Name a good Tuna
 

Hey, I just moved here from Santa Rosa and I was really stoked to find your forum. :liljon:

So who's Nate...a local tuner here in Reno or is he a tuner at that S-Squared? I really don't want to give Shiv at TurboXS my business after the bad attitude I've heard about. So yah, where's the best place to get an Ecutek tune? I don't mind driving if there's a good tuner sombody can recomend.

Nate is Subaru Specialists Motorsports, formerly S-Squared in Sac. Nobody local. I would reccomend Nate for an ECUTek tune.

Wow... I would love to see what would happen if you said "Shiv at TurboXS" within earshot of him! :lol: I used to work for him, he owns his owned business called Vishnu Performance Systems in Fremont.

Nate is the tuner at Subaru Specialists. He used to be the proprietor of S-Squared before merging with Alfas & Subarus to form Subaru Specialists. He's the real reason you don't need to go see Shiv. EcuTek tunes by Nate are $650 for standard and $750 for drive-by-wire cars I believe. I absolutely recommend having Nate tune your car. Almost everybody on this board has, and you'd have a pretty hard time getting anyone to say something negative about his work, and more importantly, his customer service.

Glad to hear Nate's a good guy. Thanks.

Another recomendation for Nate here. He's done some minor work for me here and there, but nothing major (yet ;))

Nate rocks, nuf said

Another vote for Nate here.

Me also. He has done a ton of work on my car.

Yeah, Nate's the man.

(SS Show car :( )

+1 for Nate.

+..2? for Nate. He rocks.

Ok I get the idea. :P Is there any way to get a discount with Nate?

No, in fact, now that you know all of us, you'll have to pay double too!

Figures!

In all seriousness, Nate, Joe and Aaron at SS give members of SECCS and SRIC (i-club) very fair prices on parts and services, so you don't need a discount.

Well Joe quoted me $650 for the Ecutek tune (including the tune and an hour of dyno time), $80/hour for additional dyno time, and $75/hr for install labor. I have a stupid question, does the $650 include the Ecutek unit and everything else I'll need for the reflash? Would I have any reason to think that it would take more than an hour to tune my car with an UP and TBE? Also, do I need an EGT gauge? Joe recomended it, but said it's not necessary since the Ecutek will protect the engine if it gets to high. Sorry to hijack my own thread.

No, you're cool. There really is no Ecutek "Unit", your actually buying the license to have the computer touched. SS is a licensed Ecutek tuner, thus you pay for them to tweak your car.

You don't need a EG guage, but it doesn't hurt. A boost gauge is a must. I think that an hour to do the tune is very realistic, unless your car is doing something funky. But I wouldn;t think it would go over that amount of time.

Matt

Thanks Matt...yah I don't mind buying an EGT if it's a good idea. The gauge pod I want to get has two gauge spots anyway:
http://www.j-spectuning.com/images/a...el_pod_adj.JPG
But don't I have to tap a hole into the exhaust manifold? How hard is that? Also, I feel like I should get a gauge that blinks or buzzes once it hits a threshold since I'm only human and may forget to check the gauge when I'm pushing the car hard. I like the Omori "WRX look" gauges, but I don't think they have that...any recomendations. Should I make a new thread?

I hade Nate install my EGT guage and was charged $100 for the tap on the exhaust manifold. I installed the guage and with the Defi one its just plug and play

Yah, but Mike isn't your EGT all messed up and it actually is reading your boost?

Ewwww, Burn :P

:lol: NO!!!! but I do get a strange sound at 2250 rpm and at 3250rmp :eek:

I have that gauge setup and got it from j-spec tuning. They kick ass and I love the gauges. I had Nate install mine though.. ;)

Yah, that's where that image is linked from, J-spec Tuning. Did you get that kit that comes with the pod, gauges, and sending units? I was wondering if they came with absolutely everything you need for the install, but I'll just email them probably.

So I'm convinced that a custom tune is the way to go, but I don't know if I should go to Nate or get a road tune from Ed atEquilibrium Tuning in Davis. EJ20Legacy (Jeremy) just gave a kick ass review of his tuning ability on wrxfanatics.com. I'm leaning toward Nate though.

Do you think there's any clout to Jeremy's claim that on a dyno you can't go as fast, so the upper gears can't get tuned fully and some people have issues in the upper gears...like boost spiking? I had never heard of that.

Not to bring that drama over here, but Ed (though he may be really smart) has yet to convince me that he is an accomplished tuner. I still think he is still learning how to tune, and I wouldn't really trust him at this point in the game. All of his reviews tend to say he takes a lot of time with his tunes. One interpretation is he really wants to get a good tune and but I'm more willing to believe he is a 'trial and error' tuner and is kind of flying blind.

He may be a great tuner in a few years, but I'm not willing to trust him with my motor yet.

But thats just my opinion. Take it or leave it. (and I wouldn't trust everything you read on wrxfanatics.com either ;)).

That's good to know. Please do "bring the drama". I want to know these things. By the way if any of you are members of wrxf, here's the link: http://www.wrxfanatics.com/index.php?showtopic=31072
Seriously, I've never heard a more glowing review.

I'm kinda late for dinner but I'll recap quickly...

Ed has been employing some somewhat shady tatics lately, like giving people 'free diagnostics' and stuff like that. With his 'free diagnostics' he is essentially looking at other tuners maps to see what they are doing so that he can replicate it.

He has also been publicly calling one of Nates Tune's bad and railing against S-S as if they were the devil themselves. The funny part is, though, is that from what I've found on ECUtek's forums completely contradicts Ed. I may not know much about tuning, but I'll trust ECUtek over Ed any day.

I'd prefer if this discussion stayed off this board, though, as it is really stupid. Check i-club (Bay Area regional and Sac/Reno regional) if you are really interested in reading the full details of the drama.

heh, yah beleive me I take everything I read with a grain of salt...especially glowing reviews of vendors/tuners. Thanks for the advice though. I'll check out i-club and the ECUtek forums...just trying to make sure an educated decision.

I'm staying out of the drama surrounding EQ, as it doesn't bear further discussion except as rhetoric. The orignal custoemr in question made his decision, and most of us have moved on. I'd be happy to explain the situation sometime, but forums are not the place for specualtion and drama.

Regarding dynos not being able to spin up above 3rd gear, that's ridiculous. I'm not sure where that idea came from, but we *calibrate* the Mustang dyno by spinning it up to 160mph, then letting it coast down, just to account for parasitic losses in the rollers and the monitoring equipment. Now, that doesn't mean we spin every car up to 140+ to check for boost spikes, but we've never had reports of any spiking in the higher gears that I'm aware of, on multiple vehicles that see hard track duty. If someone comes in and is very concerned about extremely high-speed tuning, I'm sure something could be worked out, but you also need to remember that while we flow a ton of air towards the rad and IC, running for sustained/repeated periods at those kind of speeds are simply not something the car itself may be designed to do. If you feel like you'd like the car pushed to those extremes, we should be able to facilitate you, but how many times are you going to be doing hard 4th and 5th gear pulls at 100+ on the street?

Thanks for the explanation Aaron. I've heard the best tune starts on the dyno and get's fine tuned with a street tune. Is there any truth to this? Does S-Squared offer anything like this?

If I'm not mistaken, a good tune is a good tune.

The ECU will take care of most of the fine learning on the road on its own. I'm sure a post tune will help, I just don't know if its cost effective.

I could undersand a "post tune" if a part needed to be broken in (like getting another alignment after springs settle). But assuming there's no new turbo, would a "post tune" really be beneficial in any way? I mean I could understand letting the car cool down between pulls, but coming back a whole other day? I guess I always assumed a tune would be just as good as when it was new indefinently. Am I wrong?

Post-tune: it could probably be slightly useful, I don't really know. If anything, the changes would be minor and would probably be more for drivability then performance.

As for road tuning in general, we could debate it all day long. The problem I personally have with road tuning is the lack of repeatability. It has its advantages, but you really can't tune WOT in 4th or 5th gears on the road because that is way too fast for the street. 3rd gear at WOT (for me at least) is ~80 mph, I can't imagine pegging it in 4th or 5th on a public street.

So, there are some certain advantages (obviously more real world) but the disadvantages mean I don't really like it. The lack of repatable logging is what bothers me the most. Plus, I don't want myself or a tuner or whomever taking my car over twice the speed limit, no matter how desolate the road might be.

Nope, you're on the right track. A tune will usually improve a bit once you get a few drive cycles in on it (tank of gas or 2) as the ECU starts exploring the limits with its new parameters. It works the same as a stock ECU; reset it, and it's going to start with base parameters and adjust things like timing, etc, in order to maximize performance.

Like Nick said, a good tune is a good tune. Following up a good dyno tune with a full road tune is ususally not necessary, becuase you're really duplicating effort; however, after we dyno tune, we'll always rip the car around a bit to make sure everything works as expected on the road, and make any fine adjustments necessary at that time. Performance ont he road is what matters; using the dyno gives us a repeatable environment where we can accurately track and respond to changes while tuning, which is where the value of the dyno really comes in.

Thanks guys. I appreciate the insight. Lots of good points.

As far as the gauges go, I got the EGT/Boost package with pod from J-spec. The first thing I should point out is that J-spec was really easy to deal with, and they kept me informed every step of the way. At one point there was a supplier problem with the gauge pod, so they emailed me to let me know, and to save time on delivery they had the pod drop shipped directly to my house. I took in the three boxes I received - two guages and one pod, gave them to Nate and he did the install. That package comes with everything you need. Nate also installed everything in a manner that makes what's going on under the hood pretty stealth:

http://www.turbocheese.net/hosted/engbay.jpg

That's with VF34, full turboback, intercooler hoses, up-pipe and all the lines run for the gauges.

Here's what the gauges look like installed (what you see is everything that came from j-spec, including anything that was used for mounting):

http://www.turbocheese.net/pictures/wrx65.jpg

I wanted to point out something that concerned me about that review. EJ20 mentions that during the tuning of his car, he and Ed put over 200 miles on his car, thrashing it down back roads at VERY illegal speeds. He mentions doing full fourth and fifth gear pulls, which means they're driving on back roads at speeds well in excess of 100mph. That is not safe. It's not safe for you, it's not safe for Ed, and it's not safe for the car. Even when the roads appear empty, the unexpected can ALWAYS occur and it could cost you your life.

EDIT:
Another thing I would be concerned about, especially if he's driving the car at those speeds, is what happens if your car has a mechanical failure related to the tuning, or what if the car gets wrecked? What if he gets stopped by law enforcement and your car gets impounded? He's a college student. Does he even have liability insurance? If your car is destroyed/damaged/impounded, how would he pay for that?

FYI: A search of the Davis Business License database shows no business license for an "Equilibrium Tuning" or "EQ*".

Especially if you're looking down at your cool guages!

give me a sec...
I have to register.

Damn, that looks pretty stealth to me, SonicSuby (except for the pink badge :P)I agree with you too, I was happy to learn that they can exceed any legal speed limit on the Dyno. I'm much more comfortable with the idea of my car going over 100mph on the dyno than on back roads. It would be nice to get a road tune at a big track with long straightaways, but that's not gonna happen. Talk about cost prohibitive.

Send that to Ali G!

Just FYI guys... if this thread becomes a mirror of all the other threads on this topic about SS vs. Ed, I will drop it into /dev/null so fast that anyone nearby will get banned due simply to proximity.

Discussion of road vs. dyno (while played out, even on this board) is okay. Discussion about what makes a good tune is okay as well. Recommending a tuner is fine. But rehashing what's already been beaten to death elsewhere is right out. The only people that have a right to say anything about the Ed vs. Nate deal is Ed and Nate.

Tread lightly. ;)

I hear you. I haven't said anything bad, I was just pointing out some very legitimate things to consider before putting your car in someone elses hands :)

Like I said, if you want to talk tuning in general, or talk about whether or not to go to a specific tuner, that's fine. I just don't want to get into the details of the drama that's been covered to death on i-club.

If you want to discuss those specifics, take it back to i-club.

For the record it's Ed Vaas of EQ tuning not Me(ed aka:soggynoodles)

ATT: Skimonkey, STI Deede.

TIA :)

So?

EQ Tuning Ed = Ed Vaas

Soggynoodles Ed = Medro ED

Got it.

check.

What do you guys think about Gruppe-S? I go to SF sometimes to visit friends, so the drive isn't an issue. I've just learned they have a Mustang Dyno too? Any opinions?

Gruppe-S is a good place in my opinion, I've heard plenty of good things about them. There really is no reason to go anywhere but S-S though. I don't think you'll get a much better tune anywhere else save maybe Bill Knose (though that's a personal thing maybe, sorry Nate), they are the closest, and as far as ties they are by far the most connected to this club.

JC

Cool, thanks for the advice JC. Yah I can't see any reason NOT to go to SS (and I read the drama, nuff said). I just like to explore all my options. Is Bill the another tuner at SS?

Nope, Bill has never had anything to do with our shop in any way. I-Speed (Bill's business) moved down to Southern California. S-S Motorsports is Nate, Scott, and myself.