good to see that the supra is coming along - slowly but surely.
it’s been there for a while
Great stuff, I love reading this.
Looks good, full boost will probably hit at 4500rpm on that setup. Which is good considering the weight and final drive gear ratio 
Thank god for RPM
Mike needs a bigger turbo for his supra.
Wow, having “Id Run” plates on your car is pretty balsy
pics of Turbo TL??? Sounds interesting…
balsy? like balsamic dressing?
Sweet thread for sure, can’t wait to be ready for a dyno tune.
Says the guy who never uses his race gas tune because it makes too much power to be any fun to drive… 
Sorry bud it was too easy.
I think the turbo he has is plenty big for road course use which is what he uses the car for. The engine definitely needs more cam so we’re going to have his 264s polished up at a machine shop and get them back in there. Between the cams and turning the meth kit back on it will make plenty of power for his needs.
It was dropped off for the winter and we’ll have it ready in time for his first track day. The replacement HKS DLI is already here.
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Some of the guys from Source Interlink Media (publishers of Modified, Import Tuner, Super Street and many other car magazines) stopped by the shop to check out our ongoing projects and discuss some business over pizza and wings at Buffalo’s famous Anchor Bar (home of the Buffalo Wing).
I performed two cold starts on Newman’s Skyline GT-R powered BMW to do some tweaking on that part of the ViPec mapping and he took it home to rework some wiring and get used to driving his new pride and joy.
Beven’s custom fuel system was wrapped up and we started the custom fuel system for Brian’s STI.
The mechanical work was wrapped up on Phil’s STI. Pics to come.
The cylinder head etc. is off Hector’s S2000 for us to install upgraded valvetrain parts and a Cometic head gasket to drop the compression along with some ARP head studs.
Mike H’s 05 STI track car went on the rollers and I started the ViPec standalone ECU tuning. I got through the dyno portion of the partial throttle tuning and had time to run it up to 7500 RPM on spring pressure. It’s making around 300 whp on 11 psi and we’ll be bringing the boost up to around 20 for his pump gas tune when I continue on it this week.
Cobb Surgeline’s Tim Bailey got me the special version of the ProTUNER software I needed to tune Rich’s 2010 LGT so Rich came back to have another go at tuning. Sure enough the new software worked like a champ. The ability to remove the torque limits in the ECU was there and functioning. The torque I was able to achieve is pretty staggering for a stock vehicle, blowing away what I’ve seen the STI do. The new front mounted turbo setup is most likely responsible for this extra potential. Up top, the boost tapers and the little top mount intercooler gets heat soaked causing power to drop dramatically, but with the long gears this car has, the big bump in low end and mid range grunt should really wake the car up.
We finished up Jed’s SRT-4 when his new battery arrived, checked over Elvis’s Mazdaspeed Protege in preparation for tuning. Unfortunately he has a lot of work ahead of him before the car is ready to be tuned. We also took care of Jeremy’s Subaru which was due for it’s 30k service.
Then Thursday night I started the drive to my folks house down by NYC in preparation for a day of tuning in Connecticut Friday at a shop which will remain nameless for now which turned out to be quite the story. More on that to come!
i was behind newman in his car today, i was 2 cars back and i could hear his fuel pump :lol:
how much is it for that boost leak test thing?
Hah sweet! It depends on the car, but usually it takes less than an hour, often around half an hour.
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I know Tom is posting the shop involved and more details so leaving their name out of my blog doesn’t much matter, but I’m doing it anyway.
Back in February one of our customers, Tom from NYC, contacted me to come down and tune his car. He asked me to call around and see where we should get some dyno time. He also needed AEM MAP (pressure), IAT (intake air temp.), and UEGO (wideband air/fuel) sensors properly installed/wired prior to my arrival so the AEM EMS could be plugged in and I could start tuning. After calling a few shops in that area, based on price and the image I got from their web presence I selected a shop in CT I’ll call X. They said they would have no trouble with the installs or me tuning on their dyno.
I called them back to let them know that I had selected X to do the work and would be having Tom call them to formally set up the install appointment and book the dyno time. I was very clear about who I was and what shop I was from both times I called. I also asked to talk to their tuner directly both times, but he was always busy. This is not uncommon since this time of year shops in the Northeast get swamped. Because he was not available I asked their office guy to make sure their tuner was OK with it. I’ve had specialist tuners tune on my dyno a few times over the years and I’m fine with it, but didn’t want to surprise them so I felt this was common courtesy. I never heard from their tuner.
Tom called and set up the appointment. They couldn’t get him in for a month, but we decided to wait because they seemed like the best option.
Fast forward to March 30th when X had Tom’s car scheduled for the installs. He dropped his 06 STI off at X on the scheduled date. On the 6th, just days before I was supposed to come down to tune the car, they contacted Tom and said it was a conflict of interest having someone else tune a Subaru on their dyno and they wouldn’t allow it. Needless to say both Tom and I weren’t happy with this since I’d gone out of my way multiple times to make sure this would be OK ahead of time, and because we’d waited a month to get time there. Tom had talked to the same X employee that I’d talked to so there should have been no confusion about me tuning the car. If this was the end of the issues, I’d say it was just an odd mistake, but it was just the beginning.
Tom sprung into action the next day and found Pruven Performance who I’d heard of before, but I hadn’t realized they were in that area so they weren’t one of the shops I had originally called. They generously offered to let us use the dyno on very short notice and at a fair rate, but that was just the beginning.
It’s now 4/7/10, the day before I drive down and X contacted Tom to tell him that their installers don’t know how to wire the AEM sensors. They claimed that the MAP sensor couldn’t be wired into the stock MAP sensor wiring in the engine bay (not true…this is how I ended up installing it), and that they weren’t comfortable wiring the sensors at the ECU. They did find that Tom had been sold the wrong UEGO sensor and it truly could not be used. Tom contacted me and I told him I’d put the proper UEGO unit in my car and bring it down with me. X welded a bung in Tom’s exhaust for the sensor, looked at a fuel pump wiring issue, and installed the MAP and IAT sensors.
I put together a few boxes of tools and electrical supplies plus my tuning gear and set out for my folks house the evening of 4/8/10. I got in around 2am and woke up at 7am so I could make the drive to X in CT and be there when they opened at 9am.
My trusty iPhone got me there right at 9am and I went in to see what the status of the car was. They apologized for the internal mis-communication that resulted in Tom and I being notified that I couldn’t tune there at the last minute.
Here’s what I walked into:
They screwed the MAP sensor into the vacuum manifold that was there and removed the intercooler pipe by removing the BOV to clear the strut bar, drilled the pipe, stuck the IAT in, put the pipe back on and the BOV back on. More on this later.
I got to work wiring the sensors. I wired the AEM MAP to the stock MAP sensor wiring and Tom showed up with his buddies who ran the IAT wires into the cabin for me while I worked. Then he and his buddies jacked the car up and put the UEGO sensor in the exhaust. I wired the UEGO output into the stock harness so I had wideband output to the AEM EMS ECU and quickly used test leads to power the UEGO so we could get the car out of there and on the way to the next shop. I loaded up a map from another 06 STI I had tuned on AEM EMS, made a few changes, and it fired up first try. Tom took care of his bill with X and we started the drive to Pruven performance. Tom drove my wife’s WRX wagon which I’d borrowed for the trip and I road tuned Tom’s STI on the way to Pruven which was about an hour drive.
The drive from X back to civilization was a bit of over the river and through the woods on dirt roads.
As we pulled up I noticed the blue Dynoflash STI. I didn’t realize that Big Al had moved his operations to Pruven.
Sure enough as I brought the car around back so they could load it on the dyno, Big Al was wrenching on an Evo and greeted us. As he put it, we don’t care who tunes on our dyno as long as they love Subarus. The guys at Pruven were very welcoming too, but that was just the beginning. X and Pruven turned out to be night and day different as the day went on.
Once the car was on the dyno I gave it a little boost and noticed something was up with the fuel system so I stopped and went over it with the guys at Pruven. They quickly found the problem with the injector wiring and started fixing it. It wasn’t a quick fix so this took some time, but they did a clean a proper job so it was a permanent fix. Nice work.
While they were working on engine bay wiring, big Al took us for a ride in the Dynoflash STI. As Al put it, he finally found a setup of head porting and cams etc. that provided the top end power he’s been looking for. We saw it on the dyno graph and on the street you could definitely feel how the torque held up top much better than on a non ported and stock cammed STI engine. It’s always fun to go for a ride in a quick car. Thanks Al!
After Pruven fixed up the injector wiring, I had them do a boost leak test because I felt there was no way the IAT sensor was sealed to the intercooler pipe. At first that wasn’t the leak they found. They Tial BOV was leaking like crazy at the flange. They removed the BOV to find the o-ring that makes the seal wasn’t there. X must have lost it when the pulled the BOV to drill the pipe for the IAT sensor. One of the guys at Pruven went out into the parking lot in the rain to borrow the o-ring off one of their cars. Thumbs up again for Pruven. It’s nice to see another shop that goes above and beyond for their customers and Tom and I definitely appreciated it.
With the o-ring in and the BOV back on they tested again. Now the massive IAT leak was obvious so they pulled the pipe, took a piece of steel and drilled and tapped it to make a bung, then welded it on. They reinstalled the pipe and used teflon tape on the threads. Boost leak test again. No more IAT leak. At this point they noticed the system still wasn’t holding pressure and tons of air was coming out the crankcase. Tom was concerned about an incident with a previous tuner involving a full boost pass with the AFR in the mid 13’s where the engine detonated badly. He said after that his catch can had been filling up with oil quickly any time he boosted the car so at this point everyone felt a leakdown test was in order but it was 9pm on a Friday night and there’s a noise curfew in their area where they can’t run the dyno after 10 pm due to houses being nearby. That meant I wouldn’t be able to tune the car on dyno if the engine tested OK and the crankcase leakage was not from a ring issue.
At that point we thanked the guys from Pruven for all their help and got on the 95 to do some road tuning so Tom could drive his car home. At 10pm I had the car road tuned up to 6000 RPM on spring pressure so Tom could get it home. I let him hold onto my test leads which were powering the UEGO until he had time to hard wire it.
When we stopped back at Pruven at about 10pm so I could pick up my car, Big Al was still hard at work trying to sort out his a fuel system issue on his car. He’s a controversial guy, but you can’t fault his dedication to his cars. Earlier in the day he found the lines in his fuel sending unit were falling apart so I recommended he get submersible high pressure fuel line to replace them. After trying that he still had a pressure drop issue so he’ll be testing new walbros next to see if one or both is dying. I wished Al luck, got in my wife’s WRX wagon and headed 45 minutes back north to the hood to pick up some BMW M3 brakes for Justin’s BMW project. Quarter to 11…Friday night…in the hood…thanks Justin! Then I headed back to my folks’ house for the night.
Tom let me know the drive home went fine and the car was running smooth for now. Sunday he tried to go for a drive, but the car shut off while he was driving and wouldn’t start. Tom decided to check the other bit of work X did on the fuel pump wiring. Sure enough they had just smushed the end of a ground wire against some metal and it shifted, causing the fuel pump to lose power and make the car shut off. Tom fixed this and the car is up and running again. He also hard wired the power/ground for the UEGO so it’s permanently installed. I look forward to finishing the tune on his STI in the future.
Good Read!
:tup:
and i fucking love big al’s youtube channel lol
Today I spent most of the day catching up with customers who contacted me while I was off on the tuning trip. I will continue with this tomorrow.
Today our crew tested an SRT-4 for a customer interested in buying one. The engine checked out fine so he’s in good shape.
We pulled the transmission and clutch out of an 04 WRX. Tomorrow we’re installing an ACT heavy duty street clutch kit in that car.
We also pulled the adjustable cam gears off a WRX to reinstall the stock ones as part of diagnosing a triggering issue with an AEM EMS system.
We continued the fuel system work on Brian’s 04 STI:
A bunch of Rota wheels arrived so we got them organized for group buy customers.
And I worked on the boost tuning on Mike H’s 05 STI which he’s put together for road course use.
Wow, the curve on Mike’s car looks great. I hope he comes out to the Glen in May with Niagara.
:tup: was nice talking to you yesterday for awhile mike. it was nice to catch up on everything!
thanks for letting me come in so late!
Hey, that would be me! Thanks for all the help guys, because of your tests, I have finalized a deal and if all goes to plan the SRT-4 will be sitting in my driveway next week. I know where I’ll be taking it if I ever need anything!
Nice What color?
Thanks, I agree. I’m impressed especially because it has stock heads/cams. How long are the sessions with the PCA and how many do you get per day? I’ve been trying to pick track days based on the cost/track time ratio.
Thanks guys!!!
We wrapped up Phil’s 06 STI build. His car had been out of commission at his place for around 6 months so the battery was shot, but we were able to coax it back to life. We vacuum bled the coolant, but still go through the standard bleeding procedure to be sure the system is free of air.
You can see the modifications we performed at our facility to the Ultimate Racing GT35R kit for this application here.
Custom BPV recirculation to allow for proper drivability on stock ECU:
Custom bead rolled aluminum bridge pipe and couplers with T bolts allows the use of an unmodified Garrett dual BB GT35R turbo. This means if Phil ever wants to change turbos or get an HTA upgrade on his, he won’t have to pay a shop to hack up the compressor housing and weld to it. It also means he’d be able to sell this turbo to anyone looking for a GT35R turbo, and not just someone with a UR kit.
Onto the dyno she went for custom tuning on pump gas via Cobb’s ProTUNER (now AccessTUNER Pro) software.
And here’s the result…a conservative tune for a daily driven car on the stock engine:
The guys reinstalled his bumper, removed the protective tape we put on the fenders during the installs and I went out on the road to tweak the mapping. After some careful MAF calibration modding and adjustment of the tip in enrichment the car was responding as it should.
We removed the restrictive stock cat back from Trevor’s 08 WRX Sedan in favor of a freer flowing unit from Magnaflow:
We also finished up the clutch install on Brian’s 04 WRX wagon. Then we performed timing belt and water pump service on it. During the course of the work we found a number of other issues which we’ll be going over with Brian to make sure he’s aware of them including lug nuts coming in loose enough to remove the locking ones by hand.
I was happy to hear that Tom, our customer from the tuning trip a few days ago, is working towards some form of resolution with shop X.
Work continued on the custom fuel system for Brian’s 04 STI for most of the day. I continued my tweaking of the ViPec standalone mapping on Mike H’s 05 STI track car, and continued catching up with contacts from the weekend for around 6 hours today. About 300 emails, 40 PMs and a number of phone messages down since Monday. If I haven’t responded to you yet, I assure you I’m getting close.
We also got to see the controversial new NY state license plates on a DSM that got dropped off for service next week:
heres the dynoflash vid mike lol