Where do you guys go for tuning?

[shunderwunder]

I was just wondering where you guys recomend going for tuning. I've been thinking about swapping my cams out & I will need a retune if I do it. just looking for any experience with certain shops (good or bad).

[bomjoon]

touringbubble does great job.

he tuned mine like.... well lets say it moretimes than you changed your oil in yer evo. :P

and im happy with it than the TS's tune, Dyno4's tune, AL's (no shit) or any other tunes...

[BlewByYouEvoVIII]

I think Sharif @ Forged is one of the best tuners in the country, just my opinion. Ive been tuned by numerous tuners and am finally happy with the way my car runs.

[shunderwunder]

touringbubble does great job.

he tuned mine like.... well lets say it moretimes than you changed your oil in yer evo. :P

and im happy with it than the TS's tune, Dyno4's tune, AL's (no shit) or any other tunes...

That reminds me, I need to do some service :D

[shunderwunder]

I think Sharif @ Forged is one of the best tuners in the country, just my opinion. Ive been tuned by numerous tuners and am finally happy with the way my car runs.

That's good to know cause Forged is on my list. I was thinking of going back to TopSpeed, but I'm not sure yet. I may look into getting touringbubble to do the tune, but I kinda want a dyno tune with a road test.

[Chemwarrior]

Do not go to TopSpeed. I have heard nothing but bad things about them. If you are looking for a local place then your best choices are Forged, Dyno4mance, or an individual tuner. If you are looking for an e-mail tune then I would suggest Mellon Tuning.

[blkonblk2red]

That's good to know cause Forged is on my list. I was thinking of going back to TopSpeed, but I'm not sure yet. I may look into getting touringbubble to do the tune, but I kinda want a dyno tune with a road test.

NO TOPSPEED :-P... i'd recommend touringbubble as well he's about to tune mine... if i can get it running which i might have bent a valve...

[robb86]

Forged or MR. TouringBubble :)

[Hikaru]

No TopSpeed? Really? I thought Doug was a pretty well established tuner...

[scoobysam]

Bigric09 does a great job, you might want to contact him.

[TouringBubble]

From what I know Doug has always leaned more toward the Subaru side of tuning. He enjoys the Subarus more and some Evo customers have picked up on it. I wouldn't say he's a bad tuner by any means ... but there are customers that will tell you either way.

Scott is supposed to be a very good tuner as well, but I haven't met him personally. Many Subaru and Evo guys like his tuning.

I've spoken with Andrew at Dyno4mance before about one of my customers and he was kind of short with me. That's no reflection on his tuning abilities though. Again, much like Doug he has mixed reviews.

I think what you'll find is that one of the Evo specific tuners will be more up-to-date on the latest patches and options for your tune as they have the time to devote to Evo specific research. This isn't to say that your tune will be better than others, but it will likely be more versatile.

I may be wrong, but I doubt Doug, Scott, Andrew or Sharif would be willing to set up a JDM MAP sensor and GM boost solenoid on your Evo and tune it for ECU controlled boost with all error correction in place, or set up alternate maps and injector scaling for E-85 and 93 with the Tephra patch and JoT harness. This is the type of thing an Evo-specific tuner can offer and do well as they likely have much more experience with these specifics than other tuners.

[blkonblk2red]

From what I know Doug has always leaned more toward the Subaru side of tuning. He enjoys the Subarus more and some Evo customers have picked up on it. I wouldn't say he's a bad tuner by any means ... but there are customers that will tell you either way.

Scott is supposed to be a very good tuner as well, but I haven't met him personally. Many Subaru and Evo guys like his tuning.

I've spoken with Andrew at Dyno4mance before about one of my customers and he was kind of short with me. That's no reflection on his tuning abilities though. Again, much like Doug he has mixed reviews.

I think what you'll find is that one of the Evo specific tuners will be more up-to-date on the latest patches and options for your tune as they have the time to devote to Evo specific research. This isn't to say that your tune will be better than others, but it will likely be more versatile.

I may be wrong, but I doubt Doug, Scott, Andrew or Sharif would be willing to set up a JDM MAP sensor and GM boost solenoid on your Evo and tune it for ECU controlled boost with all error correction in place, or set up alternate maps and injector scaling for E-85 and 93 with the Tephra patch and JoT harness. This is the type of thing an Evo-specific tuner can offer and do well as they likely have much more experience with these specifics than other tuners.


haha i need to get tuned almost for everything he said at the bottom :-P once i'm up and running might need asell the 240sx and go built 2.0 with an fpred :-D

[bomjoon]

andrew is more of a mechanic than a tuner.
bruce is the guy who tunes it.

with dyno4mance's tune you will never blow up your engine. he tunes it very safe.
safe usually means less power.

doug is great tuner and so is scott. i have nothing againt them. they helped me out numorus times.
+1 for them

Touring bobble. is your good ol friend who can tune your car and guarentee your satisfaction. he will answer every step while he is tuning your car. he will sit with you and while he changes stuff he will explain everything to you in a way that you will understand. well at least to me he did :P

and he charges lot less for the same tune if not better than your tuners around.
with discounts if you comback for more tunings later on.

touring blob +50. .... ok may be + 49 lol

[BlewByYouEvoVIII]

andrew is more of a mechanic than a tuner.
bruce is the guy who tunes it.

with dyno4mance's tune you will never blow up your engine. he tunes it very safe.
safe usually means less power.

doug is great tuner and so is scott. i have nothing againt them. they helped me out numorus times.
+1 for them

Touring bobble. is your good ol friend who can tune your car and guarentee your satisfaction. he will answer every step while he is tuning your car. he will sit with you and while he changes stuff he will explain everything to you in a way that you will understand. well at least to me he did :P

and he charges lot less for the same tune if not better than your tuners around.
with discounts if you comback for more tunings later on.

touring blob +50. .... ok may be + 49 lol

Your viewpoint of dyno4mance is so offbase I dont even know where to start...

[wrxin8or]

Scott and Doug are +11tybillion in my book

Both are great tuners, and will personally take time to make sure everything is good to go

[bomjoon]

Your viewpoint of dyno4mance is so offbase I dont even know where to start...

well then enlighten me.

since ive only been there 3-4 times and didnt live there like you. :P

from what i saw andrew couldnt really tune and bruce was doing all the work.
i wasnt really happy with their tune on my car.

you used to love andrew... tell us about his shop.

[ultm8mind]

Bigric09 tunes my slow ride, lol. I cannot complain one bit either, got her street tuned the other night, dyno tuned before that, I am looking at about 540whp but you can talk to him yourself. He's very knowledgeable and now that I am moving to Columbus and he's moving from NC to Ky, I may not be able to use his services anymore, and that hurts. He does it all though, from parts, to installs to tunes, not much him and the Fail Crew can't do....Krazirob can vouch too....

[shunderwunder]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. I was leaning tward TopSpeed again because I had a good experince with them last time, but I don't think I got the best tune due to scheduling errors. I set an appointment with them & somehow it didn't get in the computer. I was there first thing in the morning. While waiting on everyone to get going & the shop to open up I ended up talking with Scott. When I mentioned that I was there for Doug to get my car tuned he had this look of confusion on his face & said he thought he was scheduled to do dyno tuning on another car that they needed done ASAP. Scott & Doug talked about it & Scott let Doug use the dyno while he buttoned up a few things on the car he was doing & they made time for me to get tuned. It was a fairly quick process since I wasn't on thier list for the day, but I was pleased with the results. 357hp & 322tq. I think it could have been better if more time was spent, but I understood the circumstances. The best part is that the tune cost me just under $180 out the door. Obviously with more time spent the price would have been higher. So far what I have read about all the local shops is about the same. Praise from some & dislike from others. So far I have not heard anything bad about Touringbubble or Bigric09, so maybe I should give one of them a shot.

Touring bubble can you give me some pricing on a tune?

[BlewByYouEvoVIII]

well then enlighten me.

since ive only been there 3-4 times and didnt live there like you. :P

from what i saw andrew couldnt really tune and bruce was doing all the work.
i wasnt really happy with their tune on my car.

you used to love andrew... tell us about his shop.

I didnt exactly live there, its too far away. Andrew started out as being the only tuner there. Bruce only started doing the majority of the tuning over the last year/ year and a half. Andrew knows more about Evo's then almost anyone Ive ever met. With that in mind he was never really the mechanic there although he knows his way around mechanically. Even though he can do anything mechanically, he is more a tuner than a mechanic.

He usually tuned pretty conservative, but not always. My motor blew from one of his tunes, so saying dyno4mance tunes will never blow up your engine is totally false.

With that all in mind, I like Andrew. He is a great guy and is very upfront and honest with you. He doesn't jerk you around like most shops.

Your enlighted Joey.

[scoobysam]

I was 10times happier from my under $200 street tune than my $350 dyno tune. I would go with BigRic09 or touringbubble. I also heard good things from topspeed, but i heard they only treat you good if you spend lots of money with them. I know they tuned my friends wrx stage 4 pretty nicely. Anyone know if batlground is any good?

[TripperFx3]

I was road tuned locally by a guy here in Reno, so I would be tuned at altitude. I had the opportunity to get tuned at SpeedElement or GST, but decided to just get road tuned and I think road tunes, in the end, can actually make more power as your actually able to compensate for the air that is forced through the intake and intercooler. Therefore you also have cooler intake charges compared to getting tuned on a dyno.

The downside is you don't really know what the before and after results are. After I got tuned on my near stock setup (TBE, intake, and MBC) I couldn't feel the power (the AWD makes it harder to feel than a RWD setup which I was used to), but going from something with as few upgrades as that to my current set up, I felt a rather large difference WHILE tuning.

[Chemwarrior]

I personally wouldn't suggest BigRic.

[shunderwunder]

I will probrobly go with TouringBubble when I'm ready. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to road tune being that the car will be driven on the road. Too bad I don't think I'll be able to get my cams before the dyno day. It would be nice to see the numbers, but the drive is what it's all about.

[scoobysam]

I personally wouldn't suggest BigRic.

why is that?

[BlewByYouEvoVIII]

I personally wouldn't suggest BigRic.

Also curious why??

[Evolvedgti]

Me too. I pm'd you asking this question!

[em1toevo]

Also curious why??

Now I'm curious too...

[BlewByYouEvoVIII]

lol. he probably said that just to make us think :(

[Chemwarrior]

The meat of this is between myself and Jason but I would just say be aware of his tune. Throwing a crap load of timing to increase power is not the proper way of tuning.

[scoobysam]

The meat of this is between myself and Jason but I would just say be aware of his tune. Throwing a crap load of timing to increase power is not the proper way of tuning.

That is what sharif did to my car at forge.:rolleyes: When i was retuned by bigric he said he only runs that much timing on race gas/meth. I'm so glad i went to see him. My car ran like as* before and power died off later rpms. Car runs great now and feels like a lot more power.

[TripperFx3]

Well the way I understand tuning is that you can either increase timing, boost or do a little of both. Some cars respond better to lower boost and increased timing, while others are the opposite. This also comes into play with different tuners style and also where a dyno would come in handy or at least DLL.

The guy that road tuned my car used a DLL graph and he tried both methods. He advanced timing a lot while keeping boost fairly low and then I brought it to his attention that I had installed the FP Green and he kept timing where it was and we slowly turned it up and found a good medium between the two.

Sam, what you said is true though. Running race gas, as most know, allows you to increase timing and up the boost.

[blkonblk2red]

still no bad comments about touring bubble :) :-P i'll get tuned on the 8th from him so i'll let you know if hate him or not :-p JK

[TouringBubble]

lol. Thanks. i think.

[BlewByYouEvoVIII]

So we have 2 guys tuned by the same 2 tuners saying the exact opposite about their tunes... Thats something you dont see everyday. From my experience I dont remember Sharif running alot of timing on his tunes, thats odd.