Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

A friend of mine had a quote from a sydney based tuner recently and seemed really exxy to me.

have never paid more than $600 for a tune through unigroup, he was quoted approx $1200 for a full tune. Apparantly the tuner sounded great to deal with, asked a lot of questions etc and seemed to know what he was on about., but to me that seems a bit mental.

computer in car has previously been tuned for:

a stock rb25 with walbro fuel pump

front mount

3.5in exhaust

boost controller.

car now has:

forward plenum

bigger turbo

sard reg

bigger throttle body

Thoughts?

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/378040-tuner-quote-enquiry/
Share on other sites

Ultimately it varies from shop to shop as they all have preferred ecus and might charge different depending on what you have. Yes 1200 also sounds high to me but every place has there price. Comes down to who you feel confortable withpaying money to either decide the life of your motor.

Yeah pretty much that.

I would say $1000 is the most common price you will get quoted, with $600 being one of the cheaper or 'better value'.

Ultimately I would pay $1200 for a tune being confident it would be a stout tune. I think Dart quoted me that much, but couldnt impress me on his knowledge, whereas insight motorsport quoted similar too but I believe Scott possesed the knowledge to get the results I wanted.

If going to spend big bucks on a quality tune, make sure it is a well sorted setup before you go wasting money trying to tune it. For example, I currently run a basic SR setup with a 2860 and a microtech, I doubt I will want to pay over $600 to tune it... Its nothing exotic.

just depends. if the $600 tune is 30-60 mins of work and involves a few power runs, basic cold start and cruise mapping then is it good value vs a $1200 tune which takes 4-5hrs and involves very precise mapping, road tuning for drive ability and economy, dyno for power tuning, etc.

I've seen plenty of both types of tune. sadly most were in the 60min variety. but then again does a basic set-up with standard injectors, standard AFM etc really need 5hrs of tuning? possibly not. but I know which tune I think will be better.

Sinista: was looking for some insight into possibly why the price difference as the exxy tuner did seem to know his shit and have heard good things.... however for double the price Im struggling to justify the cost.

Beer Baron:

the $600 cost tuners have both quoted around 4-5 hours dyno time...

for the expensive tuner to be justifying a $1200 tune as most tuners charging anywhere between $140 and $170 per hour, I would expect him to be spending a minimum of 7 hours on the dyno....

honestly i struggle to see how it will take this long for this kind of set up. Although I was impressed and the workshop is very clean etc etc Im struggling lol

My arse. End thread. I'm kidding tho. Just for comparisons sake I paid $187.50 total to get my car sorted on the dyno. Yes I did tune it myself beforehand and they only changed one load line, 1 degree, in about 9 cells, on my advice that it may be required. The also pulled some fuel from the middle of the map for me on my request. They added some accel enrichment to make it more driveable and smooth. They spent an hour and a half on the dyno after I had spent a while driving around tuning with the mrs.

If on the other hand you are looking to get a full tune from scratch ie: not running and no numbers in the maps, get the fuel reg adjusted, the tps set right and the boost controller set up then yes it could take all day especially if something doesn't work right like the boost controller or tps or fuel reg or manifold leak etc. And then yes at $130 an hour or whatever they charge it could definitely end up over $1000.

My 2cents...For the mods you are getting the tune touched up for, it should only take 2-3 hours. Tune it yourself and if you cant then pay whatever it cost to get it tuned. But that's just me and its only advice.

If its a quote then I would rather be told what it could be costing. He asked you plenty of questions...you have responded. Did the others ask you as many questions?

Most likely he is simply more expensive, but if someone has just thrown on a new turbo, plenum etc then I would be expecting hoses to be blowing off on boost. Have to pull plugs and change them, check AFM, fuel pressure etc...if they don't know the car then its in their interest to check things out and spend a few hours doing mechanical checks before throwing it on a dyno and stressing the engine.

The people quotiung $600 could easily sting you for a few hours extra labour because they throw it on the dyno only to be blowing hoses off. Realise the plenum install has a vacuum leak, thing misses on boost because of plug gap etc

Just some things to consider

^^^ definitely, you could go the $600 tune and find they are only expecting to tune it and be done, if problems arise well thats outside of the quote.

the $1200 tune is probably taking into consideration needing to check over the newly installed parts, double check things and then do a tune, nothing unexpected should arise in this instance, unless its something major, but then that 'something major' would happen in either case..

report back how it goes...

  On 23/09/2011 at 3:45 AM, Roy said:

If its a quote then I would rather be told what it could be costing. He asked you plenty of questions...you have responded. Did the others ask you as many questions?

Most likely he is simply more expensive, but if someone has just thrown on a new turbo, plenum etc then I would be expecting hoses to be blowing off on boost. Have to pull plugs and change them, check AFM, fuel pressure etc...if they don't know the car then its in their interest to check things out and spend a few hours doing mechanical checks before throwing it on a dyno and stressing the engine.

The people quotiung $600 could easily sting you for a few hours extra labour because they throw it on the dyno only to be blowing hoses off. Realise the plenum install has a vacuum leak, thing misses on boost because of plug gap etc

Just some things to consider

I concur.

speaking of tunes, a while back i heard about this Toshi guy in Sydney who tunes the factory ecu on the fly as you drive around. ie sits next to you, plugs in his laptop and gets it all done without the need for a piggy backed ECU.

Has anyone used him? I believe he was charging 600 bucks so this seems to be an average ball park figure for most tuners. i certainly couldnt afford to pay 1200 for one!

what ever you get or pay for, make sure its not just max rwkw power tunes

make sure medium and light cruise is tuned properly, including ignition timing and afr's all through those ranges

too many tunes these day are max rwkw power tunes and the car sucks balls off max power / boost and eats through fuel on light cruise

  On 24/09/2011 at 9:42 PM, paulr33 said:

what ever you get or pay for, make sure its not just max rwkw power tunes

make sure medium and light cruise is tuned properly, including ignition timing and afr's all through those ranges

too many tunes these day are max rwkw power tunes and the car sucks balls off max power / boost and eats through fuel on light cruise

+1

It only takes one dishonest tuner to realise someone doesn't have a lot of knowledge in tuning and take advantage by charging full price then doing half the job.

  On 24/09/2011 at 9:42 PM, paulr33 said:

what ever you get or pay for, make sure its not just max rwkw power tunes

make sure medium and light cruise is tuned properly, including ignition timing and afr's all through those ranges

too many tunes these day are max rwkw power tunes and the car sucks balls off max power / boost and eats through fuel on light cruise

Exactly. It should only take about half an hour to get a wot tune done for someone who is familiar with rb's.

Similar story, I rang around on friday to get a dump pipe made this week. I told one guy about my car and what it has and what it needs. He's like you have to leave it with me for a few days. I told him straight up "Mate it is a couple of feet of pipe with one bend and a couple of flanges on each end". I made the mistake of leaving a high powered car with a business for a couple of days when I was 20. I got it back with different tyres on the back and a slipping clutch...There is no way I would leave my car so some apprentice can try turning it up to 5 or 600 hp and blowing it up cos it aint tuned yet.

i had mine tuned bout 6months ago, got several quotes and they were all around $600-$800, thats for a full tune starting from scratch with a power fc..

one thing i dont understand is why a fairly mildly modded car would take 5hrs on a dyno, i wouldnt go to a place charging 1200 for a tune, chances are they are just high rollers with a big name but doing the same job that the less known guys are doing...

i ended up paying well over 1200 and i felt a bit ripped off still, i think they put there efforts more into the big spenders , the guys with the best cars and biggest wallets, they dont care bout a young guy with an r33, hes small fry compared to the r35guy with $5000 to throw around so you get left till last and the job rushed, if your car is the last on the dyno and your picking it up late, like after dark, have to wonder if they have really put much effort into it..

just my opinion

Edited by SliverS2

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • Stock ECU (or more accurately stock tune) absolutely refuses to go over 10psi and behaves like you have seen. The Nistune is the same if it is the stock tune. If the Nistune chip has been tuned, the resulting tune could be literally anything for any combination of parts. The Nistune just makes the stock ECU Tunable.
    • So stock ECU does not like anything above 10 psi?  That Nistune one is just for "try" if it will be any different, I know it need to be tune for that. I know but YOU may know about these problem but i/we dont. They few little Skylines here let alone people who know anything about tham so that is why iam asking here  
    • So now we have a radiator with no attachments whatsoever. It lifts up with a particularly tight spot between the drivers side air box mount and the lower radiator outlet, but if you've got this far you will sort that too. This is the lower mounts with the rad out so you can see where the rubber bushes go, it is a straight shot upwards Done! Assembly is the reverse of disassembly, with blood less likely to be shed.
    • Right, onto the second last trick. The Air Con condenser is mounted to the front of the radiator and stays in the car when the radiator is removed. There are 2x 10mm headed self tappers holding the top of the condenser to the radiator, remove those The bottom of the condenser is attached to the radiator with clips. You need to lift the condenser out of those clips and clear (up, then forward). f**ked if  could work out how to do that last bit with the front bumper on. I hope you can, and you share the trick.  Bumper removal probably deserves its own thread one day once I've recovered the will to live, but basically you need to remove the wheels, front inner guard liners (clips and 10mm headed bolts), the self tapper between the guard and the bumper at the rearmost point of the bumper (same as an R32 that bit), any remaining clips at the top/front of the grill, an absolute bastard design with a plate that holds the top of the bumper above the headlight each side (only 1 bolt which is tricky to get to, but the plate catches 2 places on the bumper and must be removed....carefully!) and push clips between the bumper and guard under the headlight. If you've done all that you will be faced with wiring for the fog lights on both sides and in ADM Q50 RS at least, 4 nasty tight plugs on the driver's side for the ADAS stuff. So, the clips at the bottom look like this on drivers side (looking from the front) And on the passenger side (also from the front), you can see this one is already out Clearance on both of these are super tight; the condenser needs to move up but the upper rad support mount prevents that, and the radiator can't move down far because it is (rubber) mounted. Once you achieve the impossible and drop the condenser off those mounts so it does not stop the rad moving, you are good to go
    • OK, next the shroud needs to come off and there are a couple of tricks. Firstly, there is a loom from near the passenger side headlight to the fans, coolant temp sensor etc and there is no plug to undo.  In my case I was OK to leave the shroud on top of the engine so I just undid the passenger side fan plug and about 10 of the clips which gave enough free wire to put it aside. The fan plugs were super tight, the trick I used was a small falt screwdriver to push down on the release tab, then a larger flat screwdriver to lever the plug out of the fan unit....be careful with how much force you apply! If you need to remove the shroud altogether for some reason you will have to deal with all the plugs (tight) and clips (brittle)....good luck. I removed all of the clips and replaced them with cable ties that I will just cut next time. Also, in the Red Sport / 400R at least, the intake heat exchanger reservoir hose is bolted to the shroud in 2 places with 10mm headed bolts; so remove them (the hose stays in the car; no need to undo it at the t fittings down at the radiator lower mount. Once you've dealt with the HX hose and the wiring loom, there are 3x 10mm headed self tappers holding the top of the shroud to the radiator; remove those.   The shroud then lifts out of the bottom mounts where it sits on the radiator, up and onto the engine out of the way. Simples
×
×
  • Create New...