Recommended Tuner in Houston, TX?

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Lazabby
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Re: Recommended Tuner in Houston, TX?

Post by Lazabby »

Brian wrote:I met a guy at the nifty fiftees car show who has a cleavor in a late 60 Mustang. He fabbed a 2 4bbl intake with megasquirt. Super clean job. Anyway, he said there is a guy on our side of town that helped him out. I gave him my email, but didn't hear from him. Check it out when it starts up again in the spring. I'm in Lakewood Forest, Grant and Louetta, by the way. So far that makes 4 cars with megasquirt in Houston.
There are more cars with MS. So far there are three Deloreans with MS and another that will be converting to EFI soon. I'm looking for someone familiar with Tunerstudio to help me with my tune. I'm trying to get closed loop to work properly.
howelll
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Re: Recommended Tuner in Houston, TX?

Post by howelll »

uhcoog1 wrote:I'm also in need of a steady state dyno in houston and someone willing to work with tunerstudio.

I'm in NW Houston / Cypress, and just finished wiring my 5.7 hilborn hemi with MS3x in my Duster. Trying to assemble a base tune right now...

I'd love to hook up with some MS guys - probably learn a few things to say the least! :RTFM:
Sweet, I have always wanted to do a Duster build and almost bought a 71 a few years back. Are you running just fuel or ignition also?
Brian
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Re: Recommended Tuner in Houston, TX?

Post by Brian »

What questions are you guys trying to answer with the dyno? What the AFR map should be for best power? Timing curve?

I'm still ironing out little kinks on my 427, but just letting VEAL fix the VE table then entering a timing curve by hand from the engines docs and a good stab at a AFR table from what I've read has gotten mine pretty close. I could squeeze some more efficiency out of this thing, but why? Let it run a hair rich and stay out of trouble.

I drive it around a day, making mental notes as to what RPM and load things are misbehaving, then tweek on it a little, rinse and repeat. Right now, I need to recalibrate the TPS and adjust the fuel cut because rounding a corner in 2nd gear, it's super touchy getting back on it, but WOT and steady state are both just plain simple. I also need to explore turning the priming pulse back on. I had it off preventing flooding and never turned it on, much less mess around with it. It only has to crank 2 second then it starts, no throttle, every time.

We should meet up one weekend afternoon and for a beer somewhere. I would love to see UHCOOGS car too!

Ive been pleasantly surprised how easy this was to iron out... not to sya I'm completely ironed out, but well on the way. But I would like to have a dyno sheet, just for the bragging rights.
65 Cobra replica, 427W, MS2
71 Vette, 383 with shitty chinese 8 stack and no dizzy
spittybug
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Re: Recommended Tuner in Houston, TX?

Post by spittybug »

Did you say beer?

I agree with your general methodology for the tuning, but getting specs isn't always straightforward. I know what the stock curve was for spark timing on the Delorean, but it wasn't necessarily optimal; usually they are conservative as well as being a compromise between performance and technical limitations. Digital gives us greater choices. The VE table is cake... choosing the right target AFR is subjective, but chances are you aren't too far off if you do your homework. The spark is obviously the key.

Brian, I keep moving that amp from spot to spot in the workshop. If you'd like to take a stab at fixing it, I'd be happy to split any proceeds from selling it with you.......it's a paperweight right now!
'81 Delorean DMC-12 V6, 90* oddfire, 2.85 L, MS2e 3.4.0, TSv3.0.28

1.21 Gigawatts of raw EFI and spark controlled power! :yeah!:
quan3165
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Re: Recommended Tuner in Houston, TX?

Post by quan3165 »

I live in Cypress around Spring Cypress & Grant area. I have my 70 El Camino SS454 running on MS3 and I have some other projects here & there.

I was going to try out Bumbera's steady state dyno in Katy sometime. They don't have much experience with MS/TunerStudio, but they said they would be willing to work with me and let me tune on their dyno when I went up there a couple months ago for a track day tech inspection. My buddy has an EFI bugeye AH Sprite that could use a tune on the dyno also.

Will post back if they do me right...

I also would be up for a meet sometime. I'm sure it'll look like a parking lot LAN party to the passersby.
Tuning in Houston, TX area
https://www.racebushings.com
Brian
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Re: Recommended Tuner in Houston, TX?

Post by Brian »

There's a place over by my office on Cunningham, at near Tanner and Brittmoore called Serious HP. I want to drop by in the Cobra later this week and check them out. I'll post my opinion after.

A meetup would sure be and unlikely assortment of cars between an Austin Healey, El camino, DeLorean, Duster, Eclipse, and Cobra. Good game show question...What do these 6 cars have in common?
65 Cobra replica, 427W, MS2
71 Vette, 383 with shitty chinese 8 stack and no dizzy
smokeysevin
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Re: Recommended Tuner in Houston, TX?

Post by smokeysevin »

I'll drag my ski up just to check yalls setup out, I love seeing how other people approach the same things I do.

I wonder how far I could get on setting up a pnp on my mini cooper before then...

Sean
2005 Kawasaki STX-15f Jetski
1498cc I-4
12.5:1 CR
46mm throttle bodies
ported head
Ferrea valves
38# injectors
quan3165
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Re: Recommended Tuner in Houston, TX?

Post by quan3165 »

Maybe our meet could just be at the shop if more than 3 cars go up on the dyno..? Maybe we can talk the shop of choice into trying to cut us a sweet day rate that is worth their time on a Saturday that works for everyone.

Let me know what you think of serious hp, Brian. That could be another option.

A meet would be hilarious. Your car buddies driving by would be very confused, especially if a jet ski shows up. :lol:
Tuning in Houston, TX area
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Brian
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Re: Recommended Tuner in Houston, TX?

Post by Brian »

I stopped by Serious Horsepower Thursday and spoke with the owner, Steffan.

serioushp.com

They have a nice facility, and a lot of big money aluminum in their shop. I hate to post this but also think I should. This is just a feeling I have, but he may be in it more for the money than the love of it. But that's OK too. I don't have a problem paying someone for their time if it's their occupation. Not many hobbiest can afford a 20,000 SF building and a dyno to dork around with an EFI project.

He said they have and can work with MS, but has had serious headaches from them in the past due to poorly executed installs. I can see that. Someone gets in way over their head then dump a bird's nest of wires twisted an taped together in his lap asking him to tune it. Instead, he spends days sorting out lost sync errors, and burned out boards. He also sounded open to the idea of a Saturday. I didn't get to into details because I have no real idea what every one else would want to do. I think I want to work on the tune a little more myself before I bring it in.

I'll be in Jamaica the last week and a half of June, but I'm pretty open other than that. Let's hear some comments.
65 Cobra replica, 427W, MS2
71 Vette, 383 with shitty chinese 8 stack and no dizzy
quan3165
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Re: Recommended Tuner in Houston, TX?

Post by quan3165 »

Thanks for checking that out, Brian.

I am sure a tuner would be more inclined to help out if it were guys like us that have running, driving cars just looking to fine tune. If I had someone to run the dyno, I could tell them where I wanted to focus and I could make all the adjustments in TS myself. If your car is not pretty close already, dyno time is a waste of money. I'm sure you guys are in the same boat.

It might cost me an arm and a leg if the dyno charged hourly, but I would like to get my BSFC table filled in with the lowest numbers I can, especially around cruise (shaded, https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/423 ... ables.xlsx).

Has anyone heard of 510 Race Engineering in Tomball on Hufsmith Kohrville? It's right down the road from me, so I might stop by there in the Camino Saturday. It sounds like they have a steady-state dyno also.
Tuning in Houston, TX area
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Brian
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Re: Recommended Tuner in Houston, TX?

Post by Brian »

What time? I left the cobra at work so I could have the garage space for another project over the weekend. No top and the threat of rain, but there are a few other car things this weekend that I may go get it for if the radar looks favorable.

Mancuso at 1960 and 290 has a fast cars and cigars show, then there's a thing at the Sam Houston horse track.

Let us know what you think about Race engineering.
65 Cobra replica, 427W, MS2
71 Vette, 383 with shitty chinese 8 stack and no dizzy
quan3165
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Re: Recommended Tuner in Houston, TX?

Post by quan3165 »

Looks like I missed your post about the stuff going on yesterday.

I stopped off and talked to the guys at 510 Race Engineering on Hufsmith Kohrville (almost to 2920). I think I'll be bringing my stuff to them. Two younger guys in a small shop that seem very knowledgeable and they said they are familiar with MegaSquirt/TunerStudio. He said he likes VE tables for tuning fuel etc. He also seemed willing to work with me and whoever else to get a good rate. Their flier says $700 for one day (8 hours), so 3 or 4 cars would make that pretty reasonable.

Are you guys limited to weekends? I'll be going on Power Tour this weekend...
Tuning in Houston, TX area
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Lazabby
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Re: Recommended Tuner in Houston, TX?

Post by Lazabby »

The shop at Huffsmith Kohrville would be by my house. I think we could get three Deloreans there and bump up the total car up to around 7. That would make the cost about $100 per car.
shawn
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Re: Recommended Tuner in Houston, TX?

Post by shawn »

i'm in corpus and currently in the process of installing my ms3. if y'all set a date for a dyno day i'm going to try like hell to make it up there and hopefully some of y'all can give a noob some advise. i've never work on or tuned a computer before so this is all new. it's going in my 88 cherokee that i built a 4.6 stroker for
quan3165
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Re: Recommended Tuner in Houston, TX?

Post by quan3165 »

I had my car tuned with the guys at 510 a couple weeks ago and while he was knowledgeable for tuning LS stuff with EFI live or HP tuners, they had not been around Megasquirt stuff as much as I had hoped. I had envisioned being able to tune my whole fuel and spark table based off of tq or hp on the dyno, but I can do better than that for much cheaper using VE analyze as long as I have a good starting point for AFR tables. Mine is a big cube V8, so it's not picky on spark. I made WOT pulls adding and taking out 5-7* of timing both ways with no big change.

Read the megamanual on tuning, set up your AFR tables, buy the full version of TunerStudio with VE analyze, and know what to do with your spark from similar setups and you should be able to do just as good as you can do for several hundred dollars worth of dyno time IMHO.

I still wouldn't mind a meet, though. It would be cool to see y'all's stuff.
Tuning in Houston, TX area
https://www.racebushings.com
spittybug
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Re: Recommended Tuner in Houston, TX?

Post by spittybug »

Exactly what I suspected..... tuning is an art, not a science. Unless the shop is intimately familiar with Tuner Studio and any nuances of your car (Deloreans are odd-fire, 90* V6s with relatively low compression and are 30+ year old technology...), I think you are going to get about as close as you are going to get by working with folks with the same setup and sharing notes. Getting good, reasonable AFR table is first. Then the advance table. I found mimicking the stock curve/vacuum curve got me some decent results. After that it is a good base VE table based on that advance table. Then the kick comes by playing with AE. No dyno that you can rent by the hour is going to help you tune that in unless the operator is really well versed at it. Having said all that, they dyno test would be really neat to perform afterwards to see just where you got to with your tune. If 5 guys with similar setups did it like this, the comparison of results afterwards would help to fine tune them all.
'81 Delorean DMC-12 V6, 90* oddfire, 2.85 L, MS2e 3.4.0, TSv3.0.28

1.21 Gigawatts of raw EFI and spark controlled power! :yeah!:
Brian
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Re: Recommended Tuner in Houston, TX?

Post by Brian »

WOW. I'm glad to hear the same thing I suspected repeated. The WOT part is easy. Let VEAL tune the VE and give it plenty of fuel. The timing curve for WOT is pretty well known by all running a similar engine. The challenging part is getting the best street manners and economy. And you're just as well off on the road for that.

I would like to get mine to a point I'm comfortable, then see what the dyno says, but from the articles I've read, chassis dyno numbers are far from accurate or repeatable.

I don't check in here very often, but I would love to meet up to compare notes. Maybe we should carve out a section at the niftee50tees one week in the future with MS cars? The Cherokee and boat won't fit in, but a 70 El Camino would, and Spitty says they let the Deloreans in even though they don't satisfy their '76 and older criteria since they are so cool.

I'm getting ready to do a really cool one... 78 Kelmark with a 3L Duratec with a turbo and 5 speed.
65 Cobra replica, 427W, MS2
71 Vette, 383 with shitty chinese 8 stack and no dizzy
Lazabby
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Re: Recommended Tuner in Houston, TX?

Post by Lazabby »

I want to bump this thread. Anyone with new input on a dyno shop with Megasquirt experience in the Houston area?
Brian
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Re: Recommended Tuner in Houston, TX?

Post by Brian »

Hey Laz

I saw a Delorean on the BW8 a this week, and it wasn't Spitty. Was That you maybe?

He was working on adding a VW supercharger to his a year ago. Have you two met?

I'm working on a ccol Ferrari Dino replica that is getting ready to start on MS2.
65 Cobra replica, 427W, MS2
71 Vette, 383 with shitty chinese 8 stack and no dizzy
spittybug
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Re: Recommended Tuner in Houston, TX?

Post by spittybug »

Brian, Laz (Shannon) and I are good friends. He's running the prototype of my EFI conversion kit for Deloreans (keeping existing manifold, unlike mine). I delayed the supercharger until I freed up the exhaust. It's been slow since I just can't get motivated in the heat. I need to do some cooling system replumbing as a result of the moving around of things..... I'd love to see you Dino! That is one of my favorite all time cars and would get my left nut for the real thing :o You'll have to stop by.
'81 Delorean DMC-12 V6, 90* oddfire, 2.85 L, MS2e 3.4.0, TSv3.0.28

1.21 Gigawatts of raw EFI and spark controlled power! :yeah!:
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