The answer to my e-mail sent to a local shop produced this:
My e-mail:
I am looking for a local tuner that can tune my 2003
Sunfire's
computer. I am told HP Tuners is the program that can do this.
The car has a 2 1/4 exhaust from the manifold back, and a drop in K&N.
I am looking to port the exhaust manifold, intake manifold and install
a CAI as the max mods I will do to this car and then have someone tune it
when all mods are done which will be soon.
Let me know what your shop offers, thank you...
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XACTDyno:
Yes, hp is the best software for your car. Just did a cavalier turbo
and it worked great, 240whp.
However, given the cost of the software , $500, and the tune, $350, I
don't think you will see that much from it. These engines are low compression
and small cam economy engines. But they do respond nicely to turbo. I
suggest you save your money and shoot for that. Or just do the stuff you're
thinking about but leave the computer stock. Tuned vs. untuned I think would
only be about 10 WHP (based on experience with similar engines).
Tim
I think he's right on.
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if u were to install cams. ported and polished head. u would see a bigger gain in power
DRIVE HARD OR DONT DRIVE AT ALL!!!
Wow! A dyno / performance shop that didn't promise the world? Maybe you should consider doing business there to reward him for being honest.
-->Slow
10:1 is low compression? eh c'mon thats at least medium compression lol
the most fitting answer to this Q is the tune is only as good as the mechanical modifications its supporting.
the more you physically have done, the better the electronic tune will help
The honesty behind their answer is shocking.
And in all seriousness, it's bang on.
-Chris-
-Sweetness-
-Turbocharged-
Slowly but surely may some day win this race...
i dont care what they say... a very good part of the fastest and most whp producing cars on this site are using hp tuners... its without a shadow of a doubt one of the absolute best products for a j-body out there, it pulls its weight, and the cars and numbers on here are proving that every day.
I got this from the 800hp ecotec project
"GM Racing began the tuning process on a Heinen-Freud water-brake dyno using the stock intake and exhaust manifolds and a modified stock downpipe plumbed without muffler directly into the dyno cell's exhaust removal system. It turns out a well-tuned stock 10:1 2.2-liter Ecotec in the above configuration actually develops 168 crankshaft hp (which is above the factory rating of 140-150 as installed in various vehicles in the United States and Europe)."
http://www.year2032.com/ecotec.htm
On a well tuned ecotec GM, claims they gained 28-18 hp. 10 hp is reasonable, but I wonder why GM would claim this if it wasn't true.
yes but that dyno measures at the flywheel, so higher ratings would be seen.
Built&Boosted moar
04 Cavalier Turbo r.i.p my baby
2nd place 2009 GM tuner bash qwick 8--holla
yeah, but the crank horsepower is almost directly proportional to wheel horsepower, on that level. a 18hp crank gain means 16 or 17hp whp gain. A little bit less due to clutch slippage, but overall even though gm is saying 18-28hp gain at the crank with 168 crankshaft horsepower, say stock whp is 130, you would still end up with 148-158 whp, maybe a little less, still a similar gain.
David Arestie wrote:yeah, but the crank horsepower is almost directly proportional to wheel horsepower, on that level. a 18hp crank gain means 16 or 17hp whp gain. A little bit less due to clutch slippage, but overall even though gm is saying 18-28hp gain at the crank with 168 crankshaft horsepower, say stock whp is 130, you would still end up with 148-158 whp, maybe a little less, still a similar gain.
I don't know anyone yet to see anything close to this.
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This was the question I was looking for.. Still not sure what to do, HP or not. $500 at the local race shop in Tampa for tuning the car as my runs on the dyno as needed I believe, using HPT
If I could see 18-28 HP I would seriously consider that amount since my headers, even years ago cost me $450!!
I some decent bolt ons so I would hope if not at stock configuration 18 hp but at slightly modified at least that much.
I hope you guys post more info on here as I need to decide on whether to spend the 500!
"FRIENDS DON'T LET FRIENDS DRIVE STOCK"
I'm kinda going through the same thing. exhaust, header, intake, throttle body etc... I have been in contact with one of my local shops (houston), regarding tuning. They charge $180 an hour to tune the car, which I assume it would take about 2 hours, $500 is a little steep. Anyways. I am going to have my car dyno tuned either before or after I put in some new cams. If not I will have it tuned in about 2 weeks. I will print out the dyno sheet and let you know.
if you're not putting in cams along with the ported head, or increasing the compression that the engine is already tuned for then that guy is right, and kudos to him for not trying to take your money regardless. Even though the eco ecu is detuned quite a bit and has some downright silly settings when it comes to power enrichment, there's not enough of a gain in mostly stock form to be worth the kind of money you're looking at for a dyno tune.
Arrival Blue 04 LS Sport
Eco
Turbo
Megasquirt
'Nuff said
I put down 127whp in my 04 cavy with intake/exhaust..I'm not sure you would see large enough gains to justify the $500
The shop i just went to, to get my car dynoed there "GM" guy was there who uses HP tuners and he charges 150 bucks to do it.
He did a GTO before me who put down over 650 WHP.
Topsub wrote:The shop i just went to, to get my car dynoed there "GM" guy was there who uses HP tuners and he charges 150 bucks to do it.
He did a GTO before me who put down over 650 WHP.
id say go for it man, somebody that uses a dyno and knows their hp tuners is going to get you some very nice gains. that 137whp u just put down could quite easily hit 150 if properly tuned. it can only get better from there, i wish i had somebody around my area that could do that. id throw that $150 down in a heartbeat.
z yaaaa wrote:Topsub wrote:The shop i just went to, to get my car dynoed there "GM" guy was there who uses HP tuners and he charges 150 bucks to do it.
He did a GTO before me who put down over 650 WHP.
id say go for it man, somebody that uses a dyno and knows their hp tuners is going to get you some very nice gains. that 137whp u just put down could quite easily hit 150 if properly tuned. it can only get better from there, i wish i had somebody around my area that could do that. id throw that $150 down in a heartbeat.
No offense dude how can you say that? Thats total BS you cant just put out arbitrary numbers, there little to no evidence of anyone else making gains with tuning on a N/A 4cyl, until someone does it right, none of us can speculate. I would love to see some numbers like that, but that fact is GM did very good job tuning the vehicles according to stock components from the factory, bolt ons are going to make a big enough difference to justify massive retuning of fuel maps.
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Ok I agree and disagree with what the shop said. If you find a shop that has HPT then you do not have to pay the $500 for the program and then more for the tune. I have found prices from $250+ to get tune with HPT (and you do not have to own HPT).
Now this ""GM Racing began the tuning process on a Heinen-Freud water-brake dyno using the stock intake and exhaust manifolds and a modified stock downpipe plumbed without muffler directly into the dyno cell's exhaust removal system. It turns out a well-tuned stock 10:1 2.2-liter Ecotec in the above configuration actually develops 168 crankshaft hp (which is above the factory rating of 140-150 as installed in various vehicles in the United States and Europe)."
If you do the math this comes to roughly 10 extra wheel hp. Which is very possible. I know a guy who has a Ecotec swap just got tune with HPT they gained 6whp in the low end and 6-8 across the powerband. This sounds pretty good to me on a stock Ecotec. SO if you look at adding extra mods those numbers should increase. Most people on this site pay way more than $500 to gain that same amount of power.
FU Tuning
nitrous=75hp for about 400-500 dollars.
personally i would do it.
with hp tuners not only are you tuning for horsepower, but you can tune for driveability.
i dont know if you are an auto or a manual tranny, but there are some serious driveability advances that can be made with tuning a car with a program like hp tuners.
im considering getting mine tuned in the next year or so for a few reasons:
- tune car for 91 octane and increase timing and performance.
- tune transmission to respond to my needs (automatic)
- fine tune a few things i dont like, like the cooling fan turn on point, etc.
now i have a pretty much stock car right now. its a 97 LD9 with the 4T40-E tranny. im banking on probably about 8-10% gain with what i want to do, but would be happy even with a 6% gain if the car drove the way i wanted it after.
i dont think i would get it tuned by that shop for the sole reason that they are asking alot of money, but i would get it tuned.
1997 RedR - ZedR
