I finally decided to break down and have my 2003 EVO 8 dyno tuned. I had been running a street tune that a friend of mine had done several years back. I was having a few issues, so I finally decided to contact CBRD in York PA to schedule an appointment. I wanted to have the car on the road for spring, so I planned early. On 1/16/15 I contacted CBRD with what I was looking for and a mod list of the car. I was running e85/93 map switching prior to the appointment and made it clear that I wanted to keep this since E85 is very plentiful in my area. Initially I had planned on going out on a Saturday, but Chad wasn’t sure if the 93/E85 tuning could be completed in one day, so I decided on Friday April 3rd so that if it wasn’t complete, I could stay over to finish up on Saturday. I was instructed to have the car on 93 when I got there with less than a ¼ tank so the tuning could be done on that first, and then the tank would be drained and e85 would be put in. The car is not driven very often and there was about ½ tank of e85 left in it as I left for the 4 hour trip. Once I got down to about 1/8 tank or less I stopped to fill up with 93. By the time I arrived in York I was at about ¼ tank again. I arrived promptly at 8 AM as I was instructed. At about 8:30 am one of the other guys that worked there pulled my car in and installed the 3 port boost controller and did a boost leak check. By the time this was all done it was about noon. At about that time Chad came to talk to me about what was being done with the car, as if he had never corresponded with me prior, including all of the mods to the car twice. He did not recall telling me via phone and email that he would tune on 93/e85, and tried to convince me to only tune on 93. He also indicated that he did not have any E85 to tune on. He said that the station that was nearby did not have it working any longer. This was not what we agreed on prior, so I told Chad that if he found it somewhere that had it, I would go and get it. After a few calls he found some, so I made the trip of about 40 minutes in each direction to get it. I got back to the shop at about 1:30. He said he would only be able to tune on E85 since there wasn’t a lot of time, but the car never got on the DYNO until about 4PM. At about 5:15 I was on the road for my 4hour drive back home with just an E85 map, but fortunately I had stopped and bought two more 5 gallon Gas cans to fill up with E85 earlier. About 40 miles into the trip the CEL came on, but it was already well after 6 pm and was too late to turn back. I took it easy driving home so that I would make it on the fuel that I had.
On Monday April 6th I pulled the code off of the car which was a P0125 closed loop fuel control.
Tuesday (April 7)morning I wrote up an email to Chad letting him know about the code and asking him if he could please at least add a conservative fuel map for 93 in case of an emergency. He responded and said he would, but no mention of the CEL.
I cleared the code and after about 40 miles it came back again. I had never really done a good pull in the car yet, so during the week I tried a 3rd/4th/5th pull. The car felt very strong through 3rd and 4th but felt like it was hitting a wall in 5th(only hitting about 12psi) compared to 27psi in 3rd/4th.
After waiting a week after Chads promise to send a revised map to include the 93 map, I followed up on 4/14 and also reminded him of the CEL and let him know about the 12psi in 5th gear. I even gave him a link to a post about that code after tuning.
I followed up again on 4/21…no response
4/27 was promised to have something 4/28
Followed up 4-29 no response
Followed up 5/1 no response as of yet

Any questions i had prior to the trip out to CBRD were answered very quickly, but unfortunately support since payment has been a different story. It really sucks to spend that much to have a car tuned, and not be functional/correct. I have given up on this being resolved through CBRD, and am looking into other options.

 

brian-

I would like to make this right for you--

sorry for lack of follow up- I will get you sorted in the next couple of days- at this point I dont have anything on my end suggesting a quick solution- but will follow up shortly-

as for our Local E85 station closing- I'm sorry as that wasnt within our control-- and we havent been tuning many E85 cars because lack of availability in our area-

cheers

cb

 

Let me make it clear. Installing 3 port and boost leak test took almost 4 hours? No way!
I think we are pampered by Erkel here in NY. Brought my car there at 10:30 am, they installed test pipe, 3 port boost, intake, UICP and boost leak tests and by 4pm he was already tuning my car. By 5 pm I was done.

Came back for FMIC and down pipe and another tune( free!), done about the same time.
And the most important of all, he listens to what you want. He always suggests things but at the end you get to decide.

 

there was no 4 hour install for 3 port and boost leak test-

the boost leak test found a leak at the compressor outlet pipe that had to be removed, resurfaced, cleaned, new gasket, etc.... and 3 intercooler coupler leaks, along with some other tid bits- plus draining and swapping fuel



cb

 

Fair enough.

 

If it makes you feel better, I paid for two e-tunes over a year ago from a "reputable" tuner (not CBRD) and only got half of one done. Guy doesn't even have a phone number, ignores emails and only uses AIM which is always set to away.

I Had to just eat the loss and pay someone else to finish it.

 

I had the exact same thing happen. Is he still active on this board? The one that screwed me is....

I never bothered making a thread since he's pretty well liked and I thought it would go no where.

 

Do I get a prize if I say Jon Drenas?????????? I'm still licking my wounds too

 

ouch, really hate to hear stories like this. Hope you get this sorted out OP.

 

we are working away on it

cb

 

Last time I did he flagged it endlessly until it was taken down and promised to finish my tune. That's how the cycle continues over and over again. Of course my tune never got finished.

That was August of 2014.

 

You too eh? There's been a lot of us. So we got $1200 stolen at least with just the 3 of us. Nice. Shoulda went to Tom or CBRD.

 

LOL! im not looking too good though in this thread!

cb

 

I think the only complaint about CBRD was the OP.

 

you're looking awesome! All three of us are wishing we had went to you over the other.