blackgt87
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- Oct 11, 2011
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I am making this thread to share information and gather information about the failure I had with my coyote engine. IMO it was the fault of my tuner, who takes zero responsibility for the damage. The purpose of this thread is to help people understand what happened to me to avoid it for themselves. And also to help me get my car back on the road, not simply to bash the tuner... even though at my level of frustration that is going to happen. Here is the back story on my tune:
Back in February I installed a Kenne Bell 2.8LC on my 2012 GT, I even made an instructional video showing the before and after dyno numbers. The car has an off road x pipe and the blower kit, nothing else done to the motor. The car ran great, the only problems I had were CEL due to Kenne Bell's CARB certified tune not being able to shut my rear O2 sensors off, and an idle that would fall too low and sometimes the car would stall. After upgrading the throttle body to the 168mm KB one and getting a new tune the idle problem went the other way, it hung at low speeds and I still got the CEL. I decided to get a dyno tune, and after hearing from DTony that a local tuner named Jeff Chambers in Norwalk Ohio at a shop called CRT tuned his car with great results I decided to go with him for a dyno tune. I made it clear what I wanted, CEL off, rev limiter bumped from stock, idle fixed, and any safe power left on the table from KB's tune (which I figured was conservative).
Jeff had my car for over a week because he also swapped my rear end gears and I dropped it off on a Saturday. His dyno broke while my car was on it. He told me it baselined ~520 whp, made 15 psi, and went 118 in the top of 4th with 3.15 rear end gears he just installed. I told him all three of those were wrong. My car already made 600 on a dynojet with a stock throttle body, while his was a mustang dyno I didn't think it should be that far off. My car makes 10 psi, the electronic boost gauge on the dash he didn't even look at said 10, and 2 other mechanical boost gauges I had hooked to the car said 10. If it made 15psi it would have blown up on pump gas and certainly made more than 500. Also it should have been 133 mph in the top of 4th with that gear. The boost/power/octane thing is pretty straight forward, and a 12 year old can go online and use a calculator to figure out how fast a car will go in what gear. Jeff argued with me that all of these numbers were right, which was really alarming. I should have just said stop and went and got my car, I regret that. The next day I call and Jeff says the power supply for his dyno took a shit. It possibly fried the computer of the dyno, and it delivered inconsistent voltage and made everything go screwy. It took him a couple days to fix it and when he did, my car baselined 600, made 10 psi, and went 133 in the top of 4th. The problem was he was tuning my car with the dyno computer and all of his sensors on the fritz. He made much more torque under the curve by playing with the cam timing, the car also made less boost in the midrange rpm. Peak power was about 20 higher but he also revved my car to 7456 rpm, where he only took the Kenne Bell tune to 6800. Jeff also said my rear main seal leaked on his dyno, I park my car on a clean concrete garage floor every night, I have ever since last year when I bought my car new and there has never been a drop of oil on my floor.
I pick the car up and withing a mile of his shop I noticed a horrendous part throttle surge when transitioning from vacuum to boost. I also got a check engine light on my way home so I was too scared to beat on the car to feel the difference in power/gearing. It pissed me off so bad because he said he test drove it for days and part of our agreement was for him to have the car for several days to do a lot of street driving and get the driveability of the tune spot on. The driveability could not have been fucking worse, although the idle was fixed. I got a revision the next day that put the car into limp mode as soon as it made boost. I got another revision I took to the track that would not let the car launch. Something in the DBW settings wouldn't open the throttle body or deliver fuel or something because it wouldn't accelerate at all when hooked on drag radials. On the street it always spins, I could not recreate this issue on the street. I got another revision to fix that which was a mixture of KB's tune and Jeff's. That tune ran ok at the track but still idled like shit. Every tune I got from Jeff that actually would let the car make a pull, was slower than Kenne Bell's tune (I made pulls with a friend with a very close car). Jeff asked me to data log a 1/4 mile pass or something just like one. I took the car out to do the data log and when I slowed down a huge cloud of white smoke rolled past me. I babied the car home and called him saying I think my engine is hurt, I might have a cracked piston my car smokes white under decel. Jeff said it was probably sucking oil through the PCV lots of coyotes do it. He mentioned the GT500 PCV valve was a good upgrade to restrict it. He said if my dipstick looked good, and my catch can looked good to just go data log it. They both did, I went and bought the PCV valve and while I was logging it my #4 rod went through the side of my block. CRAZY amounts of white smoke and oil all over everything.
This post is getting long as fuck so I will stop with the talking and start with the pictures. This is what I saw when I looked at the engine after towing it home.
And I pulled this out of that hole
This is my #4 spark plug I took out
Before shot of my bay... ugh I miss this
So that's pretty much the back story, from here on I will post pics of things I find and answer and ask questions. This board has a ton of knowledge so I have no doubt I will get some help, some hate, and I will hopefully help some other people from making any mistakes I have made, and help if they ever have to go through this.
The plan (which is already in motion I'm just late making this thread) is to get a boss shortblock and put my heads on it and put it back in the car.
BTW Jeff refuses to say this was even partially his fault, he says excessive RPM broke the rod. He set my rev limiter at 7500, and he pulled my car to 7456 on the dyno. My car ran for over 3 months and over 1000 miles on the Kenne Bell tune. My rev limiter was at 7300 since I got the KB throttle body, which was only after about 500 miles. Other than my drive home which saw no WOT pulls because of the CEL, my car lasted less than 100 miles and about a week on Jeff's tune.
Back in February I installed a Kenne Bell 2.8LC on my 2012 GT, I even made an instructional video showing the before and after dyno numbers. The car has an off road x pipe and the blower kit, nothing else done to the motor. The car ran great, the only problems I had were CEL due to Kenne Bell's CARB certified tune not being able to shut my rear O2 sensors off, and an idle that would fall too low and sometimes the car would stall. After upgrading the throttle body to the 168mm KB one and getting a new tune the idle problem went the other way, it hung at low speeds and I still got the CEL. I decided to get a dyno tune, and after hearing from DTony that a local tuner named Jeff Chambers in Norwalk Ohio at a shop called CRT tuned his car with great results I decided to go with him for a dyno tune. I made it clear what I wanted, CEL off, rev limiter bumped from stock, idle fixed, and any safe power left on the table from KB's tune (which I figured was conservative).
Jeff had my car for over a week because he also swapped my rear end gears and I dropped it off on a Saturday. His dyno broke while my car was on it. He told me it baselined ~520 whp, made 15 psi, and went 118 in the top of 4th with 3.15 rear end gears he just installed. I told him all three of those were wrong. My car already made 600 on a dynojet with a stock throttle body, while his was a mustang dyno I didn't think it should be that far off. My car makes 10 psi, the electronic boost gauge on the dash he didn't even look at said 10, and 2 other mechanical boost gauges I had hooked to the car said 10. If it made 15psi it would have blown up on pump gas and certainly made more than 500. Also it should have been 133 mph in the top of 4th with that gear. The boost/power/octane thing is pretty straight forward, and a 12 year old can go online and use a calculator to figure out how fast a car will go in what gear. Jeff argued with me that all of these numbers were right, which was really alarming. I should have just said stop and went and got my car, I regret that. The next day I call and Jeff says the power supply for his dyno took a shit. It possibly fried the computer of the dyno, and it delivered inconsistent voltage and made everything go screwy. It took him a couple days to fix it and when he did, my car baselined 600, made 10 psi, and went 133 in the top of 4th. The problem was he was tuning my car with the dyno computer and all of his sensors on the fritz. He made much more torque under the curve by playing with the cam timing, the car also made less boost in the midrange rpm. Peak power was about 20 higher but he also revved my car to 7456 rpm, where he only took the Kenne Bell tune to 6800. Jeff also said my rear main seal leaked on his dyno, I park my car on a clean concrete garage floor every night, I have ever since last year when I bought my car new and there has never been a drop of oil on my floor.
I pick the car up and withing a mile of his shop I noticed a horrendous part throttle surge when transitioning from vacuum to boost. I also got a check engine light on my way home so I was too scared to beat on the car to feel the difference in power/gearing. It pissed me off so bad because he said he test drove it for days and part of our agreement was for him to have the car for several days to do a lot of street driving and get the driveability of the tune spot on. The driveability could not have been fucking worse, although the idle was fixed. I got a revision the next day that put the car into limp mode as soon as it made boost. I got another revision I took to the track that would not let the car launch. Something in the DBW settings wouldn't open the throttle body or deliver fuel or something because it wouldn't accelerate at all when hooked on drag radials. On the street it always spins, I could not recreate this issue on the street. I got another revision to fix that which was a mixture of KB's tune and Jeff's. That tune ran ok at the track but still idled like shit. Every tune I got from Jeff that actually would let the car make a pull, was slower than Kenne Bell's tune (I made pulls with a friend with a very close car). Jeff asked me to data log a 1/4 mile pass or something just like one. I took the car out to do the data log and when I slowed down a huge cloud of white smoke rolled past me. I babied the car home and called him saying I think my engine is hurt, I might have a cracked piston my car smokes white under decel. Jeff said it was probably sucking oil through the PCV lots of coyotes do it. He mentioned the GT500 PCV valve was a good upgrade to restrict it. He said if my dipstick looked good, and my catch can looked good to just go data log it. They both did, I went and bought the PCV valve and while I was logging it my #4 rod went through the side of my block. CRAZY amounts of white smoke and oil all over everything.
This post is getting long as fuck so I will stop with the talking and start with the pictures. This is what I saw when I looked at the engine after towing it home.
And I pulled this out of that hole
This is my #4 spark plug I took out
Before shot of my bay... ugh I miss this
So that's pretty much the back story, from here on I will post pics of things I find and answer and ask questions. This board has a ton of knowledge so I have no doubt I will get some help, some hate, and I will hopefully help some other people from making any mistakes I have made, and help if they ever have to go through this.
The plan (which is already in motion I'm just late making this thread) is to get a boss shortblock and put my heads on it and put it back in the car.
BTW Jeff refuses to say this was even partially his fault, he says excessive RPM broke the rod. He set my rev limiter at 7500, and he pulled my car to 7456 on the dyno. My car ran for over 3 months and over 1000 miles on the Kenne Bell tune. My rev limiter was at 7300 since I got the KB throttle body, which was only after about 500 miles. Other than my drive home which saw no WOT pulls because of the CEL, my car lasted less than 100 miles and about a week on Jeff's tune.
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lol
