dn1984
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Sep 14, 2019
- Threads
- 27
- Messages
- 821
- Reaction score
- 721
- Location
- SF Bay Area
- Vehicle(s)
- 2018 Mustang GT A10 Premium
- Thread starter
- #1
Shaun at AED has exceeded my expectations by far. I couldn't be happier with my experience there, his professionalism and encyclopedic knowledge about these cars, and the fact I decided to do this over an email tune with somebody else. I felt more comfortable having him diagnose things on my car in person and his knowledge of the local fuel situations we have in northern California as well.
The shop itself was badass, and I appreciated the fact that he let me roam around and ask all kinds of dumb questions. He gave me three tunes for the price of one (91, flex, dedicated E85) When we first put my car on the dyno for a baseline, he diagnosed some issues with my car. My passenger side cat is on it's way out and slightly clogged/collapsing. I don't know how long this has been going on, but he attributed it to bad and/or low octane gas. I use Shell and Chevron 91 (he recommends 76), but since I bought my car pre-owned it's possible the previous owner used 87 exclusively which apparently wreaks havoc on the cats on these cars. He went into detail about a bunch of other things related to that which I won't get into, but it was very interesting and it's nice to have this knowledge of modern engines now.
Anyways, because my passenger side cat was bad, it was heating up like crazy on the crappy 91 I had in there. This caused the o2 sensors to shut off like half way into the run (built-in protection feature) and tons of timing to be pulled during my baseline run. Baseline was 403 RWHP and I think like 375 RWTQ from what I can remember. My car is an A10 by the way, so these dyno lower than the M6 cars. Regardless, he said my numbers were very low compared to others. I don't know how long my car has been like this but he's thinking it's been like this for a while. I ran an 11.9@119mph last time at the track and I haven't felt any loss in power since that run so it's hard to say. Needless to say on this particular day my engine power was compromised a bit.
Next up, he wanted to go straight to E85 due to the fuel and heat situation. He loaded my flex fuel tune to transition, and it took a while to get all the gasoline out. He manually removed as much as he could and then ran the car for a while to get the rest out of the fuel rails (he thinks there's about a gallon that's left in the 4 fuel rails and associated lines). Then in went the E85 (actually half of it was E90 race fuel) and some more driving on the rollers to get it up to a high enough alc % to load the dedicated E85 tune. He was making tweaks to everything including trans logic the entire time.
Finally, the E85 tune was loaded and he ran it twice on the dyno with a little tweaking. 0 knock, full o2 sensor functionality with no shutting off, engine was VERY happy. These engines really hate heat with their high compression ratio and are extremely sensitive, again this was all part of the knowledge he was passing on to me the whole time. Final dyno results 449 RWHP / 416 RWTQ. Again, I have a clogged/bad passenger side cat robbing me of 10+hp easily
I'm extremely happy with my results. The car runs like an absolute animal now to the point where I may need to get some drag radials for the track (we'll see how I once Sonoma opens up). Power all over the rev range is WAY more brutal. And my "dream" drag mode is now just putting the shifter in S in normal, sport+, or track. Drag mode shift logic with no power drop between gears but with the throttle sensitivity of the other modes and the added benefit of it shifting up to 10th gear instead of having to switch from drag to another mode when I get on the highway like before. The engine itself runs MUCH smoother and doesn't make nearly as many noises as before.
Next up is either getting the TSB fix on my cats without having an engine code pulled (unlikely) or just biting the bullet and doing long tubes (more likely). By the way the long tubes he recommends for E85 cars are Kooks due to the o2 sensor placement in addition to overall design taking into account the gen3 exhaust pulses.
So....let this be a lesson on why it may be better to get a dyno tune if you're able to physically take your car to one of the top tuners in the country (AED, Lund, PBD). Based on my car's issues, I would say I am on the extreme difficulty end of the spectrum and not all cars will be like that. But the safety factor alone was worth it for me. Plus, he educated me about our E85 in California and why I should be using a top end lubricant when I fill up with E85, which is something I'm sure I wouldn't know unless I dealt with him since I've seen nobody else mention this anywhere. Keep in mind, some of the info I posted may be mistranslated a bit since I'm by no means an expert.
Anyways, a few pictures. Sorry I didn't take more photos. Here is my car in the shop with his race car in the background:
Here's Duke. He oversees the whole operation:
And finally just a shot I took of my car after I got home and washed the bugs off:
The shop itself was badass, and I appreciated the fact that he let me roam around and ask all kinds of dumb questions. He gave me three tunes for the price of one (91, flex, dedicated E85) When we first put my car on the dyno for a baseline, he diagnosed some issues with my car. My passenger side cat is on it's way out and slightly clogged/collapsing. I don't know how long this has been going on, but he attributed it to bad and/or low octane gas. I use Shell and Chevron 91 (he recommends 76), but since I bought my car pre-owned it's possible the previous owner used 87 exclusively which apparently wreaks havoc on the cats on these cars. He went into detail about a bunch of other things related to that which I won't get into, but it was very interesting and it's nice to have this knowledge of modern engines now.
Anyways, because my passenger side cat was bad, it was heating up like crazy on the crappy 91 I had in there. This caused the o2 sensors to shut off like half way into the run (built-in protection feature) and tons of timing to be pulled during my baseline run. Baseline was 403 RWHP and I think like 375 RWTQ from what I can remember. My car is an A10 by the way, so these dyno lower than the M6 cars. Regardless, he said my numbers were very low compared to others. I don't know how long my car has been like this but he's thinking it's been like this for a while. I ran an 11.9@119mph last time at the track and I haven't felt any loss in power since that run so it's hard to say. Needless to say on this particular day my engine power was compromised a bit.
Next up, he wanted to go straight to E85 due to the fuel and heat situation. He loaded my flex fuel tune to transition, and it took a while to get all the gasoline out. He manually removed as much as he could and then ran the car for a while to get the rest out of the fuel rails (he thinks there's about a gallon that's left in the 4 fuel rails and associated lines). Then in went the E85 (actually half of it was E90 race fuel) and some more driving on the rollers to get it up to a high enough alc % to load the dedicated E85 tune. He was making tweaks to everything including trans logic the entire time.
Finally, the E85 tune was loaded and he ran it twice on the dyno with a little tweaking. 0 knock, full o2 sensor functionality with no shutting off, engine was VERY happy. These engines really hate heat with their high compression ratio and are extremely sensitive, again this was all part of the knowledge he was passing on to me the whole time. Final dyno results 449 RWHP / 416 RWTQ. Again, I have a clogged/bad passenger side cat robbing me of 10+hp easily
I'm extremely happy with my results. The car runs like an absolute animal now to the point where I may need to get some drag radials for the track (we'll see how I once Sonoma opens up). Power all over the rev range is WAY more brutal. And my "dream" drag mode is now just putting the shifter in S in normal, sport+, or track. Drag mode shift logic with no power drop between gears but with the throttle sensitivity of the other modes and the added benefit of it shifting up to 10th gear instead of having to switch from drag to another mode when I get on the highway like before. The engine itself runs MUCH smoother and doesn't make nearly as many noises as before.
Next up is either getting the TSB fix on my cats without having an engine code pulled (unlikely) or just biting the bullet and doing long tubes (more likely). By the way the long tubes he recommends for E85 cars are Kooks due to the o2 sensor placement in addition to overall design taking into account the gen3 exhaust pulses.
So....let this be a lesson on why it may be better to get a dyno tune if you're able to physically take your car to one of the top tuners in the country (AED, Lund, PBD). Based on my car's issues, I would say I am on the extreme difficulty end of the spectrum and not all cars will be like that. But the safety factor alone was worth it for me. Plus, he educated me about our E85 in California and why I should be using a top end lubricant when I fill up with E85, which is something I'm sure I wouldn't know unless I dealt with him since I've seen nobody else mention this anywhere. Keep in mind, some of the info I posted may be mistranslated a bit since I'm by no means an expert.
Anyways, a few pictures. Sorry I didn't take more photos. Here is my car in the shop with his race car in the background:
Here's Duke. He oversees the whole operation:
And finally just a shot I took of my car after I got home and washed the bugs off:
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