Call him back and ask him when did i stop anyone from touching my car...well yeah maybe he means when they sent a gentleman to inspect my car and make sure it was indeed my car he asked if he can take parts from my car for inspection (injectors, Crank sensor) He was told to bring back my injectors or have them ship to chicago..... would you have done that EMOVING? I asked them if they want we can all get together and do it.. You dont have a hard decision to make as well as everyone else with their tune..if you car is running fine why bother right?

 

I too thought it was a blown head gasket from the way you told me what happened, I would of done the same thing i didn't say not to tow to him i asked you after he looked at it to give me a call and we would go from there but when tony did call you on Monday and we talked i offered to have the car shipped here for us to look at it after you told us it was the motor and not the head gasket . I understand its a far way to ship,But you said that "we didn't get to that point" When we did and you refused.

Again Luis i am not trying say what you did i wouldn't of done with towing it to the nearest shop but you cant say we didn't offer when we did

Yes help could of be offered in different ways and what you Jerry and Tony discussed was out of my control i passed it on to the owners of the company ... I offer what i could and you said you wanted to talk to Jerry


Greg

 

no that's not true at all. you would see signs of det in the other cylinders. this really looks like either FOD or Injector issues.

 

****! this is crazy! And not really making my decision on whom to use for my custom tune.


In regards to maintenance, my car is 05 model and just turned 30k miles and was due for a major service, I literally asked Mercedes to change everything that was serviceable, required or not, also when they were fitting the 82mm tb they checked the injectors and two of them were faulty, warranty picked that up and I paid for the remaining seals to be changed just in case.

I hate to think what would of happen if I had installed the tb myself and overlooked the injectors...

 

 

hehe thats funny ! i'm with Shrek1 on this one. cuz he's MB certified AMG master tech

oo also because he did all the work on my car including numerous performance upgrades. trans, torque converter, intercooler, rad, and other goodies..

 

+1 I think my injector just decided to fail that morning not a week prior while being custom Tuned, no signs of nada!!

 

Ok not trying to push off the knowledge of your technician but when I speak with guys that have worked for dealerships for years they all say I cant do the stuff you do, I just follow the books. So just because they work for a dealership don't mean they have all the answers, ask him so how many cars have you tuned? Does he know what the inside of the bosch me2.8 ecu looks like?

This goes both ways I dont claim because im a certified master tuner that I know everything there is to know about servicing a car.

 

Word! That's an absolute bag of Tell that to any prof Mech/tech & prepare for "But Tony @ EC says to change SP every 3k optimally" Typical for them to blame the guy on poorly maintaining vehicle

 

LOL, another well educated person here (NOT) making a statement on something he has no idea what he is talking about, just because you dont like EC dont mean you have to make comments to try to make me look bad, your only making yourself look bad.

Go do your homework before you make yourself look like a complete

You can go ahead and beat the snot out of your car and thin the oil out and not change it or dont change the plugs, go right ahead. I never blamed him on poor maintenance READ WHAT I SAID if you can do that well and stop making yourself look foolish.

Just cause a car costs a certain amount from the dealer does not mean go mod the car then drive it hard all the time and keep up with the same dealership recommended maintenance there after!

So in your opinion everyone that does recommended maintenance on there car to keep it running healthy is foolish for doing so, thanks for your great advice.

 

Very soon I will have some very useful information on how to maintaine a vehicle after modding so everyone here may learn something. I just hope you guys will read it and then read it again to understand what goes on in a tuners mind while he is tuning a car and after that car leaves the shop. I hope everyone here has some light shined in there eyes and I hope everyone took in some helpful info out of this. Doing homework will go a long way!

Kid's don't candy from strangers and dont take bad advice from fools.

 

Way to represent yourself/co on the forum Who said anything about NOT changing oil brainiac? I was & still am @ your Spark Plug reco change interval of 3k miles

 

IDK how ANY of us have gotten thus far w/out your pearls of wisdom You can't even SPELL Maintain, let alone know spit about it

 

Based on the pictures posted my opinion on the most probable cause this motor met it's demise was quite simply Detonation--too much timing. This is and has been the conclusion of every reputable tuner that's come across these pictures as well. There are several tell tale signs of detonation (which is caused by running too much timing advance) this motor shows all of them. Hot spot in center of piston between the exhaust valves (that would've been a hole, not a shiny spot, had this motor continue to run), melted plug electrode, hell there's even a hole in the sleeve and you burnt clean through the ringland past the rings. There could literally be no more OBVIOUS answer to this question. What would be great to see? Show some pictures of the heads, the valves and more importantly the seats. Detonation has a way of beating the crap out of the seats by causing the valves to slam into them. They may even be loose to the touch after long periods of detonation. Regardless though, just based on what's been posted in this thread the cause is crystal clear. As for my background: Yes I have seen the inside of a ME2.8 (that has zero relevance to this discussion as well) however I don't tune European vehicles, just domestic using mainstream hardware as well as standalones like Big Stuff III, FAST DFI, etc. I have tuned countless positive displacement blower applications including 2v,3v,4v with Roots, TVS, and Twin Screw blowers. Most make 600rw+ some into the 4 digit range. I'm responsible for over 600 tuned motors, quite a few of them pure race, and NOT ONE has ever popped due to detonation. So yes, I'm prepared to back my statements with real world experience should it be called into question. Other things worth noting, you NEVER bend a rod due to detonation, in fact the ONLY time you'll ever bend a rod is due to hydralock or if a valve drops and there is PtV which causes a catastrophic failure to the extent that you will window the block. Even posting that as a potential reason for failure is an obvious and misleading digression. SRTs running 16:1 A/Fs ???? I don't care if they're N/A, at WOT that's just NOT acceptable. Remember, just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Anything over 12.5:1 on pump gas and you're on borrowed time with a PD blown motor. I run my PD cals in the 11.4-11.6:1 range because the extra fuel helps cool the incoming aircharge (which heats up significantly in PD applications). I cringe anytime I see a 12:1 A/F with PD without Race gas. Unlike pump gas, race gas is formulated with the same ingredients and percentages everytime, pump gas has NO set ingredient list meaning what you get from station to station varies, let alone brand to brand or state to state. For this reason alone you can get far more aggressive with race gas files, however I still won't go over 12.5:1 even on leaded (the real stuff) race fuel. For anyone to say that plug change intervals need to be 3-5k miles, you're simply dreaming. This is not a NHRA blown alcohol funny car motor--yes I've helped tear them down and build them as well between passes. Also as far as the gentlemen with the former N/A motor now supercharged and the reference made to the original file by the tuner and it being safe by comparison...You do realize he is now running as posted 10lbs of boost on top of that high compression N/A bottom end. The timing advance posted is more than I run on 50% of the N/A motors I tune. Someone's got some serious cojones to run 24 degrees of advance or more at WOT on that bottom end, especially on pump gas. INEXCUSABLE. I would not have posted however what I see this tuner doing (blaming everyone but themselves) and posting misleading information about tuning in general is just not right. It makes everyone look at the aftermarket in a different/worse light. Own up to what you've done, I'm sure you have commercial liability insurance, we all do, USE it. I have also been told (by the vehicle owners themselves) this is NOT an isolated incident and that "at least" a handful of other AMG E55 2003-2006 cars have also "LET" go in the recent past--all were tuned by the same tuner. Vehicle owners should NOT be afraid (even if threatened with false legal means) to post their truthful and honest take on what happened to their motors. We don't see this on the vette/viper/ford boards, if someone blows a motor, everyone in the world knows that day. There is no reason for secrecy in this situation either. Remember, if you post the truth, you cannot be sued. Do not be intimidated, it's your car and your right.

 

You are digging your own grave. The misinformation stops now.

 

Has this been answered? It's a good question. My guess is no, given how this thread has gone... but you never know. Allegedly the OP was threatened with a lawsuit if he decided to post any of this, but I guess he decided "the hell with it" and here we are.

As for this part...
The offer from EC to ship the car (presumably on their own dime) from the east coast to Chicago is a generous one; that said, isn't it "best practices" in cases like these to hire an independent 3rd party shop to do the tear down and forensic analysis?

Taking the names out of it: conceptually, if XYZ Co. tunes your car and it suffers catestrophic engine damage shortly thereafter - do you ship it to XYZ Co. to look it over and tell you what went wrong? If (realistically... when) they come back and say "oh yeah, we figured it out and it definitely wasn't our tuning" - would you have peace of mind, or keep wondering?

 

You sir are NO certified master tuner. That is a fact.

 

I agree, no chance I would ship the car to the tuner responsible for the file in the ECU after something like this happens. ZERO.

 

I do understand where your coming from you would still be wondering
But we did also offer to have another shop take a look at it and again it was denied

Also if you look in the past with the last car that something happened we went ahead and took full responsibility and replaced everything at our cost

We were also the ones who looked over the car and found out what happened . Did we keep it a secret???? NO we let everyone know what happened when it was posted on the forums and stood behind our work

On the other note it is amazing that you "MBVERT" would pick today to sign up as i never seen you on the boards and claim that Tony is not a certified tuner how would you know this ??? when you just joined today??? when he has all documentation and has been tuning for over 6 years

Why dont you tell us who you really are instead of hiding behind the new name

Greg

 

W/out posting for years until intrigued enough, who cares who it is? They obviously shed some much needed light on the situation @ hand...

 

You make a good point, and appreciate the candid discussion. However, in a case where hardware was improperly installed (even if by your former tech), and the tuning was most likely not the cause, it is clearly in your best interest to be forthcoming with all the information and data, explaining how this singular incident transpired, and how it was resolved. Existing and potential customers would shrug it off as an outlier, with few (if any) lost revenue to the firm.

In a hypothetical case where a tune (box or custom) caused engine failure, it would clearly be in any shop's interest to keep that information as close-to-the-vest as possible, for as long as possible - as way more downside risk is presented in that scenario. Not saying that's being done; just devil's advocate.

Has anyone from EC cleared up the whole "lawsuit" thing? Reading that was pretty troubling.

 

This is getting r-goddamnn-diculous....

The OP went in search of MORE power, was running a BOX tune with ZERO knowledge of AFR, timing, boost or even torque. He openly raced the car with several WOT pulls to redline without ever putting the car on the dyno or doing any data-logging.

And it blew up....shocking!

I am not saying it should have blown up...just that he had NO way of knowing it wouldn't. Trying to push the limits (which he was clearly doing) and get 100 or more whp than AMG intended is risky. Usually you take precautions to avoids the risk - things like dyno time and data logging.

The only thing EC is doing wrong is handing out shelf tunes like there there as safe as dyno tuning. I am not saying a stage one box tune, with just a pulley should require a dyno, but when things get to this level a dyno should be mandatory!

And BTW....every tuner has blood on their hands. We ask for more, more, more than want to point fingers at the ones who provide it.

To the OP, I am truly sorry and good luck with everything. This sucks, believe me I know!

 

Worth the wait,

It was a custom dyno tune, as mentioned in the first post:


Agree 100% with this; clients need to carefully explain their goals, and hopefully the tuner listens. Trying for world-record track times is one thing, having a solid DD is another. They're not mutually exclusive, but close.

 

There is no need for you or anyone to know my name or shop affiliation. I'm simply here to post facts. Based on the data provided the reasoning behind the failure of this motor is clear as day. Fact: A certified master tuner wouldn't run 24+ degrees of advance at WOT with 10psi on a N/A bottom end. A certified master tuner doesn't cause motors to fail, he makes them last. A certified master tuner wouldn't bring up a broken rod as a potential problem of detonation. A certified master tuner wouldn't reference anything 16:1 A/F. I'm here to post my experience on the facts, so let's talk facts.

 

Thanks for pointing that out. Probably should have taken a breath before I posted..lol. Could have sworn it said he was waiting for the dyno on the newest tune...my bad.