I'm getting ready to put my cam in. As we all know a cam works better with a tune. I really dont want to spent the money for a dyno tune, but I guess I'm willing to.
As far as mail order tunes whos the best? PCMForless, TXSpeed, Nelson, any others I missed. I can go get a dyno tune from Futral, or Thunder. But how much of a difference is that? I want it all for nothing if you can relate, just looking for opinions thanks

 

Nelson end of story mine is awesome.

 

I have a nelson tune as well. Pretty happy with it. I dont know what i gained with it, cause at the same time i put it in, i switched from 20s to 22s so that hurt my times some. But hes a good guy to deal with, knows his stuff, and cheap to get a retune when you need one. Im going to need one here next week i hope when i order the fan harness, and add my ls1 fans. WIth the addition of the vette servo, my truck shifts really hard now, so i guess ill have him turn down some line pressure whiles hes at it.

 

I will say that Nelsons Mail order tunes are better than most others Dyno Tunes. Although I have heard of very good things from PCM for Less too. I couldn't speak on Thunder or Futral, never dealt with them. Best thing to do would be to call and talk to all those you are considering and see what they suggest or how aggressive they will tune it. Some shops seem to be afraid to go over certain amounts of timing or may not know how to avoid the KR with higher levels of timing and with the cam too, making it idle right can sometimes be tricky.

 

If you have the access to a dyno/street tune, that is the way to go.

 

I just got a Nelson tune about 2wks ago and I love it. I'm going to the track saturday to see how much it helped on my time. I don't know about the other tunes but I know I have never heard any negative feedback on the Nelson tune and that is why I purchased it. Plus you get 3 free tunes per year.

 

I was kind of leaning toward the Nelson also, but was wondering how much better he is? Also live about 15 mins from both Futral and Thunder, and think a dyno tune would be the best, but was wondering if Nelson or someone else's mail order would be able to compete with a dyno tune. That way I could save some $$$ for............?

 

I really don't much about the other tunes. You won't be dissappointed with the Nelson tune. You should give Allen a call and ask him about it. He will give you an honest opinion and tell you what is best.

 

where are you located? there are good tuners all over the country...

 

Yeah, I mean I'll be the first to tell you that I am a dedicated believer in Nelsons tunes. I have used another tuner that I will not post on here, and while it was a decent enough tune, I was nowhere near as satisfied with it as I am my Nelson Tune. Of course as BlownChevy stated, it is nice to have the option to have a dyno or street tune. Which is a big reason that I choose both of the tuners that I have used. I had a dyno tune from the other tuner and several mail order and street tunes from Nelson and as I stated, was much happier with Nelson's.

However, Futral and Thunders reputation precedes themselves, so I would imagine that they are both quite capable of putting quality tunes out there, just make sure that they will do what you are wanting and will go the extra mile to tune it like you want it as much as safely possible. A quality tuner should be able to tell you whats safe and whats not and tune it accordingly.

I will add though, and this is just an example of something I read in GMHTP or one of the chevy mags. There was a silverado SS that had a radix install done on it. This was the magazine that was doing the buildup if I recall and they contacted 2 seperate tuners for the install. PCMforLess which was in the same city as the buildup and Nelson. PCMforLess did a true dyno tune for the SS and Nelson did a site unseen mail order tune. They installed both and performed comparison tests for both tuners on the dyno. I can't remember the numbers put out, but Nelsons tune produced 1 HP less than the dyno tune from pcmforless. Pretty impressive in my opinion.