zya5point0

iTrader: (4)

Ok guys after over 2 years, I'm finally ready to get my 91 on the road this summer. I've talked to 2 guys in the area about tuning my car, but both said with the stock 7730 ecm, easy combo to tune, but not cheap. 383, aluminum big valve heads, xfi 282 cam, super ram intake. Fine. So here's my question/rant...after a lot of searching, I've found used gen 6 and gen 7 DFI's, XFI's, and Holley commander's for sale. There's a lot of useful knowledge here and a lot of great running cars with many different controllers, but why so much arguing over what works the best???? Has anybody here ever taken a built tpi motor, put it on a dyno, and done an apples to apples comparison of all the aftermarket tuning systems available for our motors?? I've gotten estimates ranging from a low of $900 to $1500 for tuning my motor on the stock ecm. If I knew for sure I could get 50 or more whp with an aftermarket controller over a well tuned stock ecm I'd drop the extra cash in a second. All I've found is people questioning results with(pick your controller)various ecm's. I found a used gen 6 dfi for $150, and since there's a couple guys out there that still tune with them, should I go with it?

Six_Shooter

iTrader: (2)

Using a dyno to quantify and compare any and all EFI controllers will not make for a clear winner, because there are still a lot of variables. Any time there has been comparisions done, usually by magazines, the power results and curves are all very similar. This is only looking at one very narrow aspect of an engine's performance.

For a street car, drievability is more important to me than peak HP numbers. This is where I feel the Delco ECM excels. It was designed around drivability, along with performance. If it limits any peak power potential, it will only be by a very small insignificant amount.

You can tune your ECM yourself, with a few pieces of equipment and some time. There are a few forums that are dedicated to EFI tuning, and most will be helpful to get you rolling and even help with some advanced tuning aspects.

It looks like I haven't charged enough for tuning people's vehicles if those are the quotes you're getting... :/

RyanJB

What part of PA are you in that you could even find someone to tune it?

However, $900 is outrageous to tune that. Even if you were paying hourly for the dyno. If you're really interested in upgrading the ECM, I'd go with the EBL Flash from Dynamic EFI. It will make the tuning process much simpler.

ULTM8Z

Agreed. Even at ~25 years old, these 7730 ECM's have a tremendous amount of tunability. I'm still finding parameters here and there to tweak that keep improving driveability, throttle response, etc.

zya5point0

iTrader: (4)

Those were high quotes...It's been like 2 years since I talked to him, but Josh at JS Performance in Hulmville(near Bristol pa) still has the stuff to tune the stock ecm and said my setup is pretty straight forward and was confident he could get me really good numbers. He quoted me high because I originally wasn't gonna have the car running at all when I took it to him. That's why I'm gonna throw in a set of LT1 injectors to be able to run the car and make sure it runs and drives, throw the 30lb injectors back in, then take the car to him. 1500 was a high quote from a guy in Jersey...don't remember the name of the shop, but found him also with a google search. His shop has been mentioned here in the past as one of the original TPI tuners in the country back in the day. I'd love to sometime learn how to tune my own car, but I'm currently at a point in my life where I have more money than time(I know, a bad problem to have, lol). I drive truck, and even when I manage to get home during the week It's usually only long enough for dinner and a shower, lol. Hopefully in a few years I'll be able to evenly split the time/money difference