Thought not..... Again, I rest my case.

 

i just brought my fd to dave in april, i went there for just a tune up and he helped me out alot.
1st of all when i 1st emailed him he couldnt do weekends cause he was booked for a couple months, so being it a 4 hr drive and never been to PA till that day he helped me out and fit me in on a tuesday. when we did an estimate online (so i know what i was looking at to spend) it was alot more then it came out to be.

im not good at all with mechanic stuff so he coulda screwed me over big time, such as only 2 of my plugs were bad, but he let me know and only charged me for 2 since the other ones were good, or like the fuel filter, he coulda changed it and told me it was bad and i woulda believed him since i dont know, well he brought me out there and showed me everything, and showed me that the fuel filter was just changed (had the date on it) so he took that outta the price. he explained everything really good to me, and checked over the whole car, not just the engine.

even the small things that i look for when i bring my car to a show, such as when i got there he came out to the lot and was looking under the hood, well he had his work jacket on and it was open, so when he leaned over to look in the engine bay he made sure to keep the zipper away from the car so it wouldnt ding or scratch it, to be thats a big deal when i bring my car to a show, people awlays putting there hands on my car or no respecting my stuff, not sure if thats at shops around u guys, but atleast he was carfeull with my car.

so i would recomend him and deff go back all the time

 

i stand by the good things that i have said about dave. he has done me right and also makes me feel like a friend when i am hanging around the shop. Many yrs have gone by so i do my **** myself. but i def recommend him for most applications. Granted my knowledge about tuning and engine building pails in comparison to yours even though we probably have been rotary owners for equal amount of time. i just never took my car to the extreme u have therefore i never really researched those topics much. but i can judge a mans character and he is top notch. i havent had to replace anything on my car for 7yrs (obviously excluding upgrades). the only thing that i can say to you is that you should let it die now man. i would be pretty upset too if i spent 20k on my car just to get it right. but dave doesnt post and there is always two sides to a story.

Additionally, i think what you are saying ernie is if u want a big rwhp beast there might be better choices outthere. from what i can see PFS has built some nice 500rwhp plus cars. in fact from what i have seen his cars are the top rwhp machines on the forum. if i go sinlge and not sell my ride thats where i will be taking my car.

 

Guess what guys? No one is perfect, and I mean no one. I have seen first hand shoddy install work from a few of the places in the northeast which have been trumpeted as The Best Thing Ever (and no, I'm not talking about KDR). Things that would make you cringe, like a fuel system installed in such a fucked up manner that it blows my mind how the car didn't catch on fire----fuel EVAPORATING off of the turbo manifold, which was soaked in fuel.......a clutch job 'completed' with half of the hardware missing.....thank god the poor guy didn't lose his starter when he was cruising down the highway. That kind of stuff makes me shake my head. I was planning on sitting this one totally out, but just wanted to make that point.

 

noone can sit out a kdr thread, a single vs twin thread, and so on....we love these topics.

my new focus is why the hell are high rwhp fds only trapping a few more mph than stock twin cars. someone anser that one for me. i see alot of big numbers floating around and get excited to see thier 1.4 mile time only to be let down to see a 121mph trap.

 

Traction out of the hole.

Oh, and I can go a lot faster than 121 mph in 1.4 miles

 

did u really...fill me in. u know i am dieing to know.

 

You have 0.25 mile (quarter mile) and 1.4 mile mixed up, I was just pointing that out in a nice way

 

I want to trap these 9 sec. mph's in my street car one day, lol, damn.

 

650 rwhp in a true 'street' FD will be tough. I hope you don't mind paying for c16

 

Krikey!

 

****, pump gas is almost as expensive now! lol....

 

Keep a 55 gallon drum in my garage

 

I've had great experiences with both Steve and Dave B. Dave built the engine in my car and it pulls 17+in of vacuum @750rpm after 6 years and like 35k+ miles. Dave tuned it for 12psi and it ran 13.2@106. Steve tuned it with a couple of problems (boost loss, fouled plugs) for 14.5psi and it runs 12.8@110.

You have to be really careful getting ready for a tuning session with Steve. Its so rare for him to be in your area (1-2 a year) that you want everything perfect to get the most out of your ~$400. If your car is in good shape and you've covered everything getting ready you will be very happy with the results.

 

i trapped 128mph on a t78 with race gas. i had a shitty 60'. 1.86 and ran 11.4. 21lbs. kvn

 

Steve, (Pluto)
I just spent a long time trying to find the thread I mentioned before, and wasn't successful. I know it was within the last year and I believe he was from Pa. It would be nice if he would chime in.

I was not attempting to slander you or your tuning abilities, your reputation is no doubt well deserved. However as you have indicated you are not perfect, all of your tuning sessions haven't turned out to your liking, and no doubt the condition of the cars has been an important factor. My point was that Dave Barninger certainly knows how to tune a sequential FD as well as anyone. In the case I mentioned according to the owner, Dave gave him the best result. Has he blown engines on the dyno ? Yes, as you have, and probably anyone tuning these engines if they do more than one. The good news is that as the years go by and experience increases there seem to be fewer of these experiences.

A friend visited your shop a couple weeks ago on vacation and was impressed.
Keep up the good work.

 

I do know Dave B. and he was great when he rebuilt my engine. Took time with a newbie that I was then and really showed me some great customer service. I would take my car back to him anytime. And yes...everyone should see Nuvolari's set up...quite nice..very bling but quite functional...pulling 15 PSI now right?

 

Or a third rotor.

 

meant 1/4

 

u have a pfs car right?

 

yeah, i m having some problems right now though

 

No harm, no foul.
I do however like to know and get feedback from people who I tuned. That way, I know what needs improvement and be able to provide better services in the future. That's why I asked where the thread was so that I can ask the person to see what went wrong with the tuning I did. There're limitations on EMS, such as PFC that no matter how you adjust, it wouldn't make a difference (idle a/f and timing). This is one thing I notice when I was learning the system. The TPS has to set properly in order to get out of that mode.

I learned most of the aftermarket EMS by trying it myself in my own personal vehicles before attempting to do it on other cars. I currently have 4 FD's, all of which have different EMS systems at one point. This is the only way to learn and be able to maximize the features out of each systems. This is probably why I'm more fluent and more diverse compared to other tuners. I have dealt with AEM, Autoronics, Hydra, F-con Pro, Map ECU, Haltech, Microtech, Links, Motec, PFC, PFS EMS, Hondata, FAST, LS1 edit and the list goes on. You really can't learn it well just from messing with other people's car (especially when you don't own one yourself or have friends with different vehicles that lets you mess with it). I have also dealt with other vehicles such as MR2, Miata, Supras, WRX, EVO, Celica, Honda, 240SX, mustang, LS1, and the list goes on. Tuning rotaries are not my only thing eventhough I'm more known in this arena. I was also invited by Titanmotorsports two years ago to be their EMS analyst but due to my hectic schedule at the time, I declined their offer.

Honestly, I don't even know why I was brought up into this thread since I have nothing but good thing to say about Dave@ KD and his company.

 

That's all of the St.Louis RX7's

 

u gotta fill us in

 

Well let's see, you took 6 months to fix my 5th gear synchro with nothing but bullshit excuses and ignored phone calls/e-mails. You installed your ultimate fuel setup which was to included new injector insulators (we'll come back to this). Your $300 tune made my car run better than when I pulled it in untuned, but I thought the hesitation at throttle tip in, and other annoyances were just part of getting up there in HP numbers. I was wrong, they were products of a bad tune.

Then you kept all my stock parts you replaced. I called several times and was told they would be shipped to me, it never happened. There was a rats nest in great condition with a silicone vac job just done, brand new airpump with like 2k miles on it (bought from you by the previous owner), secondary injectors, etc, etc.

Also when I took it to you I was loosing coolant, I thought it was a bad coolant seal, you checked it out and said "No, it looks fine, we'll go ahead and tune it". Took it home and it just got worse. Couple weeks later I pulled the engine for replacement, bad coolant seal. Pulled the primary injectors to find bits of chewed up rubber where the new insulators should have been!

Then there's the little things like charging me $75 labor to change spark plugs before my tune because they were so bad even though you "supposedly" changed them when I was there like 1k miles prior.

Also some may wonder why I made two trips there in such a short period. Well that's because the tranny work took so long it went into the winter, there were big storms coming and I had to get it home, well promises were made that it would be done Thursday, then Friday because the dyno was broken, I told you I had to come Friday to get it back before the big snow storm. So I was forced to pick it up Friday, untuned and drive it home in a snow storm; only to return in the spring to give you more money so I could run my car.

I also know all about your "knowledge" as a tuner, maybe it has improved since you've probably done a lot of cars at this point, but you had no business charging other people to tune when you first began to.