Newbie tuning on new modified angine

[drummerdad]

I have an 07 Dodge charger RT, with the 5.7 hemi and NAG1 5-speed auto. I have been lurking for a little while and trying to learn as much as I can. But I am worried. So I wanted to ask those of you who are experienced how you would proceed.

I have a brand new remanufactured engine (stock 5.7) in my garage. With it I have a ton of goodies. I have a torqstorm supercharger (6-8 psi), a nice big cam, non-mds lifters, huge exhaust (almost complete, from the headers to the silencers), and I have a plug and play transmission tuner (Its the TranZformer GEN1 ). All of this is planned to go in around spring or early summer. I will be doing the install, and I want to get all this in and running in about a 1 week period, maybe 2 if necessary. This is my daily driver, so it needs to be right when I am finished.

I bought HPtuners, and I am going to learn to use it, but it seems like a lot to learn at one time. I dont want to mess up my rather larger investment (about $20k). I personally think I would be better off getting someone to make me a safe tune, or a start up tune for awhile until I am more comfortable adjusting stuff. As I see it I need to adjust for the following items; throttle lag, new cam, supercharger, turn off MDS, adjust max RPM (per cam manufacturer), idle (I really want a nice chop), etc..I am sure there are many things I have missed. It seems like a lot to adjust right out of the gate, and some of it could be catastrophic if its wrong. I think I would be more comfortable getting an experienced tuner to give me a safe baseline, and I could learn over the next few months and make fine adjustments.

I am worried, because I work with a friend who put a whipple on his F150. He drives like a maniac, and had several tuners send him tunes, each promising more power than the last. He recently sent a rod through the block because the last tune wasnt safe and he is kind of an idiot. He isnt monitoring fuel pressures, or EGTs and he didnt finish all the runs the tuner asked him for. I cannot afford another engine. If this one blows, Im done.

Am I better off getting a safe tune, and adjusting later in small increments? Should I just use the HPtuners as a data log, and leave the tuning alone? Am I overthinking it, and the information is out there, and I just need to find it and use it? Advice for an overwhelmed newbie would be appreciated.

[rich s]

I would recommend getting the books from The Tuning School and reading them, they are worth the investment. If you are able to afford to go to one of their classes, I recommend that too.

Tuning is not difficult, but there is a gap between what you learn in an ideal situation and what happens in actuality - especially if you are building a new motor with a bunch of mods/add-ons and you are brand new to tuning.

With that said.... learn all you can, but have a reputable tuner tune it for you and learn by doing adjustments to understand how it all comes together.