I'd be VERY interested in this. I ran one of PCMforless's tunes on my hotcammed 92 Vette about 5 years ago. I was really pleased. Sending you a PM.

 

Very good point. I guess we have all gotten pampered by wideband O2 sensors, but the lost art of reading plugs is very good. There are some sites online that you can do a search for that have information on how to read a plug. Heck you can also see if you are over timed and detonating as well by reading a plug.

 

It was a decision above me. There was a LOT of abuse of the updates program where guys were getting tunes for the buddies under guise of getting an "update" for their own car. So, they switched it to a $50 subscription to 6 months of updates to help lessen the fraud. What they did is offer a $25 rebate back towards the $50 6 months of updates as a refund for the previous updates setup. You will note that MADZ and the other tuners have adopted a similar policy as well (Yes, we do talk among ourselves )

 

I've recently installed long tube headers + catback + CAI and removed the AIR and EGR systems. Otherwise, my car is stock. Would I benefit from a tune? I think my car has always run very rich because it's gone through 2-3 cats.

 

Yes, you can benefit from a tune. We see 15-20 HP in gains, plus we can lower the fan temps, improve part throttle response, move up the top speed limiter, bump up the rev limiter, and on the automatic cars we can improve the shift points and firm up the shifts. On the six speed cars we can get rid of the skip shift for you. We can also get rid of the emissions codes for the air and egr removal.
That being said, those bolt on mods should not be causing your car to run so rich it is melting cats. I would look over your O2 sensors (especially if you got pacesetter headers or others with the ceramic coating as the coatings are killing O2's), and double check that none of the O2 wiring got melted to a header or damaged.
One way to identify an O2 issue is if the car runs good when it is cold and in open loop and then once it gets warmed up and in closed loop it starts to run much richer, it is an O2 reporting back bad data to the PCM.

Edit... Noticed you list kooks headers, they won't have the coating so I would check the O2 extentions and the wiring

 

Bryan thanks for your quick response to my PM. Another one sent to iron out the details of our arrangement

 

I'm the original owner of the car. I'm pretty sure I had to replace 3 cats in about 100K miles of driving. I've got the details written down in the owner's manual, but the car is in Kentucky & I'm in Michigan. The last time the cat collapsed, I took it to Midas. When they called and told me it was ready, I drove it off the lot only to find that it was running the same way it was when I took it in. The car would not rev and would barely pull itself along. When I finally got home the manifolds were glowing. I'm pretty sure a bunch of the cat was blown back into the exhaust and plugged it up, which is why the car wouldn't run. They apparently didn't bother to verify that the car was actually driveable when they finished "replacing the cat". Anyway, I parked the car, bought a Jeep, hauled the car home to Kentucky from Georgia and put it in my father's garage, where it sat for a little over six years.

We got it out of storage a little over a year ago and started messing around with it to see if we could get it running. I envisioned doing nothing more than changing the fluids & filters and cutting off the old exhaust and starting it up. Turns out that after six years of sitting, it needed pretty much new everything. When we cut the stock exhaust off of the car, I discovered that Midas had done nothing more than gut the cat. Even though 6-7 years had passed, I was pissed. But I don't guess you have much recourse for getting ripped off when that much time has passed.

The O2's have been replaced. My Kooks are coated. So, they may need to be replaced again. Considering all it's been through, the car is running great. I do think it runs better in open loop than closed. When it goes into closed loop, it seems to miss a little within certain RPM ranges, and when you quickly rev it from idle it will stumble a little. I'm pretty sure the O2 wiring is OK. If it isn't, it would have probably happened years ago. I just put the Kooks headers & GMMG catback on over Christmas and the car is still on jackstands. I don't know very much about the whole open loop, closed loop, short term and long term fuel table stuff, but I'm wondering if I drove the car for years with bad O2 sensors, maybe my fuel tables are way out of whack or something. Is that possible?

I'm definitely going to get a tune at some point. If I do mail order, I'll hit you up for some Wal-Mart pricing.

 

Yes, if the O2's were headed south it would definitely mess up the fueling parameters and could have been the issue all along and causing your earlier issues

 

Really, why did we have to do the OBD1 High Stall no shift for you? As we have covered in other posts that you felt the need to **** in your only complaint is that you had to pay for the work. Yes, there was a misunderstanding in price that was my fault (I though you were a previous customer and quoted you update price, not full price), BUT, I took care of it and refunded you the difference.
SO, you had bad luck because I basically won't do your stuff for free....
How do you put food on your table? I do it by tuning cars, this isn't my hobby. That is why when you call or email us you get an answer or a response to your question and not a voicemail or a week later answer on an email.

 

yea you fixed my high stall issue...and i was happy with it...but when a company like yourself that we all trust to do our tunes quotes me a price i expect you to honor it...not get my credit card number and over charge me without my permission
im done with using you and will never trust you again...ill continue to use madz28 and he can apprietiate the extra 400+ bucks hes made off of my friends cars in the last 2 months

 

It was a misunderstanding and I IMMEDIATELY had them refund the difference in price. You make it sound like I held you up at gunpoint and pulled a hundred dollar bill out of your pocket. I simply forgot to put that there was a special price break on the order sheet before I sent it over to the office for the girls to run it thru the credit card processing so they charged the normal amount instead of the price you talked me down to.
I'm glad you are done with us, you milked me for all the free info you could and CONSTANTLY try to talk me down in price, now you can go waste someone else's time. I will put that extra time into customer service for customers who appreciate our time and work. Funny, I have NEVER seen anyone else besides you have this issue. Also, you know damn well that car would never run an 11.9 if it could not shift out of first gear till we fixed it Sometimes things are worth a few more dollars in the long run.

 

ok i simply asked if i had to pay full price for just having my idle and tach fixed and you said no i can give you a price break....ect
i didnt say can you please give me a break...didnt hold you at gunpoint...

and you dont know ****...my car had already run a 12.2 before the high stall problem....then i had you fix it and it still ran 12.2...then i put a ls1 lid on it and it ran 11.9's...so dont take credit for **** you didnt do...
and quit pming me acting like a child....

ill continue to tell everyone about my bad experience with you and how ive never had one with madz28...let them make their own decisions who theyd like to tune their car....im not the only one in here sayin bad about you...to each their own

 

On a predominantly stock setup, with nothing more than CAI, long tube headers and catback, could you expect to see gains of 15-20 HP? Is that 15-20 HP at the wheels?

 

well my opinion to this debate... both tuners have good and bad history (AS ALL TUNERS DO), but in my opinion i am thinking pretty highly of PCMFORLESS for their offer to pricematch. that shows a pretty good business ethic if you ask me... but I am also torn between the two. I am slightly starting to lean one way though (not stating which way to avoid conflict)

 

Typically it is 12-16 at the wheels which is 15-20 at the crank. It varies on the fuel quality in your area and how much timing can be run. I've had to back off on timing a bit lately due to the changes in the gasoline formulations in some areas.
Thanks,
Bryan

 

Well, Bryan tuned my car on the dyno in Reading, PA almost 3 years ago and did a great job. He was thorough, took his time, explained everything to me, and seemed genuinely interested in the car's history from LPE...and the end result was/is a great running car that outruns most N/A LT1s around here with a baby cam...I have no regrets, only impressive time slips...

--Alan

 

I still haven't completely decided. I'm liking what I'm hearing from PCM4Less right now. Sounds like they really value their customers with the price match and all. Another thing that I do like about MadZ28 is that Ion, is actually only about 2 or 2 1/2 hours from me. So, if I ever had any troubles, I could actually drive there and have him check everything out. I've still got a few months before I'm going to do it anyways and I'll try and decide what I want to do in that time frame.

 

I'm happy with my PCMForLess tune.

 

I can live with that and understand why the change happened now that you've explained it. Maybe an e-mail to all of your customers explaining the change would've help.

 

since bryan has been pming me that im lying ill state the facts i just dug up my old emails
first he quoted me 75 bux for fixing my idle and shift points...he got it and i got a 287 dollar charge on my credit card...luckily i was a few bucks from having a overdraft charge because of HIS mistake...then he tells me he cant get ahold of managment, after a day he finally does and they cant give me the price quoted because im not a returning customer....they can discount it to 175 the price of a lt1 tune (still 100 more than quoted) and asked if that was ok...i told him i have had them tune my lt1 before i dont know why he cant honor what he said...then he tells me the best he can do is 125 the price of a discounted ls1 tune...and i got stuck with that, and he said hell cut me a deal on my friends pcm which was supposed to go to him....but before i got to do that i needed my timing changed for nitrous...he said ill do it for what shipping costs...i said ok sent it to him...then he charged me 87 dollars...when shipping was only 42(for overnight) which i didnt ask for it...

there now you can report me to admins for lying...i have the exact emails right here where you said i can do this and i can do that then what you charged me for them...or you can simply admit you didnt honor your word and overcharged my bank account (stole money without permission) and let it go...

btw i think its kinda unprofessional to PM me and title it ""whining like a girl""
calling me names and a "dumbfuck" ect ect