Were you two there when the installation took place? That's great that your cars are running great. Maybe you got your money's worth, but my car was tuned improperly, Gonz's was tuned with my map, and our friend Jose's civic was put together missing parts and loose. When I would call Alex he would try to help me to the best of his abilities and blamed the car to be running crappy because of Georgia weather and gas. That wasn,t the case though, it was faulty tuning. Maybe they figured out some things and got your cars straight, but ous weren't and we paid hard earned money like the two of you for nothing. We all were happy at first because we new nothing, but that has changed due to car break downs and messes to be cleaned. That catch can had one of the hoses connected in the wrong place, behind the engine. It goes on the right side. The only thing that Alex was missing was the directions. So what you are telling me is that you need directions to install a catch can. Wow! The directions aren't even specific to different engines so if you are lost you shouldn't attempt installation. It was in a plastic bag because the plastic bag is in the box it comes in. So let's recap, it was missing the box and the instructions both of which aren't needed to install the product if you know what you are doing. I hate jumping into this mess, but someone complains and it's my car is good. We are happy for you guys once again, but that doesn't change our situation. We each paid 400 bucks for what tuning? 30 min each = 400 bucks??? But you guys were happy he says. Yes, because we didn't know any better. You got us. I won't even post how much Jose was charged for that engine swap. The price kept changing on a daily basis so I'm confused on what it was. WE the customers are not paid to know what you are doing to our cars. We pay you for that. The question you should be asking yourself is "Are we happy with are work?" The customer may be happy because of lack of knowledge but are we? Instead the easy wrong was chosen over the hard right. From my experience now, you cannot fully tune an EMS in 30min and you cannot use the same map for different cars even if their mods are similiar. Every car is different and every car needs its' separate attention. Doug and I have similar mods and our maps are completly different. The only things that are similar are our ignition maps and boost maps. You guys have a viper though. Great, but what about this crap because unfortunatley that is what it is. Alex you said you were hooking me up with what you are paying with the Perrin deal, but you were buying in. That wasn't a deal and you almost had me. You made me think that you were helping me out and that really wasn't the case. You charged me 50 bucks for your custom groung kit that wasn't even sodiered. It wasn't put together well at all because I have since had to fix it because it fell apart. All this over a catch can. If the hoses are loose as well as the fittings then what is the logic of putting it on its side. Is this so the oil can spill all over the place. I have never heard or seen even a picture with a catch can installed on its side. If it is tipped over it will spill. The hoses were kinked. Hell, the hose is outside right now and from being kinked for so long it is permanetly that way. Gonz shouldn't have been name calling by all means. That was childish, but when you spend money and you are had that causes frustration which may result in name calling. Let's not bring the military into this because reguardless what Gonz calls you Alex he defended you and everyone around you and everyone you don't even know. He put his life on the line for the unknown and will soon do it again. So please don't you ever bring the military into this again I bet that your car has no oil spills and faulty tuning. That is because you take pride in it like you should have on ours. You and your staff probably aren't crappy, but you can be. No more short cuts and no more complaints.

Matt

 

matt,

we tuned your car, gonz's car, chad (enigma), chris (evoate), and everyone else's car using a method called boost comp. we don't use a standard 3d graph like a lot of other shops due to the fact boost comp is an easier method to tune and has built in safeguards for overboost situations, ie. vac line coming off the wastegate.

we've never had any problems using this method to tune, and it makes for very drivable cars. we've done honda/acuras, mitsu evo's/eclipse/3000gt, supras, and vipers using this method, all the cars made power, none of the cars but yours and gonz's had problems.

when we start tuning a car, we use the most current map from the most current car we did (of the same model/similar mods) as a base map. and from there, we modify the engine cranking/idle, fuel, timing, boost control, etc, etc. basically, we modify everything. we don't just stick a map from car A onto car B. but because of the boost comp method, the maps do have similarities.

as for the catch can, no, we didn't need instructions to install it. we found a place where it was out of the way, set it up for a sideways mount, and hooked up the lines, clamped all the lines down, made sure nothing was crimped, and that was that.

as for jose's car, we did a factory looking swap of the b16 into his hatch. i have pictures of most of the install somewhere. we wired everything up, made sure everything was bolted down properly. the only 2 problems we had with the car were:

1) the secondary o2 sensor wasn't hooked up because there was no provision on the factory body wiring harness for it. we tried running new wires and pinning in directly to the ecu, but that didn't work because there was missing electronics inbetween that were not present on the body harness.

jose had to come get his car the following week, and every spare moment, i was trying new things with his secondary o2 sensor trying to make it work. i worked up until the night before he came to get his car on that one problem.

2) the shift linkage pin. we had initially had a bolt in place of the factory spring clip just to hold it in place until we could get the real spring clip. we did the swap on that saturday night, honda dealer was closed obviously. so the following weekday, we went to honda to pick up the $1 part to put in, and honda is not by any means very far, but it's not close either. we have the receipt for it too.

that pin was installed like it should be, the c-clip that goes around it went on, and the car was fine.

we did 2 oil changes, replaced the timing belt, the main serpentine belt, the water pump, coolant flush, new spark plugs, cleaned the injectors, and cleaned all the cam journals and cam lobes. redline 75w90ns went into the tranny, castrol syntec went into the engine, 93 octane shell went into the tank.

the 50 mile test drive was fine, only problem was the CEL for the seconday o2 sensor heater due to the missing sensor.

as for cutting corners, we don't. whenever we wire up new electonic devices, we always solder, and shrink if we can. otherwise properly wrap up all exposed connectors with electrical tape and a zip tie over it just to be sure it won't come apart.

another shop, a prominent sponsor of this site, uses tap in and butt connectors when they install devices. enigma's car had a lot of those connectors which i had to take out and repatch the original harness. we take the time to do things clean, do them right, and we sure as hell take our time with it to make sure we do.

the whole perrin thing, i needed an initial buy in of $2k, which i got 25% off for. i was going to pass along the WHOLE savings to you, just add shipping. there probably is a deeper discount available for shops that do more volume w/ their products, but we just don't deal too much with evo exhausts.

i have no problem with you or gonz, i have no problem with your criticism or opinions of me and my business. you are who you are and i can't change what you think, say, or do.

and as for the military comment, i appreciate that you two put your lives on the line to protect the freedom i enjoy so much, but for a person with such great responsibility like that, doesn't calling someone a "loser" amount to nothing more than being immature and childish?

and gonz, we did install your catch can properly, we know we did. we've done many, many before with no problems. a sideways mount will fill up faster than a vertical mount. and had you been closer, we would have been more than happy to fix any problems at no charge. same for the tuning, like i told you to send me a log when you got back to GA. because GA weather/gas IS different from NC. we saw it w/ chris's (evoate) car and matt's car. we tuned chris's car in GA at knowledge performance and it was perfect driving around atlanta. as soon as we got back here, it wasn't running quite right and we had to make some adjustments. that's why i told you to send me some logs, so we could make the proper adjustments.

i'm not going to get into it with either of you or any of your crew anymore, it makes you, me, and everyone else involved in this bickering look bad. i know we do quality work, and we have an huge list of customers that can back us up. it's just a shame you two are so far and we can't exactly troubleshoot hands on like we do for our local customers.

-alex

 

Everyone that is involved in this put their two sense in. Close the post please as nothing but arguements will follow.