Sorry for the novel, but I think it's a good read, and may save someone a motor, or at least some money on a retune or expensive repairs.

So originally I had my car (2007 CTS-V) tuned at VA Speed by Shawn. I took the car up there one morning, and they said they were going to put it
up on the dyno when I got there. I told them I just put on the Kooks 1 7/8" headers, high flow cats, and Corsa cat back, and the PO
had installed a K&N CAI. I also mentioned taking it to a few HPDE or TT events per year.Unfortunately there was a C5 on there at the time.
I waited around the shop for an hour or so waiting to take a video of it on the dyno. They were having some issues with the C5 and told me that it would probably be better for me to go and come
back when they were done with it. They did take a video of one run with their iPhone and mailed it to me, which I'm grateful for.

I was tickled pink. They gave it 25 more hp than it came in with.

Then along came a post about VA Speed quality control issues, which in that post was another link, and eventually it was like a daisy chain of problems with one thing in common,
VA Speed. I replied to one of the posts about being concerned about my tune, and was contated by Ed Hutchins, most of you have probably heard of him. Ed inquired what car I had, and when I had
it tuned. I quickly shot him back an answer, and alas, he had already left VA Speed by then, so it wasn't his tune. Then he offered to check out the tune, for FREE. That's right, zero dollars to check it out,
of course there would be a charge for dyno time if need be, and I was well and prepard to pay for dyno time since there were several threads I have read on this forum and another popular one about bad tunes costing
expensive motors, and VA Speed not wanting to warranty work. Not unless you put out a post that caught the attention of a hundred people or more. Then, of course, they had no choice but
to try to fix the problem. To little to late, IMHO.

Ed plugged in the laptop and turned the key on the V. After about 5 minutes, he just muttered "Hmmph". I asked "Hmmph good or Hmmph bad." I knew the answer already, but still wanted to hear it. He just replied,
"Hmmph, what in the hell were they thinking."

As it's explained to me, the knock retard recovery rate is set from the factory at 0.05 (3k RPM and up). Typically it will be often triple to 0.15. That's the time the computer will take to put back in timing after a knock event.
If you go higher, the computer will put timing back in so fast, it will just knock again. I'm not a big fan of knock mainly because I don't have the money to buy another LS2. Shawn set my knock retard recovery rate
to 9.0. Yep, he increased it by 9,000%. So basically, if the motor would knock, it would add the timing back in so fast, it would just keep knocking. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure knock is bad on pretty much anything moving up
and dowin in the motor.

So I pulled up the original dyno chart I was handed when I left VA Speed, and Ed just shook his head, along with some other employees at a shop, which will remain unnamed unless they want to be mentioned.

The big concern was the AFR. It was way rich (>12.0:1 at times), and waved around a lot. Also the HP and TQ curves indicated knock events in the upper RPM range (annotated by the wavy lines from 4.5K+).

Here's the graph I scanned in:




So I just told Ed to put it on the dyno and I'd just pay for a retune.

He did, and untouched, this is what it churned out:




Look how lean it is from the hit to 4.5k rpm.




Ed took a little while and this is the 2nd run's results:





AFR's look much better:




So Ed went ahead and tweaked it a little more. He said typically you want the AFR at 13:1, but since I am racing it once and a while, it's a little more rich
to be safe.

Look how smooth the HP and TQ curves are will hardly any wavyness. Also the AFR line is damn near unwavering:




I just felt that I needed to post this up for people thinking about going to VA Speed for a tune. I couldn't keep that tune in my car
with all the recent problems with QA that have popped up. The money I spent with Ed is more than worth the peace of mind.

A few afterthoughts as well. I had to take the car back up there to get the CEL shut off because they didn't shut off the cat monitoring
O2 sensors like they said they did. They also said my O2 sensors were acting slow. Well a little research shows that when you put headers
on a car, the O2 sensors don't get as hot, and therefore they respond slower. The ECM expects a fast response, and will set off a CEL if it isn't
fast enough. Shawn told me I needed to change my O2 sensors, but low and behold that didn't solve the problem. Changing the parameter to expect a slower response
will keep the CEL from coming on.

Ed also went out of his way to change the 1 to 4 skip shift, and he also adjusted when my fans come on so that the car runs cooler.

Honestly, I think VA Speed did an initial dyno, changed the fuel curve and knock recovery rate, ran the dyno again and then called me up. I'd like to believe that
they spent some time on it, but in actuality, it's more likely they just called it good enough, and sent it out the door.

Ed also requested I bring the car back to him after I ran some seafoam through the car to see if he can add some more timing. He's also going to keep it overnight
to check the cold start and cold driving. Something VA Speed never even inquired about.

Hindsight is 20/20, and I don't think I'll set foot in VA Speed ever again.

 

This thread will get deleted....watch..

 

What was the correction factor on the VA speed dyno? I see the new dyno is SAE Smoothing 5 which will get rid of a lot of the waves on the dyno graph. If the VA speed one isnt corrected the same you cant compare the two equally.

 

 

wow, this won't last long

 

The very first dyno graph what does the very top left corner say?

 

That's just a black bar that was put there by my scanner for some reason. You can see the edge of the sheet to the left.

 

Im not expert, but I always thought the smoothing was just to "smooth" out the dyno graph for a nicer visual look. It has nothing to do with how "smooth" the engine is revving through the power band. Smoothing 5 will show the smoothest HP/TQ lines.

 

Correct...if you leave smoothing on something like 1, the graph will be extremely jittery, and will usually end up over-reporting the numbers because it will pull the highest numbers from one of the random peaks instead of from a nice, smooth line that will show the true average of what's going on, not just the highest number from a random spike.

 

Sounds like a botched job cause the shop is too busy..classic story. I've heard lot of positive comments on VA speed though, but maybe they are 'victims' of their own success.

I'm glad someone took care of your car and solve the problem!

 

Also curious about the smoothing from the first tune. I don't know either shop, but I rarely smoothing over about 3 on the dynos I have worked on. I don't have my own dyno yet, so I usually just let the shop leave it on whatever setting they have and ask for uncorrected numbers. But smoothing can have a huge impact on how the graph looks.

 

Why would you ask for uncorrected numbers? SAE Smoothing on 5 is the industry standard. People who do not use that are just trying to fudge the numbers.

 

Because honestly numbers don't matter much to me. Usually SAE just makes it higher here in the south with 100 percent humidity and 90 degree weather. My main concern is the before and after when I rent dyno time. I don't need a program that artificially raises or lowers the numbers for that.

Most of my customers are more concerned with how it will do at the track anyway. The dyno for me is just a tool. I usually spend more time on the street or track where the car will spend most of its time.

 

Glad to hear you saved the engine before it was too late.

I have seen tunes from "pros" that look like they opened the main VE map, scattered a bunch of birdseed all over the keyboard and let pigeons peck away at the laptop for an hour or so, then loaded it up to some helpless/clueless customers car. So, you got off easy with just a PE hack, too much timing and turned off knock control.

 

lmao !!! serious sig material right there!!

 

Another classic quote I have heard:

"Looks like the tuner opened the tables and banged his head against the keyboard"

 

Interested to hear their side.

 

^^^ Me too!
This is what scares me about my new build!
I can very easily go out and spend THOUSANDS on a NEW Build, and in 1 day a So Called Tuner can fu(k up a "Wet Dream" by giving me a bad tune!

Very Curious to see the outcome of this. Possibly even a refund of this guys money and an Appology on this forum. That's the least they could do.
I mean honestly tho, A car enthusiats works very hard to enjoy the sport of cars' and for a reputable shop to just give him/her a shady tune is just plain BS. I don't care how busy you are, Take the time and do it right or don't do the tune at all! Period!

** OP, Thank You for sharing this with us!

 

Anytime. Figure this could help some people out.

And honestly, I just don't think there really is a qualified tuner at VA Speed since Ed left. I don't see a lot of people coming from VA Speed that are superbly happy with their tune. And honestly, reading through several fairly recent threads on here and other websites, it seems like turning nuts and bolts has become a challenge. Motors are going up in smoke, cars are being returned not fully assembled, etc.


On another note, Ed had told me to run some Seafoam through the intake. The motor was knocking (audible) a little bit in the upper RPM ranges, which was limiting Ed to about 19 degrees of timing. So I ran some through the motor and brought it back to Ed. He ended up getting it to about 25 degrees of timing, and he was able to get about 10 more HP the second time around. Now there's no audible knock and an extremely low KR.

If you are reading any of this Ed, Bravo sir. I've got 3 more cars lined up for you now, possibly a 4th.

 

Yeah thats crazy man!
I'm glad you got in touch with a good tuner tho. If only i wasn't so far, I would have Ed tune mine. It sounds like he is very willing to help make things right, and obviously enjoys his job or he would not be doing so much to make sure it is spot on. Big Props to Ed, bc not many tuners out there give a damn about the tune, or customer. All they see is $$$.

-James