The ME runs very well on the defaults right out of the box. Tuning is easy. I have three of them-one of which is the R version on 75# injectors. You don't need a guru to set it up for you, but, like all things, the more effort you put into learning how the various functions interact, the more success you will have in fine tuning it. An egt and a knock alarm are all you need to tune it, but, many are beginning to use a wb-o2 to really dial it in.