Other Options to Hondata?

[Quicksilver]

I'll finally be dynoing my car on Friday at a place that also does tuning. They kept asking me if I wanted to get my Si tuned also or just baselined. Isn't Hondata the only company that has cracked the ECU enough to do tuning? Or is it a matter of the proper hardware and experience? If they can just up my rev limiter to 7700 rpm (with fuel cutoff at 7800), I think it would be well worth getting just that done.

The dyno result on a modified Si have been fairly lackluster from what I've seen, so I'm not seriously thinking about getting the Hondata reprogram. My car's got I/H/E, so spending $595 to get about 5 hp in the very uppermost rpm band and a higher rev limiter doesn't seen worth it to me. I'm just trying to find out if this place really knows what they're talking about or whether they're just looking to get some more money out of me. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Kurtis

[Mezri]

Baselined means doing one run (maybe 2) to just find out how much horsepower and torque you are putting down.

Tuned means doing mulitple runs over an hour or 2 and letting them adjust and play with certain settings between runs, trying to find a bit more power that may be hiding in your engine.

However, without any kind of fuel management, I'm not sure how much tuning can really be done.

That being said, do not underestimate the benefits of getting a modded engine tuned. A friend of mine took his supercharged (and ill-running) GSR to a dyno here in GA. First run was 184 HP, with an air fuel ratio all over the place. 2 hours later he was up to 205 HP at the wheels, and is currently getting better fuel economy than he did when the car was stock. He said it drives 20 times better than it did after first installing the SC.

hth