Mase

Well, most of you have seen my previous post. I recently bought Hondata 3b, and 500cc RC injectors.

FOREWORD - This Post is going to be extremely long, so im warning you now, dont flame me. but for those of you who have never been to a dyno, or looking for some info, this may be helpful.


Anyhow, I was planning on taking a trip to South Florida toward the end of summer anyways, so I decided to make a stop by Secret Services, and to let John and Taylor do their magic with my car (by the way, No one has ever worked on my car before, I've done all the servicing, oil changes, turbo install, clutch install, except for the warranty work (rear hatch release level messed up, as well as replacing the brake master cylinder was done under warranty by acura) but after meeting and hearing all the good things everyone says about John and Taylor @ Secret Services, I decided they were the guys who I would let tune the car).



Their shop is located in St. Petersburg, and easy to find. I had an appointment for 4 pm.



Upon arrival, Taylor started promptly on the installation of the Hondata Unit including the injectors, the injector clips, and resistor pack.



What really impressed me was the quality and cleanliness workmanship characteristics Taylor possess. I told him I would like the installation to be clean and stock-like. Well sure enough. It looks completely stock. He fabricated a bracket to hold the resistor pack, as well as utilized an old plug in order to give the installation of the resistor pack a perfect fit.



As you can tell by the picture, most people would think that is completely stock.



As for the wiring of the injector clips, they were soldered, and look clean as well. And for the injectors, I decided to take the “RC” sticker off. Once all the hardware was installed, it was then time for John to shine.



He burnt a basemap on a chip, and then proceeded to put my car on the dyno. Taylor set the cam gears to zero and adjusted the timing to its proper setting. Well after the first run at 6 psi, I was amazed. Even for the basemap, the car put out 225 hp, its quite amazing that john, on his first try, was able to extract 225 hp, with a very unagressive ignition curve. While we tried many different combinations with the cam gears, it proved best power at 0,0. Once everything was set, we then upped the boost. My handy homemade manual boost controller worked like a charm once I got it working correctly, and stopped dropping the stupid little springs and ball bearings down into the dyno. My deltagate doesn’t like to stay steady at 12 psi, it likes to flocculate that’s why the graph is a little funky.



This was infact my first time I’ve ever been to a dyno, so you can tell I was quite excited. Secret Services made my experience a very good one. The Quality to Price ratio is unbeatable. I dare you to find better services for the money. By the way, Gas Mileage is damn good. Made it from Miami to Jacksonville on one tank, and still had a little gas left over to mess with a couple cars. All in all, there was no real point to this post. I just wanted to thank John and Taylor and give them a big


P.S. Secret Services provides more than just good service for the car....check this



Man i miss that hot chick they leave in the bathroom


Also if you arent convinced to come to Secret Services by now, they are the home of the Famous Turbo fan




If that still doesnt do it for you. Just put it this way. If you chance it with some no name tuner, chances are your car will turn out like this:




[Modified by CDooMe2, 4:22 PM 8/15/2002]

IntegD

Nice looking shop. Looks good, they might be another option to turbo tune in NC. How much boost were these passes made at?


[Modified by IntegD, 4:51 PM 8/15/2002]

Arturbo

Your dyno #'s
John and Tyler
Secret Services
Service in the restroom

Looks good mase!

art

98civicEX

give the good shops a good name, that's what it's about

Mase

12 psi. well sorta. the deltagate was funky. it went from 12 to 10 to 12....its time for a tial.

TenaciousC

john showed me these numbers the other day, crazy stuff! secret services did all the work/tuning on my car as well. i hope i'll be able to hit those numbers on my ls soon.

Mase

Whats your setup? yeah, im pretty happy especially cuz i have the restrictive greddy sp exhaust.

Sonny

Pinhead

John and Taylor Rock man!!!!! They are the men responsible for me going to the darkside btw, John is that your white car in the pic???? lol

1fstevo

dyno jet or mustang dyno?

Mase

I should have taken more pics for you guys. its quite funny, but not as funny as the turbo'd kia on the lift. hehehe --- its a dynojet



[Modified by CDooMe2, 6:40 PM 8/15/2002]

CovertFI

i am having the same prob with my crapgate. they are pos's

Mase

it was fine until i upped the boost.

mattback

Hehehe, now you are addicted.. once you start dynoing stuff, you cain't stop no matter what.. its an addiction for making more power.. you can see right then and there if youre making better or worse power!

go ss p.s. if you look just left of the rates you see my picture of a dyno graph hahahaha

VaporTrail

Steve thank you very much for the post, I greatly appreciate it. A little background info and explanation is in order I think.

1. The Kia is a good friend of mine's. Believe it or not, this car has a 323 GTX turbo motor swapped into it. It bolts in, using a 1st gen Protege tranny. We just got the Haltech sorted today, it runs pretty good. We'll test drive it tomorrow and maybe have some time to dyno it next week.

2. That Miata is turbo also, and once we finish up the Kia, we'll be replacing the blown motor out of it. We are in no way responsible or promoting styling anyones car in that fashion

3. We are a very small shop, a joint partnership between myself and my best friend Taylor. Being so small helps us keep the costs down, which is why our shop looks so ratty (in my opinion anyway). We aren't high volume, we are high quality, and as such there is usually a long wait time. I've been doing the Honda thing since 1995 and Taylor's background is domestic muscle car stuff. He does the majority of the wrenching/wiring, and I do the tuning. We believe in doing the job right the first time, so it doesnt have to be done again.

4. Working with Steve was a treat, because we always enjoy working with an educated customer.

5. Thank you Steve for the expose' on us. We don't advertise, we let our quality do the talking for us (usually through our customer's mouths) That said, its always nice to know our hard work is appreciated. I wouldn't do this job, no matter how well it paid, if I didn't have customers that left my shop with a smile on their face.

Ubermensch

You're not worried about being a little on the lean side on a dyno? It looks like you're nearly at 13.5 at one point. When you consider that actual driving is going to put more load on the the engine than you see on a dyno, I might be a bit hesistant. Good numbers though...

FredoSP

Awesome, maybe when I move down to Tampa, I'll keep them in mind!!


BY the way How much did everything cost, I was just wondering...


[Modified by FredoSP, 11:33 PM 8/15/2002]

VaporTrail

to address that, as i did in a previous post, here goes

The last two runs, I soaked the i/c in a water/alc mix to cool it down to below ambiant temps. I do this with the motor running, and then make consecutive pulls. This is to simulate the very worst conditions - a very hot motor (more prone to detonate), with cold intake temps (more prone to lean out). If under those conditions, the car does not ping or detonate, then I allow it to leave. If it does, I fix the problem. The rest of his runs were at or about 12.3:1 a/f

Pinhead

By the way I can attest that John and Taylor are two of the COOLEST people I have ever met. They do their best no matter what it takes to tune a car (Tuned my car til 3am once ) They also always explain what they are doing for those who don't know much like myself. It's also a very laid back/funny environment which is cool considering sometimes you gotta chill there for a bit. They are very hospitable and always help you out no matter what. they get in my book.

VaporTrail

we're not funny, we are actually a bunch of dorks. We try to keep the atmosphere light as much as possible, since we don't have a nice a/c'd waiting room, if we don't keep ya laughing, you'll never come back after sitting for a few hours in 100+ heat and humidity But no matter what, we do what it takes to get the job done, every customer, every time.

Arturbo

And you do keep us laughing when you came to texas. You guys crack me up. so does Pollo.

art

earl

Come on John..Nobody's as good as this guy says you are..You must have paid him

VaporTrail

Even if I could afford to pay him, which I cant, I couldnt pay him enough to speak this good about me.

mntdewred

so where you located? i might tow the thing to you

VaporTrail

We are located in the St Petersburg section of beautiful warm Tampa Bay.