Here is the whole story. After my car being down for two months, I finally got the it all together. I called the shop, which will remain nameless, and made a dyno and LS1 edit tuning appointment, two weeks in advance. I got the day off from both of my jobs, very hard to do. The day before I am supposed to get the tuning, the shop owner who I will call John, calls me and wants to reschedual for another day. He wants to reschedual because his shop car is on the lift above the dyno with the front suspension removed and he dosn't think that it would be finished in time. I told John I almost didn't get this one day off and I know it would be very difficult to get another day off. I asked him if he could do the tunning on a Saturday which is my regular day off. I guess this shop don't work on Sautrdays, ever. I told John that I probably couldn't get another day off for a while and that I might have to go to a shop that would schedual me on a Saturday. John changes his mind and says that he could tune the car and that he would give it a base tune on the road and finish it on the dyno. John wanted me to be there at 9am. I was really undecided on what to do, I wanted to make sure that I was not rushing the guy. I wanted a good tune, for $600 plus a 5 hour round trip I better get a good tune. I wanted a good tune not something that was rushed through. I eventually decided that I would go to the shop since they have a great rep. from all of the vette guys. The big day finally. I wake up at 3am get ready and by 4am my girlfriend and I are off to drive 2.5 hours to get to the shop. I get to the shop after breakfast at 7am. Since I did everything else on my car and I wanted all the work possble done by me except for the tuning, I went ahead and installed the injectors in the parking lot. I was all finished at 9am, perfect timing. The shop was open, I check in with the secertary and ask for the John, she calls him on the phone he is in the back and will be out front in a few minutes. I sit down and wait for 30min., use their restroom and change my clothes. While I am waiting, a customer comes in with his Hummer he has a problem with his shift points. John comes right out takes this guys Hummer to the back and starts working on it. Dosen't say a word to me. I was like WTF. Just because this guy is rich he gets to go first. I couldn't believe it the guy with the Hummer owned a twin turbo Bently, 02 Viper, 02 Corvette, and is getting a Ferri and Lambo soon. 11 a.m. John comes out and asked me what I have done to the car, I told him my mods. He wants to drive the car around back and I said that I just changed the injectors and that I thought you have to give it a base tune before you even start the car. He said its fine to drive it around back, I asked 3 times if he was sure. John drove the car around back. Started tuning it, not on the dyno. Another customer walks in with a ZO6 and instantly John was at the front helping this guy with his car. Next thing I know the ZO6 is in the back being worked on before my car, WTF. Back to my car again, John did take the car out on the road a few times, he said the A/F ratio was perfect. I don't know how he knew that when he didn't put it on the dyno wideband. John said that he was using the O2's and knock retard. I told him that I thought the O2 readings were not accurate for tuning. John's reply was that he had been doing this for a long time and he could do it that way, he's a professional. I asked him when at what boost level did he set the other intank fuel pump to turn on and John asked me what I set it at. I told him I didn't set the hobbs switch and that he was supposed to do that when he was tuning the car. John's reply was that it worked fine with the one fuel pump and that I didn't need the second one. John recomended getting the FMU from ATI and I said I thought that think was junk, he said they work great. 3 p.m. John's shop car is finally finished and getting moved off of the lift above the dyno. My car finally makes it to the dyno around 3:30, they get it all strapped down. I see that LS1 Edit is not hook up to my car. The only thing that is hooked up is clamp to read the RPM. John does 4 pulls on the dyno. John comes around and gives me the bad news. I was expecting atleast 430-440 HP but I got Max HP 385.4 @ 5000 RPM and Max TQ 425.6 @ 4500. The dyno graph showed that the car started losing TQ at 4700 RPM and losing HP at 5200. I told him something had to be wrong, many many times. I was making the boost, I had big enough injectors, I had twin intank fuel pumps. John said that was the best he could do and that he tried to squeeze more power out of it, but it was already on the edge. John said that I needed to get headers and exhaust if I wanted to get the HP that I wanted. I was pissed, I paid took my car and left at 4:30. I drove home and around 7:00 I finally made it home. I took my car out to show one of my friends and the car ran like ****. The car fell on its face at 5200 RPM, fuel pressure dropped into the mid 40's, O2's were in the 400's and I had knock retard. I was really pissed off now. I came home and wrote two very nice e-mails to John. Please help me out, what should I do. Should I take my car back to John and have him try and blow my car up/ I mean fix it. Should I ask for my money back, I probably won't get it. Should I take it to another shop 3 hours away that has a good rep with LS1 tuning and pay out another $500 there. What is wrong with the car. The only thing that I can think of is that it is not getting enough fuel. Maybe since the second fuel pump is not coming on under boost and the two pumps are T together that under boost one fuel pump is bypassing through the T and back out throug the other fuel pump.

2002 Trans Am WS.6
ATI Procharger D1 8# at 6000 RPM (3.6 pulley)
Lucas 42.5# injectors
Racetronix dual walbro intank pumps with hobbs swith to activate 2nd pump.
Scanmaster
160 Thermostat
Spec stage III ceramic
B&M Ripper Shifter
Harlan shift light
Nittos
Autometer Ultra Lite Guages
Boost/Fuel Pressure/Water Temp.

 

Dude, that sucks...Im sorry you had to drive such a long way to get those disapointing numbers. If it were me I would go back and I would take it to another tuner. I would have though with your current setup you would be at leat in the high 400's like 480's or somethan like that. Hope you get everything straitened out. Best of luck.

 

380, that sucks azz, lowest dyno i have seen at 8 #'s was 470, I don't think he tuned the damn thing. You have to use a wide band to tune a high grade system, 02's are alright for near stock cars but not FI. FI takes alot more detail. At first i thought you just had an inline pump, but you have two intanks and 42# injectors so there is no problem. Thought maybe you had a bad injector but if you did he would have told you. If you are loosing fuel pressure than i think he didn't do a WOT tune, thats why you run it on the dyno. Guessing he tuned it to 5200. That car should be pulling like a rape ape, not like a cam only car. Take it back, for 600 bucks he should treat you a little nicer. Where is this shop, is he a sponsor (just so i know to stay away) i hate greedy shops. I think this guy is more experienced in dealing with rich queers who don't know ***** about there stock vette and pay 600 bucks to get it tuned for hp, stock.

<small>[ April 07, 2003, 11:42 AM: Message edited by: redz_02 ]</small>

 

i'd say try to get ahold of pro-stock john, the mod, he knows an abundant amount about FI. One thing about ati is that the maf is in the boost area of the supercharger. Think thats why they are hard to tune. Don't quote me on that.

 

dude i totally feel you! I don't have any good shops in my town, I do all my work and work on other peoples cars an the side, may go into bussiness myself. Why don't you do the tune yourself, and then kick the guys *** for not even doing a tune on your car!!!!! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Mad]" src="gr_images/icons/mad.gif" />

 

When did Racetronix come out with a dual intank setup for '99 and newer cars?

BTW, sorry to hear about your problems. That sux. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="gr_sad.gif" />

 

Dude, he is full of crap! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" />

You NEED that other pump on! It's falling on it's face because it has no fuel at higher RPMs.

I like to get a close tune on the road before I hit the dyno, but I squeezed another 20 or more RWHP out of it at the dyno using the WideBand-O2. He needs to find your timing problem areas with a scanner and modify that with LS1-Edit.

Where do you live? If you are not too far to make a trip to my house on a sunny day, I'll help you get mid-400's on that sucker for free! <img border="0" alt="[cheers]" title="" src="graemlins/gr_cheers.gif" />

Do you have LS1-Edit?

 

Any news?

When you told me about this privately I will admit I was disappointed... It does not sound like the service I would have expected for $600.

To add, I don't really feel like you got your money's worth, your #'s took a nosedive because you went lean and ran out of pump.

If it were me, I'd want that place to touch up the tune until it made sense. Sure headers are worth a lot to a blown car but your numbers are still off by at least 50rwhp.