Name a good Tuna
 

Hey, I just moved here from Santa Rosa and I was really stoked to find your forum. :liljon:

So who's Nate...a local tuner here in Reno or is he a tuner at that S-Squared? I really don't want to give Shiv at TurboXS my business after the bad attitude I've heard about. So yah, where's the best place to get an Ecutek tune? I don't mind driving if there's a good tuner sombody can recomend.

Nate is Subaru Specialists Motorsports, formerly S-Squared in Sac. Nobody local. I would reccomend Nate for an ECUTek tune.

Wow... I would love to see what would happen if you said "Shiv at TurboXS" within earshot of him! :lol: I used to work for him, he owns his owned business called Vishnu Performance Systems in Fremont.

Nate is the tuner at Subaru Specialists. He used to be the proprietor of S-Squared before merging with Alfas & Subarus to form Subaru Specialists. He's the real reason you don't need to go see Shiv. EcuTek tunes by Nate are $650 for standard and $750 for drive-by-wire cars I believe. I absolutely recommend having Nate tune your car. Almost everybody on this board has, and you'd have a pretty hard time getting anyone to say something negative about his work, and more importantly, his customer service.

Glad to hear Nate's a good guy. Thanks.

Another recomendation for Nate here. He's done some minor work for me here and there, but nothing major (yet ;))

Nate rocks, nuf said

Another vote for Nate here.

Me also. He has done a ton of work on my car.

Yeah, Nate's the man.

(SS Show car :( )

+1 for Nate.

+..2? for Nate. He rocks.

Ok I get the idea. :P Is there any way to get a discount with Nate?

No, in fact, now that you know all of us, you'll have to pay double too!

Figures!

In all seriousness, Nate, Joe and Aaron at SS give members of SECCS and SRIC (i-club) very fair prices on parts and services, so you don't need a discount.

Well Joe quoted me $650 for the Ecutek tune (including the tune and an hour of dyno time), $80/hour for additional dyno time, and $75/hr for install labor. I have a stupid question, does the $650 include the Ecutek unit and everything else I'll need for the reflash? Would I have any reason to think that it would take more than an hour to tune my car with an UP and TBE? Also, do I need an EGT gauge? Joe recomended it, but said it's not necessary since the Ecutek will protect the engine if it gets to high. Sorry to hijack my own thread.

No, you're cool. There really is no Ecutek "Unit", your actually buying the license to have the computer touched. SS is a licensed Ecutek tuner, thus you pay for them to tweak your car.

You don't need a EG guage, but it doesn't hurt. A boost gauge is a must. I think that an hour to do the tune is very realistic, unless your car is doing something funky. But I wouldn;t think it would go over that amount of time.

Matt

Thanks Matt...yah I don't mind buying an EGT if it's a good idea. The gauge pod I want to get has two gauge spots anyway:
http://www.j-spectuning.com/images/a...el_pod_adj.JPG
But don't I have to tap a hole into the exhaust manifold? How hard is that? Also, I feel like I should get a gauge that blinks or buzzes once it hits a threshold since I'm only human and may forget to check the gauge when I'm pushing the car hard. I like the Omori "WRX look" gauges, but I don't think they have that...any recomendations. Should I make a new thread?

I hade Nate install my EGT guage and was charged $100 for the tap on the exhaust manifold. I installed the guage and with the Defi one its just plug and play

Yah, but Mike isn't your EGT all messed up and it actually is reading your boost?

Ewwww, Burn :P

:lol: NO!!!! but I do get a strange sound at 2250 rpm and at 3250rmp :eek:

I have that gauge setup and got it from j-spec tuning. They kick ass and I love the gauges. I had Nate install mine though.. ;)

Yah, that's where that image is linked from, J-spec Tuning. Did you get that kit that comes with the pod, gauges, and sending units? I was wondering if they came with absolutely everything you need for the install, but I'll just email them probably.

So I'm convinced that a custom tune is the way to go, but I don't know if I should go to Nate or get a road tune from Ed atEquilibrium Tuning in Davis. EJ20Legacy (Jeremy) just gave a kick ass review of his tuning ability on wrxfanatics.com. I'm leaning toward Nate though.

Do you think there's any clout to Jeremy's claim that on a dyno you can't go as fast, so the upper gears can't get tuned fully and some people have issues in the upper gears...like boost spiking? I had never heard of that.

Not to bring that drama over here, but Ed (though he may be really smart) has yet to convince me that he is an accomplished tuner. I still think he is still learning how to tune, and I wouldn't really trust him at this point in the game. All of his reviews tend to say he takes a lot of time with his tunes. One interpretation is he really wants to get a good tune and but I'm more willing to believe he is a 'trial and error' tuner and is kind of flying blind.

He may be a great tuner in a few years, but I'm not willing to trust him with my motor yet.

But thats just my opinion. Take it or leave it. (and I wouldn't trust everything you read on wrxfanatics.com either ;)).