How do I pick a tuner?

rang-a-stang

rang-a-stang

Silver Member
Tomorrow I am going to order a BNR S3, 3 BAR MAP, and Grimmspeed EBCS. I know I will need a tune and have heard Stratified, Freektune, Purple Drank, and Hypnotic know what they are doing.

How do I pick a good tuner? I am OK paying a little more to get it done right so I am more interested in quality than price (although price is important). What are the signs of a good tuner?

None of those tuners are local to me (Southern California) so I am assuming the process is:
1) I pick a tuner, Contact them, send them payment, and they send me a base tune.
2) I install that tune, do a log run with my AP V3 recording
3) I send them the log file, and they update the tune
Right? Any advice?
 
You guessed right, thats exactly how remote tuners work.

Any of those tuners are good. Nishan is also a great tuner of these cars.

I personally had my gen2 tuned by Rob and have nothing but good things to say about him. Only thing with Rob is that he is not glued to his laptop so he might not get back to you the same day, but he can give you advice if you need it. Also if you have a busy schedule (myself included) and cant send him datalogs the same day, he is patient with you as well.
 
To be honest, PD/Freek/Dizzy are going to be the ones who will actually get work done for you in a reasonable timeframe. Stratified are all about Fords now and do subpar work for Speeds, and both Rob and Nishan are MIA.
 
I would recommend reaching out and contacting any you are interested in first... I'm sure you have some questions etc. How quickly they respond/how they respond may help you decide what route to take.

The fact is most/if not all good tuners tend to get overwhelmed after they start doing good work. Which is one reason you see such wild varying opinions on the subject-- everyone's experience is a bit different. Best tuning experience I've had was with Nishan but many have had issues with response time etc. For me he was super on the ball and we did a live remote dyno tuning session and he was super fast and did an awesome job. I've done other such tunes since and they were...meh.

Only other company mentioned that I have experience with is stratified. I've had positive experiences with Alex, but not so positive with some of his 'junior tuners' or whatever.
 
@mangosmoothie just gave you great advice about getting discounts on the tunes.

If I go with a BNR S3, I might consider trying another tuner, but I've been working with Stratified. Mind you, since I'm still on stock k04, they are sending me flash tunes (their version of OTS). It'll be much different with a custom tune; like a bespoke suit versus an off the rack that has been tailored to fit.

I had forgotten about Nishan.

I'll go out on a limb here, but because of the BNR S3s popularity, I bet all tuners will do a good job and likely have base maps for it that are almost as dialed in as their k04 flash tunes. Some will be more conservative than others.
 
SharksInSpace said:
To be honest, PD/Freek/Dizzy are going to be the ones who will actually get work done for you in a reasonable timeframe. Stratified are all about Fords now and do subpar work for Speeds, and both Rob and Nishan are MIA.
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exactly! I personally cannot recommend freektune enough, I've had great interactions with Justin and love the way the car feels even when it was OTS tuned, my buddy with built engine and BT has had great follow up with him as well
 
This is great info about different tuners from user's no less.

I went with Stratified because they're local and I did have plans to dyno tune my car just to save the back n forth maps but their dyno is fwd. I joked let's just trip the wheel speed sensors that shuts off the awd/abs/dsc... problem solved right? nope lol.

That being said, my experience with Stratified, last year, was great. No pun intended but speedy replies and helpful dudes. I cant comment on the tune itself as it was never finished due needing a new short block mid tuning process. That being said, I will be emailing Freeeeek soon because they were my other choice based on the old forum talk.
 
Another benefit of going with Stratified (for Canuckle-heads like myself) is that they cover duty fees for any parts that you order through them that are shipped across the border.

But I'm not plugging for them, because I would never be opposed to trying another tuner recommended on this forum.
 
Personally even being Canadian I'd only go with stratified if I was a local to them and could get on a dyno. These days with them being focused on Ford's, and what sounds like slower turn around time than before I'd still be hesitant knowing that I could if I really wanted pay for dyno time and still have someone like Justin (freektune) tune me on a dyno. Import costs are only sale tax here anyway...plus you can bet their import costs at stratified are baked into their prices.
 
Thanks everyone. There is another local guy down here in the LA area that parts out MS3's and I asked him, too. His recommendation is similiar to these. I hope to throw some money at a tuner tonight.
 
you won't be disappointed. Just be patient, sometimes he can take up to 5 business days to reply. At least that was the case when I tuned with him last.
 
FWIW I have a two-revision tune with Stratified (Stage 3) and had a pretty good experience. Decently quick turnaround and the tune itself is smooth and powerful. They've tuned a shitload of Speeds by this point in time, even if the current dude (Nolan) is a little newer than some others. I was tuned with Dizzy previously, and while he's great, he has dropped support for V2 Accessports and thus I was locked out of a revision when I went back to him for a log review recently.
 
aaronc7 said:
I would recommend reaching out and contacting any you are interested in first... I'm sure you have some questions etc. How quickly they respond/how they respond may help you decide what route to take.

The fact is most/if not all good tuners tend to get overwhelmed after they start doing good work. Which is one reason you see such wild varying opinions on the subject-- everyone's experience is a bit different. Best tuning experience I've had was with Nishan but many have had issues with response time etc. For me he was super on the ball and we did a live remote dyno tuning session and he was super fast and did an awesome job. I've done other such tunes since and they were...meh.

Only other company mentioned that I have experience with is stratified. I've had positive experiences with Alex, but not so positive with some of his 'junior tuners' or whatever.
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I just read today on Nishan’s website that he no longer does etuning. He is only doing dyno tuning through speed performance now.
 
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Sleepin6 said:
I just read today on Nishan’s website that he no longer does etuning. He is only doing dyno tuning through speed performance now.
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Mmhmm options for e-tuner are now limited to freektune and purple drank.
Dramatune is garbage makes less power than Cobb ots maps, blown up a few engines, stratified has gone downhill since lex stopped being the main speed tuner, they do lots of pop and bangs tunes now...
 
Awafrican said:
Mmhmm options for e-tuner are now limited to freektune and purple drank.
Dramatune is garbage makes less power than Cobb ots maps, blown up a few engines, stratified has gone downhill since lex stopped being the main speed tuner, they do lots of pop and bangs tunes now...
Click to expand...
Dizzy tuning is sold out of all Mazdaspeed tunes also so yeah there’s limited tuners right now.
 
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