Hib,
Although personally, I'd add the CAI and a quality performance exhaust and leave the tune alone. Because one won't get that much.
If you mean that as a blanket statement, for the most part, you'd be incorrect. Reality is that the aftermarket air filter assemblies (some of which are "CAIs") which actually work well require recalibration of the ECM MAF transfer table or they come with a modified MAF sensor which must be used with that intake kit. The only aftermarket intake kits which use the stock MAF and don't need any recalibration are not capable of useful performance gains, but they will separate you from your money.
As for aftermarket exhausts, I'd agree that most of them can be used without recalibration, but the really good exhausts may need a cal tweak to work best.
As for your blanket statement that one should "...leave the tune alone because one won't get that much" may also not be sound advice in all cases. While it is true that many factory cals these days are pretty darn good when it comes to fuel and spark at WOT, there are a number of other changes one can make that may improve performance and drivability. Changing the PE delay, changing the point at which PE is enabled, changing KR decay, changing cooling fan strategy and that's just a few examples.
Or better put it on a dyno so nothing is left on the table.
There is some calibration work where a dyno is a requirement, but there are others which are not. For example, not all WOT tuning has to be done on a dyno. In fact, in some cases, if all you do is calibrate fuel and spark for best performance on the chassis dyno, the engine may not perform well on the road or the track and you may even end up with reliability/durability compromises.
In short, a chassis or engine dyno is a tool and like any tool, it has to be used properly to be useful.
Unless one is very conservative, seat of the pants tuning could prove to be destructively expensive. Seat of the pants would have never told me to add .1.
Very few calibration changes should be made using a "butt dyno", nevertheless there are a few which can be done seat-of-pants, such as adjusting PE delay or changing fan-on strategy.
I screwed up by trying to make my earlier post brief and being too much in a hurry. I forgot an indispensable part of the calibration tool box–a wide-band O2 sensor. You can't calibrate without one. Some folks will run on a chassis dyno equipped with one, but most prefer to weld a sensor bung into exhaust ahead of the cats and install an onboard wideband.
Dyno shops tune hundreds of cars and really know what they are doing.
I disagree. Dyno shops which have good calibrators on staff are not as plentiful as you think. There are plenty of hacks who own chassis dynes. Several years ago I visited a shop which is fairly well-known for selling supercharger systems. When I took a look at their chassis dyno set-up, I was astonished. It was a single car bay, walls on three sides with a roll-up door. The dyno had been installed such that rear drive cars had to be backed into the bay. There was no way for exhaust to get out of the bay other than flowing forward, around the vehicle and out the roll-up door. Lots of "natural" EGR there for sure as the engine took in air mixed with exhaust any time a car was run. There was a lack of good cooling air flow, too.
Buy a computer, tuning software and a dyno is a better and safer ROI. However, one is still missing the experience. That being said, same as some of the group here are real good, some of the group at HP Tuners forum are real good also.
I agree, but you have the same problem wight he HPT forum as you have here at the CAC and that is: it's hard for the beginner looking for information to tell which forum posters know their stuff and which do not.
the Internet is full of idiots, the book smart and know it alls who enjoy saying nothing. However, there are some who are really good and enjoy helping others.
You got that right.
was rather silly, wasn't it? 
