So here's my situation, (my mods are listed in my sig) Do I get my 06 MCS tuned at a local speed shop using the dyno "Mines" tune for $1200 or get Jan to flash tune it @ MOTD for 1/3 the price.

I realize the debate..... a dyno tune & mines box "thingy" can tune my car for the maximum performance out of the mods I've had made.

But, if Jan has been tuning these things for so long and probably encountered most of the possible combinations on a MINI, well, am I going to receive or notice some kind of extra-earthly hp and torque? Or shall I say $850 worth of it. That's a lot of dough that could be spent upgrading the brakes or something IMO..... What do y'all think?

If it's truly going to be some kind of miracle tune for $1200, I'm all for it. I'll just have to save some dough. But if I can get a tune that gets me close..... mo money for mo toys, hehe......

 

Feel free to bring your car to Atlanta and we'll do a complete custom dyno tune here, it will be around $600 including the dyno time.

 

Though, it's 365 miles to get to you. Not that I wouldn't like to motor there, but add in the gas, a nights stay at least, and mabey a day or 2 off work depending on scheduling. We'll see though. Mabey I can leave at 2AM, get there by 8AM and still be able to get back home in the same day.

Will I need to get the larger injectors?

My exhaust is fully custom from the cat back. Upsized to 2.5" pipe from cat to a 4" round Flowmaster glasspack in front of the brace then a 4" round Flowmaster turbo muffler behind the brace (all in the tunnel) then back to an oval ss slash cut tip. Seem it should have just as much flow as most of the aftermarket catbacks I've seen. What do you think?

'Bout how long does it take for the whole tuning process?

Prish.

 

These are all good questions and good reasons to take your car to Way and have a custom tune.
Nothing against Jan, he does great work, but a custom tune will be better.
I'm a little closer but plan to take my car to Way and get the custom tune, because it is custom and I can get whatever parts or repairs done at the same time.
My concern with a canned tune is what if my car is not right before the tune? What if with a tune I want bigger injectors? What if it is as simple as needing a new supercharge belt? Way will take care of all of these and make sure you get a great tune.
YMMV.

 

Sorry, but $1200 for a tune is rape!

 

I don't know much, but I'd say having a custom exhaust is good reason to get a custom tune.

 

$1200.00 isn't just for the tune, it would be the entire F/A pkg.

As far as the flash tune is concerned, how would that work @ MOTD? Is someone bringing a dyno? Yes Jan could get it pretty close by you just spiritedly driving the car, but without a dyno or the ability to do 3rd or 4th gear pulls 2000 rpm to redline it wouldn't be as good as it should, and it would take at least 3 of those kind of pulls.

And again Jan could get close by just knowing your mods, but you will have to live with the fact that you just spent money to get it "close" and it will then cost you more to get it right.

It really needs to be done on a dyno, or over a long period of time on the street, no matter who you choose.

 

Thanks for the advice y'all. I wanted to make sure I wasn't spending $600-$800 more for just 5hp/tq or something. Looks like I'll be saving up for a trip to Atlanta......

And yes, the $1200 was for the whole Mynes "Black Box" dyno/tune. It just shocked me when I saw Jan was offering a tune for $350 or something along those lines for a flash tune (and the convenience of being at MOTD) when I was quoted $1200 for the other. Something didn't add up. I want to make sure it's done right, but that was a hell of price difference. I know you get what you pay for, but damn, if that's the case, I'll pay $5k for a tune and have 400hp/tq., right?

Thanks again. Hope to see you all at MOTD next week! We'll be leading the Harrah's Casino drive..... a few openings left... anybody? Hello?

 

Keep in mind that I'm "pretty sure" that the Mynes guys are easing out of MINI stuff..
Might be a reason for that!!! I do believe they are still offering support for the MINI but not their main focus...
Last year, Jan and Way both were offering "canned" tunes.. Not sure about Way but Jan's were about $400-$500 for an R-56 and $350 or so for R-53 if memory serves me right.

 

While a tune at the dragon will be a canned tune if you can get Jan out to your area for a tune party it would be a full custom tune. R53 tunes are $350 and dyno time is typically $100. A retune is $50 plus dyno time.

 

my rmw tune has served me well for over 40k

 

Or if you're crazy, do what I did and download your ECU's BIN, and hack it yourself. It can be done. That was the only way I made my car run properly (but I have a bunch more mods than you). I haven't seen a tuner out there yet who actually changes all the "proper" fields in the R53's Siemens ECU. I looked at the Bytetronic F/A pkg the other guy mentioned, but frankly it was a joke. When I went to their shop it was obvious they hadn't properly figured out nearly as many maps, scalars, and switches as they wanted people to believe, as you change half of the settings they offered and the ECU would go into "limp home" mode.

 

Well thats just special.

 

Well damn, what the hell do I do now? "Where, oh where, shall I get my tune done? Oh where, oh where shall it be?". I mean, who exactly does it the "absolutely correct" way, or is it ALL a gamble no matter who does it? Is it pretty much all subjective like most info on these forums? Starting to sound that way.........

And 4wheels, even if I could hack into my ECU, I'm pretty sure I'd not know what I'm looking at, what to change and the like......

 

If your sig lists all your mods correctly, you have a basic setup and a $1200 tune will be a waste. Basic CAI, pulley & exhaust mods are less than what a factory JCW setup changes, so you should be able to run a basic tune just fine. There's only so much anyone is going to be able to do with a few bolt ons. Just don't get tricked into thinking a huge change in throttle mapping (drivers request - aka sprintbooster) gives you more power. That just fools the ECU into thinking you're pressing the pedal more.

Most troubles don't seem to crop up until you go with large injectors or cam. Once you go a bit crazy with hardware upgrades the ECU needs more work that what any of the tuners I've seen understand. Let's face it, there's not a huge support base for these cars, and the ECU's are "different" in how they calculate fueling and people are guessing at how to mod it.

 

Get an RMW tune - you will not be disappointed.

 

Hey Colin, been a while... I think you'd be impressed with how much smoother my stroker runs with my tune. Even the clutch isn't annoying me as much as it used to, as now the engine starts off with more torque. The OS Giken clutch still chatters like an SOB (especially when warm), but at least now the engine has more torque so it doesn't die as easily when I start off. BTW I've got over 100 maps, switches, scalars, etc., figured out. The VE map alone has multiple maps, offsets, correction factors, etc., just to make up 1 VE table. Fun...

 

I've emailed several times and called and left messages but to no avail.

I was on the understanding he was doing tunes @ MOTD this year.... saw his signage on the cabin but never saw him or anyone doing/offering any tuning.....

I guess I'll just work on getting the upgrades to the suspension and brakes (I won the $500 gift cert. to TCE Performance @ MOTD Bingo). It's not like I don't have any power, I just thought I was "supposed" to get a tune to make the "most" of my mods.

Prish the advice y'all, I love having these forums for info and support. Y'all are awesome!

 

I talked to Jan a few times on Sat. He sat in his both all day except when he stepped out of it to connect to peoples car parked right in front of his tent.
He mentioned he was there all day Friday as well... Non stop tuning!!!

 

We were out on early drives most of the day both Friday and Saturday..... my bad...... Is there some secret way to get in touch with him when he's not at an event? Or is it hit and miss and just keep calling.... I hate to leave 100 messages on anyones VM and ****'em off

 

Keep in mind he also tunes a few races teams cars at the track, so at times he is out of town with them as well.. I'd leave him a messege or 2 and an email and wait to hear back.. With you being in NC and him in Cali are you buying the tuning device for him to be able to email you tunes back and forth..costs alittle more of course but might be best way to go... Got lucky as he has had 2 tuning days in Thomasville in the last 5 yearsm but not coming back anytime soon that I know of.. MOTD would have been your best bet for that..
What part of NC are you in?? I'm in Winston...

 

I'm in Hillsborough, just north of Chapel Hill & west of Durham. I had my mods done just outside Winston @ Sneed's..... great people and very helpful. But like I said in the original post, $1200 for a MYNES/ByteTroniK had better give me some kinda warp speed for that price considering what "other" tunes cost. I just don't want to pay $600+ extra for the same HP or an extra 1-2 HP vs. the other tunes. Absolutely nothing against Sneed's..... that's just what they offer....... and I'm sure I'll see definite gains, but $600+ worth of gains?

 

You definitely won't get an extra $600 worth of gains... when I went to their shop & poked around their system & asked a bunch of questions, I found they put more work into re-writing the OS layer of the Mini ECU which for all intents & purposes was to scramble their tune so nobody can see what they're doing. From what I saw, they put more work into that than actually making the maps work properly, and they still didn't have the VE maps figured out & were wrong about how much of the ECU operates.

FYI guys, part of the reason highly modified Mini's run like crap the longer you drive them (at idle & part throttle mostly) is that none of the tunes I've seen have found all the VE maps, so tuners change injector scaling (in most cases incorrectly) and 1 compensation map for fueling, and rely on the ECU to adapt the part throttle fueling close to LAM (and this ECU has poor resolution for learned adaptations, i.e. fuel trims). There are approximately a dozen maps you need to edit to properly adjust VE in these ECUs... There are also multiple maps for timing & knock correction, and compensation for air & coolant temp, which I haven't seen anyone tune.

 

Like I said earlier, that price is waay to much! Mynes is not nearly as experienced as RMW in tunes on Minis.

 

The extra cost isn't for"that much" extra power, it's for the ability to change things again when or if you feel the need, (ie. new parts) without having to go through the entire process that your now going through, over again.

But no, if it's probably a one time deal for you, then it may not be worth the extra cost.

As far as Mynes-vs-RMW, it's nothing more than a "he said, she said" that will most likely never have a definitive answer, both companies do what they do, well, and as in anything you will find people that have had both goid and bad experiences.

In a nut shell you'll just have to decide who has the product that "you" want at the price you're willing to pay.

Basiclly thats why I ended up where I did, not because I thought one was better than the other, but simply because one offered a product that I was interested in. I've run both companies tunes for over 2 years eachand had NO problems with either.