I picked up a used 1052 for a decent price. I figured I could use if I can ever find a nice used SC/Turbo setup. But in the mean time I was wondering if it would be a good idea to get it installed and tuned with just the basic bolt-ons I have or would it be more of a headache for the little gain?

My current mods are:
Berk 3" header back (no cat)
Cold air intake with K&N filter
$90 egay header

Would the $500 or so dollars to get it tuned yield much or would I have been better off with a VFAC type controller?

Any inputs appreciated!

 

The first tune is gonna be expensive unfortunately...500 is a good estimate for a n/a s2k with bolt ons + ems. Subsequent retunes will be cheaper if you do the first one right. It only takes 30minutes on a dyno to exttract 95% of your peak power at wot. The rest of the time will be spent on getting your car to drive normally (timing sync, dtermining optimal vtec,partial thr, start up, idle, shift lights, vtec lights, 3step rev limiter, closed loop behaviors if you have uego wideband and other goodies, etc)

You will regret going cheap/rushing tuner etc when your car takes 10 tries to cold start, bugs in partial thr, eats gas/spark plugs, burns more oil, etc. If you do it right, the ems will drive better than the stock ecu.

That being said, berk header back + ems you should be seeing some very nice midrange gains. Since you already bought ems, another 500 will get you more power than anything else that costs 500 at this point.

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500 is a little high 350 sounds about right, do you have a basemap already?

 

No not yet, the EMS is still in the box.

 

Have you considered an E-Tune? For the mods that you have an E-Tune should be more than enough to get you going. Contact Joseph at http://www.magtuning.com/online_services.php . He has tuned a few cars for me and I wouldn't hesitate to use him again.

 

I don't have a place where I can make consistent pulls nor would I want to do that on the street