You are right AEM costs more money.You get what you pay for.Going fast costs more money.I'm sure you can make about the same power on both.AEM has wide band O2 meaning no more need for dyno.Cost for tunning same as hondata or most of the time even less.You pay for dyno time.It takes twice as long to burn chips for hondata when your changes are instant on AEM.My car gets tuned at SFP(southern florida performance).Anyone that can tune hondata should not have much trouble tunning AEM.Also you can go to AEMPOWER.COM and download updates instantly.You wont find a better setup on the street.The AEM also now has traction control.