livinloud98

Hello all, I understand the whole concept of tuning. I understand that if you put a CAI on a mustang they tend to run lean, and a tuner will make the proper adjustments to make your car run in the happy medium zone. I get that you can take off rev-limiters, make your fans kick on earlier, top-speed limiter ect. However, I would just like some basic info on tuning before I go out and buy one for my 2010. Ive searched around and haven't found much on how safe tuning is. Will tuning my car reduce the overall life of the actual car? Just some basic info will help me decided if I really want to buy one of these tuners. What do most tuners tweak when you get a custom tune?

Thanks

dastangman

I would think the tunes are moderate at most, nothing aggressive or crazy. I would assume that anything to make more power or get better gas mileage, and I'm not sure exactly which variables are changed with preloaded tunes as I always get dyno tunes, but I'm sure they've got to be pretty conservative.

MU71L4710N

loading one of the default tunes on a handheld isnt going to hurt your car so long as if you flash the 93 octane tune, your running 93 octane gas.

uedlose

I guess that would depend on what you can adjust. Mine lets me change everything from timing to fuel to mass air transfers function as well as rpm limits it is a very high tech. system. you can destroy the engine very fast with my system. No real safety barriers with it. it is a Old EPEC and I am talking Fox body here I don't know what you are looking at.

2valve

Well if you're running lean your engine is producing more heat from "preignition" and can over time break many things in your valvetrain, burn up valves/pistions etc.
If this tuner has a canned cai/exhaust tune or whatever and fixes your lean problem then I would say it's done more good than harm.
From my understanding tuners make your engine happy with the mods you give it. Any pre-loaded tunes are going to be for light modifications. You can do datalogging on your car too. This is helpful when you're a bit heavier modded and don't want to spend several hundreds for a dyno tune (generally done on heavily modded cars or after getting new camshafts or going forced induction after being naturally aspirated) and usually whomever you bought the tuner from will sell data cables and you can upload your datalog and they will send you a custom tune for a lot cheaper than a dyno tune.
Dyno tunes are definitely the way to go but for the lightly-moderately modded car self tuners do a good job combined with custom tunes from the company.
Anyways, most canned tunes advance spark/timing so you can use a higher octane and squeeze out more hp. Some allow you to change wheel diameter size should you get taller tires, let you change your idle rpms, take off rev limiter/speed limiter, even adjust spark/timing yourself, and much more.
So all in all, it won't hurt anything should you use it right.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong on some points.

bruthru2003

Best thing to do, put on a CAI, buy a tuner, then go get a dyno tune. With that you can get your car adjusted to where it needs to be, not just relying on a canned tune.

gman73

I haven't read about anyone blowing their engine because of an email tune. I have email tunes from two companies and I believe they are safe. My A/F from one company was 12.6 and from the other was 12.9.