FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Frequently asked questions
Oh, I love seeing this question pop up on facebook groups. First, a "protune" is a term created by cobb to signify that the tune is created by an authorized Cobb Protuner (someone they have vetted as professional and knowledgeable and trust to calibrate customer cars). I dont recommend talking to anyone that's a part of a different vehicle platform/community if they were "protuned," you will likely be laughed at. What protune is typically misunderstood as, is a DYNO tune. A dyno tune is where the car is strapped to a chassis dynamometer (or hub in some cases) and the tuner completes the tuning process in a safe environment where its easy to put load on the engine/or keep it at a steady state to target certain parts of the map! There are a lot of downsides to dyno-tuning as most dyno cells have floor dryer fans pointed at the car to cool it down (very inefficient and doesn't replicate real world, you would need a multi-million dollar wind tunnel for that), the perfectly smooth and balanced rollers also don't mimic real world roads either. Dyno tuning is safer, yes, but 90% of the time if a car is tuned on the dyno, the customer/tuner will test the vehicle on the street after the tune to verify everything. E-tuning is the EXACT same process, taking logs, adjusting based on logs and repeating the process until tune is complete. The benefits here are plentiful, real world conditions, real aerodynamic drag, you're the one driving in the environment and atmospheric conditions the car will see almost its entire life! The e-tuning process may be a little longer than a few hours on a dyno, but the ending result is the same if not better than dyno tuning. This changes a bit with high powered cars as tuning on the road can be extremely unsafe and high g's can make staring and focusing on a laptop a bit harder, so the dyno is a great tool there. The main downside from e-tuning is if you have a mechanical issue that is hard to find the cause in the logs and the car isn't already sitting in a performance shop equipped to diagnose! This explanation can go on and on, but that's the meat and potatoes!
Yes and no. I am focusing primarily on e-tuning for the next few months due to a recent knee injury requiring some extensive surgeries. I will be upgrading my dyno during this time as well to help provide even higher quality in-person tuning to those that are local! Street tuning can be arranged for vehicles that cannot be e-tuned. Contact us via e-mail for more information!
Essentially the flex fuel kit is just a sensor and module which relays the ethanol content from the sensor (in hertz) and converts to a voltage a connection to the ecu, which the calibration will automatically adjust between the 93 and High Ethanol parts of the tune (that contains high and low ethanol maps) for your measured ethanol content! This is still relatively new technology, before the flex fuel capability you just needed a calibration to run E85. In having separate tunes for gasoline and ethanol, the only difference is you have to manually reflash the correct fuel map on your accessport when you switch fuels, which takes less than a minute at the pump and very easy to do!
For FA powered vehicles this is called Stratified Warm-Up! Stratified warm up is designed by the Subaru engineers to make the car idle like crap (extremely retarded timing and wonky AFRs) in hopes to help break up carbon deposits caused by the direct injection system. It will do it for a minute or two, but throttle input should stop it. The cobb green speed update eliminated the ability to disable that function, but honestly its a good thing just in the chance it does limit carbon build-up, will increase power and reliability!
I only tune EPA and emission ready vehicles. High flow catted pipes throw codes but do not throw the car into limp mode, TGV/EGR/Air Pump deletes can cause issues for tuning - sometimes limp modes. It is your responsibility to know the laws and abide by them. With e-tuning i cannot physically see the car and tune based on what you tell us is on the car! (all aftermarket downpipes/jpipes tune the same way)
We cannot always accurately estimate how long it will take, but how many revisions. E-tuning is great for people to not only save a few dollars but work around hectic schedules. The length of time required to complete a tune varies based on the car, the mods, the type of tune, any issues that may arise, along with how available you are to datalog. E-tunes have generally consisted of anywhere from 4-10 revisions.
No, no part out.. Most of these tune or gauge related instances can be answered with the word document that is sent out before the tuning process. It has useful information from basic questions to maintenance and common issues. Knock is inevitable, dam drops are inevitable as consistent fuel cannot be guaranteed. Read through a recent post i made on Facebook that explains DAM and what it does!