Which Tuner To Go To

[Daniel]

Hi mate, I recall doing what you are doing ringing around n chatting to tuners to narrow down the list to one, its not as 'fun' as it sounds.

I have been to Dynomite, HPF, BluePower Racing (BPR), HiTorque... and now will not go anywhere other than BluePower even though its nowhere near my house - people travel across Australia to come see these guys to fit up their cars regularly!

My experiences with Dynomite were good, Dion knows what he's doing and was very capable at getting a 'fast car' out of my F6, but I was dealing with him in the early days (2yrs ago )so cant say too much for today.. I would think it can only get better with time and experience.

As for HPF and HiTorque, I am happy to cover this in a PM, but not in the forums.

Pit Lane have been mentioned above and I have been told many great things about them; but now that I am with BluePower I have built too good a relationship to break now and as they say.. if its not broke, dont fix it.

There is plenty of awesome cars around wearing Pit Lane goodies, I'd give them a strong consideration along with the overly proven results at BPR if I was able to do this all over again, now educated.

Do yourself a HUGE favor and DO NOT limit your tuner choice to the initial end price; just don't as its not worth the stress, BS, few $$$ from your first bill!

I cannot stress this strongly enough as what you save by getting a great tuner/shop who is on your side and has a no BS approach with free (in most cases) touch up tuning and great ongoing reduced costs will save you 1000's in he future from my experience!

[lozza]

Thanks for all the words guys. Yeh I know sraughs isn't a shop spiko, I thought u were talking about all the dramas he had. :S

I'll have a chat to bpr today, but I am defianatly not excluding tuners by price. I went with the names I've heard about and they happened to be the cheapest aswell.

Cheers,

Laurie

[lozza]

Just got off the phone to chris at BPR and I'll say they are great. Went over everything with me, covered all the things I should get, which I aleady have though I was happy to listen.

Just everything about them over the phone sounded professional and very welcoming. Will have the quote soon, but I am very pleased with the service and havnt even been there yet lol.

[Benji_vs]

+1 for Pit Lane Performance if you wanna drive all that way to Frankston. Worth the trip though.

[Headsex]

When choosing a tuner.. things to take note of:

* Take it to someone KNOWN to tune alot of these XR6 Turbos. Look at their workshop, they should at least have a couple in there if they are known for it.

* Don't look at the big power number at the end of a dyno graph based on his other customers have published here. BIG Dyno Results means f*ck all about a good tune.

* Speak to their customers, WHOM HAVE BEEN ELSEWHERE..

The thing I see the most here is people recommending their tuner, when in fact its the only tuner they've been to.. So of course its the best they've had, because its the only they've had.

ALOT of my customers have come to me because they were not happy with their existing tune.

A perfect example happened a month ago. An existing customer of mine had a mate who went elsewhere. Turns out, the commanded AFR was 14.2afr (your not reading that wrong), he had .97lambda in the top line of the fuel table at 5000+ rpm.

Admitingly his other mistake was taking it to a workshop whom are NOT known for tuning XR6 turbos. So of course my tune was going to be 20 times better to begin with.

But this is my point. Your BEST thing to do is speak to people WHOM have been to more than one workshop for a tune, And ask their opinions of, their tune, drive-ability, light throttle response etc.. Don't be asking straight away what RWKW did workshop A give you compared to workshop B..

Out of all the shops mentioned in this post. The people whom have had multiple tunes, whom had been to big and small name workshops, have ended up seeing Danny at springy motors. I can think of 5 off hand straight away.

Do I recommend him? No. I Tune myself. But that's not my point.

My point is, I DO recommend you speak to his customers to get their opinions of their previous tuner, vs their current tune.

And lastly, be your own judge of character on the workshop in terms of how they treat you as a customer (and how they have treated others)

Edited 04/02/10 07:38 AM by Headsex

[Daniel]

Headsex couldn't be more correct!

The difference between each custom tune (I have had 5 from big and small shops now and all touched up from time to time - lots of tunes lol) have been quite significant in the way the car drives. At the end of a day, a number is meaningless as is recommending a tuner when you have nothing to compare it to.

Also, it sounds like something so simple, but I don't think I have read it elsewhere other than from Headsex above. Try and stick with shops who tune these cars regularly if not specialize in them solely, chances would be they know the car a whole lot better and net greater tune for drivability/durability and of course, performance/economy.

Edited 04/02/10 07:55 AM by Daniel