Your more than welcome to publish the results of my chips on anyones cars. That includes AFR and for that matter my willingness to help or redo anything that needs to be done.

I think our reputation speaks for itself when we have been doing this for over 4 years now without any advertising yet we have made like 8 or 9 magazines. I thank God for the success we have had.

I think it would also be cool to interview some of the dyno day participants that from which we have hosted. Quite a few with our mail order tunes are dissappointed that we can only pick the cars up anthor 3-5 hp from our mail order to dyno tunes.

I think something that the TGO board needs to realize is that not everyone understands this as clearly as some. Its really either something your born with or without.. Of course all the tools are avaiable BUT so is the common socket set.. That being said, not everyone has it in them to tear apart thier car to put a cam in. Not one tool involved in a cam swap cost more than $25 bucks. Does that mean everyone can do it? not exactly.

I wish the TGO guys would quit making those who do and those who buy mail order tunes or dyno tunes for that matter out to be villians.

Heck even a few of the those guys have come for my help or call for my help, like B4CTom and Craig. Surely tuning is not meant for everyone if well respected guys like those need help.

 

Damn, I hadn't seen this thread.

 

I have been doing my best to be objective and unassuming with this whole situation, but I am beginning to lose my patience...

Facts:

1. I paid $275 or so dollars for a Tune Chip from Jesse Azzato, aka "ski_dwn_it"

2. I performed a comparison of the file to a stock ANHT bin, which the results are posted here down towards the middle of the page.

3. Scanning in Datamaster showed my car to be rich, and there was a strong gas odor which I promptly reported to Jesse and forwarded the scan file for diagnosis. I was told it was better to be rich than lean and I bought that explanation not knowing any better. Shame on me for not investigating my tune further then. I was informed that no further changes were required and all was okay.

4. I stumbled onto this thread and others of the same nature recently. All of them were about issues with 730/727 ECM's (Speed Density systems) and tunes for said motors done by Jesse. Seeing all of this opened my eyes and got my head outta my 3rd point of contact, and I to be proactive about it. I couldn't take the chance that the tune might cause me the same issues others are/were having.

5. I have contacted Jesse and got the reply that he would TRY and help me sort it out. Alvin has helped me more in the last week then Jesse has since I bought his "TUNE" . So have alot of other people both here and on TGO(thanks to everyone!)! I have received NOTHING from Jesse at this point and I PAID HIM GOOD MONEY FOR THIS SERVICE.

6. Working on my tune, I have had to change the Injector Constant..It was wrong, a NOVICE found this information with a simple search for the conversion equation for SVO injectors because the Fuel Rail Pressures are different on ford as opposed to CHEVY. Jesse was informed that I had SVO 24# injectors when I ordered the tune. This was part of the information requested by him.

7. My car was snarling and popping on deceleration, now that I know better, and my tune is getting closer, THIS WAS WAY WRONG. She is starting to purr when I want her to purr, and still snarls when I need her to. All of this was reported and I was told this was okay given my setup.

8. Now that my LowerVE tables are almost fixed, she is running cooler, right on 185 and not budging. My tune was so far out of whack, my BLM's rarely left 108. You would think someone who was getting asked questions about these specific issues, and being sent data to back it up would have addressed them somewhere along the way...So much for Lifetime follow-up support.

9. This was the header statement which I chose to edit out of fairness, pending further research.

10. The engine temps are more stable now, you can actually feel the difference in the engine compartment too. It is much cooler. I have had wiring melt from this tune.

11. I may be a novice to tuning and motors, but my credentials include 14 years in the US Army as a DS/GS Electronics/ElectroMechanics Technician, I am currently studying to be an Electrical/Computer Engineer, I may not know the engine physics yet, but I guarantee I do know physics and am working on figuring it out. If in doubt I can go ask the lead engineer on our SAE Racing team. So in my own opinion this lends credibility and quantifies the results that I am sharing here.

12. If you want to further follow the exploits as I learn to tune on my own, if nothing else it may be worth the humor in itself you can go here on the Corvette Forum, or here on TGO. I appreciate any and all help in sorting this out.

13. At this point I am firmly convinced that Jesse has no intention of helping me sort this issue out, I tried to give him a chance, but I must say, I agree with the statement that once he has your money he is gone. I sent him and others my original Datamaster scans from when I started this. The others have all found time to analyze the data and give me pointers and advice and I thank all of you, yet the man I paid for this service has yet to get back to me. I quote "Shoot me a recent log and I will try to help you look at it." Yet these others have helped out of the goodness of their hearts.

14. I have asked several people about this situation with my tune and I have been advised to begin from scratch with a stock tune. There are just too many unknowns with what I am dealing with now. I have even asked Jesse offline for certain changes to be explained to me and the requests were ignored. I am especially curious about the undefined areas. For clarity, my comparison netted 287 changes, of which 57 were in undefined areas. Knowing what I know about programming, this leads me to believe they are some sort of commenting to the code. Several of the changes are insignificant, such as changing the AFR constant from 14.7 to 14.69. The attitude Jesse has portrayed is that tuning is some sort of black art, yet it is not, it all boils down to pure science.

Recommendations:

1. Unless Jesse becomes a supporting vendor, he should not be able to sell, advertise, provide a link to, or promote his services on this board. If previous customers, etc. wish to give him a plug, that should be allowed just as it is for other vendors in our realm. Jesse Azzato should be held to the same standards as everyone else on the Corvette Forum, even if he is one of our own.

2. Do it yourself, you will learn so much and be much better off in the end.

3. If you cannot do it yourself for whatever reason, try and find a local shop(preferably bonded and insured). From what I have learned up this point, you need alot more than just a dyno tune also. You just dropped BIG $$$ in your motor to even require the changes, don't skimp on the tune.

4. If you must go the Mail Order route, do your homework. Ensure they fully understand what you have, what you want, and get references for SIMILAR setups, and the same ECU/system. I will drop a name here, Alvin at PCMforless has been extremely helpful in guiding me into this science. I wanted to keep this as objective as possible, but I must say that Alvin has read several scans I have sent him and given me feedback, he deserves a HUGE thanks! In that same time period I have yet to receive any word back from Jesse. If he does eventually get back to me in his sweet time, it is already too late as I am at least 12 revisions downstream from what he has yet to get back to me about.

Jesse, if by chance you do read this, it is not personal. You seem to be a decent guy. I have seen those who know you personally only speak highly of you. I would recommend you take this criticism and apply it appropriately. I myself feel as if you took advantage of me and my relative inexperience. Not in an attempt to discredit you, or your work, yet from what I have seen and researched in this last week, most of your respectable tunes are/were done on 165 ECM's (MAF). You yourself had trouble with your 730/727(MAP) conversion and went back to the MAF. I would take that into consideration and seriously think about only working with tuning those types of systems(MAF).

I apologize for this being so long, but I felt it needed to be said.

For what it is worth,
Doug
aka "Dougs 90"

 

Doug, you are wrong. Heck, I am wrong, Datamaster is not capable of reading the changes that Jesse does, nor is CATS software. Dyno pulls are inaccurate, and time slips dont tell the story. We are all wrong about our cars running rich at idle and part throttle.
Jesse will keep the going, about how he programs things that we cant see.
As I stated earlier, he is not going to answer the questions about why the VE tables are not modified. Its a catch 22 for him. But I bet he is busy trying to learn how to change them now.
The bottom line is, Jesse may appear to be a nice guy, But he ripped you off, he ripped me off, and a host of others.

 

Dougs 90, help me understand something here. I'm not defending or knocking anybody, but how does running rich make your motor run hot and burn your headers? Usually, doesn't a rich condition make the motor run cooler? I can agree that way too rich will foul plugs and cause other problems but shouldn't make it run hotter.

 

93 ragtop, Dougs90, Alvin, and others,

Thank God that you guys bring a host of issues to light. Since I didn't know any better at the time (last year), I bought into Jesse's BS as well. Unfortunately, the rip off extended into a meltdown......He simply will not budge, if you're unhappy he will feed you a line of poppycock and you'll never see a dime. This is the lousy business. Doug, as others, laid it all out very well.

Once Jesse is up against other real tuners, engineers, etc, the BS train becomes quite apparant.

Jesse, the jig is up, and you've been called out. And I agree, you're a nice guy............but you get away with bloody murder.

 

I am also confused about this, but a little research showed me that detonation, increased EGT's, and even more CAN happen when too rich. The safe assumption is to assume you are lean. My understanding of the basic premise is that combustion continues into the exhaust piping.
Out of fairness, I will edit that claim from my post until I get a chance to confirm the theory on this..for the first time in my life I actually want to see a Thermodynamics Professor.......

Doug

 

Yea Doug, you bring up a good point. I suppose if timing is too far advanced it could cause pre-combustion, pinging, however there should be knock flags everywhere right?

I don't know a lot about this ECM tuning so I try to relate everything to tuning a carbed motor. Maybe that's a wrong assumption.

 

Running too rich can cause the headers to glow. It's unburned gas passing through the exhaust, still on fire. Same thing happens with to little of timing OR an extremely lean condition over time. Yes running rich can effect coolant temp....

Alvin, I am going to try and clarify my position. This thread or the idea of disecting mailorder chips is not meant to be a cut at you. Like I said, it's to show guys what they could do themselves. WHy do you feel the need to post your credentials? This is not an advertisememt for pcmsforless. You do help out alot on this board, not trying to take that away. I think it would just be much better if you keep your facts seperate from your opinions. Nobody is trying to smear yours or anyone else's name. In fact, I said from the start there would be no mention of names. Not my fault IF the DIY results greatly exceed the mailorder stuff. I think that is what you are sweating. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

please tell me how DIY effort is going to help at all when I have the BLM's all over 128 and the afr in the late 12's to early 13's. are there some big extra points when you do it yourself?

The reason why I posted my credentials is because of post like your last.. Having someone else tune your car is not inferior to a DIY tuning i'm not sweating anything.. Especially when boards like this are filled with "how to I modify my spark tables, how do i tune VE tables, what happens with closed loop timer is 1, etc.. sounds like not as easy as everyone on TGO preaches it to be.

Try to pick up anything on something a customer and I have finished.

 

No, your right. This is very very simular to tuning a carb. Someone that has experience with carbed cars will be able to sit in a lean, or lazy timing or rich car and should be able to tell right away whats going on. After a while you get a "ear" for lazy timing and skewed afr to help get you there before even looking for the final number

 

I'm not going to explain everything to you. The bottom line is that stock O2 sensors are just for emissions AND not acurate enough to recalibrate the engine management.

Ok buddy, you just threw down the gauntlet. With a cocky attitude like that I'll be happy to oblige. Since you gave me permission to post your companies work (with hundreds of witnesses I might add), I'll let you know what I have on the hot plate. First car is a 93 trans am. This guy paid for a mailorder chip from you. His mods are as follows..
5.7 LT-1
350 bored .030 over, line honed
speed pro forged pistons 10.5 to 1 comp
stock rods resized
stock crank .10 .10
crane lifters
custom ground cam (cam motion) (600 lift 230/240 intake/exhaust @ 50 degrees with 108 centerline
heads street/strip ported (peak performance) supposedly flows around 300 cfm
2.02 1.60 s/s manley valves
double valve springs with dampeners (comp cams)
hardened push rods (comp cams)
head studs (arp)
stud girdles
custom tall valve covers for stud girdles
intake street/strip ported (peak performance)
holly adjustable fuel pressure gauge
holly adjustable fuel pressure regulator
new fuel pump
24 lb injectors
holly dual 58mm throttle body
k&n air intake w/ conical filter
1/e bellows tube
msd 6al ignition
msd blaster coil
new ignition module
t56 6 speed
b&m ripper shifter
new centerforce dual friction clutch
10 bolt rear
eaton pro posi unit
richmond 3.73 gears
summit rear end girdle
kenny brown double diamond subframe connectors
hooker super comp shorty headers (ceramic coated)
hooker y pipe (ceramic coated)
flowmaster american thunder cat back and intermediate pipe with Magnaflow Muffler

This car has a PCMsforless chip and my friend is not happy with it. The car runs rich at lower engine speeds. Performance is not so great. When he gets the heater core fixed, we are going to do some monitoring. The first step will be to analyze the a/f ratios and aldl data. This guy has never had a wideband hooked up. The a/f ratio could be anywhere. Guess we'll find out eventually.

 

Has he tried to return any datalogs or wide band readings for me?

I think that sums it up, because if he did any and all concerns would have been taken care of.

 

KVU, Alvin is correct about the datalogs, because once you send them to Alvin al things will be taken care of.
KVU, here is a scenario" What jets and timing would i need with this combo, 850 double pumper, Capacitive discharge ignition, 580 in 620 ex lift cam, 262 in 273 ex @ .050 with 12 to1 comp.headers ported heads"
Can you tell me? Not, but after tuning several motors like this you would, or be in the ballpark. Now once you put it on the dyno, with a A/F ratio Wideband unit, you could get it nailed. By the way , that is a factory cam and motor, I will let you figure out which one.
Wether it is electronic or mechanical tuning, if you dont tell the tuner something is wrong, or provide data to help fix it, then you are just pissing in the wind. Customer service is what Alvin does also, that is a BIG plus. So ragging on him about a tune, without the tune being done(because customer hasnt told him, or sent updated logs to get it adjusted, is just juvenile. This is not a drivethrough at Mcdonalds, and he didnt get F*&$%*d.
Point is, anything computer or electronic is going to be close, but for a specific application, data logging will get the car nailed prety well. Alvin will do that for you ASAP, as he has done for a few times.
Ed Wright wouldnt, Jesse wont, Shalin will, and the list goes on.

 

Yes, I think I should be getting alot more knock flags, I plan to test the knock sensor this weekend. Under WOT, I get Code 43, and clouds of black smoke. The smoke is a possibility of the ECM going into open loop, but then I think it would happen after I get the code not prior to the code being set.

Actually your knowledge tuning a carbed motor is very applicable here. I wish I had that knowledge. Going to EFI, you gain alot more control over variable conditions, theoretically giving you the ability to get more power, better efficiency, and better emissions too.

Anyway, I can say that I am glad to be back on the CorvetteForum! Looking at this whole ordeal positively, I have learned so much in the last week, I am grateful for that.

Doug

 

I think he said the chip was sent back 3 times. THat is too much downtime on a guy's only car. But that is the nature of mailorder tuning. Alvin, please remeber that I'm not trying to say that mailorder tuning is "bad". Just trying to show people there are other viable options. Why do you feel this is a personal attack on you? Nobody metioned your name until you jumped in with a defensive posture. I think you are getting upset because we both know what the results will be. Since you suggested it, I'll make sure to label "company A" pcmsforless.


my quote of the week.....

 

I think this sums up my attitude about tuning also. I completely agree with these points. Which by the way, I had originally thought was the agreement with Jesse and me when I first purchased his tune. I would send data logs for him to read, and he could just email the new bin to me so I could get it burned on a new chip.
The approach I had in setting up my new motor was most bang for my buck, and I wanted to get it on the road and keep it on the road as soon as possible. I did alot of research on the various tuners, and most required things I could not commit to such as my car at their shop, more money than I was willing to spend at that time for a tune, many were not willing to do what Jesse agreed to, with emailing the bins back. That was one of the reasons I chose to have Jesse perform my tune. I have yet to receive any updates to the original tune he sent me, even when I have sent logs and info supporting the fact the tune needed work.

Doug

 

No disrespect but I don't think you get my point. Datalogs are not everything. You cannot determine actual A/F ratio, sense false knocks or run controlled test to determine the best rate of acceleration(through ALL forward gears) through the mail.

 

Look at Lingenfelters process for tuning vehicles. They drive em. If the customer insist, they'll throw it on a dyno...

 

I said put it on the dyno, as you will get data logs from the dyno via the wideband and the computer. Widebands do have dataloggers