mrtstang

Some kind of tuning is always worth it IMO. Even if you have only some bolt ons.

0949er

i got my car tuned quite a few times before I even had the blower in the car... worth it? Who knows. Did it help? sure did!

sonicx

its one of those things.... it's value depends on, "eye of the beholder". What maybe worthless to you is good for me, kinda thing. You want to get a tune? Do it. If you think you'd rather save up, add a few more mods then tune. Then DO it. You're not going to get hurt either way.... its all how you spend your money & what your aim is.

teej281

You're a pi swap and you didn't have a tune yet????????!!!!!!!!!!!! Get that thing tuned like NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you need a tune in the worst way possible!!! Even if you had a full bolt on car you would still benefit from a tune. It is worth it to work out the small kinks like little blips at idle and such. Plus you make your car run more efficient and probably get better gas mileage.

PurpleIcedGT

Teej is such a drama queen....LOL

teej281

Not really...would you do an h/c/i swap, while upping the compression, and not get a tune? I'd sure as hell hope not!!! Also abber, might want to try to find a set of 21 or 24lb fuel injectors as your injectors are probably maxed out.

MU71L4710N

even with a stock mustang a tuner will add more HP than any 300$ bolton you can buy (and you can buy a used tuner for 150$ or less even, AND it even helps your gas mileage out a little bit...so it starts paying for itself). you will need a handheld if you get a dyno tune from HCI or FI/nitrous (to save your dyno tune on), you will need it if you get gears changed (to change your speedo), if you have an automatic you can change shift points and shift firmness which is night and day over a stock tune, etc...

if you get a new midpipe this alleviates you having to buy or make MIL elims for your CEL so this saves some money. you don't have to drive to autozone everytime you need a code read. i would say a tuner should be one of the first buys in all honesty as far as mods go even if your car is still stock.

stangalator

the stock tune is very conservative. i ran around on my stock tune with my pi swap for about 4 months and it was fine. Obviously not as good as it could be... Canned tunes for pi swapped cars are still conservative though. My sniper tune for some reason was at a AFR of 12:1 and timing was pulled back so to like 13-17 at WOT. as a reference, im running my fuel at 12.9 and my timing at 24-29 at WOT now with zero pinging. I had it about 2 degrees higher then that with no signs of pinging but my trap speeds were lower with that timing so i backed it off.

IMHO, get a canned tune and a wideband and tune it yourself, you get to really know your car better. Just do a bit of research around what people with dyno tunes are running for timing and fuel and use that as a baseline on your tune. Then run it at a open track day and change your timing around and see how it affects your trap speeds.

+1 on the injectors too, i upgraded to 24's with my swap. I have 21lb ones from a stock 99-04 (or is it 00-04?) if you really want to upgrade your injectors a bit.

cliffyk

As has been stated in my 'stead, any new-edge GT will benefit from a tune--especially if optimised for the highest octane fuel available or that you care to buy.

The OEM tune is centered around selling cars after a very brief test drive. It has reasonable low-end torque (that can be greatly improved), and is so pig-rich and conservatively timed at WOT that there's no way you could ever, possibly, damage the engine--even if you filled the tank with ½ 87 octane and ½ kerosene...

Other than that it's not bad...

PurpleIcedGT

The only way that I would tune my car myself with a wideband and sniper type of software would be if I were Cliff. Other than that, I'm not willing to take any risk...ESPECIALLY when I make the move here into F/I this winter/spring.