finnaly got around to tuning the S. first i have to say stp motorsports in fort lauderdale was awesome! if anyone is looking for a dyno to use its a dynojet and the owner is awesome. ask for stephon if you call and he will take care of you. my buddy and i went there and strapped my S down for 25 runs and then his crx for another 15 more. stephon showed us how to use the dyno and then let us do all the runs while he worked on the other cars in his shop.

ok, on to the actual tune. it was 95 degrees out, and intake temps hit 130 on wot. that sucked ass. but even wtih all that, car made power after the tune. originally i dynoed at usp in coral springs and wanted to go back there to tune, but they where busy. had o rebaseline at stp since everydyno reads slightly different.

base line was 202/148 and after the tune made 215/153. made power everywhere.



just to be a dyno whore, and becuase i wanted a bigger numbe, gonna go back when its cool out to get that 220+ dyno

tuning the car was alot of fun. def a good experience. car feels great after the tune. just ordered the img from hondata and will report back what intake temps drop too. right now, sitting in traffic i see 150 and on cruising i see 130. yeah, ****ing crazy!

my buddy with the crx always laughs at me cuase he has a jackson charged gsr with lht intercooler at 9psi and he sees ambient even when its sweaty balls hot out. bastard!

 

Awesome gains. I have similiar numbers and mods.

Stock intake, berk header and berk test pipe tuned with VAFC2 at 212., baselined at 204 and gained 8 with the tune, it was also like 90 degrees the day I went.

 

How expensive is it to get your car dyno tuned? Also is there any system I need to buy to get it done better, or does the dyno place use their own program?

If you can get such good gains from a simple tune then I may want to do it. Seems like good bang for the buck. I would guess it would supply better gas mileage too since the engine is running at good efficiency.

 

Nice! I don't think I've seen a chart for an NA ap2 with EMS.

ClemsonS2k...the cost is dependent on the tuner and the type of ecu mod. The OP has one of the most expensive to tune ecu mods...it is a stand alone AEM EMS...it replaces the stock ecu entirely and must have complete fuel maps custom made for your car.

Other options are a VAFC, which is a piggy back system...it attaches to your stock ecu and modifies the signals it receives to fool it into making changes to the air fuel ratio (AFR). It can give good gains but cannot tune the timing. There is a good bit of hp left in the timing.

Another option is the Greddy eManagement Ultimate. It is also a piggy back like the VAFC, but it modifies the signal coming out of the ecu. It has the ability to tune both AFR and timing. It does not have the same sophistication of the AEM EMS, but it is a step above the VAFC for less coin than the EMS.

 

Damn, so you can't just go to a dyno place and get your car tuned without an aftermarket system? If the cheapest one is the VAFC, which is $300, then idk if it really is worth the money...

 

Correct...you can't just go and have the tuner reprogram the stock ecu on the s2k. The VAFC is the cheapest...it may be worth it now. When I picked one up 4yrs ago, I did a cost analysis to see if I was actually saving money from the better gas milage I got after the tune. I found gas would have to be about $4/gal to have a fairly resonable payback period. Well...guess what.

Power increase is also pretty good bang for the buck...definitely better than any bolt on mod for an early s2k. The MY00-01 ran very rich compared to the rest of the model years. The VAFC fixes that.

You can pick up a used VAFC either in our For Sale forum or on ebay...they are all the same for our car. Just make sure you get a plug-n-play harness too...Boomslang makes a decent one for a low price.

If you spend a bit more and get the Greddy EMU, you may get a bit more hp out of an early car. Personally, I'd do that if you can muster the extra couple hundred.

 

No you need a tuning device to tune the car...

You can get a used VAFC2 for about $200, itll probably be around another 150-200 if you cant tune it yourself. I saw an 8whp gain with the VAFC2 and I paid around 500 total including the device, installation and dyno tuning. I think it was a good deal considering people pay $800+ for exhausts and headers that will most of the time not gain as much as a good tune.

Considering you have an early model AP1 2000-2001, your car runs really rich stock, so you will get really good gains from tuning, with the greddy e-manage ultimate you could probably see up to 15whp or maybe more...

 

Ok well I guess I'd save up for the Greddy, haha. 15whp actually is pretty good for $500 or so. Making the car not run rich would also be good cause of saved gas and it would probably make the car not smell as bad once I get my testpipe on.

One last question. These things need to be continuously plugged into the car right? So I couldn't borrow someones system and use it then give it back?

 

Yup they have to stay plugged in, the e-manage ultimate is about 500 brand new, it will be another 150 for the plug and play harness. Plus tuning for an e-manage ultimate is a little bit harder than the VAFC2 so youll have to pay a little more for tuning, probably total cost would be around 7-800.

The car wont smell bad at all with the test pipe, I have one and I have no idea what the 'smell' is. Car smells exactly the same, and I gained 6whp with the test pipe, not bad for 100 bucks

 

Yea i think some people are exagerating but i can imagine it is a stronger gas smell. And yea its great for the money imo. If I can get even 4-5 hp for $100 then I'm happy. I mainly bought it for the sound though. I don't wanna fork up $800 or more for an exhaust system, plus I don't want the exhaust to be super loud. So a test pipe seemed like a happy medium