conejo172

I just got the SCT Tuner from AM as a gift for Christmas. I got Chris Rose to do the tuning with the free tunes for life. I decided to go with 87 street, 89 performance, and 93 Race tunes.

I installed the 87 tune on Monday last week while at work, and got stuck in bumper to bumper traffic the whole way home so I wasn't able to see much change in anything. Tuesday I had less traffic and was nicely surprised that the lag time in throttle response (yes even with the manual trans) was gone and the car pulled harder than stock.

My original plan was to test each tune to see what I like the best for daily driving, and after the 87 tank was empty to go with the 89 tune. Well I went for the 93 race instead after a lot of convincing from friends, and have to say this is a different car. The car pulls alot harder then the 87 tune, gas mileage has gone up, the exhaust tone is different. I think I will stick with the 93 race tune.

I didn't consider my 4.0 slow by any means before the tune, and was told that my 1/4 mile time was very decent for my only mod being dual exhaust (15.294 @ 93.98) I cant wait to get back to the track in the spring to see the new numbers.

If you are on the fence about whether or not a tuner is worth the money, jump off and get one! It definitely is, Im impressed.

Thanks to Chris Rose and American Muscle!

kzonts

Yes it's definitely a game changer and makes driving more fun. I use the performance tune for my daily driving as I'm not comfortable driving around on the race tune. I have an auto trans.

Does anyone have an opinion about using the race tune on a consistant basis?

I have 89 Street, 91 Performance, 93 Race...

Most of the gas stations in my area have 93 octane. It's actually harder to find 91 octane here. So most of the time I'm using 93 octane anyway.

conejo172

I have heard that with the auto trans its a bit too much for a daily driver, I just look at it as being closer to what a GT must feel like.

markkk

so 93 race tune means you have to put 93 octane in your gas tank right?

kzonts

Yep. I guess my concern about the race tune is how agressive it is, and if it's ok to use it 100% of the time.

conejo172

Yup it is more expensive, but getting better gas milage

Nuke

In the 3 1/2 years on the forum, I think I recall hearing about how a tune wakes up the car...

Congrats and welcome to the tune club! I still suggest you try the 89 just for comparison sake. You can run the 89 tune with the 93 octane in the tank; it won't change the way the 89 tune would feel if you were running 89 octane.

conejo172

Nuke, I'm glad you posted! I am a skeptical person and I guess you could say I don't believe sh#t stinks till you rub my nose in it! LOL So trying the 89 performance tune with 93 in the tank is not going to harm anything or cause knock sensors to go off? I thought it wasn't good to run a higher octane. If you don't mind, could you explain not only for me but the others who are new to this. Thanks, James

Nuke

You'll only run into problems if you run an octane lower than what the tune calls for. When running a tune with a higher than called for octane, it has no adverse affect on the engine. The only problem is that you're wasting money. The higher octane obviously won't cause knock but the 89 tune simply won't make use of the additional octane. Some folks claim they feel the engine run "smoother" on higher octane than what the tune requires. Placebo affect or real? Your call...

Confusion may exist since some say that running 89 or 93 octane on the stock 87 tune over a very, very long period of time (i.e. years) can cause some buildup or fouling but the jury is still out on that, IMO. In your case, you'd run the 89 tune on 93 octane for worst case 1 full tank? The engine will shrug it's shoulders. I ran 89 octane on the stock tune for 3 months (and about 10,000 miles) before adding my CAI & custom tunes. No worse for wear...

conejo172

Thanks again Nuke! I noticed the difference between the 87street tune and the 93 race tune and after 24,998 miles of driving this car without being tuned. I was weary of the placebo effect and expected it! The car definitely is getting better mileage(I do the calculations every fill up) the car definitely pulls harder then it did w/o the tune and there was a noticeable difference between the 87 street and the 93 race tune.