[binz]

Originally Posted by ssjr0498

About Karthik, what should I say, 2008 b'bay speedrun, 13 podium finishers using Karthiks ecu, National Rally champions running his ecu.. all this speaks for itself.

You forgot one .. a big one.HKS

[IronWolf]

Originally Posted by GTO

We do not entertain public discussions on infractions & bans. The matter has ended.

GTO, I did not want to talk about the ban/infractions in public forum. Let me clarify, what I meant in my post was Viper should not use that as an excuse to not share his views on the Tuners scene.

Keeping the rules and spirit in mind was requesting him to post his views in relation to the Thread topic.

Originally Posted by GTO

In my books, an ECU expert is an ECU tuner. And the substantial role that electronics play in todays cars, I don't see why Karthik should not be included. In fact, an ECU remap alone can give you pretty respectable performance gains.

Originally Posted by blacmagic

no offense taken. was just thinking out loud and probably being a little anal; so dont take this too seriously.
if Im not wrong, 'tuning' is an abbreviation of 'fine tuning', which is exactly what guys like Karthik do. while mechs tune with spanners, ECU folks do it with laptops. afterall, the most kickass turbo setup would be useless without the right ECU map, wouldnt it?
also IronWolf, piggyback is just one of many roles the RD ECU plays. mostly meant for those who wish to be conservative. it can be taken to extremes as I plan to do later. at its best and equipped with an ideal map, you can run your car completely on an RD ECU. the stock ECU is simply retained as a failsafe.

GTO and Blac we completely understand how the RD ECU has worked like a charm for many. Hell in one Speed Run I appreciated Karthik on the forum and I think even via PM on how his NA beat a FI Esteem, and all the NA Esteem really had was the RD ECU sans Air filter.

I dont take anything away from the RD team.

Apart from one issue he has faced with a certain Turbo OHC, which he has very professionally handled. RD has only received praise on this forum for his ECUs. In fact if I had the budget for it, I would not think twice for a RD ECU.

Just that I still have not got constructive feedback from Garages mentioned earlier, which do port-polish/Enlarged Throttle Bodies/TC jobs etc.

Originally Posted by crazydiablo

I thought it was well known that both of them together formed a tuning team. Karthik handles the electronics and Sanjay handles the mechanical side of tuning.

Can someone ping me details on Sanjays Garage?

[m4ugr8]

After watching this thread for a long long time, I have finally decided to put up a review against some of our very famous so called and self proclaimed Delhi "TUNERS".

Being a Fan of Modding cars from Day One, I have almost had an experience with almost every Delhi Tuner and Performance related Garages and also have bought something or the other with them. This incident is with Mr Yatharth from Performance Zone. Its a Long story so bear with me. Here it goes

I dont have any trust on any tuner here in Delhi, as far as get products from them which need tuning or specific engine related stuff. This happened nearly One and a half year back, When I was driving my Swift. I wanted to get a FFE for my car, and like mentioned earlier I could not trust anybody here in Delhi who can even get a small job like the FFE right, forget Turbo setups or engine swaps, So I contact Viper from Team-BHP. Ask him to make one set for me and send it over to Delhi. I recieve the complete Kit, Headers Piping and Endcan within a Week after placing the order and all looks in great shape. Now the question comes of getting it fixed. I contact Mr Yatharth from Performance Zone and he readily agrees to help me out. I fix and appointment and reach his showroom the next day. He has a look at the Kit and starts point out the defects in it. At that point of time I was completely un-aware and you can say a complete NOOB in all this, and i agree to what all he says. Then the car is taken to his workshop for fitting while I wait at the Showroom. After some time, A guy comes up who is supposedly his Exhaust fitting head and ACE mechanic, He comes and tell me that the Kit is not designed for the Swift and the pipes wont fit. He makes all kinds of stories as to how even if we fit it with cutting and re-fixing it will sound CRAP and make the car sound like a tractor. One of the main reasons of fitting a FFE was that I wanted a nice sound. So I readily agreed on all his talks, He advises me to fit the headers, and throw everything else. He will custom design the Piping, a new Expansion Chamber and a new Endcan/Muffler. All this would cost me 8000. Mind you this is the extra price over the amount i have already paid for the complete kit.

He fits that and delivers the car, after a month of time, I find the pipe to develop a leak, I go to a different workshop this time. He showed me something, all the material used in my car was not even SS, It was MS of very average grade quality which would soon catch rust. So I get new piping and done from him, which was now in complete SS.

This was how I was taken for a ride at this particular place. Forget tuning this was a simple case of fitting everything. This highly depicts the state of Tuners here in Delhi, I dont know what happens to those projects undertaken by some like Nivit Basin for Turbos etc. To bad none of those owners are here on TBHP.

And Moreover, Why did I post this after almost One and a half year,after everything is over and changed, To the extent that I dont even have that car anymore is that, Today I got those Same Pipes and Endcan, kept locked in My store room for a Year and a Half, Fitted in my Friends Swift Car, And Believe me it a PERFECT fit, Angle to Angle bolt to bolt. The OE setup was removed and the new one fitted in a time span of 1 Hour Flat.

How can anybody not fit a kit like this, Any layman can fit it, You have to Unscrew and Re-screw the new one.Find some pics below comparing the Pipes sent to me with the OE setup.Today I felt highly cheated and robbed after fitting the same in my friends car

[Surprise]

Originally Posted by m4ugr8

So I contact Viper from Team-BHP. Ask him to make one set for me and send it over to Delhi. I recieve the complete Kit, Headers Piping and Endcan within a Week after placing the order and all looks in great shape

Originally Posted by m4ugr8

He comes and tell me that the Kit is not designed for the Swift and the pipes wont fit. He makes all kinds of stories as to how even if we fit it with cutting and re-fixing it will sound CRAP and make the car sound like a tractor. One of the main reasons of fitting a FFE was that I wanted a nice sound. So I readily agreed on all his talks, He advises me to fit the headers, and throw everything else. He will custom design the Piping, a new Expansion Chamber and a new Endcan/Muffler. All this would cost me 8000. Mind you this is the extra price over the amount i have already paid for the complete kit.

That's very very bad and shows how low one can go for making bucks. Not sure whether the second tuner at Delhi a member of this forum and definitely would like to hear his side of story on this.

I found Viper to be co-operative for the order placed with him even for courier status updates.

You could have checked with him when the second tuner complains about Vipers work. Iam sure that would have landed you up with a different tuner for completing the set up saving the wasted money

[DocG]

Review - AR Motosport
Car - Toyota Corolla [Owned by a friend, I was the liaison]
Work Done - FFE, Port Polish, Plugs + Wires, CAI

Well I'm sure most of the "Bombay Boys" know who Ranjit is, and what a talented tuner he is at that. Well the Corolla is a pretty tame car, but there are times when it can be a lot of fun, suddenly flooring the accy, experiencing a little torque steer etc.

Well one Saturday morning we head out to AR Motosport. 2 Corollas driving together having fun [My AT really helped me weave through traffic and reach a couple of seconds faster ] we reach the garage and Ranjit is standing there, waiting and at the same time discussing the delivery of a repainted CR-V with one of his boys. He gives us a very friendly greeting as we walk in [I have known Ranjit for a while, although never got any work done]

We head to his office and well I enjoy the AC and the all the car mags etc while my friend a total n00b to modding was going crazy checking out all the parts lying around the office. Finally we get to talking and finalise what is to happen over the next week.

My friend went in wanting only an FFE and a CAI. Well while we were there he saw some sweet looking plugs and sprang for it. Then we talked performance gains. We all know that the performance gains with just a FFE and CAI are pretty low, so my friend was convinced of the port-polish.

Next, Ranjit being the nice guy that he is helped my friend with a discount on Lenso alloys and some new rubber [He does not deal with rims nor tyres, just out of friendship]

So we leave the car there, my friend's Civic auto shows up, we head back, with a little AT fun.

A week later, I was not free to go and take delivery of the car. I simply get a call saying
"Come down fast I'm waiting under your building!"

I head down and can see my friend's face gleaming, almost as if he had just taken delivery of a brand new toy. A short spin in the car around Hiranandani and I knew that Ranjit had worked his magic. I can say without any bias that the Corolla has simply opened up and wholeheartedly received the mods done. It performs great, and in gear acceleration has improved immensely. I have no figures to show, but my fairly large butt dyno does not lie. We had a little had a little friendly race with my 2.4 Accord and his Corolla, and well sadly he left me in his dust [Many factors come in here, not just power gain. Weight and the fact that VTEC and power hit only after 3.5K Rpm in my car] but to be killed by such a margin is just not fun!

Summary - It's been almost a year since the work was done, and the car feels reliable as hell. no issues whatsoever, my friend still feels indepted to me for introducing him to AR Motosport!!!

How would I rate this tuner? 5

What's next? Lowering the corolla! Guess who's gonna be the tuner for that project

[IronWolf]

Originally Posted by DocG

Review - AR Motosport
Car - Toyota Corolla [Owned by a friend, I was the liaison]
Work Done - FFE, Port Polish, Plugs + Wires, CAI

...

How would I rate this tuner? 5

What's next? Lowering the corolla! Guess who's gonna be the tuner for that project

DocG, This was the EXACT kinda report I was looking for.

Positive, Informative, down to earth, comparative and finally rated.

Much Appreciated. Can others please follow similar suit so that we can understand other Tuner Garages better.

[navpreet318]

^+1 to what he said above.

[crazydiablo]

I still see a lot of people have not come forward with their experiences. No am not talking hearsay, there has been bits and pieces of experiences strewn all over the forum but they have not posted here. One example is

Originally Posted by gemballa

firstly i will be dyno'ing my car several times with different setups....if there was no dyno i would not even bother tuning my car....my swift project started 2 years ago.. using this site i approached one of the so called 'tuners' and told hiom to go all out on the car...whatever he needed to do to make the car very fast...my car was taken and i spent over
rs. 60,000... when i got my car back i dragged it with a stock swift and got smoked... i then called the tuner and told him about this shocking episode to which every excuse was made why the car was not running apart from admitting fault. fed up with the tuner and being wasted by stock swifts after spendingf money i went to another tuner to make things right also a frquent visitor to this site....after opening the engine it was apparent the shoddy work done so i decided to go back to stock and start again...i called for a new head etc. and started tuner 2... told him to go all out and make sure it was the quickest swift in town....the work commenced and after done tuner was very reluctant for me to go to the dyno...yep the car was running well but i had spent a bomb on it...pistons , cams, ecu, clutch , brakes, head, bottom half reworked etc.. so i decided to go myself one afternoon after several runs on the dyno my car pulled 93hp....this was a huge disappointment not to mention being ripped off on ALL parts royally....cheers buddy.eg. ecu for 25000 was sold for 30000 plus 2000 to tune it. so after this i was fed up of the tuners in mumbai...all cowboys trying to make some pocket moneyso i decided to scrap alll the rubbish and go for a turbo set up...once again went back to stock and k.s did the full turbo install from scratch...i must say the job is tidy almost looks stock and the car has proved itself on the road destroying most things that come its way.its been about 500 km sice the turbo is done and the car has not done anything irregular ie. heat up etc. and is happy to go anytime.cheers: to k.s and dyno results will be definately positive tomorrow. so all i can say after spending as much as the car cost new with different tuners tubo is the way forward and k.s knows how to do it tried and tested...look no further

[panky12345]

@m4ugr8: I respect your opinions about this installer/tuner.. definitely an eye - opener. As they say "caveat emptor", I think before going to all these guys, one must do his homework thoroughly.

But I think you're lucky ki saste mein ****** gaya.. specially after reading horrifying stories of Accord Masters and Santosh.

[Ricky_63]

Originally Posted by navpreet318

^+1 to what he said above.

@navpreet318

How come we have not heard any of your own "first had encounters" or "experiences" ???

I am sure there are things that you may want to share here.



Cheers

[m4ugr8]

Originally Posted by panky12345

@m4ugr8: I respect your opinions about this installer/tuner.. definitely an eye - opener. As they say "caveat emptor", I think before going to all these guys, one must do his homework thoroughly.

But I think you're lucky ki saste mein ****** gaya.. specially after reading horrifying stories of Accord Masters and Santosh.

Well Said Panky, Even though I was taken for a ride, It was not anything compared to what happened with Ricky and AM. My Incident involved a Few thousand bucks thats all.

In Delhi, You need to know stuff yourself first before getting any MOD. If you dont have information, You will taken for a ride for sure. Proper first hand information is a must here in Delhi.

[navpreet318]

Originally Posted by Ricky_63

@navpreet318

How come we have not heard any of your own "first had encounters" or "experiences" ???

I am sure there are things that you may want to share here.



Cheers

Hehe.well living in dehradun has its benefits and its loss too.

Loss is that we don't have tuners here.benefit is that hence i haven't gotten any work done by any tuner so i'm pretty safe.

The most modded machine which i have is my bike.and i did it all myself.
i have most of the tools and also have the workshop manual of the bike with me.
It was all bolt on and a little bit of tuning with the help of my friends in US.and the results are that now i'm really really scared of the bike and respect it a lot.I simply cannot wring that throttle fully in first gear.its supposed to be over 180bhp if i go by a similarly tuned bike in USA belonging to a friend.He got the same tuned bike dynoed at 194bhp so taking into account my tuning inadequacies i'll peg it at 180.
A point i have made is that i've never let any mech touch my bike ever.Its still a virgin.

Rest i have had no exposures to any tuners till now and from the reviews i have read it'll be best that if i want to get my car tuned i'll do a through research on what is to be done and how its to be done and i'll sit there with the tuner and get it done.And my mechanical engg. background helps me understand things very very much too.

I don't even leave my car with the service guys when i get it serviced.i just ask them to do the required checks and oil changes etc in front of me and drive away.No washing or anything.and touchwood my cars have been serving me very well.even my 100k kms santro behaves like a new car.

[Ricky_63]

Originally Posted by navpreet318

Hehe.well living in dehradun has its benefits and its loss too.

Loss is that we don't have tuners here.benefit is that hence i haven't gotten any work done by any tuner so i'm pretty safe.

The most modded machine which i have is my bike.and i did it all myself.
i have most of the tools and also have the workshop manual of the bike with me.
It was all bolt on and a little bit of tuning with the help of my friends in US.and the results are that now i'm really really scared of the bike and respect it a lot.I simply cannot wring that throttle fully in first gear.its supposed to be over 180bhp if i go by a similarly tuned bike in USA belonging to a friend.He got the same tuned bike dynoed at 194bhp so taking into account my tuning inadequacies i'll peg it at 180.
A point i have made is that i've never let any mech touch my bike ever.Its still a virgin.

Rest i have had no exposures to any tuners till now and from the reviews i have read it'll be best that if i want to get my car tuned i'll do a through research on what is to be done and how its to be done and i'll sit there with the tuner and get it done.And my mechanical engg. background helps me understand things very very much too.

I don't even leave my car with the service guys when i get it serviced.i just ask them to do the required checks and oil changes etc in front of me and drive away.No washing or anything.and touchwood my cars have been serving me very well.even my 100k kms santro behaves like a new car.

Ok - so we have a self taught tuner in the making ???

I thought you were going to go in for a Turbo for your Civic, what happened ?? Reliability ??

Thanks for sharing your "tooning " experiences






Cheers

[Ricky_63]

Originally Posted by m4ugr8

Well Said Panky, Even though I was taken for a ride, It was not anything compared to what happened with Ricky and AM. My Incident involved a Few thousand bucks thats all.

In Delhi, You need to know stuff yourself first before getting any MOD. If you dont have information, You will taken for a ride for sure. Proper first hand information is a must here in Delhi.

do not remind me / us of the "tooning" experience !!!

[m4ugr8]

Originally Posted by Ricky_63

do not remind me / us of the "tooning" experience !!!

Point noted Sir, No Use of Crying over Spilled Milk. Lets just move on. A Little Birdie told me that AM has now got hands on the New 3.5L Accord V6.