Opinion on when to tune
 

I've gotten bit by the mod bug and I have a Borla exhaust, k&n air filters and just installed a Z1 34 row oil cooler with protective wrapping (that is currently making a weird noise but I assume that's normal). I plan on getting California legal high flow cats, the Z1 cold air intakes and I may get a ecutek programming get and letting specialty z out here in LA Dyno tune it. I'm getting the the kit because idk if I plan on doing any other engine mods in the future that may need tuning. How hard is it for a beginner to tune a Z with the ecutek programming kit? I have zero experience.

If ya gotta ask, it's probably more than you can handle. A few tweaks (eg, throttle pedal curve) are easy enough for a neophyte but if you go messing with AFRs, etc, you can crater an engine if you don't know what you are doing.

That's what I was afraid of. So it doesn't make much sense to buy the programming kit, just take it to them or send the ecu to them every time I need a tune. I really want test pipes but I live in California and I was planning on swapping them out and retuning it myself (if I knew how to do it) every time I have to do emissions. Paying 300 every time I need to re-tune is a bit of a hassle. I'll just stick with the legal HFCs and have it tuned and be done. That or move to Texas.

Last I recall unlike UpRev you can’t tune on your own with EcuTsk unless ur one of their licensed tuners or become a sub licensed tuner under one their sponsored tuners. The advantage of having the EcuTek kit is u can do remote tuning with the tuner after u get more parts down the road. Even with that ur still gonna have to pay a returning fee. Remote tuning is more convenient and designed for those in remote areas that ddint have access to good/reliable tuners. You really get the best from doing live Dyno tuning. You can’t go wrong with Seb. I’d personally just pay the $300 for the live dyno tune with him and go back for a retune later on if I got upgrades.

A lotta members on here use ECUTek & have Sebastian@SpecialtyZ tune their cars by uploading a tune emailed to them.
You have to do some data logging & forward it to him & he’ll send you a tune.
Unsure cost or how many maps :ugh2:

It is 850 for the remote tune from Seb

With no experience, the chances of you screwing up something are a lot higher.
And if you screw something up that lesson is gonna be expensive (probably in the form of a blown motor).

Not to mention the fact that in order to tune the Z yourself you have to be a Master Tuner licensed by Ecutek and you have to purchase the 370Z tuning suite in addition to the programming kit. It's not cheap.

You don't have to retune every time. You can get the programming kit and get a remote tune. Have your tuner provide a tune for the car with cats/hfcs installed and one with tps installed. That way you'll only pay for the retune once. Then you can just use the programming kit (cable) to swap the tunes on the car yourself whenever you change out the parts.