Dyno tune

bill1101 · May 11, 2023

Quick question, what is the consensus of getting an engine dyno tune?

Ryunker · May 11, 2023

bill1101 said:
Quick question, what is the consensus of getting an engine dyno tune?

I am in as soon as its back from "paint shop prison". After interior and dash finalization, a trip to the dyno will happen before any street use of our m code mach1. It is a stock car with upgraded ignition, and an oe style holley atop of factory intake and heads, no headers.

73inNH · May 11, 2023

bill1101 said:
Quick question, what is the consensus of getting an engine dyno tune?

My opinion . . . If you have an O2 sensor (avail on Amazon) to tune the carb and a timing light to time the engine, you can do most of what the dyno tune will do. Though knowing the exact HP/TQ is fun.

giantpune · May 11, 2023

bill1101 said:
Quick question, what is the consensus of getting an engine dyno tune?

My opinion the street or the race track are the real measuring stick. A dynotune is a method to try and get quantitative data that helps arrive at your final goal of better performance on the street/track.

Not every motor nor every car is the same. Some of them will perform better at 32 degrees of timing, some of them 34. Some will do better with a richer AFR than others. You can tune a motor to the numbers in a book and it'll run. Those are generic numbers, playing it safe for millions of cars. The numbers at which your specific car will perform best are probably not the exact ones in the book. And the only way to find those numbers is to have some way to measure it.

A dyno seems to be the best way to measure the drivetrain performance and isolate out the other variables. But only if the guy running the dyno knows what he's doing and is serious. Its easy to fudge the settings and show a large horsepower gain. Some shops will do that just to make the customer happy and get that referral business.

The dyno is fun and all, but nobody really cares what number your car made while it was sitting still. The proof is in the pudding. How fast is your car where it matters? If its just a daily driver, then does it really matter if you can tune it on the dyno and eek out 10 extra horsepower at 6500RPM? Probably not. And does it matter if you can play around and make a little more peak horsepower on the dyno, if it moves your torque curve all around and your car ends up running a half second slower in the quarter mile?

bill1101 · May 11, 2023

Thanks for the responses. I wasn't really interested in the numbers, just to get the carb and timing dialed in to get the most out of the engine as it is now.

midlife · May 11, 2023

giantpune said:
The dyno is fun and all, but nobody really cares what number your car made while it was sitting still. The proof is in the pudding. How fast is your car where it matters? If its just a daily driver, then does it really matter if you can tune it on the dyno and eek out 10 extra horsepower at 6500RPM? Probably not. And does it matter if you can play around and make a little more peak horsepower on the dyno, if it moves your torque curve all around and your car ends up running a half second slower in the quarter mile?

One of the biggest factors on how fast you go in the quarter mile has nothing to do with the drivetrain performance; rather, how good you are at timing the light and getting traction right away. Improve those first before you tackle small incremental changes in engine performance.

bill1101 · May 11, 2023

I understand what you are saying. This is a street car and will only see the track once in a while. I am looking to optimize street performance without getting further into the engine. I just want to get the most out of what I already have.