Originally Posted by TurbotrixRacing

I stand by what i said and what i did. The car was tuned perfect and it was tuned right. The air fuels were 11.2 accross the board , and the car had less then 1 volt of knock as well. The car was tuned for 22psi on pump. The only thing rick did before he had the problem was turn his boost down to 19 psi. I went back to his cal file and discovered at 19 psi the car had roughly 3 degrees more timing, then what i had tuned it for at 22 - 23 psi. Could this of been enough to damage his motor, maybe at 400+ hp's. I can do nothing more then stand by what i did and what i've accomplished as a tuner and as a shop owner. Rick did 400 miles a week for 5 months without an issue, and beat the hell out of his car.


Mark
Turbotrix

Originally Posted by Pruven

I see that we just have different ways of doing things.

1. We turn on the knock control
2. We use an AIT
3. We check the maps
4. We stand by that 100%

I guess we will agree that we disagree.

Dan @ Pruven

Originally Posted by UltimateEvo

Turbo Trixs Suckss

Originally Posted by watchout

Damn i better turn my boost back up. I thought turning it down in cold weather would be good. I didn't realize it could backfire and cause timing issues which in turn could cause knock. I learn something new on this forum everyday.

Shane

Originally Posted by Spec C

I have a question, and am being 100% serious and really am not trying to be a smartass just have been wondering this question for the greater part of this thread..

If you were in Mark's shoes and roles were reversed, you had over looked something, but the car ran fine for an extended period of time then dropped a cyl. Would you step-up and out of pocket rebuild the motor? If not how would you rectify the situation?

I am hearing this story from all angles, and it seems that each makes valid points, but i am curious what you would have done different(other then saying it never would have happened if you tuned it) This is a pretty touhy subject for all involved parties, and i can see how it gets so heated when discussed..

I will say i consider myself a 100% neutral party, i have been to pruven a few times and you have personally talked to me about some problems my car was having, and really went out of your way to help me while my car was on the dyno, i have also been to trubo trix a few times, and while i can't say i talked much to mark(he was very busy everytime i went there) I can say he seemed like a cool down to earth guy, said hello when i walked in the door, and seemed really easy to get along with..

Dave-

Originally Posted by Pruven

Well, I'm not going to be or trying to be a smart *** either so I'll say this the best way I can. I can appriciate your question, but that has never even been brought up by anyone in this thread and that is really up to the shop owner. It depends on a whole lot of things. We are all human and generally all have made a mistake or 2 before. The problem here is that there was not one mistake made but a few( and this is only my opinion, everyone has one) and this is not the only car it happened to. I am in no way saying "If I did the job, this would never have happened", as I said we are all human and we all make mistakes. What I will say is that we do things differently. More than likely, this would not happen to us because of the way we do things and for the record, this has never happened to us.

As far as how I would handle it if it did happen to me, I really coudn't tell you. It completely depends on the entire situation. If the customer went to another shop and they tore into the car, touched his tune, etc.. I would have a hard time handling it in favor of the customer at that point. If he came to me directly and handles it that way, I'm sure we could work something out, but again I don't really know because I have never been in a situation where a motor blew up at our hand. I can tell you that when I have a customer with a problem that is directly related to our work or parts purchased from us we take care of 100% no questions asked. We are not going to come up with excuses, we are very reasonable, honorable, and respect our clients, but thats just us.


Dan @ Pruven

Originally Posted by watchout

Damn i better turn my boost back up. I thought turning it down in cold weather would be good. I didn't realize it could backfire and cause timing issues which in turn could cause knock. I learn something new on this forum everyday.

Shane

Originally Posted by DA-4BANGA

Now I move on to you Rez90, but before I start, I hope you go back into your brain database and remember I was the one standing next to you at TT and told you about that pregnant battery u had in your car, REMEMBER?

Here we go........ Dude I also know Mark at Turbotrix is an awesome guy and would help out anyone with a problem too. I never said he wasnt, never blamed him or the shop for blowing up my car.

So why do u say this post should never have been started in the first place? I blew up with my AEM, others have also. People have blown on the stock ecu, people have blown with other units also. That is the purpose of this forum, to discuss issues, good, bad, ugly, and so on. I wanted to know who else has gone thru this, with what system and by who with what method of tuning used........

I remember a few of your posts about blowing up your drivetrain, they were quite useful, and of course just like my thread, the trolls came out and started with the gossip and ripped it to shreds. So my thread was not directed at me blowing up and blaming anyone.....and like you CLAIM that I should have more common sense........RRRRRRRRight Dude

I met u at the shop that day and we shot the BS for a while and shared a few tips, I think ur a pretty cool Dude, so what's up with the comments Dude. :You had questions just like I had questions.....All these other beanbags that come on the post to trash it are not worth the time of day for me and shouldn't be to you either man.

I've had more cars than these people can imagine, know a HELL of a lot people in the drag race, track, street race, and car show scenes. Been in this for over 15 years and have helped a lot of people along the way, so sharing insight is part of who I am so......Like I said before, all these other drama queen trolls dont know where I'm coming from so whatever........

But you, Mark, Jeff, Bean, Buschurs, Big Al and the boyz at Pruven and a lot of other people have met me face to face and know that I say it like it is, take it or leave.......Y'all know the 4BANGR can talk you to death
later Rez and GOD BLESS

Originally Posted by watchout

Damn i better turn my boost back up. I thought turning it down in cold weather would be good. I didn't realize it could backfire and cause timing issues which in turn could cause knock. I learn something new on this forum everyday.

Shane

Originally Posted by Spec C

Understood.. The reason i came out with the question was because you said"4. We stad by that 100%" I figured by that you meant you stand behind the tune you let leave the shop 100% so with that said i figured i would ask how you would handle it.. I also understand there are many variables when handling a problem like this.. I like to hear how shops handle these kinds of catastropy's when making my decision on what shop i want to deal with.. There is always a chance that something like this can happen, and it is just comforting when a shop stands behind their work 100%..

Originally Posted by DSMotorsport

WHOA WHOA WHOA stop the train. This situation only comes about if the load row you are moving your engine into is not tuned correctly in the first place.

everyone's AEM will not have the same situation. Turning down the boost SHOULD be safer for the engine provided that the person who set up your aem started at the lowest boost attainable and worked up in steady small increments testing and tuning the fuel and ignition maps at each load row. I honestly have no idea if any AEM retailer/tuners get this involved with customer cars.

But if your knock correction is turned on and set prudently I doubt you would have any issues other than a power loss. Open up your laptop and take a look at the timing map. see if the ignition timing seems to decrease as you go up the verticle axis of the map in smooth "even" increments. If it's smooth you should be good to go.

My gut feeling is DA-4banger's car poped becuase of a combination of things. Bad gas, a few degree's too much timing, knock protection not suffeicient, changing AF from the fall weather all together can all contribute to some knock.

This thread has gone too far in the direction of who's to blame and why. SCrew that.

Lets get some discussion on what can be done to try and make sure this doesn't happen to more AEM EMS users. Lets quit the finger pointing and put our combined experience with the EMS to good use and get the information out in the open

Originally Posted by UltimateEvo

Turbo Trixs Suckss

Originally Posted by groovytang

off topic, but who tunes steph papadakis' aem drag civic?

Originally Posted by prostockCRX

Jason, we have a question in regard to your post. When a customer making 400 whp on a evo with your AEM picks up a bad load of gas, what effect, (if any), does the AEM knock control have in that situation, in YOUR honest professional experience? We have seen dozens of evos with your AEM in them and watched the data logs very closely. Those which have the knock control as supplied in your base calibration files will immediately pull up to 5 degrees of timing and add fuel when they see any significant knock. We have seen the effective manner in which the AEM knock control works on many occassions. The AEM knock control is a very effective feature and works as designed. More importantly it is entirely end user configurable. It would seen that the relative saftey of a car's tune with the AEM has a lot to do with how you configure it and how it is tuned? Also, you note how this customer was running well for several months with no ill effect and then recently he had a problem. I point out to you that we live in the North East and recently the air temprature has started to get rather cold. What effect would colder, denser air have on a tune that was working well for several months over the summer? Do you at AEM recomend running your systems with no AIT sensor on speed density for street driven cars? Do you at AEM recomend turning OFF the knock control on pump gas cars ?