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Well just got home from picking up my car from the local performance shop and to be honest Im extremely disappointed. I took the car in for:
*Smaller Pulley for the m90 Roush blower
*Killer Chiller install
*Dyno Tune
Well this turned into:
*Spark plugs, necessary for tune "whoops we snapped 3 in half, that'll cost you"
*Smaller pulley "by the way a couple other pulleys are shot, that'll cost you"
*Killer Chiller "by the way you IC pump is shot, we took that apart and cleaned it up for you" <- I can understand this, coolant was at a stand still when you opened the cap
*Dyno Tune "Can't do that accurately without cutting off you cats (because their clogged all up) and installing a new mid pipe (went with UPR OR X per their recommendation)
End result: a ton of money and after driving it 30 minutes home my eyes are watering from the gasoline (windows up) and my ears are ringing as if i just left a rice bowl civic convention with every jerk off revving their "sick" engines. I actually feel as if I lost a ton of low end power and i can't stand even attempting to get the car past 4k rpm to test the overall power difference. By the way this was the first time testing the 3:73 gears installed on this drive home and still I feel as if the car was faster with my 3:31's and before this mess. Words can't even describe how bummed I am knowing that I need to drop another $400 - $600 on axle back exhaust with mufflers and argue with them that I don't believe the tune is proper.
*note* the car now has UPR ORX with Roush Extreme (no mufflers) axle back exhaust
I was actually very surprised, only 391. I talked to the tuner before I left my car with the shop and told him that Im more into longevity/ reliability then power and he told me afterwards he was very safe on the tune. Being thats its only a 3valve I really didn't want to be around the dreaded 500 fly hp mark where I hear so often that things go wrong.
Going to drive the car around quite a bit today and see how it feels after a few hours, I forgot to mention yesterday that after I got home in the stang from a beer run I popped the hood (while running) to see how effective the Killer Chiller was in keeping my coolant cold. While opening the cap i noticed pressurized hot air blowing pretty right at my face, enough I had to take a step back. The temp gauge was at normal and this was definitely something that i have not experienced with this car prior to the shop. Only upgrades we did that day were the KC, UPR OR X mid pipe, and the tune. Any ideas what it could be?
HOLY CRAP!
What "shop" was this?!?! They sound like rip off artists at it's finest. Did you do a Google search before bringing the car to them to make sure they are a reputable shop? Sounds they are not even close to be reputable. Sorry to hear of this. Good luck going forward.
To be fair they showed me the plugs and they did break in half and I know thats a common problem with these years, also I know the IC pump failed before I took it to them because i noticed the fluid was at a stand still. The mechanic was wanting to show me how plugged up the cats we're when I got there but we kind of got side tracked so all in all I believe everything that was said about the failures and such. I did take it out today for a couple hours and I take back everything I said about performance issues. The car ran great and I did end up getting on it pretty hard and definitely noticed a nice pull at 3,500 and up RPM's (when the SC actually kicks in) still wayy too loud though so I will be in the market for some new axle back with mufflers to replace my Roush Extreme axle back.
Update.
Talked to the shop about some other things that we're bothering me and come to find out my brand new Roush boost gauge (only showing 4lbs after installing smaller pulley) is defective seeing as it with just the battery turned on (engine off) the gauge sits at -2 vacuum. Got in touch with American Muscle and they were happy to exchange it. As for the exhaust, I ended up ordering Borla Touring which in the description stated this is the most mellow axle back mufflers out. I will be returning the car to the same performance shop because I also noticed they didn't calibrate my speedometer for the 3:73 gears and I talked to the tuner and asked if we could squeeze a couple more numbers on my dyno and he said without a doubt.
My understanding is that most positive displacement superchargers have a "sweet spot" in their rotational range. A smaller pulley usually moves the SC out of the sweet spot to a higher rpm; that can raise intake air temps and actually lower performance.
Update.
Borla Touring with UPR OR X installed. Talk about going from one extreme to another... The UPR ORX with Roush Axle back is incredibly loud and raspy where as the Borla gives the car a nice mellow rumble that doesn't attract attention from 3 cities away. Took the car back to the shop and found an error in the last dyno tuning that caused the car to read improper which resulted in an extremely rich tune. Car's finally done, we ended up going with a mild tune to still err on the safe side.
That's awesome!!!
Glad you got it all sorted out. Enjoy.
Thanks, extremely stressful couple of weeks knowing something's not right but can't put your finger on it (tune). Glad to have it done, now it can sit in the garage and come out during the weekend.
7/29/16, 05:17 PM
Sorry to hear of this. Good luck going forward.
