Jon(m600)

How did you become what youve come? Where did you learn the art of tuning cars ie did you learn from someone else in a apprenticeship and when you went to college was you jonny swat pants(top of your class) Serious Question for the likes of Stu,Martin,Karl,Mark and anyone else who ive forgot

Stavros

Id say almost all come from some sort of mechanical background that was non tuning related so knew how to get round a car with a spanner, and tuning stuff they learnt and picked up over the years from being interested in it and just having a mind for it.

Unfortunatley I got a tuning mind (i think i can spec a car far better than a lot of so called tuners) but i aint no mechanic

Jon(m600)

Yeh steve thats what i thought,But there must be a defining moment where the likes of say Mark Shead thinks Hmmmm I seem to be Quite handy with an engine......err 600bhp anyone

Stavros

I think its just a build up isnt it, starts off small, making themselfs a mad car that gets well known, doing work for mates, gets even more well known, and so on and so on till they a full bore business.

Often usualy start owning or working for a "normal" garage or breakers or whatever and the work becomes less and less fixing and more n more tuning.

Practicly all the tuners i can think off started out like that.

Then you got Paul Hills, Tommy Field, etc etc who started out and was trained at Mountune so always been in the tuning side of things...

Itl be good to hear some tuners life storys tho, tho i know most of them wierdly enough, lol

Fozy

been wondering the very same thing. I'm a fully qualified Engineer working for a car company or trained me in every aspect of a car from mechanics to electrical system, but never got my head around ECUs. Trying to understand now, but struggling to start.

All strories are v interesting i reckon

Jon(m600)

Thats what i mean,is there some unknown gurus out there who teach there skills to the likes of stu ect ect also simon norris aint that old and hes probably the daddy of evos so where did he learn so young

ECU Monitor Enthusiast

iTrader: (1)

Its all done by trial and error from my personal experience !
Took me about 3 years to get the hang of it fully (and properly)
I dont tune cars proffesionally but had to learn in order to design my ECU's.
Its like anything else, the more experience you get the better you become.

Stu @ M Developments

iTrader: (12)

Evening,
Well, i cant speak for anyone else, but heres a brief history of my life;

Left school and went to college to do what id always wanted to do, become a fuel injection technition. I went to Blackburn college in my old Datsun Cherry and after a two year course with various YTS placements i qualified as a basic mechanic and progressed to a ful blown level 5 fuel injection technition. With this qualification i went to work at a quite high profile place in Preston and earned 5p per hour less than a pal who was doin some part time work at McDonalds

I then roamed various Ford Dealers including Blackpools then Rs Dealer, Thomas Motors, and this is where the Cossie interest grew stronger...

After a couple of years i grew tired of working for fook all and took a job at Blackpool Pleasure beach and made a years worth of proper money working 95+hrs per week and used the money to get me and the missus on our feet and bought the first car i was ever to modify, a vaux Cavalier 1.6L which i proceeded to fit 40s, Blydenstien head and exhaust too, rock hard springs and dampers etc... totally ruined a nice road car as you do when your young and i started doin the same for mates and other people as word spread cos the thing that made these sheds stand out (Apart from the rust ) was they were pretty quick...

Ultimately i started a tuning company working from home off my driveway "Redline car Conversions" was born

This ultimately led me into the performance trade and to where i am now.

The thing with this business is its fundamentally different to "garage work" and we are NOT mechanics. To be a tuner requires an understanding of internal combustion engine fundaments that a good mechanic can only dream of, and i say that with the upmost respect to the mechanics amongst you. I truly do believe the way we work is as different as a carpenter and a plumber.

Ask a good mechanic how many Milliseconds are available to inject fuel at 6000rpm on your average engine.

Ask him then what the best Air fuel ratio is for brisk acceleration without risking detonation.

Ask him how to determine the compression ratio of an engine to within a 100th of a ratio.

Ask him why we have to advance the spark at part load and retard at full load, or advance as revs increase.


He most likely wont have a clue about any of those, and its not a bad thing because that is not his job.

As to how you learn the answers... tricky one. There was never a course for it to my knowledge and probably still isnt, but there are books and more importantly, there are ways to teach yourself. they are all pretty boring, as are most "Fundamentals" but when all is said and done, to better something, you need to know why it is how it is now, and what your changes are going to achieve... All you need to know is "Why" you do what you do. Its no good just knowing how to do it, you also need to know "Why" you have to do it

Mapping is simply a natural progression of this tuning.
Its not a black art as some folk think, remember the old kets in the carbs, and the bob weights in teh distributor? Well, we are still tuning in exactly the same way, its just instead of jets and weights, we are now using a computer

Home this helps Jon, sorry for waffling but im enjoying a beer as its my Birthday tomorrow.

K3V HA

Stu, interesting mate, lot of hard work there by the sounds of it!!

And happy bday for 2mo!!

Lee Reynolds

nice one stu

what ride did ya work on ?

GARETH T

it really makes me laugh when i see people who call themselfs tuners,, but they aint, they just know how to fit aftermarket parts (sometimes rightly )

alot of knowledge is needed,, something i aint got

frog

And most kids want to become firemen

Jon(m600)

Cheers for the in depth answer stu Ive always wondered where you tuners learn about mapping and stuff PS happy birthday M8

Stu @ M Developments

iTrader: (12)

Cheers.

brad

yes happy birfday guvna


ps gis a job