So here is my question. Why is it so dangerous to use someone elses map as long as you arent an idiot? A/f isnt all that hard lets say keep it 13 or under out of boost and 12 or under in boost. As far as timing goes take the map youve been given and take a degree or two of timing out in boost and drive it listen carefuly check your logs for knock. If you do that why is it dangerous to drive to a tuner? I am no tuner so if you can explain why its not safe as long as the owners takes the precautions I am willing to learn. Is it you just assume that everyone is an idiot thats just gonna load and beat or is there another reason?

With that being said I am running on someone elses map that I modified and my car has been running pretty well so far. I do plan on getting it dyno tuned but I am waiting until I install the alcohol injection.

 

First if your not checking your timing with a light you don't even know if your timing is even close, assuming you do that who says it was right on the car that the map originally for? Is 12 degrees in the map actually 12 degrees on the crank? Did they tune it on race gas? Maybe they had a bigger turbo, better manifold, bigger intercooler, different air temp sensor, lower compression?

Excessively rich can be just as bad as lean, you could wash out your rings, get fuel in your oil, built up a ton of carbon, drive egt's through the roof, etc. Even if everything looks right on during cruising and light load the chances of it being correct under transient conditions (most likely time for knock) are almost 0.

It's not that you can't possibly get away with it, some do some don't it's just that it's incredibly stupid to risk $2000-$5000 to save $200-$500.

 

Like I said as long as youre not an idiot you should be ok. Obviously timing should be checked and being that theres a bunch of screen shots for timing kicking around you should get a good idea of what your timing should be. Obviously 24 degrees at 10 psi on stock compression an 93 octane is bad. Once you think youre close to another s2000 pull a degree or two out for extra safety. Also it takes 2 minutes to change the coolant temp table so I dont see why thats an issue? I didnt bring up washing the rings out because I felt that went under the heading of as long as you arent an idiot.

With that said you think its incredibly stupid to risk a motor but I say it is fun trying to tune it the best you can and if you ask me its not as dangerous as some people make it out to be as long as youre tuning a safe tune. I am still getting mine tuned because I want as much power out of it as I can and the peace of mind of having it tuned by a pro.