Brad from Wyoming

Greetings!

I purchased this course to fine tune my 2002 Pontiac Trans Am with a LSX454. I was a mechanic for a lot of years, so doing the mechanical work was the easy part. I paid a 'Professional" tuner big bucks to tune my engine. At that time, I had to travel six hours to get to this tuner and they were one of the few I could locate online.

The initial conversation I had with them was good. They assured me they could tune it in 2-3 hours time and would cost around $500, so we set up an appointment. After about 10 hours and $1,300, it could make good power, but drive-ability was not very good.

Since then, I purchased an HP tuner and went the cheap route. I didn't buy the one with the input for the wide band sensor! Rookie mistake. Anyway, I adjusted what I could to get it to run better and improve drive-ability.

I finally upgraded the tuner to get the wide band incorporated. I then started to adjust tables. The drive-ability improved, but I always had an idle issue. I messed with every table and then some to try and fix that issue. I finally came across HP Acadamy and decided to give it a try. In the process, I learned a bit and reinforced a bunch of what I had already learned off a lot of other forums.

In looking at my original tune, I found so many problems! From the MAP sensor not being calibrated properly, to the fuel injector settings being what appears to be a wild guess... It's surprising my car ran as good as it did.

Since then, I have fixed the MAP sensor calibration, installed LS7 injectors with known values in the fueling tables, and adjusted my VE tables to match up.

I reached out in the general forum and Andre helped me resolve the idle issue I have fought for many years. I had previously played with the tables that fixed it this go round, but I had not understood enough the first go round. This time I was much more confident after going over the courses here and with Andre pointing me in the right direction, it didn't take long.

I'm thinking I might start tuning as a side gig. I enjoy it and it's all making sense to me now. No more fear, just caution when it is needed. I'm looking forward to much more tuning in my future!

Now I just need a larger pool of cars! My part of the world does not have many people... Hard to do full time if the population isn't there.

Anyway, I guess I just wanted to share some challenges and how this program has helped me overcome them. Keep on tuning guys!

So long as you're learning, you're winning I reckon. It's always easier to say after the fact but if everything went to plan all the time life would be boring, although at the same time I'm sure we'd all welcome a little more 'boringness' at certain times haha

Thanks for sharing your story!