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Street Tune

fri3dchick3n

fri3dchick3n

New member
Hey, Well my car is pretty much ready for a tune, I was wanting to get one locally. I found a place; Rodgers Autocare. He does high performance bolt ons and tuning. He wants $550 for a tune. Kind of hoping it would be a little cheaper. Is this price a lot for a street tune? I was thinking I can get a 3.4'' pulley and be able to run almost KR free with a street tune instead of a canned tune. He said he does use HP Tuners and has worked on the 3.8 S/C before. : \

What do you guys think? Is this price going to be worth the tune or should I look around?
 


i'm not sure about him. ive never had a tune...yet haha, but that price seems a little high. honestly your best bet would be to find someone on here thats near you that can tune your car
 
It's hard to say, I would see if he can work with you on the price, it does cost $100 for credits. Alternatively, you could get a canned pcm for $100-300? But it is nice to work with someone local and change things easily over time. Initially he would make $450 on a relatively base tune after paying for credits, but how much does he charge after that? Over time you may be wishing you had forked over the cash. You're in Alaska, you probably don't have that many options and he knows it. Any other car, $550 for a tune is right on par.
 
Buy a tuner and learn to use it.

You could get a DHP tuner for cheaper than that and be able to tune your car as much and as many times as you want.

OR

For about that same price you could buy HPT and the credits for your car and tune it as much as you want.

$550 is ridiculous for a tune unless that covers many tunes over the life of the car and mod changes.
 
Get a canned tune, it is good enough for a 3.4 setup or get your own DHP and learn how to use it.

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Thanks for the opinions, I did call another place in Anchorage. Underground Performance and I will see what they quote me for. But personaly I think Rodger will do a better job and follow up on any mistakes. I think I will try to negotiate the price just a little bit. But I do understand tuning is very important and must be perfect. So the price might be worth it. Unless anyone one of you guys plan on taking a vacation here in Alaska! Its 65* here and very nice.
 


yeah that is way over priced. why would he need to buy credits? isnt there a shop version of the HPT with no credits needed? for that price deff get your own tuner. if you are unsure about getting it tuned well yourself, you are in luck. we are all here to help. I have helped many over the years get started tuning their own cars. just get some data logs and a current file, email them to me and i will send them back with the corrections and a brief explanation what was changed and why. and there are others on this forum that offer to help people too.
 
Considering how much a canned tune can cost, and just how little they do for you, its not worth the investment.

Even for a 3.4 setup, just scan for knock and adjust pulley size/octane to compensate. Stock tune is good enough.

Now if you want a dyno tune, expect to pay $100 in credits, $50-100 per hour of dyno time plus the fee for tuning.

Depending on their qualifications and typical rate of pay, some tuners charge more and get it. Quite frankly, there are a few out there that deserve it too. But those are few and far between.

Don't jump and say dyno > street or street> dyno. There are distinct advantages to both.

Unless you're willing to learn and teach yourself, tuning your own car probably isn't for you.

Z34 guy: HPT always requires credits unless that "group" has been unlocked. Most shops wont have 3800s unlocked unless they're intense/ZZP/PRJ/Overkill etc. They'll likely have gen III V8's unlocked, but that won't help you.

HPT will let you adjust the basic things but if you're really in need of a tune requiring special attention, then DHP would be preferred despite being more difficult to use and less reliable.

And more to the point, the P04/P05 (the PCMs our cars utilize) are so simple there isn't much to change. Also trying to determine the appropriate timing/pulley to run, granted you're not seeing knock, without a dyno is a guess at best.
 
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