Hey guys I recently went to ptuning in manassas to get my miata turboed. Got a 1.6 engine swap with a jdm engine, new clutch and fly wheel, and got an older begi kit installed and after 5 months (that was my decision) I get the call that its getting 211hp at the wheels. I get the car and pay and drive it home and all is well. Turn the car on to drive to parents and the idle drops and cuts the car off... after that I let it warn up and the idle is going ballistic like it was before the tune from them... I then drove the car to a concert... and had to turn my headlights on... idle dropped another 300rpm and the drop shut the car off. So here I am on 95 with my flashlight turning the idle screw just to get home safe.

this can't be right... I called them today and am dropping the car off tonight so they can look Monday but this can't be right. I was under the impression you could tune a megasquirt to almost perfect idle... they said there will always be some inconsistency from boosted to stock but it can't be THIS much.m can it? It runs just like it did before the shop and my *** don't know a thing about tuning...

Any input?

 

They probably suck. Almost all "tuning shops" have no business tuning ****.

Unless you can find someone who actually knows their way around MS youre probably going to have to learn to tune it yourself. There is lots of info on this forum. Get your laptop hooked up and figure out those idle settings.

 

Yes, you can make it idle like stock... Well, depending on injector type and size, but that may just make it idle a little high. Not do what you say it's doing.

You should probably take some logs and post them up. Also logs of cruise and WOT so we can tell you how bad the tune really is.

 

I know a great shop for JDM engines south of Tokyo near Sakai.

 

I've never seen anyone completely set up a MS within 2-3 hours that most shops say it takes to "tune" the car. Sure you can tune it to make power on a dyno. But cold start/hot start/restart/idle/different temps/air density correction/ etc etc etc takes days, sometimes weeks to do properly. So you're either running with a base map with the "power" portion "tuned" or you're basically paying for a 1-day car (it runs good for 1 day, then runs like crap)

 

My car went to PTuning. My car works. Whats wrong with your ****?

 

I never take my car there, cause I'm braineack.

They aren't miata and/or megasquirt experts.

I would have taken my WRX to get aligned there, however.

 

Quoting for truth. When folks suggest it only takes a few hours, it really shows their inexperience, or lack of attention to detail.

 

They kept my car for a week, works well (cold time of year)

 

Meh if you have someone who actually KNOWs what they are doing and can tune very well then a tune in a couple hours shouldnt be a issue at all including perfect drivability. Those people normally tune hundreds of cars a year for years though, and have a very large base map selection for almost every setup. At least in my experience. Normally people with that much experience travel around the US tuning and it is worth the wait to jump into a group tune.

That or learn your self most seem to find miatas fairly easy to tune. My normal tuner says its insanely easy compared to some other platforms. I dont want to say how long he mentioned it takes him to tune a well sorted small turbo miata..but it was much less then 2-3 hours lol.

 

You clearly have no idea about standalones
Once again the question is not running the question is running perfectly
No base map while ever run perfectly without thorough tuning and without tuning in various conditions you simply cannot accomplish this I don't care what kind of crap you come back with this is simply not true

I've seen hundreds of tuned miatas but I have seen only a handful that truly work flawlessly no matter what condition they are in or temperature or pressure

But I challenge you to prove me wrong

 

No i have a good idea about standalones.....
I was just saying that someone who tunes hundreds of cars a year is a good friend of mine and has talked to me about tuning megasquirt miatas and mentioned how long it takes him to tune them. Yes tune not toon he actually cares about how well the car drives.

If your going to pay someone alot of $$ to tune your car mise well find someone like that and there are a couple out there. There is a reason they travel all over the country tuning year around its not because they dont know what they are doing.

It is aside from the point though..obviously said shop/tuner needs to go back and work on OPs car or they need to refund him.

 

No you're throwing out big vague examples about pro/tuning and I'm coming back at you with specific things.
I've seen dozens of these so-called professional tunes and not one single one of them has been flawless in every regard. The only time it's possible to achieve the appearence of this is if you are starting with an OEM ECU and map in which every single variable is already defined or if you build in a ton of corrections so that the car masks a ton of your deficiencies but that just covers up these mistakes or lack of tuning that I've already mentioned .

Every single pro will agree with the fact that you have to make compromises because you simply don't have weeks or months to tune the car to OEM standards with a full standalone like we use.

Every single car I've tuned required different start up settings different warm up settings and multiple updates for all sorts of things .

How would your so-called pro tuner not t00ner achieve this without taking the actual time to work through each of these variables ?

Im genuinely curious

There is no one fits all base map. To do it right you literally have to adjust everything for days and weeks otherwise you have to compromise

 

Like i said when you (he and or some other bigger name tuners) tune almost 400 cars a year for year after year im sure you gain alot more experience and ability to work stuff out much quicker.

I am talking to him and just asked him this question "how are you able to achieve this without taking the actual time to work through each of these variables"

He said that he has a solid idea of what the variables should be before starting.

I assume that is experience you only get after tuning literally thousands of cars. Can everyone do that NO...i was just commenting saying if your going to spend the $XXX on a tune mise well find someone with ALOT of experience vs just bringing it to a shop down the road, and that it shouldnt take days for a honest professional to solidly tune a car that is why you pay someone in the first place that does it for a living.

There are tooners and there are tuners sadly both cost the same and its hard to find who is who till you actually give them a shot.

Im done arguing lol anything that could have been said has been said.

 

I'm not arguing I'm asking specific questions because I already know the answers to them and you just keep giving me vague responses that any tuner will usually tell somebody

This is not at all about experience let's just get that out-of-the-way this is about taking the time to actually do the work to set the car up properly

Tell you what when your car is done and tuned, post the logs for startup, idle, varying drives and variable conditions and I will show you what I mean.

It will only appear perfect to those who have no freaking clue of what a perfect tune should look like. The way a car feels is one thing but cold hard data from long data logs is completely different

But anyways yeah Op needs to go back and have his tune fixed

 

You're a ******* idiot and your words are worthless.

edit: V beat me to post

 

The amount of upset at the idea that someone who tunes professionally and is easily one of the best in the tuning business can actually tune a miata well without it taking days is crazy. Its understandable if you only have tuned a couple cars and are still learning things are not supposed to be quick at that point. Time for me to log back out of turbo miata for a couple more months like i normally have to.

You guys should all change your name to uncle scotty...(some of you will get that joke)

 

No you are just being an ignorant lemming who hangs on every word of your so-called professional tuner.

Can't even comprehend how idiotic it is to think that somebody can set up a car from scratch in two hours.

I've been tuning miatas since 2008 and have tuned enough to be able to comment on this without being ignorant and I can tell you from personal experience that each takes a very long time to set up and requires tons and tons of completely different approaches

I can take a map from virtually identical car put it into the next one and not one single setting with actually work properly

I'm just trying to get you to comprehend the tuning process rather than say somebody can do it because they charge a ton of money and did it for a long time

 

Waiting.

 

So called professional tuner was offered a job at what most likely has the biggest high end car tuner (lots of GTRS, 911s, r8s ect) name besides maybe UGR but turned it down.
So called professional tuner tuned almost 400 cars last year and has for years
So called professional tuner gets paid to fly across the country to tune peoples cars for a reason.
I am being vague because i do not feel like dragging anyones name into anything.
Experience is a thing. I get what your saying that im just taking what my "tuner" is saying and repeating the bullshit but that is not this. I have had other "professional tuners" tune my cars in the past, have been in other cars other people have tuned ect i know there are MANY MANY bullshit professional tuners. I had one so bad that I had to demand my money back because he had no clue what he was doing even though he worked in a well known shop in the area. This guy actually is truly very good at what he does. You have seen my build thread I do weird things and I try to do a quality job of it im not spewing bullshit I have plenty of experience building, blowing **** up, and breaking things.
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Now lets end this...OP needs his money back....or to have them obviously work on what ever the issue is. That being said there is also always a possibility that it is a mechanical issue stopping it from running correctly also bad o2, exhaust leak before the o2, intake manifold leak ect. But that is something the shop would have/should have noticed and would have said something.