» Pre-Dyno Tuning Detailed Checklist

1. Your vehicle needs to be 100% ready for tuning when it arrives unless we have agreed beforehand to fix any known issues. All regular maintenance should be completed on the vehicle in addition to the items detailed in this checklist. Dyno Time and charged rate starts from the time you were scheduled to be here, if you are late, or the time your car goes onto the dyno, if you are early, rounded up to the nearest full ½ hour. Don’t stay up all night working on your car and expect things to go smoothly on the dyno the next day. Radiator fans need to be working on all street cars. All gauges or sensors should be wired up and ready to go. The motor should be free from leaks or excessive smoking. The cooling system should be properly bled. The car should be relatively clean and not full of rocks, dirt, grass, mud, etc. that will fall off of the vehicle and onto the dyno roller on the shop floor.
2. Our main objective is to tune the vehicle, not to fix mechanical or electrical problems. We may be able to fix some minor problems during the dyno session, but it may incur an additional charge. If your car is not in proper working order, you may be asked to bring it back once the repairs have been completed. Customers will be charged for any tuning or labor and diagnosis time.
3. We do not recommend bringing your kids, girlfriend, boyfriend, family member, or other non-car enthusiast friend. Dyno tuning can take many hours and they will mostly likely be bored or driven crazy by the noise. The shop is also not a playground for your kids to explore. Any damage, or injuries caused by or incurred by your kids, girlfriend, boyfriend, family member, or other non-car enthusiast friend will be your responsibility. The dyno is very loud – bring hearing protection if you plan to stay for an extended period.
4. If we will be operating the vehicle on the dyno the seat must be able to move back far enough and accommodate a larger person. It may be necessary to have an owner or associate of the owner of the vehicle operate the car if we cannot physically fit into the vehicle to operate it for tuning purposes. If you are dropping the vehicle off, we recommend reinstalling a stock OEM driver’s seat if possible. Remove any items from the passenger seat/floor. We usually need some room to setup our laptops and other equipment. Also, we often need to access the ECU so any panels should be removed such that access is feasible.
5. We will need to connect to an ignition source or install an optical sensor that can view the crankshaft pulley for diesel applications in the engine bay. Remove or be ready to remove any engine covers or wiring covers that will allow access to the coils or crank pulley in the case of diesel applications.
6. Make sure the vehicle is either equipped with the OEM Tow Hooks or a safe alternative we can strap to. We need to be able to strap the vehicle down in a timely manner. There can be additional difficulties on vehicles with body kits, or low hanging charge pipes, down-pipes, dump tubes and/or exhaust systems.
7. Vacuum Lines – Secure all vacuum hoses on boosted vehicles with clamps or zip ties. A vacuum line popping off your FPR during boost could mean the end of your motor. The lines and ports on many factories non-turbo cars were not designed to handle boost and might need lines to be secured.
8. If your car spills excessive fluids on the dyno/shop floor, you will be charged a minimum ½ hour of shop time to clean and up to the actual time it takes to clean up said spill at the dyno time rate rounded up to the nearest full ½ hour.
9. Please don’t help yourself to our tools, shop supplies or equipment unless you are given permission to do so.
10. Tires and Tire Pressure – Make sure all driving tires are at a proper pressure and equal. 25-40psi usually works the best on the dyno. Don’t come with sand paddles on your drive tires. We can operate the vehicle with drag radials or slicks on the car at your discretion and if necessary. We accept no liability for any tire damage, but if the tires are slipping on the dyno, we won’t be able to properly tune the vehicle. Make sure your wheels are properly torqued down.
11. Fuel filters – Replace your fuel filter if it has 30,000+ miles on it.
12. Fuel – Come in with at least half a tank of gas, unless we are going to be doing tunes on 2 different fuels. Tune on the gas that you are going to run the car on. Don’t put in octane booster, if you aren’t going to run it all the time. Don’t tune on one brand or octane of race gas and expect to be able to run fine with a different brand of race gas. If you are tuning on pump gas and have had any race gas in the car recently, make sure to run through 2-3 entire tanks of pump gas to get any mixed in race gas out of the system. If your car has been in storage or sitting for a while, make sure to drain the fuel and put in fresh gas. If we must put fuel in your car you will be charged for the fuel and time to do so. Ensure your fuel pump, injectors, and lines are all sufficiently sized to accommodate the power level your vehicle is capable of.
13. Clutch – Make sure that your clutch isn’t slipping and that it will hold the power that you want to make. We have had to cut short many tuning appointments due to slipping clutches a couple hours into tuning. Also, make sure your clutch pedal is properly adjusted with a small amount of free play such that the clutch isn’t dragging and is fully engaging.
14. Check Engine Lights – If you have any check engine codes, fix them before your tune or contact us about them. Don’t just assume it’s an unimportant rear O2 sensor code.
15. Misfires – If your car has an ignition problem for a bad coil, bad wires, bad ground, bad igniter or some other problem and it is breaking up under load, then we won’t be able to get a good tune. Some misfires are tune related and can be fixed during your dyno session, but a tune won’t fix physical problems with the ignition system. Make sure you have a fresh set of spark plugs handy to swap in if we do run into ignition breakup/misfire.
16. Do a compression test – Make sure your engine compression is where it should be for your compression ratio and that all the cylinders are within 15psi of each other.
17. Boost/Vacuum Leaks – Check your car for boost leaks. This is very important on cars with a MAS/MAF setup. Any leaks will affect tuning and power output. Fixing a boost leak on a MAS/MAF car after it has already been tuned will result in it running leaner during boost, which isn’t a good thing. Speed density cars like a most standalone systems will run with huge boost leaks, but they will lose power because the turbo is having to work much harder. Any boost/vacuum leaks after the throttle plate will cause idling issues on a MAS/MAF or speed density setup.
18. Turbo Wastegate – Have the right spring and right size wastegate for your setup. You can’t run boost lower than the wastegate spring, even with a boost controller. Having too small of a wastegate can cause uncontrollable boost creep. Running lower boost or having a bigger displacement motor will require a bigger wastegate than someone trying to run higher boost or with a smaller motor. It has nothing to do with power. Don’t get a 6psi wastegate spring, if you are trying to run 20+psi. A manual boost controller can usually increase the boost to around twice that of the spring. An electronic system that pushes boost to the top port of the wastegate might be able to do 2-3x the wastegate spring
19. Timing Belt – Triple check your timing belt alignment before coming in for tuning. Have someone else check it also, if you are not sure. Just because the car seems to run okay, doesn’t mean that the timing belt is on correctly. We can’t tune a car with the timing belt installed wrong and we often don’t have time to fix it immediately.
20. Degree your cams if you have aftermarket cams and adjustable cam gears. This isn’t the same as lining up the OEM marks on the crank and cam gears. Degreeing cams means setting the cam timing relative to the spec card provided with your cams via adjustment to the adjustable cam gears and usually requires a degree wheel and a dial indicator. We can proceed from the cam spec card settings to try other cam settings and how they may affect performance if you would like while tuning, but this can be a time consuming and tedious process. If a different cam setting is decided upon, other tuning work will need to be repeated as cam timing directly affects the VE through a motor. If you have aftermarket cams and gears and have not degreed the cams, or want the settings done on the dyno only, this will take even more time and cost more money.
21. Check and adjust your valve lash before coming to the dyno.
22. Timing Covers & Crank Pulleys – On cars with adjustable cam angle sensors or distributors we usually need to set the base ignition timing. It needs to be possible to see the crank pulley and timing marks to set the timing. This means we need the lower timing cover installed and a crank pulley with proper marks also installed on the vehicle.
23. Spark Plugs – Run the correct heat range plug and gap for your application. A boosted car will need a much tighter gap than an all-motor setup. If you don’t know what plugs to run or what to gap them at, give us a call. Bring an extra set with you to the dyno.
24. Fluids – Make sure your oil is at the proper level, do not overfill, and your cooling system is full and bled. Fix any oil, coolant, or transmission fluid leaks. If your engine oil and filter have more than 3000 miles on them, then please replace both.
25. Cooling – The car needs to have a perfectly working cooling system with fans. We have dyno fans, but they may or may not be enough to keep a car cool if the cooling system is fundamentally flawed mechanically, or airflow into the cooling system is blocked by body work. WE CAN’T TUNE A CAR THAT IS OVERHEATING. Don’t expect a stock cooling system designed for a 120HP car to work on a boosted car making two-three-four times that or more. You should have a properly functioning thermostat! Pressure test your cooling system to a minimum of 3psi above your rated cap pressure to find any leaks that may show up under operating conditions. Test your cap to ensure it holds the pressure it should. Make sure to have an overflow bottle for the cooling system so to not spill coolant on the dyno. On cars with no thermostat – there should be complete control of the fans by the ecu to maintain temperature while on dyno. A vehicle that operates too cold, or with inconsistent coolant temperatures can be almost as much of an issue to tune as one that overheats. For 3SGTE Toyotas – please only have OEM or OEM style and construction premium aftermarket thermostats (Tom’s, TRD, Mishimoto).
26. Battery/Alternator – Make sure your battery isn’t weak and that your alternator is producing the correct voltage. Battery voltage can greatly affect your fueling and ignition strength. A battery that requires a jump every time you start the car can cause problems during WOT tuning. The charging system should be delivering a consistent 13-14.5 volts while running in all rpm ranges.
27. Wiring – Solder or properly crimp all connections. Don’t have any exposed wiring or solder joints. Heat shrink or tape over any bare wire. Don’t just twist and tape connections, especially any important sensors or injector wiring. If you are trying to run peak/hold or low impedance fuel injectors on an ECU designed to run high impedance injectors, then make sure to wire in a drive box, resistor box, or resistors before coming to your dyno appointment. We usually don’t have time to do a proper install at the time of your dyno appointment.
28. Make sure your fuel pump is getting good voltage. Small stock wiring can cause large voltage drops under high load. A fuel pump rewire is a very common mod on some kinds of cars. Low voltage through small gauge stock wiring can lead to not reaching the full potential the pump is capable of.
29. Exhaust – Fix any exhaust leaks. Leaks near your O2 sensor can cause idle and fueling problems and lead to incorrect Air/fuel ratio reporting. Leaks before your turbo will increase lag and lower power output. If you have a tuning system or setup that requires us to put our wideband O2 sensor directly into your exhaust system, make sure your stock O2 will come out or have an extra bung welded on, and make sure the opening into the pipe is as big as the bung. A stock O2 sensor will often fit, while a wideband won’t. With a lot of vehicles, we can use a tailpipe sniffer, but if you have a standalone engine management, open exhaust system, or non-functioning stock O2 sensor then it is sometimes best to install the O2 sensor into the exhaust.
30. If you are interested in any additional sensor readings while the vehicle is operated on the dyno, be ready to have those sensors installed and wired. Contact us for any questions related to sensor datalogging on dyno.
31. Be sure to know what ecu you have, what tuning software you require, and what interface devices we may need to tune your vehicle.