[yzfrj]

Originally Posted by blahman

So this was a 2006 issue? The whole ordeal you went through was around 10 years ago? I'm just asking because everyone's going ape about RC in this thread and other one as well. Just trying to piece together in what era this happened.

RC was not even established in 2006. If you actually read, you will find that the post is about a lot of outfits including but not limited to RC.

If I was charged 30000 rupees for a manifold that leaked fuel or learnt that somebody stuffed aluminum shims in my brake calipers I would most certainly go ape.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by Dr.Naren

I had plans to turbo charge my new Baleno.

You have such a nice, sorted hatchback. Why mess with it? If you want a turbo-charged hatchback, buy one that's blown from the factory (upcoming Baleno boosterjet, Abarth Punto or a CRDI one).

Originally Posted by kutlee

Factory horses are expensive because of expensive R&D. Also major part of the cost goes to the process that they painstakingly setup. Process is expensive!

Not really. Who do you think will get a better price? A manufacturer buying 10,000 turbos, or a lone man buying a single turbo & importing it?

A good after-market turbo install costs you 2.5 - 3 lakhs? That's pretty much the price difference between the erstwhile Punto 1.4 & the mighty Abarth...a car that has more than just a turbo bolted on.

Apples to apples, when Fiat launched the Linea T-Jet, it had a premium of 1.3 lakhs over the 1.4L n/a. Find me a good turbo install for that much.

Even in cases where it is more expensive, that's the price you pay for reliability, warranty & emissions-compliance.

Originally Posted by rvd8732

I still wonder how the tuner’s car runs well and not the customer cars?

If a tuner's car has issues, he obviously won't talk about it. Customers, however, won't sit quiet.

Originally Posted by swiftnfurious

If at all, I'll hunt for a "used" true performance car, pay a little premium compared to regular variants and enjoy ripping those. Or at the max a re-map should make me smile all the way.

Get a used Octavia, Jetta, Laura, Punto Abarth, Polo 1.6 TDI, S-Cross 1.6 etc. and leave the unreliable 'tuned' cars in the dust.

Reading through the posts, there was no need to hide the tuner's name. You should definitely call out who does a good job and louder when someone doesn't! It's after all your money. If they are incapable of doing a job, they should not commit in the first place.

Oh, trust me on this! The Skoda is an enthusiast's wet dream, but thanks, I read enough sh*t about them to keep myself sane!

As incorrigible as Skoda's after-sales is, I'd rather deal with them than a tuner who thinks he's the next-best thing to happen to the auto industry after Karl Benz.

Originally Posted by blahman

So this was a 2006 issue?

I guess it's been an ongoing ordeal. One of his emails is marked 2016.

[VeyronSuperSprt]

I have stopped advising folks here against using these roadside tuners.

There is NO POINT. Because folks will continue using them.

The best way is to get them to learn this the HARD WAY by losing their money, time and getting a damaged car in return along with a fantastic feeling of being cheated.

That will D R I V E the point home like nothing else.

[Dr.Naren]

Originally Posted by VeyronSuperSprt

I have stopped advising folks here against using these roadside tuners.

There is NO POINT. Because folks will continue using them.

The best way is to get them to learn this the HARD WAY by losing their money, time and getting a damaged car in return along with a fantastic feeling of being cheated.

That will D R I V E the point home like nothing else.

Fully Agree with you.

Most of them are just "car guys" who teamed up together and call themselves as most experienced and reputed "tuners".

[greenhorn]

Originally Posted by GTO

A good after-market turbo install costs you 2.5 - 3 lakhs? That's pretty much the price difference between the erstwhile Punto 1.4 & the mighty Abarth...a car that has more than just a turbo bolted on.

When I got my Indica, The indica Turbo came in two variants
Turbo DLS ( Base indica + Turbo) + 10 bhp Premium 15K
Turbo DLG ( DLS + Intercooler + bigger wheels, discs, brakes, power windows, heater, foglamps, defogger ) + 7bhp - Premium another 15K over the DLS

I don't know if tata was selling it at a loss - aftermarket power windows alone would have cost as much!

[kutlee]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

in your defence you can discount the painting, tyres and the HASS numbers as regular maintenence that any old car owner has to pay anyway

Yes. May be I have paid in bulk to get everything changed in one shot.
Coming back point of factory horses(esp i cases of german cars its a marriage between customer and dealership), I have a thought about process of maintaining them. Given the particular case of Honda ass at Hosur Road, the demographics played a major part in spoiling the service experience. the 15-20km stretch of this road has every manufacturer present with service stations. So perfect place for mechanics and SAs to swap jobs. Instances are aplenty they swapped in batch of more than one person leaving the service center. So i am thinking what played a role in properly handing over service request on my vehicle. Did the established process come to rescue. Probably not. Overload, targets, high rentals, played part in bending the process and recruiting the next door sweeper as next mechanic. This happens in many places. Youtube for 'stealership'.
Following example shows example of the problem
https://www.ericthecarguy.com/etcg1/...hip-experience

Dakshin Honda never bothered to call or do any sort of analysis on the issue. I have managed to get contact of parts manager. So now i plan to pre order the part before i plan for maintenance or replacement. (do analysis myself/BW or someother place on the problem). He is super responsive and patient to find the status of inventory. I have checked availability of some parts although didn't go there to change them. But if the need comes, i will make sure the part is ready and available for repairs so that they don't get chance to 'steal'.
Toyota has somehow mastered the act of balancing process and people and skills. Backed by excellent parts quality (not recent) customers can rejoice. So over dependence on process has a big problem. Process cannot train anybody into a good mechanic. So are heroes reliable, Convenient? No job card, no checklist, just call and go and get job done. But if anything goes wrong, there is a possibility of blame game. No one might be in a position to give benefit of doubt. Always give benefit of doubt to the customer.
In my dealing with BW, based on some improvement ideas, i made checklist myself of things to be done at BW. Parts were mostly covered. Higher level points were covered in bullets to see engine works.
I made a return checklist, I made sure all the parts used, new, replaced are either in the car or in the boot. Joe was personally in charge of making sure the parts are in place. I even made sure that the remaining insulating tape, after usage, is returned to me.

[maddy42]

Thank you for sharing these details. The aftermarket parts industry abroad is a hit and miss too but not as bad as this. This one is blatant misuse of a customers machine.

From personal experience there is this huge mess in jeep mechanics. Our regular mechanic got bitten by the offroad bug which results in customers being delayed and worse thrown out in the sun, while he fixes offrad bound jeeps. Least he could do is don't accept new customers.

Maddy

[kutlee]

The air filter is now out. It was washed by me using pressure washer(enthusiastically) and damaged the filter material. I have replaced it with another smaller K&N air filter. I did consider other makes like HKS, AEM, some unknown brands. Finally decided to get trusted K&N. Ordered it on Amazon and the friend who was supposed to pick that up left US before it could reach. So that's now wasted. So settled with OLX sourced K&N. It was relatively less used and had a flange to adapt to its fairly big mouth. so push fitted that to the existing intake pipe. The far end is not clamped to frame since i want to isolate for the buzzing noise that has been annoying for some time. Also the front light clamps are broken. Since i depend on my Hellas mostly, postponed the purchase of headlights.


A comparison of the old vs new pads. Mintex (TMD friction company) has superior friction compound. But the size is relatively small and i have renewed to OE nissins along with Brembos. Nissins are much cheaper. The combination gives good braking.

[amarpreet99]

Kutlee, rather unfortunate to read about your struggle and the many issues you faced. I too went through at least one engine and one turbo kit with a tooner in Delhi. When I shifted to blore, I had my swift redone with an engine upgrade and a new turbo setup. Been 5 years now with no problems whatsoever. Let me know via pm if you'd like to consult with my tuner.

Wish you all the best with your future endeavors with modifying, don't lose hope

[kutlee]

From the archives. Dyno sheet from 2010. This is on the Emanage ECU.


Greddy Emanage Blue-
The crispiest ECU. Hanlded Idle like stock. very respsonsive. Wish someone knew how to wire up so that the full potential could be used. only the Map sensor and rpm signal were sent to the ECU. FE was very moderate at the best.

RD ECU-
lots of technical discussions available. Gave me a good learning experience.
FE was moderate at best. A wideband and some tuning could extract some power. But idling was not to my liking.

P28 with Neptune-
Chipped P28s were quite famous even at the time i installed the kit. lots of flavous available. neptune is a good option. Very famous on honda-tech.com. But the P28 is quite bulky in the stock form.
The only confusion was the choice of IACV. I suggested we use existing 3 wire stock IACV, convert to 2 wire IACV and connect to the ECU. Lots of information net. Joe told its better to go for stock 2 wire IACV. So got the same and installed. I think it was wise suggestion.
Hrtuning.com offers lots of support. After a while i found it supports bluetooth which i can connect to mobile app. So got the bluetooth module and got it installed at BW.
Initially i planned to go for tunerview RD-1 and make something like this.
Image from http://hrtuning.com/tunerview-rd1/

But the pain of converting the fuel level to the display unit was a lot of effort. RD-1 elimiates the need for any gauge and what i see is what the ECU sees not the aftermarket gauge reads out. so its pretty safe to rely on the readings. Now HR tuning as released much sophisticated RD-2 which i beleive is kickass. But expensive at 700$. I think is worth because it supports a lot of other ECUs.
Image from http://tunerviewdisplays.com/tunerviewrd2/


good things about Neptune
1- App support. Fully customizable mobile App with datalog. I have found datalog to be very useful and no need to carry computer. The App has pretty good refresh rate.
2. Closed loop tune gave good mileage. (Joe made a super diet tune with NA like AFRs) sometimes this irritates me.
3. stock harness used. Not even conversion harness used in my case.
4. Priced pretty ok at around 450$. Not so expensive given the features it offers. Bluetooth was another 40$. App license was ~20$.

headaches-
1. Had to buy 2 wire IACV at around 40$ or so
2. First P28 which we got was kind of fried. BW arranged another one at no extra cost.
3. The IACV is not direct fit on stock throttle body. So got a stock JDM manifold which eliminated the problems with IACV and got the injector leaks and other things fixed.
4. NOt a headache really - The tuning software is pretty elaborate. Can't jump in and tune.

Idling video- On a cold morning after a week of no usage. No throttle input given. Idling RPM is slightly on the higher side. Oil pressure take a little time to build up. This was not the case before. But BW tore down the bearings after a long drive and inspected for any signs of oil starved bearings. None found. Signs of an old girl?

https://youtu.be/1GACm6M_bmI

I am happy with current setup. Can't ask for more from the ECU. And the mini GTR mobile App is worth every money spent.

[paras211]

Originally Posted by GTO

You have such a nice, sorted hatchback. Why mess with it? If you want a turbo-charged hatchback, buy one that's blown from the factory (upcoming Baleno boosterjet, Abarth Punto or a CRDI one).

Not really. Who do you think will get a better price? A manufacturer buying 10,000 turbos, or a lone man buying a single turbo & importing it?

A good after-market turbo install costs you 2.5 - 3 lakhs? That's pretty much the price difference between the erstwhile Punto 1.4 & the mighty Abarth...a car that has more than just a turbo bolted on.

A proper turbo setup costs more. Cost cutting causes a lot of these problems. It is the tuners duty to inform the owner of these cost cutting risks.
I own a turbo charged corolla , which has had its set of niggles, which I hope I have finally sorted out by buying a manifold and down pipe made in USA as opposed to fabrication done locally.
The car makes 200+ WHP at 8psi on stock internals. You can't buy that sorta stock performance for cheap.
Reliability is always going to be suspect when modifications an NA car that is a decade + old.
You have gotta do your own research before going to the tuner and make dexions using the tuners advice as well as a nights worth of google.
Then when something goes wrong you learn and you have only yourself to blame.

[kutlee]

Originally Posted by paras211

A proper turbo setup costs more. Cost cutting causes a lot of these problems. It is the tuners duty to inform the owner of these cost cutting risks.
I own a turbo charged corolla , which has had its set of niggles, which I hope I have finally sorted out by buying a manifold and down pipe made in USA as opposed to fabrication done locally.
The car makes 200+ WHP at 8psi on stock internals. You can't buy that sorta stock performance for cheap.
Reliability is always going to be suspect when modifications an NA car that is a decade + old.
You have gotta do your own research before going to the tuner and make dexions using the tuners advice as well as a nights worth of google.
Then when something goes wrong you learn and you have only yourself to blame.

I have seen local fabrications and some of them are appalling to say the least. I got a cast iron manifold as part of the kit which was bolt on. Then entire kit was having aluminum plumbing for air connection. How hard can it be to just bolt up things. Well I found hard it hard way it can be pretty hard. Some aluminium pipes were cut instead of taking time to see how all these fit in the jigsaw puzzle. If it was given some time to see how they fit it would have made a perfect fit (I suppose atleast not as pleasing as it was in my case).
An example a D16 manifold costs around 400$ for good one. Welding/fabrication is a dying art. Agree that tuner should advise of the risks. But then how to make money. Sell parts? sell services? It is very confusing to understand what's actually happening. The BHP for the buck is very tempting and making tuning very desirable. Its all hero based industry.

[paras211]

Originally Posted by kutlee

I have seen local fabrications and some of them are appalling to say the least. I got a cast iron manifold as part of the kit which was bolt on. Then entire kit was having aluminum plumbing for air connection. How hard can it be to just bolt up things. Well I found hard it hard way it can be pretty hard. Some aluminium pipes were cut instead of taking time to see how all these fit in the jigsaw puzzle. If it was given some time to see how they fit it would have made a perfect fit (I suppose atleast not as pleasing as it was in my case).
An example a D16 manifold costs around 400$ for good one. Welding/fabrication is a dying art. Agree that tuner should advise of the risks. But then how to make money. Sell parts? sell services? It is very confusing to understand what's actually happening. The BHP for the buck is very tempting and making tuning very desirable. Its all hero based industry.

Dont go to a greedy tuner. Don't go to someone who says yes to everything you say.
Buy Maximum boost by corky bell
Read on the internet on how to tune , how to select a turbo, pros and cons of various parts.
Don't skimp out on gaskets oil fittings water fittings etc. Parts sourced from USA are superior.
MOST IMPORTANT : BE PRESENT WHEN THE WORK IS BEING DONE .
If nothing you will learn a lot.

[kutlee]

I was searching for K24 tuning possibilities(future options) online and found some interesting videos on tuning by Evans tuning. I searched his channel for more informative videos. And i found very useful video on what should we be looking in a tuner/shop. (interesting that his videos have far less number of views than his number of subscribers).

The very first point he talks about is communication. I couldn't agree more with him. I mean, we can argue with all the other points but the first one. And this aspect BW scores really high (although SAG did call a few times). The amount of interest BW has in how his work is performing, is matchless.

SAG version - ok its a problem, try this, this can cause the issue. Then left to me. Follow up? can't remember much

BW version - ok there is a problem, try this, bring the car, follow up-did you resolve it? When are you coming?

I don't think many people will be willing to do this given the fact that there is no additional revenue made in most cases(or make a loss if its tuner mistake). Its better off to take another work and work on issues only if time permits.

Evans video -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nvN9RljTDI

Wish GTO made this video as sticky into modification guidelines.

[kutlee]

Got my Virbant exhaust from the US. Costed 9100 landed India. Interestingly this is made in Taiwan and made a long journey to US to India. This is considerably smaller than Remus and considerably lighter. From the youtube videos, it looks like this is gonna be silent. I am taking the opportunity to upgrade to 2.25 inch exhaust from the downpipe.