Hi Ego, Im not sure what you are saying on the Vin thing? I always put in the vin and a starting program for the car you are using the computer for. If you dont do that the air bag controller and other modules will throw codes. I put in the vin to get the gm stock updated calibration for your exact vehicle that is the latest cals from GM. The only time the vin would not be correct is if someone sends me in a pcm and doesnt tell me the pcm is not from thier vehicle and already contains the latest gm factory updates. At that point i would just flash in a stock engine cal and then apply to tune to the stock cal.

As far as Cams ect and other tuning. It is all Math and the tunes should all be extreamly close to being perfect after the tunes. UNLESS there is something wrong or not working correctly on the vehicle.

I use Fuel sampling different than stock and timing and airflow correction all Automatically when people get my tunes. So the tunes should and do just fix themselves. This works perfectly as long as there are no air leaks, bad/warn out sensors, or bad parts on the cars. 95% of the time when someone has a problem, it is always due to a problem somewhere on the car. Not the pcm calibration.

Sure if you would take the car somewhere they can make it better if in person, That is because they can compensate for the flaws that are being shown from the bad sensor or other issue on your car.


From doing dyno tunes and tunes in person all the time, I would say 1 out of 20 peoples cars are perfect condition when they get to me and are ready to be tuned. The other 19 would have something that needs to be fixed or troubleshooted in order to make the car run right. From bad sensors to missing parts... Just fixing those little things makes a huge difference in the running of a vehicle.



Another thing that i would like to say is, Out of 18,500 tuned pcms that we have set up and sold, we are bound to have a few that are not happy, that is just life. I maybe only know of 20 ever. That isnt bad for the amount of happy 18,480 people. We also give free updates on any tuned pcm we sell you guys for life... So im not even sure why those 20 people would have room to complain, as im always a phone call away and can always figure out what the cause is and modify them to suit there needs...

$159 including a tuned stock pcm and no core and free updates for life....

There is no magic thing that is going to make any tune better than another, it is just how the tuner can set up the controller to fix itself better. Timing is timing and fuel is fuel as it was in carb engines as it is in FI we just have alot more control........

I usually dont post to defend myself, but for some reason the invalid part with the Vin numbers is just above and beyond on what is not true.....

 

Nice post..

 

Thanks for clearing that up. It seems lots of people have been reading this thread, so good to have that nice info in there.


Chris

 

Yes, nice post Jesse. You sold me. I sent you another email last night I'd like to get my tuned PCM sometime next week if possible? I'm sure I'll have to pay extra for expedited shipping.
I emailed you my mods and my car is bone stock right now with only 10k miles in perfect running order so it should be a great project car.

Please let me know so we can start the ball rolling, I'm sure you want money up front which is fine by me, I just need to hear back for confirmation of leadtimes and my mods.

Thanks,

Tim Sheets

[edit: your email reply arrived just as I hit the submit button]

 

A tune will "settle" some but it is not going to "fix itself" as you put it... if it needs to be fixed, it needs to be fixed...

I've had perfect sensor readings all over the vehicle that will affect the tune, no lazy O2's, screwey MAF's, MAP's, TPS etc etc... everything looks to be working just fine when I hook it up to HPT... you seem very quick to point the finger at bad parts when something doesnt work like you intended When I'd venture to say the majority of cars on this site are pretty well taken care of... they may be driven hard (as they should be) but I believe most do the right work to ensure they stay that way...

I'm not bashing or trying to start a pissing match but, some of what you say is incorrect.

 

I change the way the operating system works and the way it uses its sensors and tables.. So the inner workings of most of the tunes i do are different than what a normal shop or tuner wouldnt even remotely understand or be able to do. Any one can change tables. I change the brains of the program.

On a factory pcm with a factory type os, yes, the tune would be limited.

I however give the pcm full range to fix itself. It knows how to monitor spark differently and make an on the fly changing spark set based off of feedback and frequency patterns from knock sensors.. That is why the spark tables dont act the same and are always different if someone logs it. It will fix spark at idle to make the smoothest idle, it changes and will max itself out during light cruising, and it will change it even at wot to make the most calculated torque..

Same goes for airflow. The tune will set itself up and add or subtract airflow to make the smoothest idle. It has infinate control as long as it it mechanically possible and will add or subtract airflow in conjunction with the spark control to make even super huge cams idle smoothly.

Same goes for Fuel correction. My tunes will use o2 feedback even at wot to see the amount of error the o2 sensors themselves are and change all my settings to make them more correct and apply that to the final fueling.



Im sure other shop owners will agree on what i say on the amount of things they have to fix when the cars come to thier shops....

 

To add farther to the Fuel correction. Another thing most people dont know is, that they can hook up 2 wideband controllers in with my tune and use them instead of a narrow band o2, and then they have complete closed loop feedback and fuel correction using the stock pcm. It will just tune itself to the exact fuel airfuel ratios i have commanded at every RPM point and Load.

 

Paypal sent.
Which widebands do you recommend for permanent install? That sounds like it may be worth the $. How much better will the car be able to adjust especially for me where I may drive around my house at 4,800ft above sea level, up and over mountain passes that are nealy 9,000ft and then down to sea level within 50 miles. Pretty diverse pressure changes.

My car is not a DD and it usually just stays at the 4,800ft altitude, but if I may take it for a weekend cruise like mentioned above. I was planning on just mixing some race fuel or octane booster to be safe at lower altitudes.

 

Jesse-

My PCM will be in the mail to you tomorrow..

Jeff

 

WOW! You should be a politician.

 

I got the mail order SD tune for my '67 full boltons, it ran like a top. he re-worked my harness too. one of the best choices ive made on my conversion.

now i've got a MS3, it fires up and idles great. it's very rich, but from what i've seen, that's impressive.

only thing i was a bit miffed about is the rev limiter wasn't changed to where i wanted it. i know he'd fix it in a heartbeat if i sent it back in.

 

I definately don't know enough about tunning to argue with you BUT all I know is what I've seen for myself. I have done 3 cam swaps and used wait4me tunes and NONE of them would idle worth a crap, but when retuned by someone else they were fine. I'm sure there's people that your tunes work great for, and Im glad it worked for them, but none of the one's I've seen worked. I had a problem with my old motor showing multiple missfires ONLY after you tuned it. I changed everything (ie.plugs,wires,coils,etc.) to cover my end only to have you blame my brand new PRC heads saying they had a bad valve spring. You would not hear anything else, it was already in your mind that you were right and I was wrong. I borrowed a different PCM and the car ran perfect!! Then when I built my new 408 I thought I would try you one more time being that I had a "free retune" and I had nothing but problems. When I started the car it became swamped in fuel. Once that happened I thought you didn't scale the injectors from 26# to 42# so I sent it back and again with no surprise you said "nope, nothing wrong with the tune its your brand new FAST injectors that are bad". However, when you sent it back it did run a little better but was still covered in fuel and was showing multiple missfire's. After that according to you, surprise surprise, it was my other new heads that were the problem. At this point I had to get another PCM out of a wrecked car and my tuner (who I will leave out of this) put a base tune on it and it started right up, idled perfect, and didn't have anymore codes showing. So I guess he tuned out those bad sensors and bad valve springs huh? You flat out lied to me over and over not admitting when you were wrong. Any decent business person would have admitted their faults and made things right with their customer. I never asked for a refund, I just asked to have my PCM corrected... which never happened.

 

I have to say im another disatisfied customer. when my car had boltons and i got gears and had him calibrate the spedo, the car did fine, it seemed like it gained a little power and i was happy. however when i did my heads and cam i had a few probs. the car idles like CRAP, i have to brake boost it pulling out of the driveway and anytime i come to a stop. when i first got the tune he left the STOCK idle on 230/232 cam, can you imagine trying to drive that? sent it back told em to set it at 800. he moved it from 600 to 700. it ran better but still needs to be higher. sent it back again to have the shift points brought up from 6000 to 6200, got it back and it still shifted at 6k. so its like he just send it back without doing anything, so that took a week of driving my car and 20$ and shipping and handling for nothing. now i hope im not in the same boat when i go to get my car dynoed as ego killer is. i saw his car with the wait4metune, its a 408 and its was still running the programming for a 346CI and stock injectors when it had 42#'s. i hope i dont have to buy a new PCM and make a trip for nothing like ego did(100$ in gas probley) so i say if you got minor things to do like calibrate speedo, deltete rear sims, egr etc then go for it. but for larger mods like heads, cam, N20 etc get a REAL tune.

 

How is something running rich impressive... you can make anything fire right up if you fudge the right values... add some startup flare... you can make just about anything "fire right up" and FYI, if its rich, its not idling great... it needs to be retuned...

 

I'll be number 3, idled like crap, pig rich, never shifted above 6k, and line pressure never moved from stock through the tuning performed.

Any phone conversation related to looking into what I'd already been taking apart and replacing with different parts to rule out as issues. So I gave up, opened the throttle body blade up, and enjoyed the watery eyeballs while listening to the sweet cam lope.

I would recommend the tuning for a header swap/tuning out sensors and such for certain worth the money. Just no results on shift points, line pressure, or idle. Never got to take the car for dyno tuning to see if my PCM did the same thing as Ego's with the VIN number issue.

 

Well, I've had my car tuned by Jesse..

I have to say that at the moment, I am pleased.. I didn't expect it to be perfect and am still planning on putting it on a dyno and fine tuning it, but for what I needed Jesse to do, he did..

It is running fine.. I could easily leave it like it is and be completely happy with it, however it is running pretty rich and I don't want to leave it like it is, so the local LS1 guy is going to tweak it for me..

I can report back with what the differences are...

I plan on doing a dyno run with Jesse's tune and then a couple after the local guys tune and we'll see...

 

Well things are looking up. When I put my motor back together after my H/C swap I left the stock PCM in just to make sure it would at least run. It DID Then after maybe 20 minutes of run time I swapped PCMs to the pre-programmed Wait4me PCM waiting on the bench. It fired off and idled better so we went for a test drive. Before I made it to the end of the street it started to idle at 2,000opm and then up to 3,000rpm. I checked the floor mat and throttle cable, but all was clear. I shut it off and it seemed ok, but a 100ft down the road and it started revving again. Eventually I went home and put the stock PCM back in and did what I could with my predator tuner. The motor ran really strong and was rich at idle and didn't like warm restarts, but in all other aspects it ran awesome.

Today I talked to Jesse to see what he thought might be the problem and what I should do? He suspected a vacuum leak and I understand the logic, but don't think that vacuum is the problem. The motor runs to smooth and consistent on the sotck PCM, but trouble shooting over the phone is not easy.

So tonight I bumped the throttle body idle stop up a bit just to where it was holding the motor at about 970rpm. Then I swapped the Wait4me PCM. All be dammed if it doesn't also run great. It runs better at off idle and low rpms under load. WOT seems the same, but it was awesome before. Idle now is the oppisite. Now on hot restart it runs up to 1,300rpm for 10-20 seconds and then settles back in to about 940rpm. My nose tells me it's not as rich while cruising or idling also.

I don't know why it didn't run right the first try, the only thing changed is the butterfly stop on the TB. The throttle response is definitely better with the new PCM. I can't wait to drive it a little more.

[Edit] Drove it a little more and it definetly runs better with Jesse's PCM. Like I said, WOT is hard to tell, but low rpm high loads it drives much better. It still idles up when you come to a stop and when you hot start it. For about 10-20 seconds it will idle up to 1200-1300rpm and then settle down. I'm going to back the TB stop down a little bit and see if it helps. I think I may have increased it just a little too much. Motor runs very crisp and strong from 1200rpm to rev limit. Of course it likes to be jumped on at above 3000rpm, but it pulls good while cruising at low rpm too.

 

Seems to be working very well. It's almost as drivable as stock, but a little pesky trying to idle around in 1st gear. Other than that it runs awesome. I expected it to be worse with this much cam. So I'm very pleased. Now I just need to get to a dyno and get some numbers for power and A/F.

 

Another satisified Wait4me customer. All of the problems I had getting the car right were due to my failure to torque the throttlebody down. Now that everything is correct on the motor the tuned PCM has my LS1 running as docile as a stock Camaro. Crack the throttle and there's a lot more power, but driving around town or down the highway feels almost like a car off of the showroom floor.

My car does not look modded and thanks to a good tune it doesn't drive like it's modded...it just has more power.

The only thing that looks non-stock is the long tubes on it.

 

I had Wait4Me's tune on my car when I swapped in the cam/headers last weekend, it ran okay, but nothing spectacular. Put it on a dyno the next day to REALLY tune it and got another 30rwhp/30rwtq out of it. Moral of story, a mail order tune is usually good to get you by for a few months, but a DYNOTUNE is where the real power/drivability is at. 30rwhp/30rwtq is a huge increase