Who has demonstrably damaged/blown their engine due ONLY to tuning mistakes?

[Boostin1657615274]

I think this unscientific survey may be helpful for all DIY tuners. Answer as many questions as you can.

 

1. What was damaged? ex. blown headgasket, thrown rod

 

2. Who tuned it? ex. you and a friend, a local "import shop," or a well known Subaru shop. You don't have to name names, we don't need flame wars.

 

3. List model year, turbo and basic related engine modifications, and whatever off-the-shelf or mail order tune you may be using (if you are comfortable naming names). DO NOT just say "blah blah stage x." This is not helpful. Be specific about parts.

 

3. What boost level did you observe (peak and whatever it may have fallen to) and what fuel grade were you using?

 

4. What AFR was observed? How were you measuring it? ex. Innovate WB in the front of the downpipe, or logging stock front O2 sensor in stock location

 

5. What was your dynamic advance multiplier and any observed knock correction? What timing advance did you log?

 

6. Give details how it happened and why you think the observed damage was due to a tuning mistake. Examples could be "I was on the dyno trying to add some timing to the primary ignition map, heard a sound and saw a cloud of smoke, then later found out I threw a rod"

[mwiener2]

There are very few failures that you can say with any certainty are from a tune. Shattered pistons from excessive knock are about it. There are also plenty of things that can cause excessive knock unrelated from the ECU.

 

Most engine failures are mechanical or oil related.

[Boostin1657615274]

ok if you've shattered pistons from excessive knock post about that

[Deaks2]

Looks like underdog's engine failure was due to a tune and not a mechanical issue: http://www.legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php?t=122981

[NSFW]

I think there are a lot of dead engines described at Nasioc that are due to poor tuning alone, including some bone stock 07+ STIs.

 

However the "demonstrable" part is challenging. Bad tunes are most likely to kill engines after the customer left the shop. If the customer (or tuner, for that matter) was watching any of the parameters you asked about they probably could have recognized the problem, stayed out of boost, gotten the tune fixed, and not lost their motor. But since nobody was looking... kaboom.

[bgLGT]

Don't forget cooling...LGT's factory cooling system was not made to handle 5000hp. Some of the "tunes" people run on their cars might handle some highway driving but would toast the engine in 5mins in a draft line. So now we have a whole host of heat related damage. Tuning for high EGT's will put stress on the valvetrain amongst other things. Raising the revlimiter will change the mean piston velocity which is a pretty good indicator of how long you can expect your mill to hold together. Excessive knock will kill/harm the rings first, and as previously mentioned, the pistons are next in line to follow.

[cfdrumr]

Just got the full report from the dealer regarding my car.

 

As I am currently in Denver, CO at school, my dad has been dealing with the dealer. Here is an excerpt of an email he sent me:

 

"There are a ton of issues... bad piston, needs rings, frozen cam, and they say you have a loose turbo shaft and need new turbo. "

 

"They said there was a ton of metal in the oil pan."

 

Humorous... I told SOA about a oil problem over 10k ago and not until they pull it apart do they take it seriously. They told me to drive it and report back to them...3 times. That was about 4k miles of driving on a dead engine. Stupid company.

 

For the record, there have been oil problems since day one of ownership... this has nothing to do with a tune.

[LittleBlueGT]

I had an e-mail tune. At the time I was just learning how to log. I thought that + DA values only meant good things. Little did I know then, that my car was consistently pulling between 6-8 (one time I saw 9 degrees) of timing, every single WOT pull. I was usually showing 0 or +2 DA at WOT, sometimes negative numbers. My oil started to get blacker and blacker.

 

I then got a bigger turbo and started to tune myself. I only occasionally had knock that resulted in 2 degrees of timing being pulled. I logged almost everyday, learning, logging, changing stuff, etc...

 

Then on the day I had rented some dyno time, my alky system had a leak, lost all of my fluid. I put in windshield washer fluid, but made a mistake reading the label. This resulted in very little actual meth being injected, whereas before I had a 60/40 meth/water mix.

 

On the dyno I was seeing 13:1 AFR, vs the normal 12:1 that I usually ran an meth. After adding straight alcohol to up the mixture (I knew the problem almost instantly) the engine blew.

 

Upon inspection it was obvious that it had undergone a lot of detonation in the past, and this was just the straw to kill it.

[Boostin1657615274]

^ I'm sorry to hear about that. Could you list the mods you had on your various setups? What component finally blew in the end? What boost levels were you running, and what was your intake/MAF setup?

 

What sucks about e-mail tunes is that they are usually locked so we can't really see what was in them to determine what may have led to the problem.

[NSFW]

What sucks about AccessPort tunes is that they are usually locked so we can't really see what was in them to determine what may have led to the problem.

 

Fixed. Can you do datalogging with locked tunes, or do they block that as well? Logging can give you some idea of what's going on, though of course it's not as convenient as just looking at the tables.

[caramall2]

VF4018G turbo, email tune from tuning shop, UP, DP, basically stage 2 with a little extra. At the time I had no idea how to properly look for problems with knock, AFR, etc. Ended up with cracked #2 piston ringland. Was it from the tune? I cannot say for sure. I do know that now that I know what to look for, even some moderately conservative tunes have caused dangerous issues that I've had to immediately tweak.

 

Now I tell everyone....I don't care who tunes your engine, if you're going to start messing with that, learn, at a minimum, how to do a basic check of the safety of the tune (LtBlue had a good sticky on this and Merchgod has some good info). This doesn't mean you're confident to tune yourself, just that you know how to check the basics (heck, I'm only a beginner). This includes having a wideband O2 sensor to check AFRs, checking for knock, understanding the basics of the timing formulas, etc.

 

Yes you can log locked tunes.

[NSFW]

Now I tell everyone....I don't care who tunes your engine, if you're going to start messing with that, learn, at a minimum, how to do a basic check of the safety of the tune.

 

Also fixed. Plenty of people with blown engines thought theirs tunes were just fine. Plenty of logs from "pro" tuners show knock.

 

In the two years or so that I've been on this site, I've transitioned from thinking that tuning was too complex and dangerous to attempt myself, to thinking that it's just too dangerous to let someone else do it for me. I would not say that everyone should tune their own cars (it takes a lot of time) but I do think that everyone should consider it their own responsibility to verify that their tune is healthy, no matter who did the tuning. Logging isn't that hard, and even professional tuners make mistakes.

[mwiener2]

I had to add a question and fix the comment....

 

^ I'm sorry to hear about that. Could you list the mods you had on your various setups? What component finally blew in the end? What boost levels were you running, and what was your intake/MAF setup? What number engine are you on now?

 

What sucks about e-mail tunes is that they aren't much better than a guess and check and their popularity over the last few years due to opensource is misleading to their apparent quality.

[RedDawg]

wasnt there that sodapop guy that blew his engine all over rt.95 because he was running stage 2 parts with no tune?

[Boostin1657615274]

^ Didn't read about it, but that's not a tuning mistake, that's a lack of tuning. There's a difference between errors of commission (trying to do something and screwing it up) and omission (negligence).

[mwiener2]

Sodapop had alot of issues associated with that mess.. mostly all his own fault

[Brookmastr]

after 3 weeks after my tune (vf48 turbo (08 sti), fmic, stock injectors at 105%, ebc, intake, exhaust, ect) something went terribley wrong in third gear on a strong pass as soon as i let off. Thinking i blew the ringlands on the pistons. Ordering cp forged pistons to replace. From the tune i dont know, what do you think?

[cfdrumr]

you should have a teardown before you just assume the worst...

[mwiener2]

stock injectors at 105%

 

if that wasn't the culprit, it sure didn't help things

[Boostin1657615274]

3rd gear highway pulls are classic motor blowing situations.

[NSFW]

you should have a teardown before you just assume the worst...

 

Yes, and look for other mechanical problems that could have led to whatever damage occurred. If there are none, then I'd blame the tune.

 

That said, my guesses are:

1) he needed more fuel than his fuel system could supply (i.e. I blame the tune)

2) maybe he hit fuel cut just prior to letting off the throttle, and there's actually nothing wrong (long shot, but one can hope...)

[mwiener2]

there's actually nothing wrong (long shot, but one can hope...)

 

good point. "something went terribley wrong" doesn't really mean much. Unless

it was followed by flames and metal coming out the hood scoop

[NSFW]

good point. "something went terribley wrong" doesn't really mean much. Unless

it was followed by flames or metal coming out the hood scoop

 

Fixed.

 

(Perhaps I just have a lower threshold for terribility. )

[mwiener2]

Nah. "and/or" would be better

[JoeFromPA]

What is a shame (to me) is that, despite the tuner complaints that Cobb OTS tunes are terrible....there are far more self-tuning horror stories (or pro-tuner horror stories, or e-tuner horror stories) than horror stories of a member that slapped on an up-pipe, DP, and a Cobb Stage 2 OTS map, and had a problem.

 

I'm a fan of e-tuning and self-tuning, I'm just pointing out that I think there is about a 10:1 ratio (pure guess on my part) of horror stories relating to an individual performing the tune vs. buying a "crappy OTS" tune from the COBB AP and using the bare minimum of parts necessary to make it work.

 

Just my .02.....if you feel you can prove that wrong, please do so as I'd be interested in reading if there are more horror stories than I know about with the COBB Stage 2 map.