Shop refused to tune my car....

['94ChickStang]

....but let me say first of all they were very nice and educational, and not wanting me to waste $$$, so I'm not talking *****. I just want to get it dooooone, I know it's running rich and there's more to be had.

He said before we retune my car (after another shop screwed it up), that I need to get rid of my PMAS 90mm MAF and go to a C&L 73mm or 76mm set up, and I also need to swap out for a 70mm throttle body rather than my 65mm, so I match my intake/elbow.

He said it's just going from way too big to way too small and that to create optimal air movement you need a 7 degree taper which the above setup would come closest to...also he doesn't want me to get the "true flow" pipe from C&L but rather do (another) home made CAI so we can do a straight shot into the fenderwell. I had planned to do this last time but the first shop refused to cut into my fenderwell, and I've been up and down with this car since.

Any opinions? Looks like more parts to buy and sell

 

[Killercanary]

Educational they may be, but anyone that recommends putting a C&L onto a 94-95 would have me turning around and heading out the door. The 94-95 used the MAF voltage information to help calculate load, and the C&l's are way too temperamental with air flow changes to give consistent and accurate readings, especially on a 94-95. That's my 2 cents.

 

[WHITE94COBRA]

I have to agree, C&L's are known to not play nice with our cars; for example my tuner wants me to drop my Pro M 80mm, for a lightning MAF, he has no problem tuning it with the pro M (I have the flow chart), but favors the lightning MAF for it's tuneability. Hell for it's $65 to $80 dollar price tag I like it more as well!!
I have no experience with C&L, so i'm not bashing them, but the fact is more people have had problems with them than any other brand. Not saying your tuner is bad, but recomending C&L is right up there with recomending Pro products TB's or hypertech pre made tunes... Sometimes they work, sometimes they dont.

Educational they may be, but anyone that recommends putting a C&L onto a 94-95 would have me turning around and heading out the door. The 94-95 used the MAF voltage information to help calculate load, and the C&l's are way too temperamental with air flow changes to give consistent and accurate readings, especially on a 94-95. That's my 2 cents.

 

[Chythar]

While I haven't had experience with a tuner, any shop that refused to tune my car without buying parts they said I *had* to have would NEVER get my business. I understand recommending parts that a tuner may be more familiar with, but IMO it's unprofessional to refuse to tune an existing combo. A good tuner should be able to adapt the tune for the parts you have. Insisting you buy specific parts like that indicates a lazy worker, IMO.

The place didn't happen to sell the parts they recommended, did they?

 

['94ChickStang]

whats the best quality brand MAF to go with in your opinions that are in the 75mm range?

 

[DDSTANG94]

whats the best quality brand MAF to go with in your opinions that are in the 75mm range?

the one u got is fine man...... noo offence man but i stoped reading ur post after they said to get a c&l......u would have been better offf with the stock one

 

['94ChickStang]

Naw he doesnt sell those parts, he was just baffled by how large the MAF was and how small the throttle body was. It was a refusal because he didn't want to get into something that didn't make sense to him and have me spend $$ for marginal results in his opinion.

I'm sure I could have talked him into it but didn't push, I kind of want a matching throttle body on there anyhow...

 

[sage2k]

I have a 90mm LMAF on my N/a trickflow setup

 

[blksn955.o]

C&L is my last choice for a 94-95 maf. The self tuners are starting to get good results with them but they have been working very hard specificly with the 94-95 eec and spending good chunks of time to get those results...neither of which you will want to pay a shop to learn/figure out.

As far as IMHO the best maf to use...

Depening on your setup the best bang for the $$ is either

A) 80mm 98+ 4.6 (cobra or gt) maf
B) 90mm LMAF (off the gen 2 Lightning) or stock 03 cobra maf

C) if you want to spend more money but still have a rock solid maf that you need a good bit more room to grow I would look at the SCT mafs

D) Pro-M/PMAS would be my third choice but first choice out of the "foolery" maf.

If the shop wants you to run a C&L on a 94-95 I would skip that shop...I would ask around/ask locals who has a good reputation specificly for 94-95's...if you can not find one I would hit up Don on here for a SCT chip...he is the only person I would trust with a mail order tune for a 94-95. I think he also works with the customers to get things all dailed in as well.

 

['94ChickStang]

C&L is my last choice for a 94-95 maf. The self tuners are starting to get good results with them but they have been working very hard specificly with the 94-95 eec and spending good chunks of time to get those results...neither of which you will want to pay a shop to learn/figure out.

As far as IMHO the best maf to use...

Depening on your setup the best bang for the $$ is either

A) 80mm 98+ 4.6 (cobra or gt) maf
B) 90mm LMAF (off the gen 2 Lightning) or stock 03 cobra maf

C) if you want to spend more money but still have a rock solid maf that you need a good bit more room to grow I would look at the SCT mafs

D) Pro-M/PMAS would be my third choice but first choice out of the "foolery" maf.

If the shop wants you to run a C&L on a 94-95 I would skip that shop...I would ask around/ask locals who has a good reputation specificly for 94-95's...if you can not find one I would hit up Don on here for a SCT chip...he is the only person I would trust with a mail order tune for a 94-95. I think he also works with the customers to get things all dailed in as well.

Thanks for the advise, he just thinks it's all too big (80mm+), maybe it's time to explore other shop options.

 

[WHITE94COBRA]

Too bad your in Nor cal, I know of a few tuners here in so cal, I only use one, but I know of 3 that are very good.

 

[blksn955.o]

Its not the size really its more about air flow amounts and how clear the maftransfer is (data points). The mafs that "fool" the eec offset the amount the meter "sees" in flow to make up for the amount of fuel being added. Pro-M/PMAS use an electronic way to fool this signal while C&L uses a diff. size sample tube. The electric method is better for our cars as it is a little more detailed.

The stock meter and SCT meters use what is refered to as a 30 point transfer. That means there are 30 data points with most of those gen. in the lower (were you drive non-WOT) to get closer/more data were you need it.

Pro-m/PMAS uses a 10 point transfer that one must convert (when using a tuner to get 100%) to a 30pt. This is not too hard but since the data is a curve it is not a stright line and can take some tinkering to get were you are happy.

C&L that use the sample tube are close but harder to work with as you use your stock eec electronics and one sample tube is supposed to make up the diff. for the whole curve. This is not as much an issue with the fox as the eec in those is RPM based were the 94-95 is load based. In short the load is based off the maf's signal to tell the eec how much work the motor is doing based on incoming air. This is the reason the fox guys have no hard feelings for the most part with a C&L. I am NOT bashing C&L they make a good product but its just not the best for our application. It will get you down the road but you run the greatest chance of having drivability issues with this maf on 94-95's.

The biggest concern about size is if your not going to use most of the transfer...what is the point of getting a maf that flow's 9000cfm if your only going to need 6000cfm as a totaly off my head example you will only use a small portion of the transfer meaning you could possibly loose some of the 'clearity" of the lower end of the transfer and not use the upper end at all. It can be made to work fine (moreso with a stock type maf) but still why waste it.

Either keep your pro-m or get a stock style maf and a tune. You could even use the pro-m to get you to the tuner have it tuned for the stock type meter then sell the pro-m to offset the tune/pay for the stock type meter.

 

[Pokageek]

Educational they may be, but anyone that recommends putting a C&L onto a 94-95 would have me turning around and heading out the door. The 94-95 used the MAF voltage information to help calculate load, and the C&l's are way too temperamental with air flow changes to give consistent and accurate readings, especially on a 94-95. That's my 2 cents.

Ditto. BTW IIRC you were getting 290rwhp? That's pretty close to what it should be putting out with your mods right? I am just wondering why you are going through all this time and effort for another 10rw? I would just drive and enjoy.

 

[Stanger007]

I wasn't going to post in here but I figured I would give the flip side of this from someone who does a fair amount of tuning.

I get a red flag raised when I see that your combo (which looks "easy") was mis-tuned by another shop. I wonder if there is more to your combo that we don't know?

I would not be concerned with the tuner recommending parts they are comfortable with, but I think you will be well served by running a similar intake size both before and after the MAF.

You have to "drink the koolaid" to an extent with your tuner - you are paying for their knowledge of tuning the WHOLE combo, not necessarily working with the parts you have. Some tuners will tune for you without regard for whether or not you can improve the combo. This sort of thing is what makes an "average" combo perform differently from an "above average" combo. I applaud them raising questions on the setup and giving you an explanation for why. Obviously if they are giving you outlandish ideas and trying to make a buck you want to stay away but in this case I think not.

I had a great conversation this weekend with an up and coming dyno shop here that I am trying to help get going on the 94/95 side of things. Their angle on the tuning market in this area was that they were going to focus primarily on the DIY guys and the "street" cars. They noted that the other two big tuning shops in this area don't tend to focus on the details of the tune, but rather bragging rights on high dyno numbers. They miss (or disregard) the combo as a whole, the drivability, the things that really matter and are not very personable. You see 500rwhp cars only running 12s, that sort of thing.

If the tuner is actually tuning the MAF and not using what it is "calibrated" for then (tricking the LOAD as killer notes) I don't see any reason to try to lump in the bad things you've heard about C&L (I'm not a fan of their "calibrations" without tuning btw but I am a fan of their service). With the sample tube of the C&L being on the side of the pipe, turbulence in the intake becomes critical, hence their suggestion on a straighter intake pipe.

If you feel comfortable with the tuner's prior work and they can reasonably explain their suggestions to your satisfaction then I would feel comfortable taking their recommendations and running with them.

This all is of course my free advice so take it for what you paid for it.

Wes

P.S. I am a fan of running as big of an intake setup as you can get without bends and kinks where possible. sage2k's setup is right on the money - 90MM intake tubing to a 75MM TB matched to the intake.

 

[Black95GTS]

If you go to Anderson Ford Motorsports and look at the new Abaco digital unit, that's far and away the best MAF on the market. All kinds of tune-ability and superior accuracy. Just my two cents.

That shop is weak sauce. I think his advice shows a lack of confidence in his ability. blksn955.o - nice write up, I never thought of it quite like that!!

Adam

 

[blksn955.o]

Thanks Black95GTS...I will always fell like I am standing on the shoulders of people like Wes and Grady.

 

[final5-0]

There is no reason what you got ... can't be tuned

Now ... that is coming from a guy that would take what ever amount of time
it took to do it ... and ... do it right

That is the thing I've always looked at when you pay someone else to tune
a Stang

They are in the business of tuning ... for a profit .

Nothing wrong with that as I see it
and
I can see someone wanting to use parts they are more familiar with

In situations like this ... you gotta wonder if the tuner is making you dig
up different parts for a reason other than ... he is not familiar with the parts
you now got

I mean ..........
You see many people run 90 mm meters with all sorts of sized tb's

My gut tells me the stuff you now got can be tuned :Word:

Now ... can it be done in the amount of time that one would consider to be
profitable ... I could not say anything to that

After all ... I'm just a hick in Texas who found a laptop

Grady

 

[BlownFiveLiter]

Grady, I've always loved how humble you are, for being such a smart guy who knows not only his way around the EEC, but also pretty much anything mechanical on these cars, too. You and JT both! With age comes wisdom, and you two have shared a ton over the years.

How's the job going, by the way?

 

[final5-0]

Nice of you to say those kind words Mr. Matt

As for the job

Before I started this desktop support jig ............
I thought I knew a good bit about pc's

Now ... I know I didn't know squat

Its been real fun AND gettin more funner as I go along

Actually ... I've spent about 50% of my time working with servers and the
network end of things as opposed to working with desktop support only

This guy I work with lets me get in over my head but I don't let go until
I got the jist of how things work. A challenge can be a good thing

Hey ... its all good and the knowledge on both sides is gonna be beneficial
as I see it

Its late for an old man and I'm goin to bed now

Grady

 

[T0rk3d]

If you don't mind me asking what shop this was? I live in Nor Cal also... Just curious.