GTM Turn key or tuner kit... difference?

Originally Posted by Mike@GTM

Risk? Well, considering that there are few tuners that even come close to Sam's abilities with respect to forced induction systems on this platform, you are taking a huge risk by going with a Tuner Kit instead of our Turn-key Kit.

See, what most people don't realize is that Sam writes each tune specifically for the car the tune is for and he also considers the environment the car will be driven in. These aren't "canned tunes".

I'm not just saying this to sell more Turn-Key kits, I'm saying it because ultimately, it's in your best interest to protect your investment with a tune that will work extremely well out of the box.

Coming from the Subaru world, I cannot tell you how many times I've seen people drop copious amounts of money on powertrain mods only to cheap out on the most critical part: the Tune. Then they cry and complain about why their piston rings are fried and/or ringlands are broken due to all the detonation they've been unwittingly subjecting their engine to.

Another thing to keep in mind is that all of our kits use the factory MAF sensors in a blow-through configuration so that the ECU knows exactly what the temperature and density of the air entering the engine is. The beauty of that, is the fact that the factory ECU is capable of automatically self adjusting and learning based on whatever atmospheric conditions the car encounters.

For example, if you buy a car at sea level and drive it up to high altitude, do you swing by the dealership to get a retune? No. Of course not...the ECU adjusts itself accordingly. As such, the same applies to our tunes as well.

One thing I will say, is that whenever we build a car here at our shop, one of the first things we do is put one of our base maps on it to verify that it works like it should...and not once have we had to make any adjustments. Can we make a little more power than one of our base maps? Sure, but that's where the question of safety and risk come in.

See, whenever you get a custom tune, the main objective is to optimize the car for maximum power. Generally, they don't make the tune safer. They advance the timing a couple degrees and voila, you make more power. The problem is that if the custom tune is too aggressive with the ignition timing, you will be relying heavily on the knock sensor to retard the timing in the event that the engine detonates. That is a risky strategy especially considering that we are talking about a motor that was originally naturally aspirated and now has forced induction. Detonation under boost is far more devastating than detonation at atmospheric pressures.

Barring any installation issues, you will not have a safer forced induction system than our Turn-Key Kit offers. Our Turn-Key Kits make great power and work flawlessly out of the box without compromising safety.

As far as the fuel system upgrades that come with our Turn-Key Kits, yes, you can do better but at greater expense. You will not be able to do better for less, however. If you don't believe me, I invite you to price out the appropriate upgrades yourself and do the math. You really cannot beat the value, safety, or repeatability of our Turn-Key Kits.

Every other turn-key kit on the market either doesn't work, compromises safety or doesn't even come close to making the advertised power. Why spend the extra money only to have to get a custom tune to get anywhere near where you were expecting to be?

If you want a low risk, sure fire, turn-key, bolt-on forced induction kit, our GTM Turn-Key Forced Induction Systems (supercharger and twin turbo) are the only kits on the market that honestly deliver.

Originally Posted by Reality

I am sure that most with FI experience will agree, that a canned tune is only good enough for you to get to your tuners garage...
-Getting a custom tune from a reputable tuner is always your best bet.

Originally Posted by Baer383

You obviously have not rode/driven in a car with Sam's tune.

Originally Posted by Reality

You obviously have little experience with FI..Simply another
I know of a 370z that threw a rod running the same canned tune....

There are many variables that you need to take into account, and anyone with half a brain would want to get a custom tune completed..
-It baffles me why anyone that spends that amount of money, would skimp out on the most important factor of the whole process

Originally Posted by Mike@GTM

Risk? Well, considering that there are few tuners that even come close to Sam's abilities with respect to forced induction systems on this platform, you are taking a huge risk by going with a Tuner Kit instead of our Turn-key Kit.

See, what most people don't realize is that Sam writes each tune specifically for the car the tune is for and he also considers the environment the car will be driven in. These aren't "canned tunes".

I'm not just saying this to sell more Turn-Key kits, I'm saying it because ultimately, it's in your best interest to protect your investment with a tune that will work extremely well out of the box.

Coming from the Subaru world, I cannot tell you how many times I've seen people drop copious amounts of money on powertrain mods only to cheap out on the most critical part: the Tune. Then they cry and complain about why their piston rings are fried and/or ringlands are broken due to all the detonation they've been unwittingly subjecting their engine to.

Another thing to keep in mind is that all of our kits use the factory MAF sensors in a blow-through configuration so that the ECU knows exactly what the temperature and density of the air entering the engine is. The beauty of that, is the fact that the factory ECU is capable of automatically self adjusting and learning based on whatever atmospheric conditions the car encounters.

For example, if you buy a car at sea level and drive it up to high altitude, do you swing by the dealership to get a retune? No. Of course not...the ECU adjusts itself accordingly. As such, the same applies to our tunes as well.

One thing I will say, is that whenever we build a car here at our shop, one of the first things we do is put one of our base maps on it to verify that it works like it should...and not once have we had to make any adjustments. Can we make a little more power than one of our base maps? Sure, but that's where the question of safety and risk come in.

See, whenever you get a custom tune, the main objective is to optimize the car for maximum power. Generally, they don't make the tune safer. They advance the timing a couple degrees and voila, you make more power. The problem is that if the custom tune is too aggressive with the ignition timing, you will be relying heavily on the knock sensor to retard the timing in the event that the engine detonates. That is a risky strategy especially considering that we are talking about a motor that was originally naturally aspirated and now has forced induction. Detonation under boost is far more devastating than detonation at atmospheric pressures.

Barring any installation issues, you will not have a safer forced induction system than our Turn-Key Kit offers. Our Turn-Key Kits make great power and work flawlessly out of the box without compromising safety.

As far as the fuel system upgrades that come with our Turn-Key Kits, yes, you can do better but at greater expense. You will not be able to do better for less, however. If you don't believe me, I invite you to price out the appropriate upgrades yourself and do the math. You really cannot beat the value, safety, or repeatability of our Turn-Key Kits.

Every other turn-key kit on the market either doesn't work, compromises safety or doesn't even come close to making the advertised power. Why spend the extra money only to have to get a custom tune to get anywhere near where you were expecting to be?

If you want a low risk, sure fire, turn-key, bolt-on forced induction kit, our GTM Turn-Key Forced Induction Systems (supercharger and twin turbo) are the only kits on the market that honestly deliver.

Originally Posted by Baer383

Obviously you have no friggen clue to what we are talking about here

I have a Stage 1.5 GTM SC on my car now and it has Sam's tune on it now,and as we speak I log some data that Sam wants and send it to him if it is not right he changes it and then he check it again,Sam is one of the best if not the best tuner for these cars if your buddy threw a rod then the guy obviously had something wrong.
I had my car on Z1 dyno and made 445rwhp on the first pull and the tuner there check it and said that it's good and there is no reason to screw with it.

Originally Posted by Baer383

Read this you actually may learn something "Reality"

Originally Posted by Reality

You obviously have little experience with FI..Simply another
I know of a 370z that threw a rod running the same canned tune....

There are many variables that you need to take into account, and anyone with half a brain would want to get a custom tune completed..
-It baffles me why anyone that spends that amount of money, would skimp out on the most important factor of the whole process

Originally Posted by Mike@GTM

Threw a rod? Hmmm...do you have specifics on that? We are not aware of any 370Z with our Turn-Key Kit that has thrown a rod.

First of all, throwing a rod and breaking a ring land or burning a valve or piston ring have two completely different root causes. You should know that better than anyone here. The spindly little rods in your old DE motor would snap like toothpicks when subjected to over 400whp and that had absolutely nothing to do with tuning. Weak rods are weak rods.

Now, burning up pistons, cracking ring lands and the like are a result of detonation that is most likely a result of poor tuning or installation error.

Here we have a guy that bought our Turn-Key Stage 1.5 Supercharger Kit, installed it in his garage, flashed the car with our tune, took it to a dyno and had it verified. When they dyno'd the car, the shop told him it looks good and the tune doesn't need to be messed with. What direct experience do you have with our products that leads you to believe that a custom tune is required? Have you datalogged a car that got one of our Turn-Key Kits?

The tone you write with suggests you have vast amounts of experience with forced induction. That said, I really hope that your experience isn't based on stuff you've read on the internet...because when I went to my350Z the other day and I checked out your posts and threads, the most extensive mods you've done to your 350Z were a JWT Popcharger (for those here that don't know what that it, its basically a short ram intake) and a plenum spacer. From what I can tell, you've never actually done anything with forced induction. I could be wrong, but in all Reality, I find your lack of real world experience disturbing.

Let me just make something perfectly clear here. We are not against custom tuning. We do want our customers to data log their car after installation and the initial flash. It's in the instruction manual to do so. We also recommend taking it to a dyno and verifying the tune. This is to be SAFE. We don't like to take chances and neither should our customers. Check and check again just to be 100% certain. If a person feels like they would benefit from a custom tune, then by all means, go for it. Is it usually necessary with our tunes? No. As I stated before, most of the time, a custom tune is to make a little more power than our tune because we tune with SAFETY in mind. So, yes, our tune is going to be a little on the conservative side.

Again, these aren't "canned tunes". We are the only company on the market that offers this level of service. We want every single build to be successful and for our customers to be happy. We also want to offer people that don't have easy access to a tuner to be able to have a fun, fast car that they can rely on...straight out of the box.