donkeyballs

iTrader: (3)

BYT's tunes weren't that bad.. It was the length of the builds and crappy rushed work. He also said F uuu to the cobalt community and wouldn't respond to people that had already purchased tunes.. He's a talented guy that needs to get his **** together..

ULWizSS

iTrader: (5)

Agree completely, Tuning ability is great build time not so much. But he is back on track and i am looking forward to it.

armcclure

iTrader: (2)

Lol vander. Go home. The adults are talking here.

Vander Nars

iTrader: (5)

superman breaks zods neck in the end. Opps wrong thread

Omiotek

iTrader: (2)

this.....should i post up kdubs logs in here????? wish i would of took pics of the rod bearings and pistons when i pulled them and all the glitter in the bottom of the pan. yes it broke a valve and he got lucky it was just that because complete destruction was going to happen real soon.....

kdub1492

iTrader: (8)

^this, i'm tired of seeing that "his tune was fine, it dropped a valve". The car should have never dropped a valve. The car had 24k miles and was tuned by James for less then 2k miles. **** was fried regardless of what anyone wants to think, Matt took the car apart, and seen the carnage first hand

ebristol

iTrader: (4)

I am glad this thread has stayed open. There is a lot of good information in here that people have to read.

I used to do a lot more tuning then I do now. I know there are a lot of tuners like me who got out of tuning or turned away from tuning because of CCSS3.

James used to charge as low as $150 for a custom WB tune. He set the bar really low and some how that became the norm for this platform. I would get contacted all the time for tuning and when I told the person how much I charge they would say "James charges half that." The first dozen times that happen I would try to explain the difference between the work that I did vs the work that James did. If the customer did the proper research they would understand my point. If they were looking for the cheapest price, I wouldn't hear back from them. Eventually I got tired of the price shopping and would respond with "That's fine. Then get tuned by him."

Then there was all the arguing on the forum. James would try to fool people into believing something that was not true and others would try to correct him. Then all his fan boys would jump in the thread with non sense to defend him. They knew nothing of the topics being discussed but since it was James, they flamed and disrupted the thread until it eventually got locked. It destroyed the healthy conversations on this forum and slowed down the learning process for those looking for information.

I am not surprised to see that James is disabling codes in his tunes. He was always chasing customers in the Problems and Troubling shooting threads offering his "help" and promoting his tuning services. For some reason, the moderators on this forum did nothing about it? I don't know who finally got enough ball to ban him but it was too little too late.

James would target customers who knew nothing about their cars because he could double dip on his services. He would be their mechanic AND there tuner. Anyone who has been around cars long enough knows that good mechanics are not cheap and good tuners are not cheap. So cheap mechanic/tuner sounds too good to be true, right? lol

We know of the handfuls of engines he has blown. But I am sure there are much more out there. Just think of the ones that don't surface on the forum? If your mechanic is your tuner and your tuner is your mechanic, there is no way to know where the actual problem is. And people would justify the blown engine because they took their car to James with problems. Little did they know that James made whatever problems they had even worse.

I know a lot of good people who were turned off by this forum and this platform because of all this non sense...

Okay, I think I am done now...

Keep this thread open please.

Bluelightning

iTrader: (8)

Wow why wasn't this thread around a year ago. Would have saved me a lot of money... This is a good thread with actual facts and no bashing for no reason. Like ebristol said, keep this open.

Since people have started opening up a bit on here I'd might as well myself. Not to bash. Just share my experience with James last year. And people deserve to know this info. I bolted a TVS on my car and tuning around here is little to nothing other than a Trifecta tune. I PM'd a bunch of the most talked about tuners on this site about remote tuning because at the time it was really my only option. Only two people replied. One being James. He actually seems like a really good guy. Customer service was awesome. I'm no tuner or I'd be doing it myself. But am no dummy. But about 6,000 miles later I popped the motor in my car. Blew the sleeve right out of #2 cylinder. As I questioned why it happened on the forum because I had no knock, my meth didn't fail and had no mechanical issues, others on here asked and started looking at my tune and couldn't believe their eyes the timing table that James made for my car. James immediatley points the finger at me pulling stupid comments out about my car that he knew nothing about just to weasel his way out why my motor popped, that I was demanding a more and more aggressive tune, then started pointing fingers at me saying I must have been driving a certain way to have this happen to my motor. I couldn't believe it! It was a hard lesson learnt and I've learnt a lot about tuning since then. But never ever would James tune my car ever again.


https://www.cobaltss.net/forums/2-0l...-table-288615/

07MetallicSC

iTrader: (16)

I banned him

vahdyx

iTrader: (7)

I am just glad there's some understanding now and it's finally out in the open. When I first had my issue with James I wrote about it and I was attacked by what seemed like a fleet of CCSS3 fans.

Basically saying it's my fault. I went back to Trifecta and all was fine until I had my issue with TXSS/TC or something like that with a faulty K04+ Long story short I gave him another try and still didn't get what I needed. I shared his tunes with various other tuners on the forum that I was familiar with including one of CCSS3's protege, BYT and a couple local shops and they basically all told me to abandon ship. That's when I was referred to Term through a local referral, he had been using Term for awhile and spoke highly of him. I contacted Term and helped me out and became my tuner after that point.

I'm just glad nothing bad happened to my ex lol. She was my pride and joy back then.

Like I said previously, this is all based on my experiences. They could be different from person to person, but in the end I made my choice and from the end user point of view it appears to be the right one for my needs.

shroogis

iTrader: (1)

You make some very solid points Eric. If the mods had banned him years ago and allowed an enlightenment thread like this one, can you imagine how many LSJ's/LNF's would still be running...such a shame.

07MetallicSC

iTrader: (16)

This is like a css.net group theropy thread. Glad you guys are able to speak in the open about your dealings in a respectable manner, and everyone feels this as a positive thread.

Terminator2

I agree with this statement 100%. I have said for years after reading his posts that he had no idea what he was talking about when it came to tuning and every time I questioned him he got defensive because he knew he was wrong and he used arguing to try to weasel his way out of being wrong. How he hooked so many tunes is likely due to him charging half of what the other reputable good tuners charge. Always remember the old adage "YOU GET WHAT YOU HAVE PAID FOR" as it applies here. Oh well he is a nice guy. I disagree as soon as you question him he becomes scared because he knows he is wrong and he will do anything to try to save face when in reality the best thing for him to do in those situations is to either concede and say "sorry I was wrong" or at least stop spewing misinformation out of the lower half of his face.

What astounds me is that there are a lot of members still sticking by him even though there is empirical proof his tunes leave a lot to be desired and many are downright dangerous (too much low end timing, too lean, too rich, disabling codes like misfire and lean codes, etc) Unfortunately those members think because the car feels fine that it is fine. Unfortunately that is not always the case. The worst part is those members are not experienced tuners so they have no idea what they are looking at. They have to trust that their tuner is competent. James just says everything is fine when the reality is this is not the case. The ECM tries it best to protect the motor but it cannot always do so.

kdub1492

iTrader: (8)

That's funny because when talking to his fan boys now he tries saying that I asked for "more and more" when in fact you can read my emails and "more power" was never asked for. It is what it is tho, can't lead the blind...

CudaJoe

iTrader: (1)

LoL You nailed it Ebristol. I completely agree with everything you said. james almost killed the tuner commity in here with his ridiculous underpricing.

CudaJoe

iTrader: (1)

Im not sure what your trying to say here. You think BYT was known for shitty tunes? As far as I know, the only thing Nick got tagged for was taking on waaayy too many project builds which took too much time and just up and peacing out, and the addicition thing.

I had already said it before. He up and left cause he was sick of James coming into all of his threads and bashing him... cause when James bashed, so did about 30 other people and the thread grew uncontrollably. The "Well James can toon for half that.." statement were also probably a big point for him to get out.

ULwizzSS has it correct though. Sounds like hes got it all together again No more projects but he'll still be tuning.

Bluelightning

iTrader: (8)

Lol yup same here. He would point the finger at one thing. I would tell him he's wrong, he would point at another, nope sorry James wrong again. And he ended up being all over the map for excuses why my motor blew.

Terminator2

I just saw your timing map and I about **** my pants!!!! You never ever run that much midrange timing like he had you running. Lower RPMs mean slower piston speeds and higher dynamic cylinder pressures which means less timing needed to make max brake torque (anything beyond MBT timing produces tons of waste heat). Higher RPMs mean Faster piston speeds and lower dynamic cylinder pressures normally so you run more timing to help make up for the loss of cylinder pressure.

Cliff notes: Timing starts at a lower advance than ramps up smoothly as engine rpms rise not the other way around.

Area47

for those who do their own tunes. this is a wise one to pay attention to. deviation from the stock timing curve will lead to less over all power. it is designed like it is for a reason. my timing maps are built around this principle and have a **** load of time in them.

Bluelightning

iTrader: (8)

Yes sir. Like I stated earlier, if I only knew then what I do now. I was brand new to HPT when James tuned me so I didn't know the in's and out's of HPT much at all.

And that timing table is what blew my sleeve out. I have no doubt in my mind. My low coolant light came on 3 days before I blew my motor. Probably because the sleeve was starting to let go.

tureka

iTrader: (1)

Later today I will upload a James tune.

When I got the zfr and the 4.45 he said it would be np.

We never could get my car dialed in. Instead, he skewed the values to make it run, but the drivability was terrible. He had me replace tons of things on the car, MAF, MAP sensors, intercooler pipes, intercooler, and at the end of the day the tune felt dangerous. At high rpms the car would backfire ~10 times a second.

I decided to go back to Trifecta. Car runs great. I doubt I am getting as much power out of it, but at least it feels safe and there is no crazy boost spike.

James claimed he had put the same base efr tune on 10 other cars and they were fine. Said mine was a dud. Trifecta had no issues what so ever, said the logs looked great, was making ~400 whp at the end of dialing in.


I was also a HPT logger for James during this time. We tuned a LSJ 256 turbo WITHOUT the wideband, using a cellphone camera to watch the afr on a interceptor gauge. That car is fast, but its drivability is terrible. The zzp canned tune felt better, and that tune was running AFR 16:1.

I would like to try going HPT in the future, but I am a little scared. Anyone interested in giving it a go?

Terminator2

I have $100 that says it is the same as the ZFR file I have of his. That file is pure garbage and I bet he uses it in all his ZFR and other big turbo cars.
I would be happy to tune it for you and I can assure you you will love my ZFR tune.

Wert842

iTrader: (3)

Probably the reason why James always said the motor can only handle do much on an lnf before causing ring land failure.

Sent from my iPhone using CobaltSS

ECaulk

iTrader: (6)

If your ZFR has the same drivability as the KO4+ (I'm assuming it does) def worth the money.

Side note Term I have to do emissions, (please if this is completely ignorate I apologize still learning about the ecu in this car) could I put the stock ecu with dp and go do the emissions test? Or would the ko4+ just screw everything up?

Terminator2

It should pass the way it is. They should just plug into the OBDII port and check for emissions DTCs.

Yes all my tunes have excellent drivability and progressive boost response so it is never like a light switch from 0 psi to 24 psi without even moving your foot like some tunes.