Cool buy…dyno days…nyspeed discounts…jk…goodluck!
I agree, most of the time street tuning is at normal driving conditions, its nice to have a dyno to do WOT tuning, especially on high HP cars…only because the speeds can get up there quickly. Also the ability to hold the car at a set speed or load can be useful.
But for the most part you can get a car to 95% on the street, of what will be had on the dyno.
Well you have one customer in line right now for it. I’ll be up as soon as you’s get it done. Who is going to do the tuning?
I disagree, every time you tune a car on the street you take your life and others into your own hands. It’s a dangerous prospect to say the least and on moderately powered cars full 3rd and 4th dear pulls can take you in excess of 130mph. All it takes is for one thing to go wrong and that’s all she wrote. That is what happened to Wess Hess, a fellow DSM tuner, dead during a car accident where he was the passenger in a car he had built, presumably street tuning.
Street tuning is great to recreate real world conditions but it’s safest to do that majority of the tuning on a dyno if it’s available.
Not only that, but as soon as the tires spin you are not tuning.
That would be Me.
-Emery
Congrats on the purchase. It’s definitely a hefty one I’m sure you considered a while before making. Now people will have at least 7 AWD dynos within 1.5 hours of Buffalo to choose from rather than 6 and there will be around 6 chassis dynos just in Rochester alone. More options may drive prices at all of them down even further for customers. Time will tell.
I generally agree with you, but you and the others that said street tuning is dangerous are doing something wrong whether it be tuning a car that’s just plain dangerous to drive or their process involves doing something dangerous i.e. going too fast or doing it on an unsafe road etc. If a car is safe to drive on the street, and it’s safe to accelerate to get on a well maintained highway, it’s safe to street tune because that’s the most aggressive thing you do during the whole process that mostly involves nice easy driving unless you’re only power tuning and ignoring drivability. Extreme driving is not required and shouldn’t be performed. If a car is not safe to drive on the street and/or doing a single gear pull on a long straight ramp to a highway is dangerous, you’re going to crash whether there’s a laptop sitting in the car at the time or not, and you shouldn’t ever floor that car on the street to avoid crashing. I’d call that a race car. Those are generally tuned at the track like Shep, Brent Rau and other big boys do. Doing a single gear pull on an on ramp to a highway that’s straight with it’s own lane is not dangerous and you only need to exceed the speed limit by a small margin for a couple seconds a few times, some cars not at all. You don’t need to go 100 and certainly not 130. You all do far more dangerous things in the course of driving your cars than what I do while street tuning. 
3000+ cars tuned since 2001. Zero tickets. Zero incidents. You accelerate on the ramp, coast down, get off, park for a second and make changes. Not a big deal. Again, if street tuning is dangerous, you’re doing it wrong or your car can’t be safely driven on the street. If a car can’t be safely driven on the street, don’t drive it on the street! It’s all about using common sense.
Wes Hess tried to street tune an 800 whp Mustang on a narrow street (not a nice broad highway) in the dark of night. I’m really sorry about what happened him, and I hear he was a great guy, but doing a pull in an 800 whp Mustang on a narrow street at night is not going to end well whether you have a laptop sitting in the car or not. Tuning had nothing to do with that. That’s a perfect example of a car that’s not safe to drive on the street…at least not to floor it. It should have been a track car, or driven lightly on the street, and hard only at the track. The same goes for any high HP “street legal” car. In a case like that where you have a big power car that’s “street legal”, as some of you do, you street tune the drivability and only power tune to a point that’s safe for street use, then power tune above that where it’s not safe for street driving on the dyno or at the track. This way you stay safe while getting real world load and driving conditions on the street to test/tune drivability. Then you only use the street safe mapping and power level on the street, and the track mapping at the track. Even on the best road I wouldn’t tune a customer’s 800 whp vehicle on the street. That’s asking for trouble…more like begging for it. RIP Wes Hess. 
If a race car isn’t registered for street use, obviously you should be tuning on a dyno and/or at a track, but that’s also common sense.
Street tuning definitely isn’t best for the power tuning portion on some high HP vehicles that aren’t safe on the street, but when it’s done right and in the right situation, it’s very effective and as I mentioned, safer than what most of you do on a regular basis while driving. I freely admit that years ago I street tuned some turbo Hondas to power levels that nobody should be running on the street if they want to be safe, tuning or not, but those days are over. If a car gets near where it’s questionable for street pulls as the boost goes up during tuning, it goes on a dyno or to the track for the rest of the power tuning. After the tune is done you hope the owner is responsible with the car, but if they want to wrap it around a tree flooring it on the street at high boost while you’re not around…that’s their call. Be safe out there folks!
the cheerleaders next door are going to love that lol
I have experienced a few cars that are quite the hand full on an on-ramp Because the simply make to much power to hold the ground…
Yes I know if you use a higher gear you wont have that issue, well thats what makes you have to do excessive speeds and I’m just not interested in that while driving a car that I am not familiar with.
The only way to be safe is to do it in a controlled environment.
Ever see those TV shows with the cop cars getting plowed into during a traffic stop? Those cars even have flashing lights and reflective tape. People are nuts!
IMHO Bottom line is, the only way to be safe is to use a dyno when tuning high power cars.
As far as all the dynos around Buffalo, There are several things that we offer that most do not. Those things will set us apart from others.
-Em
I totally agree. Cars that are dangerous on an on ramp have a power to traction/stability ratio that makes them unsafe. Cars like that shouldn’t be floored on the street whether they’re doing it for tuning purposes or just to have some fun if it’s dangerous. Sure some of them are going to do it anyways, but I won’t be in the car while they do it. 
Experience with Link? Or just tuning in general? I’m guessing you tuned Cory’s car with Link. PM me whenever you get any type of prices in mind and what you can do for me with it. I’d love to get an awd dyno tune instead of just a street tune.
Yes I tuned Corys car and as you may know it went 10’s on a stock 7 bolt motor with very little mods.
-Em
One of the biggest reasons we bought a dyno was to use it for parts development. Sure tuning is great but actually being able to say OUR turbo kit makes X amount of power is great!
-Em
Any one making any kinda serious power needs to be power tuned on a dyno. Im not even making alot of power and my car gets sideways in 4th gear in my 5spd bmw. Its too dangerous and stupid and i regret even trying it. Gary (devious tsi) and Don both know what im talking about. Its realy hard to concentrate on a good tune while trying not to die, watching out for cars or deer, or watching out for police while buzzing down a road in excessive speeds.
More dynos the better. especially now that theres a closer awd dyno thats NOT in canada. lol, i hate canada.
you definitely did the responsible thing for tuning high-hp cars. It is certainly commendable.
Nice! I’ll be calling you tomorrow to set something up.
Cool toy for sure … I just can’t see it being profitable. Small time shops with a ‘small’ target niche need to keep overhead as small as humanly possible. GL
:tup:
Hope it works out, I expect you guys are making a big enough name that it probably will. I’m sure I’ll be down at some point this spring.
This is a perfect example of a car that’s not safe to street tune at high boost. A 500+ whp, 6 cyl turbo that also makes a lot of torque, RWD, on skinny tires like your car is sketchy on the street. Again it doesn’t matter if you have a laptop in the car or not…if your car goes sideways in 4th gear it’s not safe to be doing that. You spend some time street tuning to a safe HP level, then take an hour or so to go over the areas that would be sketchy on the street on a dyno or at the track. After tuning you still shouldn’t be flooring it on the street if the car goes all over the road at full boost. It’s not like because you dyno tuned it safely, flooring it on the street at full power suddenly becomes safe and the car won’t go all over the road. :tup: Also, never tune on a road where you have to watch out for heavy traffic or deer. Wait for an opening or use a road that’s not crowded.
An AWD car with good summer tires on a nice dry straight highway tracks straight and never spins unless it makes high torque and power hits all at once, causing it to torque steer hard or spin hard. A noob driver can do this in a safe setting all day without losing control or anything close to it. The most extreme example is I street tuned a 700ish whp Subaru on 205 wide all seasons that tracked dead straight and never ever torque steered even a tiny bit. How is this possible??? It took the entire RPM range for the car to reach full boost on the high boost map and it ramped up linearly from 3000 rpm up so the car didn’t spin. I didn’t even have to use a gear that made the end speed high because power came on so gradually. On the other hand, a 700 whp NA big block on 205 wide tires would be instant death. Again…I’m giving extreme examples to illustrate my point that power isn’t the only factor. Some cars are easy to control on the street and others are not. As a counterpoint, my car made less power than that Subaru, had better AND wider tires, but torque steered a LOT because of the way power was delivered. If it was a customers car I would have street tuned it to a point so drivability was best, then finished it off with an hour of dyno time.
Here’s another example…
A 450 whp car with good suspension and huge sticky tires can be totally safe while a 300 whp Honda slammed riding on the bump stops on cheap all seasons with -4 degrees of camber in the front is not safe. It’s all about using common sense.:tup:
Thanks. Im pretty sure we will do OK with it.
-Em