I hate to bash shops on forums BUT... IveyTune
 

This has me so pissed off that I need to rant...

So before I had my FP black I was tuned by Akuma Motorsports and they had excellent customer service, made you feel right at home, John and the whole crew were amazing. I made 313WHP and 298WTQ.

Anyway...

I went to IveyTune for a FP Black tune which made 425awhp and 340awtq. (I wanted this sort of low power to save the block)
He told me the "boost was fluctuating" and that there was "something wrong with the car"
I took it back the next day for a waste gate adjustment because that's what he thought would be the issue, he tuned it out on the street and said everything was better now, but there was "still some fluctuating"
So I figured everything would be fine since he gave me back the car and told me it was better now.

I was having an issue with a warm hard-start, common for ID1000's, I brought it back to Ivey and they couldn't fix the issue.

So now I figured why not call Akuma and have John take a look.
Last friday I took the car to Akuma and John told me that Ivey's tune was locked but he can try to see if he can get into the rom. (which he couldn't)
We figured since the hard start was temperature related, it had to do with the tune. (mainly crank enrichment)

I asked John if we can put it on the dyno, to see how the tune was on his dyno and if he thought he could do better (safety wise, maybe get some more power, and hopefully fixing the hard start)
**note - I wanted a pull on the mustang dyno mainly to see what the difference from the dynojet would be, thank god I did...

So now here's where the rant starts
Much to our surprise, the first pull he tried to do he stopped at 4krpm with 7 counts of knock!! he told me he didn't want to go on without my permission.
He asked if I wanted him to continue the pull or not, and I said yes.
He did a pull to red line and found 9 counts of knock from 4k to red line.

9 ****ing counts of knock!! From a tuner that's that reputation is this high?

Not only that, but the car made 346whp, a WHOPPING 33whp more than what John got out of my stock turbo with bolt ons

For those who don't know, Mustang dyno's read much lower than dynojets
(346whp on Akuma's mustang = 415-425whp on Ivey's dyno)

So he retuned it, 1-2 knock counts, no boost fluctuating (John assured me there was nothing wrong with my car... I'm assuming for whatever reason Ivey couldn't keep the boost smooth) 30 more whp (I made 375whp and 30Xwtq)

For anyone who wants to see, I have the 9 counts of knock and the Dyno sheet saved. You can see on the dyno sheet how Ivey couldn't really smooth out the boost, and the difference between him and John's tune is night and day.

Again, I hate to do this to tuners but I'm so annoyed. How do you give a car back to its owner with 9 counts of knock and say "it's better now", what was it before then?? And then still charge $500. I will NOT be going back to them.

I want to add this in, John would never go out and tell anyone how bad or ****ty this tune was because he's such a humble person, and NEVER has anything bad to say about other tuners, nor does his crew.

ok, rant's over. Sorry for the long read, and I'm sure Ivey's done good work, just not on my car. And if you have that kind of reputation, you can't skimp out on ANY car...

This rant is not to bash Ivey (well sort of), it's to encourage my fellow forum users to read a little bit about tuning before getting tuned. and to ask your tuner "let me see the knock counts, A/F's etc..." I don't want anyone making the same mistake I did and having it cost them thousands...

/Rant

PS - my hard start is fixed :dance banana: (from what I can tell) lol

Hmm.. There are always bad cases with every shop and tuner.. I've heard a couple about Akuma too..

But the tune from Ivey does sound pretty bad.. I like threads like this because it shows to make sure and still do a little research, and not just to trust somebody only on their name..

That's the point I was trying to get across {thumbup}

Mark,
I won't argue here as I realize it's pointless. Your car was tuned well here and exhibited no counts of knock. If there was an issue we would for sure take it in and look at it. We Do ALOT of those cars and we have been doing them a long time.

You brought us a car where you provided all the parts and had it worked on elsewhere. You said you had a warm start issue, which we have never had with a setup like that, you brought it in, we found something installed incorrectly in the fuel pump hanger. This was what 3 months ago?

Fast forward, and now you have 7-9 counts of knock and it's the end of the world and I don't know what I am doing?

I hope you realize we log stock cars and see 7 counts of knock, straight from Mitsu!

One bad tank of gas can bring you to 7-9 knock counts of knock and even more, we recommend customer refill and recheck as we have seen on NUMEROUS occasions where this happens. That is what the system is designed for to protect the engine in case of poor gas quality.

Anyways, I won't waste much time, I hope you are happy with your new tune and I wish you all the best with the car.


Sean

I don't want to go back and forth with you because I KNOW you do good work and never said you don't know what you're doing. Don't be ridiculous.

All I know is, you did say there was something wrong with the car after you tuned it. the boost was fluctuating. I brought it back the next day, you street tuned it, and even then you said "it was better" but theres still something up... I remember like it was yesterday... There was nothing wrong with the car when it was retuned.

I won't go back and forth with you. If you are happy there then no problem, we can't please everyone. We tried to rectify the issues in the time given, but if I told you there was something wrong it's because I felt that way. I have no reason to bull**** you.

Alot of time has passed since we last touched the car and those knock counts are not a big deal, you were last here with the car 8/16/2012, 4 months have passed.

I guess from here going forward you had it tuned elsewhere, so we no longer have anything to do with any issues you may have?


Sean

I hate it when this happens. No one ends up happy.

Sean Ivey is not my tuner. But, in all fairness, I have say that I have talked to a lot of Evo owners who won't go any where else but Ivey Tune. I've also talked with some other very respected tuners, and they have nothing but good words for Sean, and his tunes. I've been on this forum almost every night since 2004, and I can say with certainty that there are very, very few negative posts concerning Ivy Tune.

Having said that, I am certainly not suggesting that this particular complaint is without any merit. I have no way of knowing. However, I do think that its always best to voice any dissatisfaction to the person directly, and to do it right away. Give them a chance to explain, or to fix it before going public. Its the right thing to do.

Sounds like the OP brought in a cluster **** and wanted sean to wave his magic wand and make all kinds of other problems disappear.

Best of luck with that.

Sounds like you have no idea what you're talking about.
The shop that did the work is a shop that Ivey deals with quite a lot and is VERY reputable.

Sounds like you went online to try to badmouth a shop rather than picking up the phone like a man.

Why don't you have THEM tune it? Sounds like you're a whiney *****. You'll get no sympathy from me.

Cuz they don't tune cars?
And my life is officially over now that I don't have your sympathy.
You probably didn't even see the complaint so I won't go back and forth.
It's obvious the Ivey lovers will think I'm out of my mind.
But you'd be upset too if your car logged what mine did, and was perfectly fine after someone else tuned it.

R/T has NO IDEA what he talks about. He only pretends to even have an evo or have any technical knowledge on the forums, in reality I flew to India to talk to him face to face about some stuff and it turns out he's a 15 year old that doesnt know anything about cars! What a jerk to be on these forums dispensing his snake oil!

Okay, enough of being children...

Yes, I should have called them before writing this up, and for that I apologize.
Yes, I did act on impulse.
I admitted that I'm well aware of how proficient Ivey is at what he does.

But the fact is, the car was NOT running right, and Ivey DID have trouble with the boost, as he admitted. Where the tuner I went to did not have any trouble.
This was my point.

/Thread

My secrets revealed. In reality I do make a killer Kung Pao Curry.

:d