If you really, really want to be cheap and get a tune, just get a chip and find someone who can burn it for you. I might have just gotten lucky, but a friend had the software, burner and a spare chip, and that was that (though the wideband and dataloggin gear helped a bit, too). Once you get a copy of PCMX, which I know some like and some hate, you can burn chips for multiple cars. So if you're just doing this for one car, I guess MS is OK (even though you can get an EEC Tuner for less, despite that the MS yahoos think), but if you have a few things you're playing with like my friends and I do, the chips work out well. Not to mention that you're just tweaking stuff that's already there - no mods required.

Of course, this isn't for the guys planning on making 700 hp. I don't think I'll ever do that with a 2.3. I just end up asking 'Why?' earlier than most, I guess.

And I'll too say that Joe is a good guy. I've called him and grilled him about the Hot Rod article because some of the stuff in there just didn't make any sense to me (running 10's on stock injectors?!), and he's still more than willing to discuss that stuff, even though it's years old now!