Bob Rawle and his attitude problem.
05 April 2019, 10:20 AM
#91
My broken hatch is on its way to Engine Tuner next week for a full rebuild and mapping, which as shreksta has mentioned is all under one roof.
The only reason I did not use Duncan to map the forester is because the closest for me was SRR and they dont have garage services.
When Duncan mapped my first car he road tuned it, spent another hour on the dyno fine tuning then went out on the road for further tuning and checks. Took half a day, car was brilliant and faultless.
Unfortunately now I believe he does most of his mapping at Surrey Rolling Road from what I hear he never road tests the cars once off the dyno. This is second hand info, not personal experience so I'm happy to be proved wrong.
Also, I fully agree with the comments about basic health checks prior to mapping. It should be done every time, but I know isn't being done. I know Simon used to do this and turn people away without charge if there was an issue.
Unfortunately now I believe he does most of his mapping at Surrey Rolling Road from what I hear he never road tests the cars once off the dyno. This is second hand info, not personal experience so I'm happy to be proved wrong.
Also, I fully agree with the comments about basic health checks prior to mapping. It should be done every time, but I know isn't being done. I know Simon used to do this and turn people away without charge if there was an issue.
05 April 2019, 10:27 AM
#92
Scooby Regular
Well said hamzi
It's not the black mysical art that some tuners make it out to be!
£300+ for What is some times less than an hour spent on tuning is a p155 take!
I'm thick as **** but manage to tune my car with no problems,even on Bigger injectors.
Problem is most are too busy and far too greedy.
Ffs there is more of an art and at least proper qualifications for decent engine builders and they don't charge upwards of £300 and hour.
It's not the black mysical art that some tuners make it out to be!
£300+ for What is some times less than an hour spent on tuning is a p155 take!
I'm thick as **** but manage to tune my car with no problems,even on Bigger injectors.
Problem is most are too busy and far too greedy.
Ffs there is more of an art and at least proper qualifications for decent engine builders and they don't charge upwards of £300 and hour.
Thing is though i doubt the map you did is as refined or got as much potential out of the car (done safely) as a decent pro. (assuming a decent one of course haha). That's not meant as an insult, but someone doing it day in day out for years will build up an experience level you just don't have.
Typically experienced mappers come into their own when a car doesn't do what it should when its mapped and they have to fault find to sort it.
05 April 2019, 10:47 AM
#93
Well said hamzi
It's not the black mysical art that some tuners make it out to be!
£300+ for What is some times less than an hour spent on tuning is a p155 take!
I'm thick as **** but manage to tune my car with no problems,even on Bigger injectors.
Problem is most are too busy and far too greedy.
Ffs there is more of an art and at least proper qualifications for decent engine builders and they don't charge upwards of £300 and hour.
It's not the black mysical art that some tuners make it out to be!
£300+ for What is some times less than an hour spent on tuning is a p155 take!
I'm thick as **** but manage to tune my car with no problems,even on Bigger injectors.
Problem is most are too busy and far too greedy.
Ffs there is more of an art and at least proper qualifications for decent engine builders and they don't charge upwards of £300 and hour.
Do also remember that in a lot cases that £300 + will include the time being taken up on the dyno as most use someone else's
05 April 2019, 10:57 AM
#94
I hear your point bro but why dont you start doing it then? £300 an hour sounds like a decent wage to me unless youre on a 6 figure salary already?
I'm just trusting someone who knows a lot more about mapping and Subaru in general than me. I'm happy to pay them for this service. He didnt have to tell me 740s were (IN HIS OPINION) too big for my ECU, he gained nothing monetarily from it. What should i have done? just say nah mate i know better just map it anyway? again bro i appreciate what youre saying and kudos to getting them to work on yours.
I'm just trusting someone who knows a lot more about mapping and Subaru in general than me. I'm happy to pay them for this service. He didnt have to tell me 740s were (IN HIS OPINION) too big for my ECU, he gained nothing monetarily from it. What should i have done? just say nah mate i know better just map it anyway? again bro i appreciate what youre saying and kudos to getting them to work on yours.
I'm lucky enough to spend all day every day with my car so can take my time with the tune.
I wouldn't tune anyone else's car tbh.
Not all maps take an hour, i know some cars that have taken a day, yet the bill stays the same. It takes as long as it takes.
Thing is though i doubt the map you did is as refined or got as much potential out of the car (done safely) as a decent pro. (assuming a decent one of course haha). That's not meant as an insult, but someone doing it day in day out for years will build up an experience level you just don't have.
Typically experienced mappers come into their own when a car doesn't do what it should when its mapped and they have to fault find to sort it.
Thing is though i doubt the map you did is as refined or got as much potential out of the car (done safely) as a decent pro. (assuming a decent one of course haha). That's not meant as an insult, but someone doing it day in day out for years will build up an experience level you just don't have.
Typically experienced mappers come into their own when a car doesn't do what it should when its mapped and they have to fault find to sort it.
As I've said,a pure road map take a fair while just to work on closed loop fueling let alone the rest of the map.
I'll get there one day lol
05 April 2019, 11:03 AM
#95
If anyone reads Dave Walker's articles in PPC, you'll be aware of the number of cars that turn up for mapping with serious faults that need to be resolved first. When it's a relatively stock car it's easy to give it a once over and establish a baseline pull to identify any issues that need to be resolved first. When the car has had a lot of mods and previous maps, less so.
A lot comes down to what people are prepared to pay also. If I want a dyno booked for a whole day and a mapper to spend 8 hours fine tuning it both on the dyno & road (and back on the dyno), I'd expect to pay £600+ for the privilege. If someone is only charging ~ £250 then they will no doubt have other customers booked in for that day and I'm only likely to get a couple of hours of their time, regardless of how much work is actually needed.
A lot comes down to what people are prepared to pay also. If I want a dyno booked for a whole day and a mapper to spend 8 hours fine tuning it both on the dyno & road (and back on the dyno), I'd expect to pay £600+ for the privilege. If someone is only charging ~ £250 then they will no doubt have other customers booked in for that day and I'm only likely to get a couple of hours of their time, regardless of how much work is actually needed.
05 April 2019, 11:13 AM
#97
It's a very competitive market which drives prices down but should you be choosing someone to **** about with your engine based upon the lowest quote?
05 April 2019, 11:31 AM
#98
It seems to me that the money isnt so much what people are objecting to. Its the conveyor belt approach that seems to happen these days, ironically I have had a read of some of the old threads related to this at the bottom circa 2005 and people are talking about days not hours for mapping etc!
05 April 2019, 11:52 AM
#99
Scooby Regular
It seems to me that the money isnt so much what people are objecting to. Its the conveyor belt approach that seems to happen these days, ironically I have had a read of some of the old threads related to this at the bottom circa 2005 and people are talking about days not hours for mapping etc!
You get what you pay for imo, getting a map wrong can make your car drive like a sack of pish or even cost you your engine, for the sake of £100 or £200 is it really worth going cheap?
05 April 2019, 12:19 PM
#100
Some place won't entertain doing it that way, have 1 maybe 2 cars booked in on a day or tell the customer to leave it with them for a few days so they have time to fault find any issues that crop up.
You get what you pay for imo, getting a map wrong can make your car drive like a sack of pish or even cost you your engine, for the sake of £100 or £200 is it really worth going cheap?
You get what you pay for imo, getting a map wrong can make your car drive like a sack of pish or even cost you your engine, for the sake of £100 or £200 is it really worth going cheap?
05 April 2019, 12:52 PM
#102
It seems to me that the money isnt so much what people are objecting to. Its the conveyor belt approach that seems to happen these days, ironically I have had a read of some of the old threads related to this at the bottom circa 2005 and people are talking about days not hours for mapping etc!
Far too little time is spent on mapping in a lot of cases,of course it's not all about the money but value for money and a quality job is what it's all about imo.
05 April 2019, 12:56 PM
#103
Scooby Regular
makes you wonder why certain mappers dont dare post on forums like this one and 22b etc,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
05 April 2019, 01:06 PM
#104
As for the comments above re mapping conveyor belts. Sack that. If i knew that's how my car was going to be mapped, i'd look elsewhere. Andy Forrest was a 150 mile drive for me when mapping my RA on new injectors, FPR, turbo, FMIC and intake before. That was a risk running all that way but i'd rather that than whats been mentioned above.
05 April 2019, 08:28 PM
#107
Scooby Regular
My car took from 10am to 6.30pm to check over, map and road test. Total of 98 runs on the dyno. €450 all in and same with all the cars he maps. Very thorough and sound. He has mapped nearly all the subarus in Ireland and ISDC.ie
05 April 2019, 10:14 PM
#110
Scooby Regular
The issue here is the mappers are not doing health checks before mapping the cars, some will be happy to map a car with faulty mechanics and sensors, very few will refuse to map the car and tell them to get it fixed first.
This is the problem.
Tuning isn't magic, everyone has made it into some black art taboo, all mappers should achieve the same result in a gear 3 pull provided those mappers stick to a threshold of power:safety.
I'd never let my car go to a mapper who does a dyno only tune and lets it go.
I only know of 1 mapper who does a dyno tune + road rune and he also doesn't go around being worshiped like a subaru god.
Most mappers will do a high power tune, do a roughish map down low, because they are happy to let the closed loop fueling bring the afr's to the optimum level.
now what happens if the closed loop cant bring the AFr's to a stoich level ? smells like fuel and ****.
Mapping is way 2 expensive for what it is frankly, and that is the truth.
mappers are sending cars out in 2 hours and charging £300+
and you know why they can?
because your engine is worth, in some cases, more than 10 times that amount
Its a hamster wheel, so find someone honest, he may not be the best mapper, but his ego may be able to accept not being the best so he will take his time and give a ****.
This is the problem.
Tuning isn't magic, everyone has made it into some black art taboo, all mappers should achieve the same result in a gear 3 pull provided those mappers stick to a threshold of power:safety.
I'd never let my car go to a mapper who does a dyno only tune and lets it go.
I only know of 1 mapper who does a dyno tune + road rune and he also doesn't go around being worshiped like a subaru god.
Most mappers will do a high power tune, do a roughish map down low, because they are happy to let the closed loop fueling bring the afr's to the optimum level.
now what happens if the closed loop cant bring the AFr's to a stoich level ? smells like fuel and ****.
Mapping is way 2 expensive for what it is frankly, and that is the truth.
mappers are sending cars out in 2 hours and charging £300+
and you know why they can?
because your engine is worth, in some cases, more than 10 times that amount
Its a hamster wheel, so find someone honest, he may not be the best mapper, but his ego may be able to accept not being the best so he will take his time and give a ****.
05 April 2019, 10:34 PM
#111
I'm struggling to see the issue... are you annoyed that mappers map too quickly or because they charge a certain amount.
A **** mapper could take an entire day to do what Blamir could do in less than an hour, but they would charge the same. Just because someone spends plenty of time tapping away at a lap top doesn't necessarily mean they're doing a good job.
A **** mapper could take an entire day to do what Blamir could do in less than an hour, but they would charge the same. Just because someone spends plenty of time tapping away at a lap top doesn't necessarily mean they're doing a good job.
06 April 2019, 09:24 AM
#113
Scooby Regular
Really depends, experienced mappers tend to have a library of Map files for cars with various mods, aka base files. If a base file is very near it may not need much change. But that is the exception not the rule, you can have two bags with same mods, similar milage and the map from one wont work on the other.
06 April 2019, 09:58 AM
#114
Really depends, experienced mappers tend to have a library of Map files for cars with various mods, aka base files. If a base file is very near it may not need much change. But that is the exception not the rule, you can have two bags with same mods, similar milage and the map from one wont work on the other.
I'm now using someone else who at least for now seems to be on "my level" when I speak to him (in terms of entertaining, or talking me out of, my crazy/idiotic ideas), so I am hopeful good things will come from that relationship too.
On the subject of base maps, building up a library takes time and effort. The mappers didn't just download a load of maps from Ecutek and upload that to a customer's car unmodified. I have no gripe paying for a modified basemap myself, even if it only takes an hour to do (having said that, none of my maps have been an hour - shortest was 1.5 hours for a fuel change / timing adjustment), because the result is usually better than if they had to start from scratch every time.
Also good technical people cost money to hire - if they're great at technical stuff, they could probably earn decent money doing something else, so as a consumer, you have to compete with this too. Someone who can make (i don't know if this is true), say 50k as a permie a year doing something isn't going to do mapping for 150 pounds a day (or however much people want to pay for mapping), because it's not going to pay anywhere near the same, considering that they wont be able to do mapping full time, there's travel time, threads like this where their name gets dragged through the mud etc. They are not charities, and they have families to feed too, the same as everyone else.
Even though the comment earlier about "it's just adjusting some parameters and anyone should be able to do it" (paraphrasing) is technically correct, in my experience working in a technical field, there is a _massive_ difference between how good people are, and the solutions they build. There are always many ways to solve a problem, but some of the solutions are better than others, and having seen some of the abominations that "work", I would rather have the one that "works elegantly". Whilst the correlation between my field and mapping may not be complete in this respect, there is surely some correlation at the very least.
06 April 2019, 10:28 AM
#116
I don't think anyone's arsed at how much it costs for a remap,worth every penny and more when done right,not when it's a rushed/p1ss poor job and ultimately end up with problems.
You either end up chasing the tuner for map tweak/s,taking it to another tuner or living with a cr@p driving car which can be 'explosive' at times!
You either end up chasing the tuner for map tweak/s,taking it to another tuner or living with a cr@p driving car which can be 'explosive' at times!
06 April 2019, 10:31 AM
#117
Your paying for their expertise, it takes years to learn to do it propperly, as above to collect the correct files to start the mapping from.
some people just dont get it, they want everything for nothing, then when it goes wrong blame the person who they got on the cheap
and from dealing with customers in the car trade there just down right liars. they never tell you the truth.
some people just dont get it, they want everything for nothing, then when it goes wrong blame the person who they got on the cheap
and from dealing with customers in the car trade there just down right liars. they never tell you the truth.
06 April 2019, 04:19 PM
#119
Your paying for their expertise, it takes years to learn to do it propperly, as above to collect the correct files to start the mapping from.
some people just dont get it, they want everything for nothing, then when it goes wrong blame the person who they got on the cheap
and from dealing with customers in the car trade there just down right liars. they never tell you the truth.
some people just dont get it, they want everything for nothing, then when it goes wrong blame the person who they got on the cheap
and from dealing with customers in the car trade there just down right liars. they never tell you the truth.
what lies owe would you tell your mapper exactly ?
06 April 2019, 05:17 PM
#120
Scooby Regular
I’m afraid most of you chaps are missing the point. Assume you take your car to one of these clowns for a remap. It has a couple of mods but still on the standard map. They are supposed to copy that map onto their laptop and then get on mapping your car, charging you an arm and a leg in the process. So far, so good.
Then you go away and find that yout car is pretty much undriveable, stuttering, jerking and cutting out.
Wouldn’t it be reasonable to answer your attempts to contact them and if they can’t fix their mess, to at least flash your original map back and refund you?
Also on the subject of the map ROM library, you can always “dump” the current ROM on any Ecutek map on your ECU and with a bit of help unlock it and use it as your own. So, no it doesn’t take much effort or time at all to create a map library
Then you go away and find that yout car is pretty much undriveable, stuttering, jerking and cutting out.
Wouldn’t it be reasonable to answer your attempts to contact them and if they can’t fix their mess, to at least flash your original map back and refund you?
Also on the subject of the map ROM library, you can always “dump” the current ROM on any Ecutek map on your ECU and with a bit of help unlock it and use it as your own. So, no it doesn’t take much effort or time at all to create a map library