EFI Tuning courses: your experience

Any of you guys ever take any tuning classes? I'm heading down the stand-alone engine management path, and while I feel like I have a pretty good handle on the fundamentals, I think some classes on the process of tuning would be helpful.

I've looked at the following:

High Performance Academy, learntotune.com Multiple web-courses at $99-$229... Tuning fundamentals, dyno tuning, road tuning, Wiring fundamentals, etc. I like these guys. Looks like I would be spending some more serious money here though. I've watched lots of their videos and learned a lot.

EFI University, efi101.com Physical classes, which is a minus for me since the closest one is 1.5 hours away. Aimed more at people who tune for a living, with a price tag to boot: ~$1100.

FASTuuN, FASTuuN.com Only one web-class of interest at $250, but gets points taken off for the silly spelling of their name. I've watched some of their sample videos and they seem ok...

Any experience? Any value in taking the classes? As I said, I'm pretty comfortable with the whole efi thing... I'd love to save a few bucks on dyno time, but if I spend $600+ on classes then I'm not sure I'm really saving anything.

I did the EFI101 class shortly after they started. Yeah, I wasn't overly impressed since it was basically "add timing until it backfires and then go back." Maybe it was just the guy who was teaching it since I know back then there were a few. Perhaps it's gotten better since this was in the early days, but I would have been better off just reading more books and forums.

Buy a MegaSquirt and have at it! Best school you'll ever get. Hands on training!

out of the frying pan into the fire.....

Just do it, nothing to be fraid of, must have some basic electrical knowledge absolutely need to be able to read schematics.

Formulate a plan, make a list check it twice, post it here for review before you spend any money.

I was going to say search for any available tables via the net and just use the local road to fine tune the tables. It isn't rocket science but you do have to have basic knowledge of how engines work and have to be able to think for yourself.

I went to the EFI101 classes - the instruction was useful, but just comparing notes and hearing accounts from veteran tuners was even more important. It is quite useful if you work in the industry - for a hobbyist, the price could be a bit steep.

No experience with the other two.

I know this an old thread but I was looking for reviews of HP Academy.  I have found that once you sign up for one of their free webinars they will spam you constantly.

rande said:

once you sign up for one of their free webinars they will spam you constantly.

I found this to be true as well, but their free webinar I thought was very useful. If I were going to be getting much more serious about learning to tune I would take a hard look.

If I were signed up for a few hours of dyno time as a first-timer, I bet taking a class beforehand would more than double your effectiveness, and therefore is probably worth the price of admission.

The problem I see with a class like this is that you have no idea if they are teaching you right. There is no "academic achievement" award or plaque. Plus, if you fail to grasp the subject and come to have the knowledge they teach, there is no refund. They just take your money and say "not our fault, you too stupid". I would much rather spend that money paying an actual tuner to teach me in Person. If you give him money, he will try his best to get you to understand. 

Forget the tuning, the initial install/ troubleshooting to get these damn things to work as intended is a bitch.

Trackmouse said:

The problem I see with a class like this is that you have no idea if they are teaching you right. There is no "academic achievement" award or plaque. Plus, if you fail to grasp the subject and come to have the knowledge they teach, there is no refund. They just take your money and say "not our fault, you too stupid". 

Wait, you mean just like 99.8% of education done in the US today, right up to and including quarter million dollar private undergraduate universities?

In reply to Robbie :

Having never attended college, I wouldn't know. That's interesting. Sounds like furthered schooling is a bust. Glad I didn't go.  

wow you missed out,  I found out Scotch dosn't give as bad a Headache as Gin,  Don't be Intimadated by Pretty Girls,  Cars can be made to Go Faster , Horses Cannot. there's something about Series Parallel circuits,but can't remember what , Oh yea a Brick/block of wood CAN Fly. And Hydrocloric acid Goes Boom,when mixed right.

 Oh the Series Parallel thing,  Brush up on your Math.

rande said:

once you sign up for one of their free webinars they will spam you constantly.

I'm one of the owners at High Performance Academy and I just wanted to clear up / explain a few things.

While I wouldn't call it spam, because it's about a service that you signed up for a free demo of, we do send emails after the lesson has finished. One includes a copy of the recorded lesson for you to watch or re-watch, we also send a free launch control lesson and a few sales emails for those interested in going further but want to understand what HPA is and how it works.  Also note we do have a single click unsubscribe button on each email we send if you find the emails too much. We try to make the emails we send useful and interesting. We do have to balance selling our service with offering these free lessons so we can stay in business :) 

Regarding your reviews you can find at least 300 of them on our Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/pg/HPAcademy/reviews/

Trackmouse said:

The problem I see with a class like this is that you have no idea if they are teaching you right. There is no "academic achievement" award or plaque. Plus, if you fail to grasp the subject and come to have the knowledge they teach, there is no refund. They just take your money and say "not our fault, you too stupid". I would much rather spend that money paying an actual tuner to teach me in Person. If you give him money, he will try his best to get you to understand. 

We are now working on two things to help remedy this problem. 1, remote, one-on-one lessons where (once a student has completed the video theory lessons) they can use team viewer to access our engine dyno/engine with our tutor (via Skype) to start making their first changes. 2, we are also putting together a quiz/exam section to the website which will confirm that students have correctly comprehended the information. 

Regarding your comments about refunds, we have a 60-day full money back guarantee and we honor it 100%. We have never said "not our fault, you too stupid" and we never will, we are dedicated to helping all our students learn how to tune. Regarding your comments of finding a tuner and paying him to train you, we have found this to simply be unachievable for most people, good tuners are almost always too busy and too expensive to make in-person training affordable. It’s one of the main reasons we started HPA to provide high quality and cost-effective training. 

I hope that makes things clearer guys. We really do try our hardest to get accurate information either free or paid in front of peoples noses. The performance car industry has a bad rep and we believe that this is from a lack of easily accessible and accurate information :) 

If you are interested in learning more about tuning or engine building come along to our next free webinar, you will get a good taste for who we are and how we teach. 

Free Tuning Lesson Webinar

Free Tuning Lesson Series

Free Engine Building Webinar

In reply to Mezzanine :the world has sure changed. I learned how to tune by hanging around experienced guys( greasy) who expected me to keep my eyes open my mouth shut and be useful.  

If I asked a question it better be intelligent and show a basic understanding.  

They weren't being cruel or mean their time was limited and couldn't afford to waste it.  

Setting point gap on the magneto was my first chance and it had to work right or they couldn't race that night 

to get to that point I had to wash the race car, the tow truck, the trailer, tires, and heck their dirty T shirt if they asked me  

i washed greasy parts in gasoline and hand pumped up race tires.  

Life was great!  I loved it

In reply to senbilcock :

Of course you wouldn't call it SPAM, you are the one sending it.  When signing up for a demo it isn't stated that you are also signing up for other commercial advertisements.  Yeah, yeah, I know, you are in another country so the rules/laws don't apply to you.  A person shouldn't have to unsubscribe from something they didn't subscribe to in the first place.  
 

Thanks for your comment Rande. We have to follow rules like everyone else when sending bulk email. I've done research into the main spam legislation both here in New Zealand and countries we work in and believe we are well within our rights and the rules. 

You opted-in for our service (the tuning webinar) and we sent emails about that service, yes some of them were sales based (we need sales to survive to be able to provide these free lessons), but they were always about tuning. It WOULD be considered spam (in the eyes of the legislation) if the email we were sending weren't about the service you signed up for or you never had an opt-in relationship with our business. We then, following the SPAM rules attach a one-click unsubscribe link to the bottom of each email.

I can see that we aren't going to see eye to eye on this subject, so might just have to agree to disagree here. :)  Just so you are fully informed if you sign up for this free lesson or any of our free lessons we will email you, these emails will often contain free tuning lessons, engine building lessons, free content, and sales information about our courses. Also note that in one of these emails after the webinar you would have got a link to our reviews on Facebook about our courses, which I think was the original point of your post, we really are trying to be helpful here Rande. :) 

Hey, just wanted to drop in here and say that I’ve done the free HP Academy tuning webinars, and I also get their emails. 

Their webinars are awesome, and I definitely learned waaaaay more than I should have, especially considering the price (free). They’re smart people with good products. Plus, they support GRM, which is pretty cool, too  

Yes, they’ll send you emails, but I’ve never seen anything illegal or, to be honest, even rude. It’s professional, relevant mailings every once in a while to offer you tuning classes. And there is also an unsubscribe on every single one. 

I haven’t tried the other courses, so I can’t speak to them, but I did enjoy what I’ve learned from HP Academy. 

Trackmouse said:

The problem I see with a class like this is that you have no idea if they are teaching you right. There is no "academic achievement" award or plaque. Plus, if you fail to grasp the subject and come to have the knowledge they teach, there is no refund. They just take your money and say "not our fault, you too stupid". I would much rather spend that money paying an actual tuner to teach me in Person. If you give him money, he will try his best to get you to understand. 

would it help if a different professional listened to what they are telling you, so you have a second opinion of their teachings?

Wasn't one of the GRM Live events one of these guys talking tuning?  IIRC, I posted my comments on that after it happened.  I thought it was pretty good, but made a few corrections.

FWIW, I don't have a piece of paper saying that I'm  a calibrator, and my degree does not really go over the hows and whys to calibrating an engine.  But I have been one for over 20 years, and have my specialties....

I think it speaks volumes that hpa is willing to join and post in this thread. I get the feeling they care about their customers.

rande said:

In reply to senbilcock :

Of course you wouldn't call it SPAM, you are the one sending it.  When signing up for a demo it isn't stated that you are also signing up for other commercial advertisements.  Yeah, yeah, I know, you are in another country so the rules/laws don't apply to you.  A person shouldn't have to unsubscribe from something they didn't subscribe to in the first place.  
 

Are you also annoyed at GRM?  They send emails out every now and then that seem to be of a similar type. 

I watched the two Tune to Win DVDs when I was reprogramming the factory ecu in my recently supercharged 2002 Corvette.  They didn't cover anything that you wouldn't learn just by doing stuff and didnt cover the custom OS I had loaded with the boost tables.  EFI Live's web site and PDF starter files were more valuable.  I eventually ended up paying a shop to tune my car, because my time is finite, I don't have a dyno, and its not safe to street tune a 500+ horsepower car.  Or really any car for that matter.  For under $500 (less than the cost of the ticket I would get running to buck plus speeds on a public road) I got a car that ran and started like a stock car, returned decent mileage, and had no adverse effects other than making life a lot harder on the driveline components.  

Unless you are going from NA to boost, or doing segment swaps, etc, there isnt really anything too complicated about tuning a vehicle, all you are going to be able to do anyway is turn off all the dummy tables for regular fuel so you get max timing, make sure your VE tables are dialed in so your fuel trims are in line, and maybe eliminate some speed limiters or torque protection or turn off check engine lights or secondary air injection.