After 3 months of back and forth I finally went over there for the 5th time this evening to have them pull my tuning...after a long discussion with dave & julio about why i wanted my tune pulled and put back to stock and asking for at least a partial refund they had a few laughs at my expense and decided to not give me a penny back even though they've pulled their tune. Now for any cartek guy thats gonna come in here and bash me which I know there will be let me give you a little background on teh situation & teh many reasons that i wanted the tune pulled in the end. In early April i installed my heads cam, not any of carteks packages...tsp's as you can read in my sig what pkg and mods I have...I scheduled a date with dave for a couple weeks later to get tuned(busy shop) went in julio was about 2-3 hrs late got me up on the dyno, tuned me, went on my way...in the rain that night...I believe that friday after the tune(on a tuesday) i went up to island for a test & tune...first time down the track car goes directly to 3rd & eventually 4th gear, no 1 or 2, so i schedule a second appointment with them early the next week i believe. So I go back there turns out it was something in the tuning and within 5 minutes but a 50 mile drive each way im on my way.

After this i head to the track again, this time atco...now the car is bugged by an off idle hesitation that IMO was largely due to the tune in some way...so again i tell dave whats going on and he tells me to bring it in again...so im off another 50 miles to see them, dave sends on of the shop workers with a tech 2 to check out my car...i drive and reproduce the worker captures some frames and notices there were missfires not a big deal imo since it is a large cam but he and dave decide that its probably my plug wires...my 1 month old msd's...ok whatever, in the meantime i pulled julio to the side about an email he had sent me saying we should move up my shiftpoints which he had initially set at around 6400 seeing that my cam made peak at 6300...so i told him just to set them to 6600 and bump the rev limiter to 6800rpms...also i stated i was having some surging when my converter would lock and just asked him to bump up the lockup points so it wouldnt do it any longer...anywayz they didnt have any stock plug wires in stock so I went out and bought them on my own and installed them... hesitation didnt go away and i wasnt gonna embarrass myself at the track, so i played with the plug gaps and checked up down and all around to find whats wrong, still nothing, so once again contact dave...another couple of weeks till he can schedule me and another drive out and they now put me up on the dyno for a second time knowing this was probably nothing they could fix on the dyno since it was off idle i dont think the rollers would like it if you went wot from idle but whatever I let them run their course...another hour on the dyno and still nothing as expected. At this point I've had enough and decided to buy hp tuners to do the tuning myself.

This is when it gets interesting before i bought tuners my friend hooked me up to efi live on his laptop since its a bit more advanced then autotap and his laptop will run circles around mine...he finds that one of my o2's isnt working and im running in open loop. Now generally it wouldnt be a big deal to be tuned in open loop but I was never made aware of this...and we'll get back to the 02 sensor.

So my friend tells me to fix the o2 and buy tuners which i do...i buy a new o2 sensor...nothing, so it has to be in the wiring...come to find out the purple wire on the pass o2 was cut...clean cut, I knew I hadnt done it but had no clue who did.

Next i get tuners read the program thats in my computer maybe my downfall maybe not as if not i wouldnt have been the wiser...but my findings were my lockup tables were still crap, rev limiter set at 6600, car at the time was shifting 1-2 at ~6000-6100 and 2-3~6400, misfire tables not desensitized, timing table pretty jacked up...0-12 degrees of retarded timing across the band(this is where they had a laugh at my expense joking they should put 40 degrees across the board and send me on my way) haha funny not to mention in the iat temp vs timing retard anywhere from 110+ i got 1-12 degrees of retard...so now im talking 1/3 stock timing at some rpms if my iat gets to say 150 which even in april i was hitting that # in the staging lanes...jersey aint that hot in april fwiw.

Finally I bring the car back to cartek today and pull dave to the side to talk about at least a partial refund talks with julio & comes back out...finally julio unlocks my car, and in the meantime dave comes over to me and asks me if I want them to hook up my o2 sensor thoughts of the cut wire come to mind that i had wired back up a couple of days prior, "you mean the one you cut" I said lol"yah we have to unhook them to put the car in open loop"...anyways finally follow him and brings me up to the office where he tells me they've never had anyone ask for a refund for their tuning and he doesnt intend to start giving them now...so i run through all the things wrong, they have their little laugh & call me cry baby because im asking for a partial refund of a crap tune. I left with little to say as im not gonna freak out over money...went to my car tuned it and within 2 hours and 3 tunes had the converter locking and unlocking when it should not at random and the hesitation has all but dissappeared. Ive still got a ton of little things as you could expect to do but ive got a smile on my face even knowing Im out of $600 in tuning charges and about $100 in gas money considering i was getting 8-12 mpg with the open loop tune to go back and forth to fix nothing in the end.

Sincerely,
Bill Henn

 

Bill that blows man

I run open loop also and you gas mileage and mine are the same. My too main problems with the closed loop is my idle isnt as smooth and my computer always brings me back to 11.9 a/f so I loose 12 hp . I might just break down and pick up ls1 edit or hp tuners so i can cruise closed and switch to open when I hit the track. Glad to hear you are on your way to getting the bugs fixed.

Jeremy

 

Bill, buddy, pal you know how I feel about cartek already so what can I say.


EDITED BY ADMIN: Uncalled for statement

 

Would love to hear Cartek's explanation for this. And I'm not taking sides here. But if your story is even 50% true (again, not taking sides or casting dispersions) it sounds like Cartek may have screwed the donkey, and left you holding the tail.

Sometimes it cost a few hundred bucks to figure out you'll never deal with a "bad" shop again.

 

fwiw it idles just as good now in closed loop as it did in open...im sure I'll have a fun time trying to get the a/f correct and to stay that way, but im gonna try my darndest at this point as I know people with the TREX running closed loop with little issue so we'll see.

 

Wow, I havent been to Cartek since 01, I guess nothing has changed. Feel lucky though the 2 times I went there for tuning I never even got it, they overbooked. I have been through a couple of other shops tunes and since I own edit I always checked to see what was done. The only shop that looks like they actuallyto the time to really tune (at least on my car) was George at TTP. When they get their own dyno finally installed I am sure the tunes will be even better since they will have no out of pockets costs with using somebody elses dyno.

 

yah i talked a bit to kevin via email about my issues he thought it may have been a vaccum leak but as soon as i threw the stock programming in with idle adjustments the hesitation majically dissapearred...you can put a car on a dyno all you want but until you make real world driving adjustments its really not a tune IMO.

 

2 weeks and counting

 

I'm the friend w/ EFILive, and I saw the data capture from his driving w/ the Cartek tune. The one working O2 sensor (other sensor wire was later found by Bill to be cut) was reporting ~0.090mV at idle and much less than 0.450mV pretty much everywhere except when PE kicked in. Kind of lean.

PE running looked great from the stock O2 sensor, nice clean ~0.890mV everywhere...Cartek clearly invested time in the PE fueling.

The focus has been to get both O2 sensors working, which Bill troubleshot and fixed, and then back to an unlocked PCM image.

I don't know Cartek and I'm not a professional tuner, so I'm not in the debate about their quality.

 

Bill,

As I have read your complaint I find myself not suprised. I have never worked with Cartek, but have worked with many shops and people in the past that made lots of claims but could never deliver the goods. There are a lot of people that claim they know how to tune, and being able to purchase the software and start the software does not make you a good tuner. Understanding the different screens takes much more than just making mods and seeing what happens. I have spent a lot of time in the last couple of days talking to GM ECM engineers about my situation. 800 RWHP on a stock ECM. We are working together to come up with a MAF solution around the problem that would allow the stock ECM to cover HP up to 1000RWHP. We will be starting on the project next week, hince needing the software.

On the refund, my experience has always been that you are never paying for tune except with a mail order tune, You are paying for dyno time, even if the tune is bad, the time on the dyno is still just that.

My first mistake cost me a $600 tune, shaftrockers, pushrods. This was listening to the advise on one shop pointing me to another. Go figure..

More Performance did a great job with my car and I am really happy with their work. I am going to purchase the HP tuners software as I am getting tired of waiting on the EFILive stuff. They are taking forever. I expect it to be the best out there, if it ever is released.

Your experience just goes to show that learning is still expensive, people still claim to know what they are doing when they don't, and (not know you at all when I make this comment) even you can learn to tune.


I wish you the best of luck.
Bryan

 

Bill I am still confused. We talked about a lot of things and here is some of it.

You brought your car to us to have it tuned. We did not pick your combination nor did we ever put down your choices. We did recommend a higher stall converter and at least 3.73 gears to match up with your combination. After tuning your car, you asked to raise the shift points, which we did. You complained of an off idle hesitation, which we looked at a couple of times, and we made recommendations to fix the problem. When you came to us on Thursday, you told us, you had read the tuning file and felt it was too conservative.

When you pay some one to tune your car, you are paying for their knowledge and time. The software is the tool.

You paid us to tune your car the way we feel is best from years of tuning experience and we did. We never charged you to scan your car and give advice.

You came in Thursday and made all sorts of accusations and laughed at some of our analogies. We did not laugh at you, we did laugh at some of your accusations.

I will say it again you went to a baker and ordered a cake = tune.

You ate the cake = raced and driven the car.

You took the recipe = read the tuning file and I am sure you still have it.

You then tell the chef that you think he doesn’t know how to bake and want your money back. And this is where we all laughed.

Your car barely ran when it came in. We tuned the car in open loop, which we have found is the best way on cams with a lot of over lap like yours to prevent the car from running rich over time. We made changes at your request. When the car left on Thursday with your own tune, it stalled repeatedly and wouldn’t idle worth a dam.



In short, we tuned your car, you read the tune with your laptop and still have it, you wanted a refund, we said no. Good luck with your car.



Dave

 

Dave, within 5 mins I had the car idling, within 15 mins I had the car heading 20-30 miles from your shop to eat at bertucci's on rt 1, by the time i had finished eating i had a new tune to flash in and fixed my converter lockup problems. Because it was raining so hard i couldnt get in it but by wednesday morning when i could i realized that my hesitation was gone with the stock fuel/timing table and only changed basically the fixed parameters. You cut my o2 wire without telling me, you tuned me in open loop without telling me, and you never fixed any of my driveability issues that with 15 mins of seat time i figured out how to fix them and did. Maybe you'll take this as a lesson learned to take the car out for a spin for 10 miles before you give it back to the customer, i dunno, just seems fair that you dont just hand your customers a set of keys and let them walk out the door with a car that at wot would go into 3rd and 4th gear immediately

Bryan i understand im not only paying for tuning, but time on the dyno as well thats why in my origonal post i said partial refund...if they gave me a couple hundred bucks i wouldnt have said much because i realized they had me up on the dyno for probably close to 3 hrs by the time it was all said and done and at the time In my eyes try to correct the problems...it wasnt until i saw for my own eyes what the problems were that i realized whatever they were trying was in the completely wrong direction.

 

You guys make me laugh. To even question Julio's tuning ability is absurd. Julio has been tuning with edit since before the vast majority of shops even knew what LS1 Edit was. For what ever reason foff667 car wasn't tuned the way you wanted it. This doesn't make Julio a bad tuner. I will put Julio's tuning ability up against any other tuner on this site! Are you guys aware that Julio played an important part in the design of LS1 Edit?

 

Bill,
Good job on your tune.

Bryan

 

Sorry Mike but I have been tuned by enough people and been to enough shops to know that just because they are a good tuner or head porter or whatever doesnt mean that they dont do half assed jobs or give up trying to fix a problem every now and then. I dont care if Julio wrote the code himself, a bad tune is a bad tune and the customer was unhappy with the service and treatment he recieved .

Bill I'm glad that your car is running the way you want it.

 

Oh please, unless you have Cartek build your car they don't give a crap about you. Let's be honest here. And you better make sure that you put their name in your sig and sing their praises otherwise you fall from their good graces.

 

Silver and JS, You guys are full of it, plain and simple. I've dealt with Cartek and have been their at the shop long enough to know your statement is far from true. They treat and deal with customers equally, no matter what job they are doing.

And sure, if someone is willing to shell out lots of money to have any shop for that matter build them a complete setup, the shop will go that extra step for that person, (any shop will do this). Sorry guys, but I have been dealing with Cartek since 1999 and I have to say you are wrong. For what ever reasons Silver and JS aren't happy with Cartek has nothing to do with the way they treat all their other customers. And for the record Silver, I chose to put Cartek in my sig simply because I am proud to have one of the baddest nitrous cars in the LS1 community.

 

I have never used Cartek so my opinions are based on my and my friends dealings none of which are about Cartek specifically.
Sometimes I wonder if some people still believe in Santa. I still get people who defend a local who fucked tons of folks out of parts and money because they had good service from him. Bottom line was if you didn't buy heads and a cam from him you got shitty tuning on any other combo so he could say "My parts would have gotten you more". I have seen first hand shops on this board slack. If you don't spend money on their parts they don't give you the time or attention they would if you bought theirs. They want you to believe that you would get more from their parts.
Then you take it somwhere else and get better numbers and drivability. It happens all the time. I believe there are 4 or 5 legit good guys that folks I know have used with great results no matter how much you spend. Not sure if this makes sense how I typed it but you get the idea.

 

so, in summary, wht dave is saying is taht he doesn't give a **** that your car ran like *** bill. he got your money, julio pretended to tune it, and you get a big shiney shaft for your time and trouble.
i rde in teh car before and after teh crap tune from cartek, all they did was get it to idle and go in and out fo gear reasonably well. beyond that they f'ed everything up.
i do nto pretend to eb a tunign genious, but i do know that when you ad a bigger cam to any engine you will have to add timing to compensate for it, well, tahtnever happened, bill asked for higher shift points and julio claimed to have put them in, that never happened, cartek claimed that the problem had everythign to do with bills ecm being a 98 and havign fewer tunign parameters, bill proved with in 15mins that was a bunch of crap.
i was there with bill when he went to get his tune put back to stock, julio was a completeyl grumpy dick the whoel time(didn't even respond when i said hello to him) and dave seemed to do a lot fo walkin around like he was trying to avoid talkign to bill.
dave, if it bothers you so much that your customers have teh ability to see teh changes that hav ebeen made to their tunes maybe you shoudl not allow your staff to do such a **** job. maybe you shoudln't DAMAGE THEIR CARS(the cut o2 wire). maybe you shoudl follow through on ALL of their requests. maybe you shoudln't make BS excusues about plug wire adn teh capabilites of the computer when you are dong a crappy job.
i knwo peopl who have been faithful to your shop for a very long time, adn after this i can't imagine why. you made bill run in circles and now you are trying to sell more lame excuses to not sem liek a total tool box. you have failed to tune 4 times with 3hours on the dyno a problem taht a guy with less than an hour of tunign experience fixed in 15mins. that is just pathetic.

tell the guys in yoru shop they are cool. they were pleasant to us and happy to talk about what all was going on with all teh cool toys you guys have there. the problem with cartek is not the staff, it clearly lies on managments inability to take any responsibility for the work done there.

later
tim

 

JS, like I said, your dealings with Cartek have no burden on how they deal with other customers. Remember there are ALWAYS 2 sides to every story!

As for Pete's car, when they were at the clash of the titans back in February, Pete was having major issues with his tranny/clutch and he was getting very aggrevated. He made a comment that "if he can't get the car down the track, that they might as well remove the motor" Julio heard this and did just that. You can even ask Pete. So don't go there.

As for my car, you can only wish it would go BOOM so you can run your mouth and make Cartek look bad. It's too late, we already shook the LS1 community with my little 346 ci. hydraulic cammed nitrous motor. And yes, I will wait for the fall to put it in the 8's. As for not racing in weather over 1000 DA, the summer months are my busy months, I work 6-7 days a week pouring concrete in the sun all day. On my free time, the last place I want to be is in the summer sun. So you are damn right, I wait for the cool weather to race, who doesn't???