PontiacBonnevilleClub.com

So after 2 years of slowly plodding along, doing bit and piece mods on my first boosted ride, hereNAnd there, when time/cash/goodwill were plentiful, I'm ready to get my first tune. A locked up PCM was the first hurdle to clear. With a set of GP poly mounts under his arm, club member Larz01 kindly enabled the distant dream of a tuned 98 LSS PCM, with a custom operating system. I cannot overstate the significance of this effort. Without a tune, any mods are diminished somewhat. But its still fun, I cant lie. Most likely I will go through a local shop, Im still open to options, I dont want to get on the dyno if i can help it, since i can provide data VIA DHP to my tuner, and save that time for some of the initial mapping, (probably a bit) and re-tunes. I have considered doing email type tuning as well, but the big question is who?

I'd like to hear from anybody with a custom tune for boost + pulley, so.........

1. Whose tune do you run? Shop or private?
2. How old is the tune?
3. What is the nature of the tune? Eg. performance/DD/somewhere in the middle
4. Favorite aspect of the tune.

Looking forward to your responses.

I tune all my own stuff, and I have tuned all the locals with a 3800 around me

Well this is going nowhere.

A lot of people further along in their modding probably have local or self tunes, since canned tunes are no bueno.

I found a guy local that tunes 3800's. He tunes his own stuff, has some really cool turbo builds.

My L67 is open loop tuned because of the cam, an NIC. It's about a year old, went back once to adjust shift points and remove the rev limiter and add some timing.

I can still get 26-27 mpg freeway if I just cruise. Most of the NIC builds are getting 24-25. I have different headers, which may contribute to that. But it's just an example of how it can be different than another similarly built motor, something that a canned tune won't account for.

The problem with a mail-order tune is when you have to adjust it, you have to send it back in, which is $$$ on shipping. And the canned tune doesn't always start out very close to what it needs for your car. The heavier H-body isn't going to respond the same way to the tune so getting it dialed in may take a few tries over the mail.

So if you have the option, the local tune is probably going to cost less and you can get a better result.

MattStrike wrote:I found a guy local that tunes 3800's. He tunes his own stuff, has some really cool turbo builds.

My L67 is open loop tuned because of the cam, an NIC. It's about a year old, went back once to adjust shift points and remove the rev limiter and add some timing.

I can still get 26-27 mpg freeway if I just cruise. Most of the NIC builds are getting 24-25. I have different headers, which may contribute to that. But it's just an example of how it can be different than another similarly built motor, something that a canned tune won't account for.

The problem with a mail-order tune is when you have to adjust it, you have to send it back in, which is $$$ on shipping. And the canned tune doesn't always start out very close to what it needs for your car. The heavier H-body isn't going to respond the same way to the tune so getting it dialed in may take a few tries over the mail.

So if you have the option, the local tune is probably going to cost less and you can get a better result.

For sure, the shipping part with the time and cost would be a killer, but what I had considered doing if it was possible, was to email the scans, have the .DBF file worked on, and then have it sent back VIA a sharing hub to be burned locally with the DHP. Am I out in left field on this?

No, that's within the scope of probability.

I got a ZZP mail order tune then tweeked it a little from there with DHP. the ZZP tune did most of the little stuff i wouldnt know to do as well as setup the trans for good clean shifts.

S

I found a place in Pensacola, FL that does a Tune/Dyno setup for $400. I don't know if that is any good, but would have to travel 150 miles to get there. is there anyway we can get a tuner shipped in and do it myself?

I had an old GTP DHP but that is long gone. Wish I had it now...lol.

Anyone in the N Florida or S GA/Bama area?

400 bucks isn't bad. Considering for most mail order tunes you'd have to pay shipping plus 50 bucks per retune. And HPT costs about 700 bucks.