Tuners around GTA

draper

Brian and I agreed to that if the tuning is not going anywhere after 2 hours then we can stop it, this way I wouldn't have to pay for 4 hours as needed for tuning.
I'll do a baseline on almost all maps from Cobb and the latest versions released by them seemed to make a difference with the butt dyno.
Stock style was kept same since the initial release, stage 1 - 2+ v1.03 seem to have gone thru few iterations. With my mods Stage 2 pulled stronger than 'Other tuner' map. All this talk that Stock style was better than other maps maybe on pre 1.03 versions.

I'm going to stick to Cobb for now as they're both almost same. Uprev is an option but it costs $800 just for the license with APH without cable. Its USD$500 with Uprev directly and that includes the cipher cable and three etunes, custom tune could be about $200 with this. With this option you can always switch back to Stock map like Cobb since you would've the cable and software to do it, of course has to be done through a laptop.

Reality

^nice

I hope things work out for the best! Keep us posted with the results!

__________________
//2005 35th SB #81 [tyra] SOLD
//2006 GT PPW SOLD

draper

Saw Brian at APH on Saturday and happy with the results so far.

We did baseline an 3 Cobb maps and the factory ecu on dynapack dyno. Off the Stock style, Stage 2 and Stage 2+, Stage 2 looked better to start with. Brian was hesitant to tune first but after looking at Stage 2, he said he can tune it little bit more.
I think the peak HP was around 9 hp but could be more if we had done some more pulls, there is power gained throughout the power band and torque has definitely gone up. Car definitely pulls stronger than before and better than the other tuner.
Brian is good tuner though he still thinks this VQ is same as before !!!.

I should ask money back from the tuner but he seems hesitant.

the last one I think is the comparision between base run and tuned.

P.S It has been 400 miles + and so far no SES.


Base run was done with Stillen Gen 3 intake, CNC HFC and Magnaflow CBE. No base run with stock only.

Attached Images

	Base_mod.jpg (288.7 KB, 21 views)
	CobbSt2_mod.jpg (277.9 KB, 15 views)
	CobbSt2+_mod.jpg (271.4 KB, 15 views)
	2ndTunedMap_mod.jpg (279.4 KB, 18 views)
	G37-AphTuned_mod.jpg (274.2 KB, 24 views)

Reality

^Glad to hear!!! you are putting out some good #'s man!
-I totally agree that Brian is a Solid Tuner..

Forget about the "other tuner", it wouldn't be worth the headaches to argue.. If they were willing to work something out with you, then by all means pursue it... But if they are hesitant, I would just walk away knowing that you won't be making the same mistake, again.
Simply take it upon yourself to provide insight to others when asked about your experiences with either shop.. (Good and Bad)

I have said it before and will say it again.. You won't be disappointed taking your Z/G/GTR to APH.

and for those in the GTA that don't know..

TUNING & DYNO - Advance Power House & Dyno

__________________
//2005 35th SB #81 [tyra] SOLD
//2006 GT PPW SOLD

draper

Thanks Reality.

You're right about taking it for the VQ community. Ppl, my first tuning experience with Sasha at SG Motorsports wasn't that great, he's still learning so do your homework before seeing him. I would definitely ask him lot of questions and get some sort of guarantee on his projected gains.

Brian at APH was experienced and this was shown at my second tuning. He did a conservative tune but still got good gains. So far no CEL/SES light, no knocking and he did make sure there wasn't any.
I've spoken to other tunes around GTA, Magnus Motorsports wanted $800 for a tune !!!!!!!! They didn't promise any gains, not sure what I would be paying for.

Looking at the dyno, car had power to be made beyond 7300 rpms except Brian didn't want to push it that far. And props to Cobb, they do have a decent product out and support.

SGSash

Guys, forgive me.

Normally I wouldn't post but I feel my side of the story must be made known here.

First of all, it seems the gains Brian and I made were about the same. Plus or minus the 1-2% variation that a chassis dyno will normally have (MUCH more considering VVEL, an automatic transmission and more)

For you Paul, to say that the car pulls harder and stronger, I don't doubt being true. It's 0 degrees now, rather than 10 degrees when we did your tune. That works out to about 10whp! Your butt dyno is surely feeling that.

I want to note that while we don't deal with COBB very much, we still yielded the same gains, and produced the same power at the end.

Now I don't mean to bash Brian or APH, I love those guys, but if you look at the dyno graphs from Brian you'll notice they show the engine revving to 7300rpm and the torque being 20lb-ft less than my graph. You'll also notice the horsepower is at it's peak at the end of the pull, whereas in my graph the horsepower noses over.

This is because the Gear ratio was setup incorrectly on Brian's dyno. Paul, you may remember at the start of your session I spent approximately 30 minutes loading the car up and doing small pulls and checking the data logs with the Dyno to calibrate the gear ratio. Infact - I did 6 pulls before I had it spot on. The actual gear ratio I found was 3.836. In this dyno you've posted, the gear ratio is set to 4.1995. On this tune you got - again no offense to Brian or the guys at APH, the engine was actually only revving to approximately 6600 rpm.

All this means is that if the gear ratio was setup correctly, the power figures would have been displayed differently. The dynapack reads horespower, and calculates torque, which is why the horsepower is relatively the same, but the torque is low (the dyno thought you were spinning the engine much faster). In reality, if the pull kept going to the peak rpm, you would have made even more power on that dyno! Which is about right, since it seems that APH's dyno reads a bit higher than ours from what i've been told.

I'm sorry that you found your experience at SG a negative one. I feel we did everything correctly and gave you no reason to be unhappy. We produced power gains - although not as large as I had hoped, or had typically seen, there were gains none the less. As I said to you in person, and will say online (now that you've turned this into a public issue), I sent you nothing more than an expectation of what I normally see, not a guarantee. It seems Brian did not guarantee anything either. My exact words as quoted from my email were:

"That power sounds outrageously high! Most AT 3.7’s dyno around 270~ on our dyno, so don’t be disappointed if that includes your car! I expect we should still be able to find 10-12 whp in tuning though.

Thanks Paul,"

And in your tune, we found approximately 8-9whp outside of peak, and 4-5whp at peak. Now peak power is not where you spend most of your time - 4500rpm - 6000rpm is. We found horsepower here. If we refunded money when we didn't mean our average, that would mean we would have to charge more when we exceeded our expectation. That wouldn't be fair either, would it?

I also mentioned to you that your car came in running quite well, already running at 12.5:1 AFRs, not nearly as rich as most Nissans come in. You mentioned that tuning these engines was significantly different, which I denied - mentioning that only fuel and ignition could be changed with the cobb. Ignition is done just the same as all VQs, not in degrees of advance, but in time before peak cylinder pressure. These are concepts both Brian and I understand very well, and whether he's tuned 4 or 30 cars, I'm sure we'll agree about almost all of tuning methods. There is no black magic to tuning, as it seems you have been led to believe there is. I'm sorry.

As I said before, I'm sorry your car did not make more power, and I'm sorry you felt the need to go out of you way to re-establish what I told you, by making essentially the exact same power you left SG with.

I'm most sorry however, that your own lack of understanding caused you to slander the name I work so hard to make great. That you went and got your car tuned somewhere else, thinking they were better than us, when at first glance of the dyno sheet I can spot a problem. None of us are perfect. Look at me - I forgot your battery cover! The point is, you need to trust your tuner. If my name and the things I have achieved (like having the highest horsepower stock displacement NA 350z in North America) is not enough for you to trust, then I would have rathered not have your business in the first place.

And Reality, I thought I had earned more of your respect than to see you doubting me so quickly, and convincing our customers to leave us. I have more respect for APH customers than to convince them to leave Ed and his team. I understand how hard they work for their customers, and would rather find my own new customers. I do envy how loyal you are to APH though...

Megan370z

I support SG

I do have respect to any Tuning shop like SG ,APH.
I have no doubt of both tuner even if APH seem to have done a mistake while setting up the dyno as shown on the dyno sheet provided by Draper.

I have visited both shop and quickly stayed with SG.
After I learned about them and saw their work in the racing world , yeah I am positive that I did a good choice , is he the best ? until someone show me another shop , I have no reason of leaving !

Yeah i also got similar result that APH and SG got on Draper's G37 of course I want the best power but peak power isn't everything.

draper

Hey Sasha
Suprised to see you chime in, I should've brought your name out earlier but didn't want to and wanted to share my experiences with the community, though I might not be the first guy who have had mixed reactions with your tuning.
I do have respect and utmost that is for your knowledge and experience with the 3.5VQ and as I mentioned not sure about the 3.7 VQ, you've mentioned that you had tuned about 5 including mine and Brian had tuned more than 30 and what I'm gathering is that experience does count in tuning. And on top of that I've showed up at your doorstep without asking much at least with your experience with Cobb. And it was not till I got back home and spoke to few ppl that I realized the tune numbers could've been better but I was a fool not ask why it wasn't like 10 -15 hp as you mentioned. Why would I make a 4 hour trip for a mere 5hp gain, as someone said I could possibly get that by making ahole in the exhaust

Regardless, dyno's are different and the numbers I see on yours might not be same on APH's but I was comparing the differences both the tunes have made from base run and you could clearly see how different it is they both are. Brian's clearly shows close to 10 whp and I cannot see more than 5 in yours, i.e. not even at peak or anywhere low to mid. Torque numbers are great in Brian's and they're minor in yours. And again, this is not a post to bash you or damage your reputation, you might have the experience but it seems to be limited to the previous engine. And I'm not making up any numbers, the dyno's though different speak for themselves. My butt dyno also felt different, the car definitely pulled harder and stronger on 401 on the way back home with APH tune especially throughout the mid range and knock on the wood no CEL/SES light. After getting tuned from you, I noticed car was bit slower in the lower-mid range, it did pull above 6000 rpm and the CEL/SES light was on two hours after the tune.

I still have your map and I can do a dyno run to compare the gains on both the maps, of course someone has to volunteer their dyno for this.

As I mentioned Sasha, I came to you even though I knew about APH and others just because of word of mouth, ppl talk on forums, etc and I'm only sharing what I've experienced as others can do much more homework than me or make better choices in getting more power from their car as this is the whole game. I'm sure your next tune and even if you were to tune mine, it would be better and different but to convince you on that would be something.
I hope you can be upfront about your numbers or tuning experience on any particular car because they're all different, 370z is different from g37 because one's a 7 speed automatic and the other is 5 speed. Other tuners have gained good gains on Cobb, so they must be doing something different.
Though you had to pay for your dyno rentals, I paid to get some good results and not what came through your tuning.

hopefully no hard feelings.

Megan370z

the VQ37vhr might be a whole new engine but you cant do much when you can only adjust the ignition timing and AFR ,,,

to begin with you had your car at 12.5afr which is within the sweet spot and the gain is quite limited .
there is a difference in power that can be felt in a 10 degree difference ... i remember having 282 whps at one point on the dyno then come back at a later date to only have 273 ( i was pissed but understood the weather has a big effect on power)

after looking at your dyno sheet .. and the result isn't that great than you think they are. the big number is way more appealing to your eyes than what it really is

look at the graph in his whole

picture 1 *Base*; average
3000 rpm = 129 whp
4000 rpm = 163 whp
5000 rpm = 208 whp
6000 rpm = 241 whp
6800 rpm = 257 whp (reference peak power on SG tuned map)
7000 rpm = 266 whp
7300 rpm = 268 whp

Picture 5 *aphtuned*
3000 rpm = 126 whp
4000 rpm = 167 whp
5000 rpm = 209 whp
6000 rpm = 247 whp
6800 rpm = 264 whp (reference peak power on SG tuned map)
7000 rpm = 270 whp
7300 rpm = 280 whp

total gain from the Base dyno and the APH tuned map
3000 rpm = - 3whp
4000 rpm = +4 whp
5000 rpm = +1 whp
6000 rpm = +6 whp
6800 rpm = +7 whp (reference peak power on SG Tuned map)
7000 rpm = +4 whp
7300 rpm = +12 whp

OK what is good to have a Peak power for the last 300rpm ? of + 8whp from the 7000rpm ... your just having a very small gain in a fraction of sec ..
while the big fast gain is in the middle to high power range ,,, the result I see from the APH is not that good and couldn't do much better than Sasha did

just look at his dyno sheet that you provided in one of your post

Sasha @ Sg-MotorsportBase dyno
3000 rpm = 138
4000 rpm = 181
5000 rpm = 223
6000 rpm = 257
6804 rpm = 283.2
7000 rpm = cant be counted because graph nose down (guessing 275whp)

tuned Map
3000 rpm = 138
4000 rpm = 185
5000 rpm = 228
6000 rpm = 262
6804 rpm = 288.5 (Peak power)
7000 rpm = cant be counted because graph nose up (guessing 280 whp)

Total gain
3000 rpm = +0 whp
4000 rpm = +4 whp
5000 rpm = +5 whp
6000 rpm = +5 whp
6804 rpm = +5.3 whp (peak power)
7000 rpm = +5 whp (result if the graph would have continued from what it was doing)

Winner gain
3000 rpm = APH -3 whp SG +0whp
4000 rpm =APH +4 whp SG +4whp
5000 rpm =APH +1 whp SG +5whp
6000 rpm =APH +6 whp SG +5whp
6804 rpm = APH +7whp SG +5.3whp
7000 rpm =APH +4 SG +5


Conclusion ; SG tuned map is better suited for racing.
APH did provide a very small gain over Sasha tune over 6000 rpm,,,
since Sasha's Dyno read a little bit lower than APH dyno , we can say the winner is really Sasha @ SG-Motorsport

if you cant read number but just peak power ,, well continue thinking like that as Me and Sasha will pass you on the road course.


There is no black magic to be done with the VQ37 you only have ignition timing and AFR ..


and from what I understand on the mistake APH did on the dyno with your car which has an influence on the gain you see.
why ?
The Dyno read Horsepower = speed of acceleration. since the dyno think you have a shorter gear , it thinks that you are spinning faster in the same amount of time that the tuner set (6-12 sec acceleration) which means higher HP
since you got some gain with the APH but in reality they are lower than you think...
who do you trust now ?

Reality

OP, sorry for the OT.. I just wanted to address something.

@SGSash
-My intent here was not to throw you or SG under the bus, and I apologize if my words came out in that manner. I would never intentionally try to slander and/or diminish what you have been building for the past 3 years nor would I go out of my way to "sway" customers away from your shop.
I have always and will always provide personal insight into my dealings with all shops, Good or Bad. I can only hope that my opinions & experiences will help others to make educated decisions.
-When you first jumped into the VQ world (on the other site), I was one of the very fist local members to voice myself when others (In the US) were raising the BS flag on your claims and your aspirations. Hell I even went to your "Grand Opening" bbq to show my support... (first and only time we met and had a conversation..)

We may not be personal acquaintances, but you have my utmost respect in this community for your ground breaking achievements & accomplishments with your NA 3.5VQ. Without a doubt, you have proven what is possible with the NA z33.

All said, I hope you can understand that this is not personal....

__________________
//2005 35th SB #81 [tyra] SOLD
//2006 GT PPW SOLD

Reality

@Megan370z
The important part here is that the OP is happy with the results.

__________________
//2005 35th SB #81 [tyra] SOLD
//2006 GT PPW SOLD

Megan370z

Ok
I have no problem with that but as I said , if guys like him prefer to have a peak gain that wont be that useful and less effective , good for him !
unless you have a transmission with a very very close ratio to stay all the time on the top end .

This is why I like SG because they are more into the racing world than trying to show big number .

since the dyno wasn't setup properly at APH (mistake, I'm sure) the gain are bigger than what they really should , this is what Ive been trying to explain.


I'm going back on Sasha dyno next week to test my DIY Swapped 350z HR intake manifold (M370 of Motordyne)
DIY 350zHR Intake Swap
If Sasha has some time to spare at the end of our test , I will ask him to play with the gearing ratio on his dyno , just to show the difference it will provide , recorded on video ! (Youtube)
a pull with the right gear ratio and then a pull with a shorter gear ratio like Draper had on APH dyno.

Reality

I think you do have a problem with this, as concluded by your post. If the OP is happy with his tune then why incite this "challenge"..
-Are you out to prove SG provided the better tune? Even though this isn't your car and have never driven it before? and Even though the OP states that he is much happier?
(Uphill battle?)
Maybe trying to and cause a clash between two shops? You sure you have that much clout at SGM?
Or could it be that your own insecurities regarding your setup are somehow necessitating the need to prove "your" choice was the correct one?
-Are you going to post up (YOUTUBE) videos, regardless of the outcome?

From the outside looking in, it seems like you have much to prove.. I just hope things work out in your favor..

__________________
//2005 35th SB #81 [tyra] SOLD
//2006 GT PPW SOLD

Megan370z

@ Reality , you are going a bit far .

are the number lying ?
not really

how can you explain them ?
yes both Tuner (APH & SG) did something each other didn't provide
I'm not bashing APH because they made the peak power better than SG
which APH had their dyno set incorrectly.


What the number show is those Draper's picture is what Ive been explaining

Do I say Sasha tune is the best , I would say they are pretty close but in a racing world , yes I would take his . what matter are number and Where they are.


proving my insecurity ?
what are you talking about. look at the number for both and do a comparison APH got on their dyno and what SG got on their dyno
then just compare them together
numbers aren't lying

I have nothing to hide and you , trying to put me down , well i do not care but result are result, if you blind yourself to convince that you are right,,, go ahead.

Megan370z

oh and yes , I will do and put on Youtube the result , NO MATTER WHAT the result is.


THe video wont be cut and asesmbled together
Just 2 pull back to back but with a different gear ratio



on a side note , how to tell if a dyno sheet is a good one ,
- all machine generated dyno sheets will always cross at 5252 rpm no matter what because they are all either calculting torque or horsepower using the same exact formula. If it doesn't cross at 5252 rpm, it does not mean it wasn't a "good run", it means the sheet you are being shown is a total fake or the dyno is not setup properly.