sanfran

I need a tune for 80mm TB, 178mm pulley, PTE thermostat, and cooling mods.

I really don't want to pay more than few hundred bucks.

Thanks for your help.

splinter

E E?

joshd

You must be used to other cars where the market competition and R&D have brought the prices on tuning way down. I wish MB was like that. I paid $100 for my last tune on my Evo that was e-mailed to me and then I flashed it myself to the ECU via OBD-II cable, open source ECU flashing, and my laptop. Oh then I data logged it using free software, sent the logs to the tuner and he sent me back another refined tune file at no additional cost.

Sadly no such thing exists for MB to the best of my knowledge ... I'm not aware of any tuning available in the price range you mention ... that said you should probably talk to the VRP folks, they seem to be the only ones advancing the state of the art in AMG tuning at the moment ...

Timeless

Pricing will be 1k+...I'd recommend Powerchips and Aaron with StealthAuto.

http://www.powerchipgroup.com/

CWW

JKK

Whoever made the TB / pulley should have software to make it work properly. What kind is it?

Vic55

So you spent some decent coin on the mods but are only willing to pay a few hundred for an ECU tune? Who did your mods? Did they offer the tune? You wont get in under 1k like the others said unless you have a hook up.

sanfran

Have any of you with a TB and pulley used Speedtuning?

http://www.speedtuningusa.com/products/mb.htm

There are some positive posts on the CLK55 forum about them.

Jon2007E63P30

Don't worry, it was covered under warranty.

Please lord forgive me for being mean to Adam and for all the starving pigmys in Africa.

jangy

Shiat, I thought I had a hookup!

Fast55

Stop , you're killin' me. Seriously, if you want to spend that $$$, you're better off walking or trying to tune it youself. If you're really want a tune, talk to VRP or Evosport and save yourself some grief.

Bay Area User

It's not about "really" wanting a tune. It's about getting a tune for a mercedes!
It's all about brands. Our cars are expensive and so we are charged accordingly for parts, tunes, services.
You can tune real race cars (drag cars) for well under 400. Around 500 including chip and what not. However, our cars are a different story. Since there are so few options out there is some sort of monopoly.

Whatever tune you get make sure it's not an over the mail tune. Get it tune on an actual dyno. Good luck

Cylinder Head

iTrader: (1)

+1, spend the money tuning it right or spend the money replacing your engine, your call. Getting a $200 chip is roughly equivalent to pouring gravel into your gas tank.

Get it done on a dyno, by a reputable source (anybody BUT Evotech, as they've blown about 10 engines from my estimate)

jangy

Any worthwhile tune will cost because it takes time. Vadim and Powerchip spent LOTS of time on my car, really mastering the TQ limit parameter. In the end, the tune made a HUGE difference to me.

splinter

None of us doubt you there, jangy. VRP is the real deal.

My point(s) in this thread was that those skilled and dedicated masterminds who worked their ‘magic’ on yours earned far more than $200. It’s curious that the OP got a TB, pulley, etcetera, yet budgeted virtually nothing for a proper tune that could have truly exploited its potential.

jangy

I agree fully. All those parts without a proper tune will only go so far and do so much. Each may even add something in its own way, but the tune is what brings them all together and brings out the best compromise of all. Also, knowing the challenge I presented them, they really put the time in. Real world, I'd likely pay a solid $5K for that kind of tune. i never expected as much, but Vadim is serious.

MB_Forever

Custom RennTech tune all the way

jangy

I'm still curious who his tuner is??

RennTech has never acknowledged the TQ limit issue. they feel that heating makes the car dump the fuel (I think).

mbamg06e55

+1

rwmotorsports

I come from the Supra world and I tuned my car myself. I charge $70/hr for tuning and can get it done within 10 hrs MAX. So $700 max for a car making 1000rwhp....something is wrong in this picture of the MB Tuning world. $1500 for a tune on a 600hp car doesn't make any sense to me.

Timeless

It is a nice profit center.

Kwik SC

Is'nt there any way you can get the tuning hardware and software for the OBD II port so I can have my tuner work his magic on his dyno? I mean Im willing to spend money but the companies you are all mentioning are in FL, CA and Canada.. I will not ship my car that far and im not a fan of mail order tunes as I like to see the changes being done in front me so I know what worked and what didnt work.. When it comes down to it this isnt rocket science, I dont care how advanced the computer may seem to be..

MB_Forever

You don't need to ship the car anywhere. You would dyno your car, then ship only the ECU along with the dyno sheet (with A/F ratio) to RennTech lets say in Florida, which they would then custom tune and send it back to you. Then you'd dyno your car again and then send them the dyno sheets with the A/F ratio along with the ECU again for further tuning if needed, and so forth. You basically would be sending the ECU back and forth and everytime you receive it, you'd dyno the car at your favorite dyno shop, and just e-mail the results.

Kwik SC

So in other words I would have weeks if not months of downtime, not to mention the cost of dyno time to get a final tune? It would be more cost effective to ship the car to FL then.. I would be able to accomplish the same thing on the dyno in a matter of hours if I had the proper tuning hardware and software..

joshd

And therein lies the rub. At this time, the software to flash our ECU is all proprietary and still closely guarded to my knowledge. If these companies took the time to reverse engineer the ECU in order to be able to flash it, they certainly deserve the right to charge for their work and recoup their R&D costs as well as make some money, but what we, the community, really need is either:

1) A reasonable licensing scheme such that the tools to edit the maps and flash the ECU could be put in the hands of local tuners. I don't know if companies like Powerchips allow this or who else actually makes the software tools for editing and flashing and what the initial investment would be (in hardware/software/licensing fees) for a tuner who wants to work on our cars.

or:

2) A real enthusiast or group thereof who's primary motivation is learning and helping the community instead of pure profit to release tools to allow Joe user to flash the ECU themselves. This has happened in the JDM market with the release of OpenECU.

It's amazing what happened in that market once those tools were released. People could get down to the business of tuning and really learning how to optimize the performance of those engines while the folks just in the market to gouge people on pricey proprietary flashes disappeared. Real tuners survived because it shifts the value to the actual quality of the tune instead of simply the possession of the tools to flash it to the ECU.

As stated above and many other places, tuning is really not a secret black art. Any competent tuner could tune our cars with the right tools. Every engine is a little bit different, but the basics of timing and fueling are the pretty much the same for every four stroke gasoline engine on the planet ... Renntech and others are not in possession of any particular magic that makes them exclusively able to tune our cars.

In fact the only thing they really have at the end of the day that others don't are proprietary tools that they guard close to their chest so that they can continue to milk he market for thousands per tune that cost them minutes to implement (once the tune is created).