Michael Adkins (MTuned) and VSR are amazing!

Robert Viehweger

Daily Driver
Let me start with this.. :)


My car developed an air leak from the turbo inlet not staying seated on the turbo. Gino was in Florida at the time and was able to get me a safe map for sub boost levels until I could get it fixed. Scott replaced the turbo inlet, had me go one step colder NGK plugs, and checked compression, saw that everything was good, so I called Mike Adkins to schedule an appointment. The initial appointment was for Wed the 15th at VSR in Tampa. I could have waited for him to be here in town given that he travels and tunes for all the local shops in Central Florida, and I live 5 minutes from one of them, but I saw it as an opportunity to meet new folks, and play with the car on the way back up to Orlando.

I heard that he was doing a tuning day from the Tampa Bay Subaru Club (a FB group I'm in) on Saturday 5/11/13 at VSR, and called him and asked if I could come take advantage of that, to get it done sooner. He responded that it would be no problem, that they would be able to accommodate me and to come on down. I could NOT be happier with the experience!

First of all, let me say that Mike is a straight up professional! I've never seen the like of it from any other business in town. No disrespect to the performance shops, there are some good ones, but his level of service and promptness is unmatched by anything I've seen. Anytime I bothered him with one of my dozens of questions prior to meeting face to face, he took the time to inform me, and give personal insight to things. I was VERY nervous getting my tune, due to all the horror stories I've heard from folks with bad tunes from various shops, but he eased my mind with his straightforward manner, and fast responses. I felt like really did care about his business and loved his work. I would harass him with questions about experience, talk about folks he's done work on that I know, and just general conversation at (looking back) all hours of the day and weekends. He was patient with me, which many of you know can be trying at times, and always prompt with his responses.

When I arrived in Tampa at VSR, I got to meet Bobby who owns the place, and we spoke for a while. I got to see some amazing cars they were working on, and that Mike had tuned for them. The level of workmanship was amazing all around. When we got my car on the dyno, I had already told them about the leak and the repair, so Bobby suggested a smoke test, which they did, and discovered a leak from one of the inlet hoses, that they were able to fix right there on the spot within a couple of minutes. Mike began the tune, and since it was on Gino's emergency tune, basically had to go from the ground up. It did take some time. But he was patient with it and went through each run methodically. Tweaking and inching along. He never made any big jumps, never overstepped the car's threshold, making sure to work his way to the car's happy spot. The whole time, he kept me informed as to what he was doing, and how it would affect the car. There were no surprises.

After about an hour or so, he looked at me, smiled, and showed me the numbers.. 350/350. I was saying "Perfect! A big jump from where it was before." Now, any tuner could have saw my reaction right there, and said "Great, he's happy, the car is safe, let's get this thing off of here." and I would have been happy and none the wiser. But he informed me that he wasn't done yet, that there was more and he was going after it. He played with that car for about another hour, hp steadily rising with each attempt, and at 371/359, I was ecstatic! I figured we were done and that everything as as good as it was going to get. He told me what my limiting factors were, (the TMIC wasn't as efficient as it could be, which is fine, going to be replacing that soon anyway), and the fact that it was an older style FP Green, and not the HTA. He did see a dip in the curve towards the end that he said was bothering him, and wouldn't let it off the dyno until he had smoothed that out a good bit more. After fixing the issue to his satisfaction, he wound up with final numbers of 373/363 and a VERY happy Subie owner. We went on the road to make sure everything looked good on the street and it just felt amazing. I'd trust him with anything, anytime.

All in all, I would recommend Michael Adkins/MTuned to anyone in Florida. He is easily worth driving hours for if your car is safe to go that far and you want a true professional to head up your power gains. If it's in there, he's going to find it. Very determined and dedicated individual who won't just stop when the numbers are good, but when they are at the best they can be. The fact that he understands the limits of safety in a tune as well, was a HUGE plus in my book. I watched him tune one guy's car and get it to 399.7 on the dyno. Mike wanted so bad to make it top 400, but was not willing to risk the safety of the motor to make it happen, so he let the guy know what needed to be done for next time. A true professional all the way around, that cares about his work and his customers. I'll definitely be back!
:thumbsup::goodjob::ty:
https://www.facebook.com/mtuned.tuning?fref=ts
https://www.facebook.com/Mtuned?hc_location=timeline



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IGOTASTi

System Operator
Staff member
Awesome! So glad for you!!!

Did you talk about I.G.O.T.A. at all?
 
nice numbers man! can't wait to see him again.

glad you got your stuff taken care of and had a good experience. I totally understand the customer service aspect of it.
 

Robert Viehweger

Daily Driver
Yeah, I've been talking with him a lot before he got to my car. He's been tuning since he was a teenager with a turbo eclipse, I think it was, about 10 years ago. He's just made it his life. He's studied every angle of it for years now. Tunes everything from cars to motorcycles to jet skis. Pretty cool guy. Worth getting in touch with. Dude loves anything with a motor and extremely friendly and conversive. :) I asked him his secret and he said that he just goes slow until he knows what's what, and doesn't overstep his bounds. By now, he knows the figures for pretty much every brand of every part of pretty much every car that I could tell. I've seen him on Talon's, GTR's, R8's, 1400 hp vettes, Vipers, Subies, Mitus, 240's, motorcycles, jetski's... he's pretty wild to talk to.
 
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