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Dyno Tuners


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Central Washington is not exactly prolific with dyno tuning shops.  There is, however, a shop in Vancouver, WA called Wong's Performance Tuning www.wongsperformance.com, that specializes in LSX motors.  Anyone here have any experience with him? My son is about to take his car there and I I'd like some feedback off this site if anyone has personal experience with Tom's shop.

Thanks,

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Assuming the car is more than a simple bolt on car(i.e. cam, heads, etc), a mail order tune doesn't quite cut it. When it comes to more serious mods like a cam, hoping some guy halfway across the country can get a solid tune without logging or anything is kind of sketchy. I always rag on a lot of my non-LS buddies for doing E-tunes, although theirs at least involves logging and sending that to the tuner, then him changing the tune, and the owner reflashing, then rinse, wash and repeat. Unless I'm mistaken Frost just has the ECU mailed to him, puts a "Hope I got it right the first time" tune on it, and mails it back. As good as he might be, I'm doubting he gets a cammed car anywhere near good the first time around.

 

Just my take on mail order tunes. Good luck finding a proper shop, LS1tech and other LSx forums are definitely the place to ask.

 

-Will

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My take on mail order tunes is that a respected experienced tuner should have a large database on commonly used upgrade combinations. With that being said if you have an f body or vette you can probably fill out the form, send it in and be pretty close.

Our cars on the other hand usually have custom/homemade fuel systems, cais and exhausts so I can't help but think we would be leaving some power and drivability on the table with a mail order tune.

I'm as cheap as the day is long but I plan on having a dyno tune after I do my heads and cam. There is a dyno tuner in town that charges $450. I think that extra $250 will be money well spent.

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The canned tune that I got for my car put me at 401hp and 428 tq on a cold motor. The live tuning got me 398hp and 435 tq on a hot motor. My tuner said the canned tune was just a little rich, but he was impressed. Canned tune was from waitformeperformance.com. I do not recommend them-customer service was terrible.

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I am getting a mail order tune just to get it running, etc.  When ready I will trailer it to Baton Rouge for the real deal from the same tuner. Geoff Skinner at EPS, he used to own Thunder Racing and is well known in the LS World plus he had my cam custom ground for me.

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There is nothing wrong with a mail order tune until you go big horsepower. The tuner I am refering to so far has 1 complaint against him due to the car having a bad mass air flow sensor which the customer agreed fixed the issue. But there is always personal preference.

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OK - so no one has any experience with Wong's Performance.

Mail order tunes are OK for stock motors which is what I had done for mine by www.chipsbyal.com and my car runs great.  My son's car, however, has prated & polished heads, a cam and some issues with the MAF that only a tuner with a dyne can properly sort out. He has already been "dyne tuned" once and is running so rich that he has fuel in his oil.  Need to be sure that the next one does it right.

SunnyZ - By the way - IDAHO is the great potato state.  Iowa is corn. :-)

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There are no signs of dyno capability on the wongsperformance web site.  Testimonials about what a great guy he is and listings of bolt-on packages but no dyno tuning descriptions.  Looks like he's just a good mechanic who probably tunes by ear or AFR gauge.

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