CTS-V Bryan

Sorry for the novel, but I think it's a good read, and may save someone a motor, or at least some money on a retune or expensive repairs.

So originally I had my car (2007 CTS-V) tuned at VA Speed by Shawn. I took the car up there one morning, and they said they were going to put it
up on the dyno when I got there. I told them I just put on the Kooks 1 7/8" headers, high flow cats, and Corsa cat back, and the PO
had installed a K&N CAI. I also mentioned taking it to a few HPDE or TT events per year.Unfortunately there was a C5 on there at the time.
I waited around the shop for an hour or so waiting to take a video of it on the dyno. They were having some issues with the C5 and told me that it would probably be better for me to go and come
back when they were done with it. They did take a video of one run with their iPhone and mailed it to me, which I'm grateful for.

I was tickled pink. They gave it 25 more hp than it came in with.

Then along came a post about VA Speed quality control issues, which in that post was another link, and eventually it was like a daisy chain of problems with one thing in common,
VA Speed. I replied to one of the posts about being concerned about my tune, and was contated by Ed Hutchins, most of you have probably heard of him. Ed inquired what car I had, and when I had
it tuned. I quickly shot him back an answer, and alas, he had already left VA Speed by then, so it wasn't his tune. Then he offered to check out the tune, for FREE. That's right, zero dollars to check it out,
of course there would be a charge for dyno time if need be, and I was well and prepard to pay for dyno time since there were several threads I have read on this forum and another popular one about bad tunes costing
expensive motors, and VA Speed not wanting to warranty work. Not unless you put out a post that caught the attention of a hundred people or more. Then, of course, they had no choice but
to try to fix the problem. To little to late, IMHO.

Ed plugged in the laptop and turned the key on the V. After about 5 minutes, he just muttered "Hmmph". I asked "Hmmph good or Hmmph bad." I knew the answer already, but still wanted to hear it. He just replied,
"Hmmph, what in the hell were they thinking."

As it's explained to me, the knock retard recovery rate is set from the factory at 0.05 (3k RPM and up). Typically it will be often triple to 0.15. That's the time the computer will take to put back in timing after a knock event.
If you go higher, the computer will put timing back in so fast, it will just knock again. I'm not a big fan of knock mainly because I don't have the money to buy another LS2. Shawn set my knock retard recovery rate
to 9.0. Yep, he increased it by 9,000%. So basically, if the motor would knock, it would add the timing back in so fast, it would just keep knocking. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure knock is bad on pretty much anything moving up
and dowin in the motor.

So I pulled up the original dyno chart I was handed when I left VA Speed, and Ed just shook his head, along with some other employees at a shop, which will remain unnamed unless they want to be mentioned.

The big concern was the AFR. It was way rich (>12.0:1 at times), and waved around a lot. Also the HP and TQ curves indicated knock events in the upper RPM range (annotated by the wavy lines from 4.5K+).

Here's the graph I scanned in:




So I just told Ed to put it on the dyno and I'd just pay for a retune.

He did, and untouched, this is what it churned out:




Look how lean it is from the hit to 4.5k rpm.




Ed took a little while and this is the 2nd run's results:





AFR's look much better:




So Ed went ahead and tweaked it a little more. He said typically you want the AFR at 13:1, but since I am racing it once and a while, it's a little more rich
to be safe.

Look how smooth the HP and TQ curves are will hardly any wavyness. Also the AFR line is damn near unwavering:




I just felt that I needed to post this up for people thinking about going to VA Speed for a tune. I couldn't keep that tune in my car
with all the recent problems with QA that have popped up. The money I spent with Ed is more than worth the peace of mind.

A few afterthoughts as well. I had to take the car back up there to get the CEL shut off because they didn't shut off the cat monitoring
O2 sensors like they said they did. They also said my O2 sensors were acting slow. Well a little research shows that when you put headers
on a car, the O2 sensors don't get as hot, and therefore they respond slower. The ECM expects a fast response, and will set off a CEL if it isn't
fast enough. Shawn told me I needed to change my O2 sensors, but low and behold that didn't solve the problem. Changing the parameter to expect a slower response
will keep the CEL from coming on.

Ed also went out of his way to change the 1 to 4 skip shift, and he also adjusted when my fans come on so that the car runs cooler.

Honestly, I think VA Speed did an initial dyno, changed the fuel curve and knock recovery rate, ran the dyno again and then called me up. I'd like to believe that
they spent some time on it, but in actuality, it's more likely they just called it good enough, and sent it out the door.

Ed also requested I bring the car back to him after I ran some seafoam through the car to see if he can add some more timing. He's also going to keep it overnight
to check the cold start and cold driving. Something VA Speed never even inquired about.

Hindsight is 20/20, and I don't think I'll set foot in VA Speed ever again.

CTS-V Bryan

I've talked with VA Speed 3 times now. Apparently Shawn is too busy to talk, so I've been talking with Shannon. First off, she's obviously VERY pissed off about this thread. Secondly she has a hard time letting me talk, often talking over me and interrupting me. She doesn't understand cars, by her own admittance so when I talk about the tune she doesn't understand. When I explained what kind of damage spark knock causes, she had no clue what I was talking about.

Anyways, to the meat and potatoes. I talked with Shannon on Monday. She asked for the tune file that Ed pulled off my car before he made any changes. I sent that to her almost immediately. I also asked for their tune file. I've been waiting now for 2 days for this tune file. I called her today and asked for it. She says the guys are busy and can't send it to me until they get to her request to look at it and send it. So I asked "I'm under the assumption now that I have to wait for your file when I sent what you asked for upon request?" Her reply was "That is a correct assumption." I then pleaded with here for just 10 minutes of their time to send it to me. All of us know good and well that a file can be send in less than 2 minutes.

I'd also like to point out another quote from Shannon: "We have a good idea where this is all coming from." Really Shannon? Don't even begin to hint about Ed insinuating any of this. This has nothing to do with him or you.

And a second quote: "How do we know Ed didn't just change it so he could get money he needed via another tune and make us look bad?" Please. My car isn't anything special. He even said if it wasn't for the knock recovery table, I would have been fine, although not ideal by any means.

All I can assume right now is that VA Speed is trying to come up with a good story to tell me, along with making the files different in order to cover their tracks.

I don't think this is a company ANYBODY should be dealing with, EVER.

BAN HAMMER

Ed was te Best thing Virginia speed had going for them.

Now that he's gone of course they are going to bad mouth him but it means nothing given their reviews

WutupYo

Glad I got in and out of there during the time Ed was there... No horror stories from me, and I'm more than happy with the result.

edcmat-l1

I just thought it's worth mentioning, I have nothing to hide. That's the reason I gave up the tune file when asked for it.

BAN HAMMER

Ed, kinda off topic but if I was to drop the GTi off with you would you be able to play with it like we had talked about before?

idriveahonda

Sounds like a bunch of bullshit con-artists that are running that place right now.

Read that.

Cobra4B

I've used Ed to tune multiple cars of mine and have nothing but positive results; especially with my old cam'd Z06 that Jeff Creech couldn't properly tune. However, a few things:

1. Are you sure the smoothing factor is the same between graphs? You mention wavy lines being indicators of knock retard (if they are I'll let Ed confirm that), but I've seen many normal dyno graphs that look just like that. Furthermore, the OEM blue line has a bunch of waves. Are you implying the OEM tune has a bunch of spark knock? Usually LT headers w/o tuning makes the car run rich.

2. Cut Shannon some slack.... she's the wife of a buddy of mine who's a Spec Ops guy. They're good people and she's just the front desk person. If you have technical questions take them up with the proper parties.

3. What are you trying to get out of Va Speed? Shops pull this crap all the time. I didn't bother trying to get Creech to fix anything when he couldn't get my cam'd Z06 to run with the AC on, hot start, idle properly or make the power it should. He told me my LGM G5-X2 cam was a poor cam choice and wanted to drill my throttle-body. Ed made the car run as near stock as possible with a large (for the time) cam and showed me where my stock injectors were at 106% duty cycle. I put 42s in and he adjusted for the 42s for free.... oh yeah it made more power and torque too (436/397 vs. 426/378 from Creech).

edcmat-l1

That's not a smoothing issue. Smoothing being turned down makes the graph line more jittery, but it will still follow the same pattern. The large dips and jumps in the line are timing being pulled and increased.

I feel bad for Shannon. She has to run damage control and shouldn't have to. I was pretty tight with her when I was there. I like her and Mario. You're right, they're both good people. It's too bad my leaving turned ugly. I would have liked to stay friends with them both, and unfortunately, the way it's turned out, I'm sure they've had to pick sides.

As for how all this mess is playing out, I cannot speak for the OP, but I will say, from my own perspective, I'm freakin pissed I'm being accused of perpetuating this, as well as the other threads. And now I'm being accused of manipulating their file to make them look bad? Please, it never even occurred to me. But, along those same lines, it is their "way" to blame everyone else. It's their M.O. They will never take responsibility for anything. Another thing worth mentioning, along the same lines, this is not the first time they've falsely accused me of something. It's OK though, just like the last time they did this, i will prevail.

edcmat-l1

Yeah man. Gimme a couple weeks to get the car done I'm working on. But yeah, I can be ready to work on it then.