Bama tune with pi swap ?

samsonhusky

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I just did the complete pi motor swap into my 96 gt. Runs great pulls hard. It’s auto with 3200 stall 4.10 gears and underdrive pulleys shorty headers and a off road x pipe.

the car runs fine no problems at all. Pulls a lot harder than before the pi swap.

I’m looking at getting the Bama tune as I see they claim to have a tune for the pi swap.

would this be my best choice in tuner?

I’m not looking to Dyno tune just buy of the shelf tuner and call it a day. Just want the best for my set up. Thanks for any future input.
 

lwarrior1016

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The best for your setup is definitely not a Bama tune. They have a reputation of not getting it right. If you want to try it, cool. Don’t be upset if it doesn’t run right or gets bad fuel mileage. A dyno tune is going to be the best thing for it.
 

Silver95bird

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i remember being told they encrypt their tunes so it forces you to go back to them in the future. That and the bama tunes I've seen seem to run pig rich. YMMV.

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88stang88

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My nephew had a 96 Mystic Cobra with 4.10's full exhaust, CAI and a BAMA tune and my stock 97 Cobra will just a cat back at the time pulled him. I am not a fan of their tuning myself. Like others have said they run rich and it seemed like it was actually robbing some power from my nephews car.
 

Boostr1

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I think that PI Tune is only if you did the H/C/I PI swap not for complete PI Motor swap. Cause your boosting up the compression on the NPI motor with the PI H/C/I swap there fore needing the PI Tune.
 

96blak54

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Any sct dyno tuner can down load you the tune on a handheld tuner. Either from their files or sct's files and they can taylor the tune to your add ons. Get with your local tuner.
 

RAU03MACH

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I have the Bama 4 bank on my 95
its ok
but I am going to get the MSPNP GEN 2 MEGA SQUIRT
 

joe65

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so i just picked up an sct handheld. from some of the reading i've done, i'm planning on using the Decipha guy on this website. He's kind of arrogant, but he know his shit. I was also considering the megasquirt, but don't care to spend that much right now.

http://www.efidynotuning.com/
 

apsmith49921

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You don't have any sort of dyno shops around? 450 for a mail order tune is slightly expensive imo

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samsonhusky

samsonhusky

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Not sure about Dyno shops, nearest I believe is about a hour away. And I doubt I can get it tuned there for lest than 400.

was hoping to do Bama tune and be done with it. Or maybe just use sct 93 tune for 96 and see what happens.

IVe heard one guy say he never tuned his after pi motor swap and run it for 32000 miles with no problems even had some track times with it.

He didn’t mess the motor up until he tried aftermarket cams. But that was 32000 miles later and do to cams he saying.

If that’s a fact I could just leave it alone and spin money elsewhere.
 

96blak54

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I believe you be fine with out tuning. The cubic inches stayed the same. The cams are stock with no difference in idle overlap. You did change the compression. Youve done nothing drastic to affect the amount of air being induced and i dont feel like a mail order tune will improve spark tables and such to justify the 10hp you might gain per dollar spent.
 

ttocs

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it will be fine with out it but there could be power to gain from it. But with that being said I would drive more than an hour and pay more for a dyno tune over the bama if you really want to get it done and be finished with it. I tried bama YEARS ago when I did a HCI swap on my 302 and all the bolt-ons I put on were in their drop down menus(trickflow heads/cam) and thought they should know but it was running so rich your eyes would water and it was back firing like crazy. after paying them for the chip and a worthless tune I limped about 45 mins away to a dyno to have them fix it.
 

apsmith49921

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Bama runs their tune rich for safety reasons. You can't tune a car in one shot. Its just not possible. Takes data logs and time.

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joe65

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My experience is that if you can log the motor running a good tuner can adjust as necessary just like a dyno. And if a tuner has seen/tuned hundreds of the same motor they can be pretty damn close.
 

ttocs

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My experience is that if you can log the motor running a good tuner can adjust as necessary just like a dyno. And if a tuner has seen/tuned hundreds of the same motor they can be pretty damn close.
are you saying bama has no excuse or that a dyno is just useless?
 

joe65

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Lol. Im saying when a car is dyno'd its logged and adjustments are made from the data. Just like driving the car, logging and having someone adjust a tune remotely that can be downloaded and used. I dont believe in "canned" tunes. So I think you get what you pay for when you buy a bama tune.
 

apsmith49921

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The dyno provides a safe controlled environment. The road essentially becomes the dyno lol. Bama as far as I know doesn't ask for data logging to adjust tunes. They just send you something that worked on another car and add some fuel for safety

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302hobronco

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I know my engine/computer set up is slightly different, but,. On my 94 after gt40 heads, comp cam, ported explorer intake, headers no cats,ect ect. It ran ok but was pig rich. Timing at 14 adv it pulled good but could tell it was laboring. Warm start up it would start quick but not want to idle for a minute or two after start up. I did the Bama tune after much research and not many options. So i went into it not trying to get more power but more smoothing under power and drivability.
Not getting into the whole it took a month to get the tune issue. I'm not upset with the results. It is still pig rich. But no cats so what do you expect? I can say in honesty the power curve is smoother, no fuel cut at 6k. Start up is crisp and it stays running with minimal if any rpm search. I went with the 87 91 and 93 tunes. I run it on the 91 and get a consistent 20mpg I'm running 5spd with 3:73s. I wish my obd plug was active I would have gone a different route but I'm not upset with the route I took. Oh and I've had it for close to 6 months and it's my daily. Hope that helps.
 

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