My Tuning experience blew my motor and led me to sell my 03 cobra..

F8l Vnm

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Hey guys just wanted share my "Shawn Ellis " Tuning experience with you all..
I purchased my Torch Red 10th ann. coupe in Sep of last year. Like many of you I was this was my dream car , I was in shock for the next month.
The moding began , I had a local shop bolt on the Basics and after about 3 months I was of you Shawn Ellis to get my car tuned.
With the pulley, exhaust , chip ,intake, t-body , mass air /mafterburner etc. My car was able to get 469Rwhp and 489Tq.
When I left his shop I paid almost 600 that included the red diablo chip and about 1 1/2 hours of his tuning.
On the freeway ride home I noticed the car would ping just a tad.
So i just figured it was kinda hot.
As I drove the car more I realized that that car would still just ping and now it was starting to stall once in a awhile at red lights and it never did that before.
I called him and he said that it was ok .
About a couple of months later I added the Apten and water pump and after about 2 times of his flaking on me for another dyno tuning session we met up at another local shop to use thier dyno since he dosent own his own dyno and that shop he works
in was busy.
So showed up at 12 Noon when he promised me he would be there at 10 am.
So I lost about 2 hours but it was ok I was so excited about my new mods that I didnt care.
When he got there I let him know again that the car was pinging and to tone it down just a tad maybe a little more fuel.
Well after 1 dyno run and a reburned chip that he did before he got there my car put out 507 Rwhp and 499 Tq. To be perfectly honest with you there was never a dyno session it took longer to get my car on the dyno and off that the actual session itself.
Got on the freeway and the car felt really strong but was not pinging even more.
I ended up paying another $250.
So thats when I started to add a little of race gas everytime.That seemed to take care of the problem and I never got on the car during the day after that for weather reasons.
Than I added a 3.10 upper along with my 8 lower I also had an Idler ..
Fast foward about 2 months , I got a hold of him after about 1 week and we meet up again .
This time at the shop he was working out of.
Once again he was late , and I was on the dyno for 1 run and less than 1 hour and the car made less hp but more tq. but the Dyno graphs really bad , my tq just dropped right away.
I made 469.00 Rwhp and 529.00 rwtq.
So he said that I was spinning the blower too fast.
Let him know that the car was pigning and thats when he looked at the chip and played with it once and stated that it was ok now.
Left the shop and paid another 250 more dollars.
got back and took the 3.10 upper of and drove the car and the "Re done " chip was still pinging after he stated that the chip was now a little less aggressive , keep in mind that the chip he burned was just for my 8 lower.
About a month later I went to a local dyno day and my car put down 480.00 Rwhp and about 485.00 rwtq and my This was the first time that I saw my A/F ratio and it was at 12.3!!!
I was so upset and that it the gentleman that was runing the dyno day let me know that car was runing dangerously lean and for me to becareful.
So I waited about a month never got on the car after that and took of my mass air and mafterburner off and called him for another dyno tuning session , once again he was last about 45 min and I let him know that the car was pinging.
So we got it on the dyno and the car made less than it ever made 460.00 rwhp and about 480.00 rwtq.
So than we both figured it was the mass air and mafter burner that made me lost the hp and tq.
He than took out my chip and stated that since I took out the mass air and mafter burner he can go more aggressive with the tuning.
After reinstallign the re- burned my car now made about 440.00 rwhp and about 450.00 rwtq.
Than we let the car cool for about 30 min and he took out the chip and put my original program back in .
At this point I was starting get really upset, my next run was 415.00 rwhp and about 420.00 rwhp give or take and than thats when of the owner of the shop that he works out of let shawn know that something was wrong.
At this point I was late to work to I called a taxi and paid almost 75 dollars to get back to work and left the car there.
The next morning They charged me 200.00 for the dyno time
and I had to pay 125.00 to get my car towed back to my local shop.
After opening the motor all 8 of my pistons were fried , my rod bearings were bad and 1 of my rods had gone bad as well.
I was so upset to hear this because like most of you I work hard for money .
I ended up waiting about 2 months and had the shop fix the car .
At this point I was so broke that I had no choice but to put this car back to stock , and traded it in.
I spent a lot of money fixing the car and trading the car in was one of the hardest things I have had to do .
I loved that car.
I want to let you guys know that shawn was nice enough to lend me his screw driver whenI needed it on 2 separte occasions and also offered me some pizza one of the days that I was there.
The guy was so into getting me his quote "THE NUMBERS THAT YOU DESERVE" that my car blew up on his dyno and ultimatly was the downfall to my Cobra.
To this day he has never called me to apologize or even given me some kinda apology.
I have sent so many of my buddies to him and given the man so much business.
Funny how imature the man is all he did when I was there was bad mouth other shops and tuners and I remember when He had another unsatisfied customer he "Made fun of his wife"??
Great customer service huh???
Sad because the people he works with and the moderators on his his boards are so cool with me and great guys.
This was my experince with the man , some of you may have had great times with him and or a bad experince with him but I was just stating my experince with him.
In my heart I truly belive my car pinged to death and that is why all 8 of my pistons were fried.
Remember now any one that knows a little can make numbers
by adding alot of timing and a lean A/F and that is what happend to me.
 
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Juiced-03

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Wow sad story man. Sorry to hear about your misfortunes. I dont think this thread will be up for very long, so be prepared to see it locked/deleted.

What are you driving now?
 

sam

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a 3.10 and a 8 lbs lower is close to 21 lbs of boost. that's the problem!!!
 
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F8l Vnm

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I was planning for a KB but the road got real bumpy.
Shawn ellis a tuner is So.cal ,he does Dibalo.
I ended up getting a F-150.
As much as I like this truck , You guys all know the feeling of a Cobra..
All I know what goes around always come around .

Juiced-03,
I'am prepared for the deleting of this thread as well..
Thanks for the support guys.
 

RedfireVert

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Shawn tuned my car. Like you, I waited around for over an hour for him to show, but his tune is working great with no issues.

Shawn was very nice and fair with me, but I guess that isn't always the case with others. Sorry to hear you had such a rotten experience.

Russ
 

combatstang

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I dont know about you but shuan is a great guy!

after having 507 rwhp.. why the hell where you still playing around with the pulleys to make more power? It seems to me that it was ur fault to play with your car after a proper tune!

He gave you the results, that i would have been stocked to get, and you missed it all up by changing all the pulleys

Dont come on here, bassing shuan for your ignorance!

If after i got my car tuned to the exact mods, i wouldnt change anything around without notifying my tuner first, because by doing that your missing with the tune of the specific mods..

just my 2 cents
 

BenD

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That's a pretty sad commentary. Obviously there are too many "Hacks" chasing too few bucks. It's best to be armed with some basic knowledge before the fact, but I know it's not easy to do. I think you let the 'jerk" off too easy. I think you're too kind to the "Jerk." It seems obvious that he doesn't know what the hell he is doing and should be made an example of so others don't meet the same fate.It sounds like he took you to the dance and you didn't even get a kiss.
 

Young_Stallion

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Originally posted by sam
a 3.10 and a 8 lbs lower is close to 21 lbs of boost. that's the problem!!!

Umm, yeah..I would say that is the issue :bash:
 

jmimac351

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This Shawn fellow may very well be clueless; however, if you knew the car was pinging you should have done something about it instead of upping the boost even more. It blows my mind how guys expect to run around with 500, 600rwhp and think it's going to be as reliable as a Honda. And when it isn't they go back to the same guy 5, 6 (I lost count) times to fix the issue. Maybe that was a clue???

Personal responsibility. You wanna play? Then accept the fact that you may choose to do business with people that are incompetent. Otherwise, learn how to do the work yourself so there's only 1 person to blame.

If there are those reading this that don't have much experience with cars... be very careful. You need to know for yourself what is involved in some of the choices you make regarding YOUR vehicle. If you don't know for sure what you are getting into...

In this case, experience means everything.
 

combatstang

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Originally posted by jmimac351
This Shawn fellow may very well be clueless; however, if you knew the car was pinging you should have done something about it instead of upping the boost even more. It blows my mind how guys expect to run around with 500, 600rwhp and think it's going to be as reliable as a Honda. And when it isn't they go back to the same guy 5, 6 (I lost count) times to fix the issue. Maybe that was a clue???

Personal responsibility. You wanna play? Then accept the fact that you may choose to do business with people that are incompetent. Otherwise, learn how to do the work yourself so there's only 1 person to blame.

If there are those reading this that don't have much experience with cars... be very careful. You need to know for yourself what is involved in some of the choices you make regarding YOUR vehicle. If you don't know for sure what you are getting into...

In this case, experience means everything.


I agree with you 100%, except, Shaun knows very much what he is talking about..


Just to let everyone know, Shaun was beginning to get a bad rep in So Cal, because of this guy, he went around telling everyone how shuan blew up his motor... bs!!

Apteen is his name, i may have spelled it wrong.. whatever... but after blowing his motor, he goes to X2C motorsports... and they build him a new motor, then he goes over to Steve at power train, and yes agian, blows his new motor...

Dude, you really need to stop bashing on shuan.. u playing with your car after a good tune destroyed your car.. not him...

stop talking sh*t

Marc
 

gnxs

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Originally posted by combatstang
I dont know about you but shuan is a great guy!

after having 507 rwhp.. why the hell where you still playing around with the pulleys to make more power? It seems to me that it was ur fault to play with your car after a proper tune!

He gave you the results, that i would have been stocked to get, and you missed it all up by changing all the pulleys

Dont come on here, bassing shuan for your ignorance!

If after i got my car tuned to the exact mods, i wouldnt change anything around without notifying my tuner first, because by doing that your missing with the tune of the specific mods..

just my 2 cents

Exactamundo!! If you do anything substantial to your mods AFTER the tune, you have nobody to blame but yourself. :nono: Especially since you were already pushing 500 hp.

My $0.02.
 

Fresh Cobra

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I haven't had any major probs with Shawn except for his 99.9% of the time being late to show up for a tune...lol I may end up buying him a cheap watch for christmas...lol He's been straight with me, got me some good numbers on both of my Stangs (see sig) and my 96 is going back to him some day hopefully next week after I get the ported Bullet Intake on it this weekend. I'm sorry for your loss and your bad feelings.

~ Fresh :burnout:
 

brasil

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There is another member here also that his engine blew up one week after Shawn Ellis tuned his car with a KB blower. There was another member here who also had problems with him and people direspecting his wife. So who knows??
 

BAD03SVT

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Originally posted by sambandit
I wouldn't have thought a 12.3 A/F was that dangerous. Sorry for your misfortunes!


neither would i, my tune is about that range on the bottom end and then richens up to about 11.5 on the big end
 

cobrapete03'

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Sorry to hear about your experience. I guess you should have initially seen a printout of the A/F ratio for yourself before you took it any farther with modifications...


-pete:coolman:
 

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