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Now that the phone call is out of the way it come to the day he drops it off. He trailers it to the shop and has to push it off because as mentioned it does not run. It does crank but will not light off. We go over again what was done. I do a quick visual, make sure I have his contact info and tell him I will be in contact with him with how it is going.

He actually seemed like a decent guy at the time. A bit reserved and quiet but into rock climbing vehicles though not a mechanic at all. Away he goes and I get to his vehicle the next day.

I pull in my laptop see where the settings are wrong. Next was to set the sync up so the injectors would fire and gave it a crank. After the fuel rail primed this beast came to life.   

After about a minute or so of watching all the vitals such as but not limited to oil pressure and coolant temp I notice running voltage running north of 17.5 volts.    I make sure our battery charger is off and it still has voltage over 17.5 volts...

Here comes issue number one... I check the alternator. This is NOT part of the setup and programming service but something that won't take to long. Come to find out the alternator was not swapped out when he did the ECM to Stand Alone conversion... What's the big deal you may ask??? Well his stock alternator was controlled by the OE ECM not an external voltage or internal voltage regulator. JA and his mechanic buddy just hot wired it direct...

Sooooooo... I call up our boy here and explain my findings. I give him a couple options on how this can be dealt with. Changing the alternator over to a year that used an external voltage regulator or installing a module that would monitor the battery voltage and mimic the signal his OE would send to the original alternator. I also gave him the price quote for the extra parts and labor. He wanted to check with his mechanic friend his thought and if they might do it and bring the vehicle back.

I get a return call from him later in the day giving us the go ahead to correct the charging system issue and which way and price he wanted to go.

Fair enough... We order the module and wiring it in when we got it. That took care of our charging system issue.

So far so good eh?

Time to move to the dyno. One of my favorite places to go in the shop. I work through the tables for the fuel map from idle up to about 3,000 rpm's or so when we start to see some smoke coming out from under the vehicle. Upon further inspection we have an oil leak. It's transmission oil coming from between the engine block and transmission. UGH... Off the dyno it comes and we put it up on a lift for a better inspection. It's coming out of the front pump of the trans. This stopped any further running due to a possible thermal event.   

I call up the owner and explain what we are seeing. Tell him it must be addressed before any more. He asks how much more and I explain the trans has to come out because with a borescope it looks like the front pump seal is being pushed out. Being as this was more grunt work and not electrical the owner decides he and his mechanic can fix it and bring it back to have the tuning finished.

Fair enough I tell him. Being as I was not completed finishing the tune on the Stand Alone I only charged for the percentage in which I had completed. Add to that the service on the charging system and gas we had to put in it.

From here we awaited him picking it up the following day...

Still with me?      

Following...

Following. No popcorn though, coffee now.

Can't wait to see where this is headed....

The suSpence is killing me.

Logic wrote on Dec 6^th, 2019 at 2:42pm:


Now now... Shall we diSpence with the jokes and get down to business?

still waiting...Dec 6^th, 2019 at 6:11pm

Even though Ian started this thread with a bit of a joke, poking fun at me with the video of someone seemly having no clue and self centered as if the universe revolves around him. I am not taking this in a bad way.

When this consumer first wrote it I was taken back. Normally you can sense when something is arye. In this case he didn't come across this way when in front of me. It may have been peer pressure or something after leaving our shop. As you may see later with his actions he can be weak in character in my opinion when it comes to dealing with issues.

For what ever reason we might get into talking about that as well as this form of "word of mouth" that use to be much more personal when people would get together at all types of gathering be it a BBQ, over dinner, in the office and what have ya. Now a days reviews have been added to the mix thanks or no thanks to the internet.

Anyways back to the story shall we?