How To Become A Dyno Tuner

A Collection of Resources For Becoming A Dyno Tuner

This page contains a collection of web pages I have selected to give you an overall understanding of a career as a dyno tuner, but first, a few brief points to consider.

If you enjoy working on engines, and high-performance vehicles, then this is a career option you may want to consider. In addition to tuning vehicles, there is a demand for motorcycle dyno testing.

You’ll be working with owners of high-performance vehicles that want to squeeze as much horsepower out of their engines as possible. You could also be working with owners of vehicles that need troubleshooting. A dyno AKA dynamometer is an option to find the problems. It provides conditions similar to driving on the road and allows the technician to view what the sensors are reporting under different engine speeds.

A dyno tuner is expected to fine-tune an engine to optimum levels. Dyno tuning is expensive, and people expect results.

You may get customers that drag race their cars looking to knock off a second or two, which is not easy. As a tuner, you need to know ways to get results by adding other components. You’ll also be tuning vehicles without adding new optimization parts to improve speed and horsepower.

The key formula is, horsepower = Torque x RPM / 5,252

Types of Dyno’s

Engine Dyno

An engine dynamometer is a system that allows you to test an engine and fine-tune it when it is out of the vehicle.

This type of dyno is excellent for new and rebuilt engines because it’s easier to tune an engine when it’s out of the vehicle, especially when you’re performing mechanical upgrades such as headers changing a cam, replacing heads, etc. This type of dyno is suitable for engine builders.

Chassis Dyno

A chassis dyno is one of the more popular ones and the easiest to set up. The vehicle pulls into a bay where the dyno is set up. The wheels that deliver power are set on the dyno roller. The vehicle is strapped down so it doesn’t move when the wheels spin the roller. The Dyno is connected to the vehicle to receive readings into the computer. Fans and exhaust outlets are in place, so the garage does not fill with exhaust fumes.

A driver sits in the car, puts it in gear, and brings the RPMs to different levels for testing. The computer measures speed, torque, RPMs, and sensor readings, such as the air-fuel ratio.

It’s important to test a vehicle before making any changes and recording those results. Once you have fine-tuned your settings, you will test the vehicle again to see how much improvement has been made. You keep doing this until you reach the optimization levels you want.

Hub Dyno

A hub dyno works like a chassis dyno but is connected directly to the power hubs of the vehicle. The setup takes more time and effort to set up, and you need to change adaptors according to the vehicle because not all hub patterns are the same.

The benefit of a hub dyno is with high-performance vehicles over 800 Horsepower, the traction on the chassis dyno will begin to slip, resulting in an incorrect reading. The hub dyno is secured to the hub; therefore, there is no traction loss, and you’ll get accurate readings.

Motorcycle Dyno

The difference between a motorcycle dyno and a chassis dyno is similar. A motorcycle dyno is a lot smaller and is designed to fit a motorcycle.

Enhancing Engine Performance:

In simple terms, an engine is an air pump, and the more air in fuel you can push through it, the more horsepower you can gain.

When it comes to enhancing an engine’s performance, you have to consider air, fuel, and spark. You adjust these ratios to the best combination to improve horsepower and speed.

Today’s vehicle systems are controlled by computers allowing a tuner to modify the programs and enhance performance. There are some ready-made performance settings that you can use, but as a dyno tuner, you will have more success by fine-tuning each engine accordingly.

EIS (Electronic Ignition Systems)

An ignition system is what ignites the air-fuel mixture in the combustion chamber of an engine. The spark must occur when the air-fuel ratio is compressed and the valves are closed. Before electronic ignition, you would adjust the timing by setting the distributor manually. A mechanical advance mechanism would advance the ignition timing at higher speeds and retard the ignition timing at lower speeds.

Today’s EIS is advanced, and as a tuner adjusting the ignition timing at various speeds will optimize engine performance.

EFI (Electronic Fuel Injection)

In the old day’s air-fuel ratios were adjusted by adjusting a carburetor. You could adjust the air-fuel mixture to improve performance. You could only use one adjustment, so it wasn’t the optimal solution for all speeds.

Today’s fuel injection controlled by software will allow you to adjust ratios differently for different loads on the engine. Electronic fuel injection systems are complex and something you’ll be working with frequently to enhance engine performance.

You could start with a ready-made enhancement and improve on that. In addition to software enhancements, you can make mechanical upgrades to increase horsepower. Components that can increase horsepower include:

Compression Ratio

For combustion to occur in an engine, the air and fuel must be compressed. Once it’s compressed, the ignition system ignites the fuel and air mixture.

When you increase the compression ratio, you can improve the combustion force that pushes the piston down the cylinder, resulting in more power.

You can increase compression by reducing the size of the combustion chamber. Changing pistons, connecting rods, and milling cylinder heads will all reduce the size of the combustion chamber resulting in a higher compression ratio.

Camshaft

Changing the camshaft to a high-performance cam allows the valves to open more, allowing more air to flow through the engine during the intake and exhaust strokes.

The more air that can flow through the engine, the more power you can get from it. With a high-performance camshaft, you may get a rough idle, but high-performance car owners don’t care about the rough idle.

Valve and Lifters

You can get more air and fuel through the engine by changing the valve, lifters, and springs. An engine rotates at thousands of RPMs, and the valve springs are not strong enough to close the valves at high RPMs. Installing high-performance valves, springs, and lifters allows an engine to operate at higher RPMs while ensuring the valves are closing at those speeds.

Intake and Exhaust Ports

You can increase airflow by expanding the intake and exhaust ports on the cylinder heads and intake manifold, also known as porting, to increase airflow.

Exhaust

By enhancing the exhaust system of an engine, you can allow more air to exit the engine, increasing horsepower and speed. Most stock engines share exhaust ports on the manifold, reducing the amount of air exiting the engine. One way to enhance this is to use headers, which have an exhaust port for each cylinder.

Turbocharger

A turbocharger works by using the exhaust flowing out of the engine to spin a turbine which pushes more air through the intake system resulting in higher horsepower. Turbocharged engines provide an instant boost the driver can feel during quick acceleration.

Blower

A blower works like a turbocharger but is driven by the engine rather than the engine’s exhaust. A blower is mostly used for high-performance engines and drag racing.

High-Performance Parts

You can enhance an engine’s performance using bolt-on parts, for example, purchasing high-performance heads that come with expanded ports, high-performance valves, and valve springs.

When adding bolt-on parts, consider if other systems are compatible. Will you need to add a new camshaft, roller lifters, etc. And will the old part like pistons handle the new horsepower? Or do you need to update those parts? When upgrading parts, you need to look at the compatibility with other systems.

Conclusion

Well, that’s it’s for a brief overview of engine tuning. If you decide to go into this career, you’ll go into many fine details of the sections mentioned above.

Career Considerations

As with any career you may be considering, it’s always a great opportunity to shadow someone in the field. If the option of shadowing isn’t available, see if you can find someone you can interview to get a sense of what your life will be like if you choose this career.

Look at the resources I have included in this post for someone interested in a career as a dyno tuner.