the owner who learns how to do it. There is no substitute for living with the car day to day. But that can be a long learning curve if it's your first tune.

But a close second is a collaboration between the tuner and the owner, where the owner is willing and able to take some ownership of the tune.

I always get a kick out of comparing a stock tune like an MSM:
http://www.mazda-speed.com/albums/Bi...age_2small.jpg
to my tune:
http://i55.tinypic.com/2nb9jdl.jpg
dyno reads .3 lean on both sheets.

I was also really surpsied to see such dramatic fluctuations and pig-richness out of the Evo's and S2k's. After all that work I really can say that even with the turbo and the cheap computer that it runs better than stock in terms of drivability. There's no waiting for the turbo, no woosh/wheel spin...just easy driving.