Dyno tuning near NJ/PA/NY

Coltrane

Greasemonkey
Jul 6, 2020
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Hey all! My motor will be up and running in the car soon, and once broken in, I'd really like to get it on a chassis dyno so I can see where the power is (rpm wise), A/F ratio at WOT, etc. I live in central New Jersey and would be willing to drive a pretty good distance to a shop - I know there aren't a ton of these around anymore (the one I've used before is south NJ is unfortunately closed) and any help would be appreciated!
 
64nailhead is from the ny area hopefully he'll chime in(now that he's done ruling drag week with an iron fist)as I know he's familiar with a dyno environment towards that neck of the woods.
 
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I don't have any real recommendations unfortunately. But there are competent tuning/dyno shops all over. The issue that I expect that you will encounter, or will be a distinct possibility for you to encounter, is someone giving you a cookie cutter 1-2 hour tune. Most of the performance shops are all about big power adder setups and can't tune the normal driving characteristics to save their asses.

What engine/trans and ECM are you using? Whomever you pick to dyno tune it, be sure that they have expertise in that system. IIRC you have an LS and a factory ECM and this is a mostly stock motor without any power adders. If that's the case, then there are many places that can handle tune.

I say this guardedly, beware of the big name guys that are all about racing. During DW I helped 3 people with tunes from big name guys that emailed them a 'safe' tune. They were awful. And me being the outsider looking into someone's big dollar tune is difficult for me to explain that the tune sucks. I reworked one guys tune twice last week. His normal driving part of the tune was so lean that the car would barely accelerate. I made one minor change and he was happy with it - what I did was merely a bandaid for something that needed to be tuned correctly. After the improvement he seen on the 1st day he let me make more changes the next so that the driving portion was more friendly. He thought I fixed it, this guy was not an ECM/EFI guy, and I had a difficult time attempting to convince him that car needed to be tuned correctly rather than the minor changes I made. This guy's car was much faster than mine with potential of 1500whp, but he barely made it down the track due to mistakes in the tune. He easily had more than double the money in his engine, turbo, fuel system and intake system than I have in my entire car. And he paid a really big name guy for this tune and the car was on the tuner's dyno for a couple of hours.

Lastly, the easiest part of the tune is the WOT performance and on a stockish, NA setup this can be done properly in 1-3 hours - it's truly that easy. But most everyone is more concerned with hot and cold startups, low speed drivability and proper function of transmission shifting - the 'daily driving' part of the tune takes several days and a minimum of 20-30 miles of driving to be assured it's correct. Think about the cold start portion and transition from cold to hot startups - the tuner only gets one or two adjustments during every warmup cycle. Hitting the proper startup tune on the 1st guess is lucky.

Again, please describe your setup. And remember, sometimes saving a couple of hundred dollars on a tune isn't worth it.

I remote tune Holley's for a number of people, but I tell all of them to get it to a dyno for the maximum power output. And it usually takes me 5-10 times back and forth with tune files and datalogs with adjustments for the driving portion and startup portion to get it to a decent spot.
 
I don't have any real recommendations unfortunately. But there are competent tuning/dyno shops all over. The issue that I expect that you will encounter, or will be a distinct possibility for you to encounter, is someone giving you a cookie cutter 1-2 hour tune. Most of the performance shops are all about big power adder setups and can't tune the normal driving characteristics to save their asses.

What engine/trans and ECM are you using? Whomever you pick to dyno tune it, be sure that they have expertise in that system. IIRC you have an LS and a factory ECM and this is a mostly stock motor without any power adders. If that's the case, then there are many places that can handle tune.

I say this guardedly, beware of the big name guys that are all about racing. During DW I helped 3 people with tunes from big name guys that emailed them a 'safe' tune. They were awful. And me being the outsider looking into someone's big dollar tune is difficult for me to explain that the tune sucks. I reworked one guys tune twice last week. His normal driving part of the tune was so lean that the car would barely accelerate. I made one minor change and he was happy with it - what I did was merely a bandaid for something that needed to be tuned correctly. After the improvement he seen on the 1st day he let me make more changes the next so that the driving portion was more friendly. He thought I fixed it, this guy was not an ECM/EFI guy, and I had a difficult time attempting to convince him that car needed to be tuned correctly rather than the minor changes I made. This guy's car was much faster than mine with potential of 1500whp, but he barely made it down the track due to mistakes in the tune. He easily had more than double the money in his engine, turbo, fuel system and intake system than I have in my entire car. And he paid a really big name guy for this tune and the car was on the tuner's dyno for a couple of hours.

Lastly, the easiest part of the tune is the WOT performance and on a stockish, NA setup this can be done properly in 1-3 hours - it's truly that easy. But most everyone is more concerned with hot and cold startups, low speed drivability and proper function of transmission shifting - the 'daily driving' part of the tune takes several days and a minimum of 20-30 miles of driving to be assured it's correct. Think about the cold start portion and transition from cold to hot startups - the tuner only gets one or two adjustments during every warmup cycle. Hitting the proper startup tune on the 1st guess is lucky.

Again, please describe your setup. And remember, sometimes saving a couple of hundred dollars on a tune isn't worth it.

I remote tune Holley's for a number of people, but I tell all of them to get it to a dyno for the maximum power output. And it usually takes me 5-10 times back and forth with tune files and datalogs with adjustments for the driving portion and startup portion to get it to a decent spot.
Thanks so much for taking the time to do this and congrats on your DW success!!

It's a 355 with AFR heads, custom comp cam, holley 750 carbed setup with all MSD ignition - no ecm here. I'm looking to have someone really dial in the carb and timing curve of the distributor better than I can with a wideband on the street. I brought my previous car (with a bit milder setup) to a place here in NJ near Atco Raceway (RIP) after I had the internals rebuilt, and he got everything working beautifully and it ran absolutely flawlessly on the street and track after that. That's really what I'm looking for in this new motor/car.
 
Carbed is really becoming a lost art and especially when you say dyno tuned. Since you are close to the other side of PA, I would recommend using who Tony Angelo uses since he is over that way
 
Carbed is really becoming a lost art and especially when you say dyno tuned. Since you are close to the other side of PA, I would recommend using who Tony Angelo uses since he is over that way
Yep...that's why just searching on google isn't the best help right now (yes I know to call the places and ask, but I wanted to get input here first in case people had a good experience with somewhere/someone in particular). I really don't want to do the street tuning thing (especially for WOT) with a wideband/reading plugs - I'd rather have it in a controlled situation with some actual data.
 
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You can find someone to tune that. Carbs aren't dead yet. The local shop to me pays an older drag racer to come in and dial in carb/dizzy setups.
 
You can find someone to tune that. Carbs aren't dead yet. The local shop to me pays an older drag racer to come in and dial in carb/dizzy setups.
I'll be making some calls - thanks again for the info! Second Street looks like a really good spot.
 

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