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#1
10-24-2003, 10:23 AM
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What exactly does "tuning" mean?
Everyone says "get your car tuned and you will run faster". I mean could I just go to a shop and say hey can you tune my engine..? What would they do besides spark plugs and an oil change or whatever?
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#2
10-24-2003, 12:40 PM
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In the broad sense, tuning involves changing any aspect of the vehicle's performance (i.e. braking, accelerating, turning, softening the ride ) to settings that suit your tastes. In order to do proper acceleration tuning you have to put your car through dynamometer testing. Otherwise, money will be wasted on psychological horsepower (i.e. stickers, big spoilers, loud mufflers ).
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#3
10-24-2003, 12:47 PM
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Re: What exactly does "tuning" mean?
I mean in a physical sense. When I go to the shop and say tune my engine, how do they get it up to par? Is it just by adjusting the timing, valve adjustments, etc?
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#4
10-24-2003, 04:45 PM
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tuning is a very wide term, you have to be more specific, there is engine tuning, suspension, etc. and even then you kinda have to know what you want. do you want a faster car, better handling car? how much money do you have to spend, how do want to accomplish it, turbo, NA, nitrous, engine swap, etc. unfortunately those people who tell you to 'tune up' your car probably don't have a clue what the hell they are talking about, they saw fast and furious and are experts now. i would keep reading these forums and they should give you an idea of what to focus on.
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#5
10-24-2003, 08:02 PM
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Theres a guy over on Honda-Acura.net known as westcoaststyle, who has a turbo b18c ferio. I talk to him occasionally, and when he gets a dyno tuner to tune his car, he does a few things. Like you already mentioned, they adjust timing, amount of fuel, vtec engagement, turbo spooling, and in his case, they try to tune everything so that vtec and his turbo work together to produce the most possible horsepower. Im not sure if this answered your question, but Im sure he could help you out...so if you have an account on han just shoot him a PM.
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#6
10-25-2003, 04:10 AM
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tuning in the sense that I know from racing is pretty much just what has been said already plus a few things... first you get it on the dyno and see what you've got (baseline) then you change something... for example advance or retard timing. you find where the motor is the most happy. like in spec miatas the 1.6L engine liked around 14 degrees of timing but it wasnt just that simple... some liked a little more, some liked a little less. just because of the way the engine is. if you have access to your fuel management you can tune that... more fuel, less fuel... hotter spark plugs, colder spark plugs...
pretty much you dyno it over and over again looking for the combination that just happens to work the best for your own motor. unfortunately you cant just set every engine the same (well you can, but you will not get true max power) simply for the fact that because of whatever difference they have inside something that makes one stronger will actually take away power from another. wow that was long winded... I am sorry!
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 LS1 RX-7 Zoom Zoom
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#7
10-25-2003, 08:09 AM
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Re: What exactly does "tuning" mean?
Miata nailed, tuning your cam timing to get hte most power under the torque curve. Has to be done on a dyno, and needs to be accompanied be some ignition timng to advance or retard the timing to better serve the fuel/fire needs of the engine at a particular setting.
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