Building project proposal for sponsorship / tuning

I want to learn to tune well on a dyno. I've got the skills and ability, and access to most everything else that I could need, except a dyno. I want to learn Uprev initially (KV8 in the race car though), and I want to build a relationship with a shop so I can have access to a dyno and their resources, as there is no way I'm dragging myself up through the motorsports world on my own.

Anyways, I plan to ask them to sponsor me with heavily discounted blocks of dyno time during the winter while things are likely to be slow on that front. I've got my car which very obviously needs a cleanup on the tuning front - I think the last tuner just selected the entire fuel map and hit + a few times, then the previous owner wanted more power and tossed in 10% larger injectors. I really want to learn and understand the Nissan variable cam systems, as I get the feeling not too many people are utilizing them all that well around here, and my race car will have a modern Nissan motor (VK56) as well. My GF just bought a very nice clean stock 2003 350z to drift, and I've got another friend with a 2006 G35 that's had a little bit of work done to it (exhaust mostly) and could use a light tune as well.

So: 1 car that will be an infinite time sink, two with minor requirements.

I was planning on asking to pay around cost + 20% (?) for operational cost on 16 hours dyno time total, with a plan of using at least the first two blocks for my own car 4 hours at a time if I can get it, then outside shop/tuner rate for hours after that. I would have the lowest priority at the shop for time of course, if they get a paying customer I lose my slot, etc.

I will have the HPA reflash course well embedded in my head by then (along with lots of other stuff), so I should be able to make reasonably productive use of that time. I am also looking into what is required to become an "Uprev Pro Tuner" to see if that's worth saying I'll do as well.

I will also be going to car shows this summer, will put their logo on my car, all that usual jazz.

This gets me dyno time and them access to a tuner they can use to drag in more people who want their cars to be faster.

Does that seem reasonable? Does anyone else have experience in this area and can chime in?

In the long run, I want to work my way up to the national level in Time attack/Hillclimb/endurance or some combination thereof, while running a small custom race engineering firm. It'll be a long road there, but I've got to start somewhere.

I think any sponsorship proposal needs to very carefully consider and lay out what's in it for the shop. At the end of the day the shop can look at this from the perspective that they're letting you use their dyno cheaply and in time you could end up as competition to them/taking customers away from them. The alternative is that if their shop name is on your car and something goes wrong with the engine then they look bad.

I don't have any magic answer for you unfortunately. Rather than asking them to basically give you dyno time I think you may find you have better luck asking for some kind of discount off their normal dyno rate outside of their busy periods. You can justify the lower rate easier if the dyno wouldn't otherwise be used anyway (won't work if the shop is super busy), and the fact that once you've proven competent, you won't need your hand held by the dyno operator, freeing them up to do other work.

I should have been a little more clear - I plan on offering only tuning through their shop rather than being a competitor, they don't offer uprev tuning through their shop currently.

I appreciate your feedback, I've tweaked the sponsorship proposal a bit based on your comments, making it clear that I intend be neither a liability nor a competitor to them.

Have a plan in place to limit your, and their liability. Nobody wants to get sued if something goes awry.

Ooh that's a great point, thanks! I'll talk to my insurance lady about that.

Today I had a two-hour chat with the shop I put the proposal in to, and they're going to allow me to make use of their dyno at the same rate they charge their partner shops, for my own vehicles and my girlfriend. If/when I start looking at tuning anyone outside of that, we'll discuss what that looks like - they basically don't want people coming to me instead of them, as it's pretty hard to run a shop as it is. I think that's super fair, tuning is unlikely to be my main bread and butter focus as things move on anyways. I just want to be able to make my own stuff run well.

The plan we hashed out today doesn't look a lot like what I put in the proposal, but that doesn't surprise me that much - this was basically a thing I tossed together in hopes of starting to build a relationship with a company that might be able to help me along my motorsports journey, and that I might hopefully be able to help them with.

They said they were very impressed by the proposal and plan to keep a copy and use it themselves so I figured I'd give you guys a slightly scrubbed example of what I sent them, as well as a tidied up template document in word format in case someone here finds it useful.