Originally Posted by craiGTi 
we've had a bit of this on our forum in the UK, and one thing that some people on there and here come out with i just don't understand....
it's all very well being all laid back about it sayin meh it's only a tool for tuning, i'm not bothered with willy waving and bragging rights etc - but thatsnot what it's about.
Firstly, i wholeheartedly agree that dynos are predominantly a tuning tool, and for consistent tuning you should be going back to the same one. However, we are all in the same game here...spending our hard earned cash on making more power, having more fun, more speed etc etc...
So, think of a scenario like this. You're rockin your stock 120hp de, you're bored and want some more fun, so after reading on here about certain spec lists, expected power outputs, 1/4 times, you save up your pennies and buy everything you need for say a pretty tasty ve build.
You painstakingly build that engine up; the shiny forged pistons, rods, race bearings, that pretty 4-1 mani and those monster cams.
Tune day comes and after your tuner wors his magic the dyno comes up with 160hp.
You, having read a lot of similar builds on here, were expecting 200hp.
Now it's all very well saying yeh but ifthe butt dyno says its fun who cares but i don't buy that. If you spent all that time and money on building something you thought was gonna give you 80hp over your bone stock de, but your dynos saying you only gained 40hp, I'm pretty sure you'll be left feeling a little short changed?!
Case in point is my own build over here in the UK, pretty common ve build for you guys...12.5:1 CPs, n1 cams, 4-1 header, 3" exhaust etc etc. Having seen plenty of these builds in the US gain 200whp i was expecting similar.
However, having not seen a single similar ve build in the UK when i went to have it tuned on my tuners dyno dynamics machine I felt a bit wounded when i made 173whp.
Now ok, i can console myself saying the dyno dynamics reads low, and it feels fast but i don'tknow how low exactly. Perhaps on a US dynojet i'd make 210whp, perhaps only 185?
Point is it still leaves me wondering if i should be looking into lost HP and if i am kinda shortchanged, or if everythings spot on and i should be happy. Sure, the car feels fun, but is it as much fun and fast as it could/should be given the build.
I know i can look at a/f ratios, compression figures to see if everythings healthy but it still leaves me wondering.
Annyywwaayyyyyy, that was freakin long way of sayin not much, long story short i'm with the OP on the fact that, forgetting braggin rights etc, dynos should damn well be consistent so that we don't get these US vs AU figures comparisons, trying to work out what means what, so that everything is comparable and we know if our time, money and effort has either paid off or we suck at building engines and need to try again!
I agree with this. Also what sometimes occur is if the tuner is the owner of the shop and is having a hard time making gains they would actually manipulate the dyno into reading more whp to simulate gains. I've seen it happen here a couple of times.
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