Quote:
Originally Posted by qoncept
What I've seen is professional tuners letting things slip, though most people don't really pick up on it. I'm not talking about you specifically, I don't know that you've said these things. And this is obviously all thrown out the window if you have major, atypical changes, but:
1) Discussing why should get a custom tune:
Having your car custom tuned gets you all these wonderful gains and safety.
2) Discussing why tunes should be considered IP and protected:
The cost for custom tunes is so high because we've spent so much time tweaking our tunes across 8000 cars and we're not going to just give that away.
The two just don't jive. What #2 really tells me is that professional tuners are basically just giving you an OTS tune they've created, and maybe throwing your car on the dyno or driving around the block for validation. It says if you don't have an atypical setup, a custom tune isn't necessary.
I get that there are subtle differences between different headers and intakes and whatever. But I also know how sophisticated our ECUs are. For mild, common mods to our cars, the ECU can more than compensate for the negligible differences.
Say, for instance, I had you tune my car with a Borla UEL header. Then I decided I'd rather have a Nameless UEL header and brought it back to you to retune. What changes, in general terms, do you suspect you'd have to make to my tune?
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Wow...OK....
Well, It sounds like you are basically saying that all tuners have the same tune, and they all give you this same tune OTS tune, and then just dyno the car for show and that's it.
If that's how you feel, then, I don't think anything I can say here will change your mind....but you are completely wrong. Sorry.
As far the the factory ECU, it is sophisticated, and it can change to a
degree based on differences in the environment and mods you put on. However it can't compensate enough for some mods and you will end up running too rich, or too lean, and to lean is really bad.
Also, it will not add power. It's not designed that way, it's actually the opposite. If you put on an exhaust you might gain 1-2 hp, but the computer does not learn form it and tune itself to give you the power you could get from it. You need a tune do that.
Dsport did a great write-up a couple months back on different mods for the 86 and how the ECU affects it. Basically the computer uses a torque limiter algorithm to ensure the car does not make any more power than a certain percentage over stock power, this is for safety reasons. Don't believe me? Go pick up the back issue.
So if you add mods you literally
need a tune to get any real gains from them. You would also be ensuring the mods haven't caused the car too run too rich or too lean, which is where the safety aspect of it comes in.
If you want us to prove all this to you, we will gladly do so
