I know there's a "Waiver" you sign before doing a dyno tune. Its to cover the shop for wrongful lawsuits. Correct?. Well, tuners, if you have a car on the dyno and determine that the car has a serious fueling issue, do you continue to make pull after pull after pull, only to finaly stop and say, "man you need to get the fueling issue fixed then we'll try it again." I dont wanna drop the name of the shop. I know the guys real well, but I brought a car in to get the tune done. Seemed a bit rich to me. I was told after a couple of pulls that I had a fueling issue and my racetronix pump may be going bad. But, instead of pulling the car off of the dyno right then they continued to make pulls, and working on the tune. Well, after a while of that, they gave up. Then they pulled my car off and I went to leave. I noticed at the next stop that my oil pressure was down around 10lbs. YEAH 10 lbs!!!. I was pissed. I have NEVER had such low oil pressure. I went straight home and cut open my oil filter, yup, lots of bearing.
So, am I stuck, or do I have any recourse. Im freaking out here. Ive got 88K invested in this damn car and now this..

Here's a video clip. Its 45 seconds of a 3 minute video. Notice the computer screen showing the 18.4 afr. And the car being help at almost 3000 rpms for the entire time. This is ALL AFTER I was told that my Racetronix system my be failing. (Turn your volume down, the audio is messed up..)

 

There is no reason for them to keep thrashing on the car if they said it had a problem. If it has a known problem then it needs to be fixed... what did they say was the reason to keep making pulls?

 

if they knew there was a problem with the car and they kept making pulls then that is on them

 

I would assume that if you took your car to a dyno that you wanted them to dyno it or try to work on the tune as they did.
The tuning process can be the hardest time for an engine, especially one freshly built or recently modified (changed mechanically).
It's going to be very tough to pin a mechanical problem in your bearings to work on your tune or an over-fueling problem.

Reasons: Overfueling causes it's problems of washing down cylinder walls and contaminating the oil during idle and normal driving (part throttle) due to low cylinder pressures and low temperatures during combustion, and the relatively high % of extra fuel over and above the PCM's attempt to maintain stoich.
In other words, driving around with a 12.0:1 AFR is more damaging (via cylinder wash & oil dilution) than hitting 10.0:1 AFR at WOT.
Second, bearing damage could have been caused from a mechanical problem with assembly of the engine, or because of oil dilution from fuel wash. If it was from fuel wash due to the installation of an aftermarket fuel pump, but that shop didn't install the pump or build the engine, then there is little chance of holding them responsible for engine damage.

You should still try if you feel that it is fair to all involved, but I'm just saying why chances might not be with you.

 

I don't pull a car with a fuel problem but once (in general) since things will change once the fueling is fixed.

With that said, is this related to a spun bearing? Probably not; would need to talk to the engine builder about that issue. I've never heard of a new engine spinning a bearing because of the tuning process ever.

 

The problem they pointed out to me wasnt an OVER FUELING issue, it was an UNDER FUELING. They said my fuel pressure was dropping from 53 to 30, but he was saying it was SO LEAN that it wouldnt do any damage. As for the motor being new. I had one of the most reputable engine builders around build the motor, and it was done a couple of yrs ago. The car has been running like a champ. Never getting below 40 lbs oil pressure, ever. Till they put in on the dyno, to check my tune. The tuner said my air/fuel was PEGGED out lean. And kept making pulls, and pulls and pulls.

 

Well that's a LOT different. A tuner should have known better than to do that. I think you have a valid case. If there was data-aquisition (logging) going on and it is showing knock, then I could see bearings damaged due to knock. Try to get the logs from your pulls.

 

agreed

 

Well, I dont want to sue this shop. Imstill trying to get in touch with the owner. I want to talk to him, and keep it cordual. Im not a very confrontational guy. It doesnt really solve anything. I just want my car fixed. Im hoping he does the RIGHT thing. Im not here to bash anyone, hints why I didnt drop any names.. I know everyone makes mistakes. Im hoping his tuner didnt mean to do this. Now, Im hoping he has some ethics and will try and resolve this.. I just wanted some of your thoughts on this...

 

I don't know... you would have to REALLY REALLY abuse a car for this to happen.

How do you know he was making repeated pulls? How do you know he didn't lift when he saw lean? Why did he keep pulling the car, were they searching for a problem? If the car was lean when it got in there, it's been lean for a while; SD doesn't wander off with a little age like a MAF does, so you have been presumably working it out on the street prior..

Still hard to say; there is no back story and any details that would be considered important are also absent from the thread, so welcome to our speculation.

 

The car was a regular mass air car. I just wanted to try the speed density way, which is one of the reasons I brought it in yesterday to get retuned. My car is VERY loud, no cats or mufflers, and I was there in the waiting room while they were tuning it yesterday, and it was real obvious when they were making a pull, or bringing it up to higher RPMs. I could hear the car POP real loud over and over again. And making a muddling sound while it was brough and help up in rpms for longer then a minute at a time. And as for making more pulls to look for a problem doesnt work for me. Im still convinced that when a fueling issue is noticed then the car should be shut down to look for the problem.

 

It sucks that he kept making pulls on the dyno knowing that the fuel pressure wasn't stable but really and all honestly the only way this tuning session could have ate a bearing was if the engine got to hot or the oil temperature started to get to hot and broke down. I know a lean engine will run quite a bit hotter, maybe not ECT wise but the oil temps will go up. It's an iffy deal there and may or may not work out for you. I wish you the best of luck.

 

I appreciate it man. All I want is for this shop to do the right thing. Im still waiting on a call back. Im trying to keep it cordial. As for the pulls eating a bearing, my air/feul was at 18+ it was pegged out lean, popping and making all sorts of noise. Correct me if Im wrong, but if your too lean that starte detnation, which is when issues start to happen. And 18 on the air/feul is pretty lean, yeah.?

 

so the shop kept making pulls without even some time in between pulls to check the tune??? im guessing they kept trying to up the fuel table with no luck.

if a wideband is pegging lean and they are making pulls regardless then there is an increased chance and hacking the pistons up due to detonation. if you see large chunks of metal in the filter I would assume this is related to the low oil pressure.... which they understood was a condition upon making pulls.... not taking the oil pressure seriously would really tick me off..... they can and should be held liable for this. As long as you were ignorant to the exent of the low oil pressure(and they told you this was happening casually) that would be considered irrational in my book

 

sounds like your not the most knowledgeable about cars... please dont take this personally because I dont claim I know alot either.... and I have definitely been wrong about alot of thins.... I trust you would have told them to take the car off with no fuel and low oil pressure if you knew just how bad it was... its their fault for not taking the car off... it was their risk and they took it... you didnt take a huge risk because you just didnt know... thats the way I see it???

 

Wow Charlie, that's some bad news. Man I think you called me awhile back, Sorry I didn't get back to you, I had been so busy and by the time I remembered it was probably a month later and since I didn't hear back from you I figured you had solved your problem. So the 18.1 A/F was after you went to SD?

 

Moe, where have you been buddy. I asked Nitro Dave and Chris from Nitro Dave to have you call me. This damn shop blew up my damn car... Im so pissed, and now they wont even return my call. I was super nice and cordial with them and not accusing them in any way. I know I signed a waiver, but I trusted they knew what they were doing, I had other tuners reffer me to them... Damn, I have alot of money in this car for some stupid **** like this to screw it up. Man Moe I need you buddy. I just PM'd you.. Call me.

 

Hope im not stepping on anyone's toes here. My interpretation of this is that Moe had your car running great for a couple years, and than you decided to go SD and now its 18:1 afr?? Did they tell you it was 18:1 or did they have the wideband hooked to the dyno and made a pull to log the AFR on the printout to show you? The popping at WOT sounds scary and hope they wouldn't stay WOT during that. Knock is typically never heard, but caught by the data logger. Ive never heard knock while im tuning probably due to the fact that im very **** and take my time. Physically hearing knock to the extent you did from a lobby is just insane. Sorry for the bad news and let me know if you need any help.
Bryan

 

I see guys come in and just baseline with everything from stock to boltons cars that knock on OEM cals. I easily and clearly hear cars knock while in the car, beside the car, in front of the car, and see the puffs from the exhaust when standing in the back. It's also fairly common to have knock that sounds loud enough that the first pull gets stopped short and no KR is present in the log (again stock cals). The 99-00 LS1s love to do that for whatever reason in both the f-bodies and vettes with the a4 vettes seeming to be the worst.

 

Ive personally seen more ls3 auto vettes knock like crazy from the factory over the others. But just my experience and not trying to hijack the thread. Regardless if there was a fueling problem present than that should have been addressed first.