hey der from the midwest, USA

Hello, my name is Ryan from Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA! I am interested in connecting with any local midwest tuners on facebook! Please go easy on me, I have very little experience in the performance world. I come from a family of mechanics and gear heads but actually learned most of my trade by working with friends and reading on internet forums before attending Universal Technical Institute for automotive, heavy duty diesel, and industrial technology and graduating in 2011 with a "student of course" in Power and Performance class. After playing my share of racing video games and watching various racing documentaries and shows I decided it was my dream to learn to tune and modify cars.

Experimenting with my first budget car, a slow and simple 2000 chevy cavalier (all I could afford at 16), I was able to teach myself about basic bolt-on modifications and how to install them as well as some minor body work and suspension tuning in high school and college. Just by adding basic bolt-ons I was able to shave my 1/4 mile drag time down about 2 seconds going from 18s to 16s without any major work (internal engine or ecu). After lending the cavalier to my fiance that car was in a freeway accident involving 2 semi trucks and my fiance made it out without a scratch thanks to some safety equipment I had installed but there was nothing left of the car. I had been collecting parts to start modifying engine internals such as a hand gasket matched cylinder head and increased ratio rocker arms from a chevy 350 and was forced to sell everything.

After both of us had reliable daily cars I purchased a project 1988 Toyota Levin GT-Z Supercharged right hand drive converted by the previous owner with a 3rd generation 4AGZE small port engine swap. The car needed plenty of work just in basic maintenance and restoration as well as fixing attempted modifications made by the previous owner. I am currently in the process of tuning the vehicle to its max potential using the stock ECU (adjustable fuel regulator, ignition timing, etc) while learning as much as I can from the great instructors here at High Performance Academy and taking my time choosing the best stand alone ECU for my vehicle.

I am currently an ASE certified medium automotive technician at Firestone auto care but I am learning as much about tuning as I can on the side and making connections with local shops with a dream that some day someone will give me a chance at a position in a custom automotive shop. I plan on doing as much as I can to my little Toyota and using it as a sort of "rolling resume" and being involved in local circuit/autocross racing events and drag racing in the future. For now I attend "fun run" drag racing events in the summer with my friends and am a hit at import car shows with the rare right hand drive setup. I have learned a lot so far from the EFI Fundamentals course and am signing up for more already! Can't wait to dig into my first ECU hopefully next summer!

Welcome to the forum Ryan.

I love the old Toyota Levin's! be sure to post up your progress with it, I'll certainly be watching.

Good luck with your dreams, sounds like you have a solid foundation of knowledge already so I'm sure you'll do fine when it comes time to tune