West Side Tuner

[birdie2000]

I may have asked this in the past, but that's not Tom's (cASe SenSiTive) old car by chance is it? A lot of that combo sounds familiar.

edit: Haha, yea, just went through old posts and saw that I did ask and that it's his old car. I knew the engine was stout but those numbers are great even by today's standards considering that engine was built quite a while ago.

[PWND3r]

I may have asked this in the past, but that's not Tom's (cASe SenSiTive) old car by chance is it? A lot of that combo sounds familiar.

edit: Haha, yea, just went through old posts and saw that I did ask and that it's his old car. I knew the engine was stout but those numbers are great even by today's standards considering that engine was built quite a while ago.

Yep it's his old car. Not a lot changed from when he had it.

[xDetroitMetalx]

Steve did the tune, we changed some things but not much. I would've liked to have seen what it would've done on the 225.

Steve was great to deal with, and knew what he was doing but the follow-through would've made things a lot better.

That's pretty much my issue with Vector. They treat me really well, but once I fork over the cash they don't want anything to do with me. That is, until I need them to tune an addition to the car. Whenever I call them with questions about their changes it's like I'm inconveniencing them. It's not like I'm calling to pick their brains and buy parts / build it myself, I'm asking general information about the tune.

Once my car is back on the road I'm going to try to get ahold of TJ and see if anything can be squeezed out and hopefully answer the questions I have. Thank you all for your help and concerns. Once I get numbers that are fair and put it on the track I'll let you all know how it does.

[Lucky SOB]

Forgot to add, Liz's fan turn-on temp was also set too high I think

[xDetroitMetalx]

Hokay so....

Issues with Vector:

Transmission was just never tuned in, at all. It was set as a stock application, nothing was changed. The car is tuned in open loop and the air/fuel ratio was fine at idle and cruising speed, however, at WOT it was tuned too lean and spark advance was high. This was addressed and fixed by the new tuner @ Baker Engineering.

The new tune:

Instead of a Mustang Dyno they use a Dyno Jet, so keep this in mind. He leveled out the air / fuel ratio at WOT and pulled timing back and produced an extra 6 rwhp. The end result is 386 rwhp / 342 torque. The shift points feel much better and firmer and OD is now 45, which suites my driving needs. He also lowered the idle which I also like more, you can hear the lobe even more and it seems to vibrate less. I did a quick 0-90 pull and everything worked perfectly. It's good to have the second opinion to put me at ease. He wrote down a sheet with important details, here they are:

IGN Advance

@ idle 21 + or - 15

WOT @ torque peak 35*
@ HP peak 38*

Shift points:
1-2 6350
2-3 6250
3-4 6150

AFR @ Cruise 14.5-15:1

Injector Duty Cycle 65-68%

Afterwards he showed me around the shop. They had an LSX boosted block they were working on that produces enough power to hit 198 mph in the 1/4. They mostly work on military engines with Navy / Air Force / Army, a lot of UAV work I guess. They also do a lot of circle track, drag motors and they also play with a lot of boost work on modern engines. TJ, is their man that engine dyno and chassis dyno their products (I guess they have another guy for carb applications). He was very informative and as a bonus never dogged on the LT1 once. I highly recommend them at this point. I have been through three different tuners in Michigan now and thus far they are my favorite.

[Formula Z]

glad to hear tj took care of you. he seemed like a cool guy when he did mine. i know quite a few cars he has tuned

[Gaspo]

he's a good tuner! they do a lot of work on speed boats and that kinda thing too. dune buggies etc. he's super good with ls motors. tunes anything with them in it. i think i need to go back for a little more work. i found an exhaust leak before my WB02 sensor. running kinda rich

[hoogiesngrinderz]

he's a good tuner! they do a lot of work on speed boats and that kinda thing too. dune buggies etc. he's super good with ls motors. tunes anything with them in it. i think i need to go back for a little more work. i found an exhaust leak before my WB02 sensor. running kinda rich

Could this have washed out your rings? Not sure if an exhaust leak would cause it to run that rich, or maybe this along with over boosting? Just throwing it out there

[Gaspo]

Could this have washed out your rings? Not sure if an exhaust leak would cause it to run that rich, or maybe this along with over boosting? Just throwing it out there

its possible.. when my wideband was working, it said i was running rich. my exhust spits out condensation. like a lot. but its always black. if i leave the car running in the driveway, it spits out this black condensation that stains the driveway. i told tj i found the exhaust leak after he tuned it, so maybe it sucked air in as he tuned it and was reading leaner then it actually was running. he said on the dyno it shouldnt make a difference.. i disagree with it. i've killed two sensors with it since the tune. i'm thinking because of how rich it is. i turn the key on, let the sensor warm up before starting it. who knows...

[WMCCjames]

Glad to hear TJ got you sorted out..he's good people.

[meissen]

Glad to hear you got the service you were looking for.

[xDetroitMetalx]

Maybe I'm old school or maybe I just like to know too much, I'm not sure. I'm sure I'm not the "normal" customer, except, I know that there are people like me that like to do as much work as they can, and if they can't do the required work (like tuning a transmissions for me), then they like to really know what was done in detail. My engine builder is great like that in Detroit, a guy here in Holland built me an amazing transmission and gave me all the details and TJ had no issues letting me know what was done and showed me all the graphs that the dyno read and took time out of his day to explain things too me that I didn't understand. That's good customer service and that is what will separate any shops that do the same type of work, period.

Right now I'm still a tad disappointed in the numbers, originally I was aiming for 420 at the wheels as I said. However, I guess we will see at the track when I get it there and then I will map out some new go fast parts in the future.

[WMCCjames]

I wouldn't worry too much about the numbers. That dyno is a bit stingy if you ask me.

[xDetroitMetalx]

I think it rated well for a Dyno Jet, most rate ridiculously high.

[meissen]

Unless the company is manually changing the weather parameters or they're using out of date software, dynojets and mustang dynos should be really close to each other.