I'm looking at tune from GIAC but looking to be under 2k for tune price.

 

I'm not 100 percent on this , but I'm pretty sure any local experienced tuner can tune any modern car with their dyno .... These types of tunes are porsche tax free and are generally around $500. Plus it would be specific to your exact car, so might even be better...

 

I would love to hear what GIAC, FVD, EVOMS, have to say about this comment.

Maybe for a Mustang or Camaro I would take the risk, but when the engine itself it's the cost of a small house in Detroit, no I wouldn't let my local guy do it. I personally would like a well known, time tested tuner do it, BUT that's up to the consumer.

 

Well their opinion would be biased considering it would be advocating for their competitors.

Regardless, for 'peace of mind' and no budget, I can't disagree with you that the specialized tuners would be the safest bet. However it ain't exactly recommending going to Joe shmoe down the street either.

I had a corvette and the corvette shop near me deals with 110k+ zr1s all the time. They deal with all sports cars though, not just corvettes. Last I remember, their tunes cost around $500.

 

If you wanted low cost aftermarket upgrades you should have stayed away from a $150K porsche. I've always modified all my cars and was a bit shell shocked when I got my first one at the price of aftermarket parts. After all a cat back exhaust system uses the same amount of metal and takes the same amount of work to build whether it is for a mustang or a porsche, but the mustang system is going to cost you $750 while the porsche system is going to cost $5000+. In regards to a tune I'm sure cheap ones can be sourced, but the real question is are you willing to take the chance that someone reprograms your ecu and causes some sort of failure? I had an issue with the PDK on my tuned 2010 PTT and whether the mod caused the issue or not the replacement of it was covered under warranty because my dealer installed the FVD tune - if it wouldn't have been covered it would have been a $14,000 bill, the cheap tune doesn't look like such a good deal then.

 

I understand what you're saying however it's not always true. You can do tunes on just about any Benz (even the v-12's that cost $200,000) and pick up 70-100 hp for under $1,000 from even the best tuners.

Honestly $3,000 for a tune on the Porsche turbo is outrageous! IMO as well

Heck i did a tune on my Gallardo from the best in the bizz on these cars for $750
software flash is a software flash(reputable tuner/company) it's not a hard goods(exhaust/wheels) type product. You shouldn't be paying by price tag of the car to feel warm and fuzzy about it.

 

I'm not disagreeing with you about having to pay for the product based on the price of the car, but it's a reality I had to acknowledge when I started shopping for parts for my cars. Can you explain why a set of downpipes for my wife's S5 cabriolet cost $1500 and ones for a panamera turbo S cost double that? Or why an x-pipe which is nothing more than hollow stainless steel costs $1000, when one for a camaro would be $300? I guess that's what great - everyone is free to weigh the risk/reward on their own and make whatever choice they decide is best for them, for me spending an extra $1000 to get piece of mind of keeping my warranty in tact was worth it, to others maybe not.

 

Porsche and Siemens have put massive amounts of encryption on these DMEs to specifically keep the shade tree tuners out of these DMEs because many of them cause more long term harm than good. In terms of specific to your exact car, with the processing power that these new tricore DMEs have, that is a thing of the past. There are so many factors effecting the calibrations of these cars, every car will already have it's own very specific tune that operates in a specific way in every condition. This is the beauty of using a real DME calibration over a piggyback system that uses voltage resistance to manipulate sensor outputs to the DME.

There are basic flashing tools out there that will allow tuners to install "Turbo S" type OEM performance files into regular Porsche Turbo models to increase the torque limits and get a bit more power out of them. But even most who do this will charge a few thousand to do it. Porsche has gotten wise to this method on the 2014 models and blocked it from being an option, which is why GIAC is now the only company with a true software calibration for this model year.

Development for these took a large amount of man hours to develop our own flashing system. That was just to get up to the point to where we could tune them.

 

You're paying for the development abilities of the person tuning your car. Someone who buys tools to tune cars with the latest models, likely won't know the DMEs like someone who develops their own system and calibrates with it. The latest models are much more than just boost, fuel and timing map adjustments. Changing just those won't get you any power at all, literally. It's a stark contrast from your Gallardo, which is much more simple in terms of DME development/tuning. These cars are getting to the point, where even the dual clutch transmissions in them can really dial down the power or heavily affect drivability if the car isn't calibrated properly.