Why the Performance Tune is so Important

Over the years, we've had a lot of customers come to us with complaints about the performance of their cars, usually ready to spend considerable sums of money on performance upgrades. These complaints usually center around two areas: Driveability and acceleration performance.

The customers have often felt frustrated that they've made barely noticable acceleration performance upgrades to their cars while the overall quality of idle, acceleration smoothness, and steady-state cruise driveability has diminished. Many of these customers did not realize it is possible to have good drivability with performance upgrades. Good drivability is the direct result of a good tune by someone with the experience and tools to check and adjust engine parameters, ignition systems, and induction components.

Most of these customers have had rather mild engines. Even so, once the drivability concerns were addressed, they often were satisfied with the performance of their car. Others had a good baseline from which to decide what types of performance upgrades to make.

This is why we strongly suggest a good performance tune and dyno tune to start your performance upgrades for your car. Making a good plan from this baseline will yield greater satisfaction and likely lower cost in the long-run of your performance project.

How much does this cost? The tuneup will usually cost $300-600 depending on the parts and repairs needed. The dyno session, which includes dyno time at Baker Engineering, travel time, and tuning by Carl Heideman, is usually around $300-400. If you think this is expensive, ask us for some customer references--they'll all agree that this is the best performance value you can find.