99horsey

Thanks to advice here on the forum, I’ve decided to buy a CAI and tune either from AM or Brenspeed (I have no other mods). I have a question about the tune options from AM/Bama though that I still can’t answer after reading pretty much every thread I could find here on the subject:

Most of the posts I’ve seen about the Bama tunes reference “torque, performance, and race” tunes. Now AM offers “street, performance, and race”. Is the street the same as the old torque? I’ve seen a number of posts where people have said they like the torque, but most recent posts say that the street is weak. I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but it seems simpler that Brenspeed just offers the same tune in different octanes. I’m a bit confused about which tunes I would want from AM. I want one 87 tune for sure in addition to a couple 93 tunes (89 doesn’t seem worth it). I want low end torque most and it seems that the general consensus from my searching points to the AM/Bama tunes being better in that area, but most of the comparisons are older (before the AM/Bama/Chris Rose “merger”). Is this still the case? If their street tune has the most torque down low, maybe I would want the street in 87 and 93 and the race in 93? Any input is appreciated.

AU2BOT

I recommend Brenspeed highly, awesome tunes for my automatic!!!

99horsey

Good point - I do have a manual if that matters. I have read where some people thought that Bama was better for autos (don't know if that's even still the case), but that's a moot point for me.

AU2BOT

It doesnt matter but the Brenspeed tunes are awesome and the customer service is really great !!!

Mudflap

I've had 3 of these cars, and have tried tunes from the above:

2007 GT Automatic with intake/tune:

- Brenspeed tune: wasn't bad, shifted very rough overall power acceptable.
- Bama torque tune: Similar to Brenspeed tune.
- Bama race tune: holy crap!! awesome!

2009 GT manual with intake/tune:

- Bama race tune: it was good, the tunes made far less of a difference on the manual trans though.

- Brenspeed tune: again, good tune. Still made far less of a difference on the manual than the auto. I swapped between this and the Bama tune a few times, and there was never a clear winner. They were very close. I eventually supercharged the car and ran a Brenspeed tune on it since it was their blower package.

2010 GT automatic:

- Bama race tune: another holy crap!! awesome!
- Bama Performance tune: pretty good, not as good as the race tune.
- Bama street tune: pretty good, not as good as the race tune.
- BBR tune: stock-like throttle lag, not even close to the Bama tunes.

HTH. If you have a manual, flip a coin IMHO. I know Bama does free tunes for life no matter where you buy parts from. Not sure what Brenspeed's policy is these days. I THINK its free tunes if you buy parts from them, but double-check that. They are both great companies, and the only 2 I'm willing to buy from overall unless neither has what I need, then I branch out...

BTW, in all cases I had both 91 and 93 octane versions of the Brenspeed and Bama tunes. The 91's ALWAYS felt stronger than the 93s! Even with the Vortech blower on the 09, the 91 tune felt stronger than the 93 tune. Don't just assume that high octane means "better"...

99horsey

All great info - thanks! Between Brenspeed and Bama, I think I could be happy either way as you said. It seems to be a nearly perfect split of happy customers for both. The number of variants for Bama is confusing, though.

What octane gas were you using with your 91 tunes? Were you using 93? We only have 87, 89, and 93 around here. Based on your post, it sounds like Bama 87 street, 91 race, and 93 race might be a good combo?

Regarding AM/Bama's free tunes for life, if I get the combo above and decide that I'd like to try a 93 or 91 street later (without any modifications), would they just send me one for free and I replace one of the 3 in the SCT unit? That being the case, at least I wouldn't feel like I was "missing out" on any of the permutations offered by Bama (at the possible expense of forever tinkering and trying different options!).

Mudflap

Yeah Bama will just send you new versions of the tunes, you aren't limited to just those 3 initial ones. I've done it a few times. Its "free". The SCT device will hold up to 3 at a time, and you can use the software to connect the thing to a PC using a USB cable and update it yourself.

On the 07 and 09 GTs, I lived in Seattle and Dallas respectively, so I was running 93 octane gas on the 91 tunes (also nice to have that bit of a safety buffer, especially in Dallas where it was hot). I now live at 8000' in the rockies, so all we have is 91 up here. I run 91 on the 91 tune in CO...

99horsey

Cool - it sounds like AM/Bama might be the way to go, then. With all the flexibility with their different versions of tunes and the fact that you can try any of them for free, it's kind of surprising that the split between Bama and Brenspeed fans is 50/50 - unless there's a Brenspeed advantage I'm not considering.

I wonder why the 91 octane tunes feel stronger than 93. Maybe Chris Rose can chime in on that.

gman73

Mudflap pretty much summed it up regarding the Bama/tunes. I use to swap back and forth between the 91 race and 91 performance. If you dynoed both tunes, you would get the same numbers. It's all in the throttle response. I also have a dyno tune and surprisingly, it didn't put up any better numbers than bama's 91 race tune. In addition, I also have Amazon tuning solutions tune (ATS). This is a true custom email tune. The tuner, Rick sends a preliminary tune, then you datalog that tune and send it back. He will tweek it and send you a new tune. The price of this tune is $185 but that includes free revisions. Going by feel, this tune is freaking awesome. Now I need to take it the track with this tune.

99horsey

Interesting - I'd never even heard of ATS. I like the idea of the datalogging tune. Looking at their site, the major downside is cost. $400 for a tuner + $185 for the tune. Not a big deal if the tunes are worth it, but $200 more than Brenspeed and AM seems steep...