National Speed - Any of you guys used them as a tuner?

NoVASTi

New member
National Speed is located in Wilmington, NC. From what I've seen, they do a lot of Subaru tunes (I've been 'liking' them on FB for maybe a year, reading up on their tunes and such). They do a LOT of other cars, as well (lots of domestics and imports, as well as exotics).

Has anyone bought a tune from them in this regional forum? If so, I'm looking for feedback on how they are, reputation-wise. I plan to get my tune from them.
 

Grinder34

Track Monkey
You're in NOVA, why not go with the established subaru power-houses in the area?
Tier1:
Andrew Tech
TurboXS
MachV (heard mixed things. Dan is a stand up guy, but i'd still pick a different tuner if it were me)
IAG
Agile

Atlantic Motorsports (an affilitiated guy was my intructor at an HPDE...seemed legit, but i dont hear much about them in the subi community)

Why make the drive?

If you're going down to NC, i could point you to a few good shops. Closer than Wilmington. A few former mods on here work at a shop and REALLY know their shit. I believe it was SpecOps Motorsports.

I havent really been paying attention to the vendors forum lately (broke, just bought a house), but check out some of them, and they might surprise you. I know we have a lot in the Pittsburgh area (~4hr...closer than NC!) that are pretty stand-up as well.
 

NoVASTi

New member
I'm already aware of the ones you listed...IAG is another one I'm looking at.

I wanted to check out National Speed because I thought they were really good (I've been watching them for at least a year). I have relatives near there, as well, and visit from time to time.

I've changed my mind about using them as a tuner, though. I want to share this with the forum...it might help someone later.

Earlier today, I asked the manager via Facebook if they did e-tunes. He told me that if I could hold off a few months, they'd have a new shop in Richmond, VA. He asked me what I was looking for in a tune and what car I had. I told him I was driving a 2011 STI and that I was more focused on a safe tune (if he could get good power but keep the tune off the ragged edge, I'd be happy). I told him I my mod plan was: Grimmspeed 3 port EBCS, Walbro 255 fuel pump, Cobb catted DP, AEM or Nameless intake, and a Cobb AP v3, of course.

He then described the recent tune of a 2012 STI so I could get an idea of his shop's work. The car owner wanted a protune with an Invidia catback and Injen intake. They ran a baseline dyno run (stock tune) with those two parts on the car. That's a huge NO NO....the intake on the stock tune. That tells me the don't know WTF they're doing. That's not all, though. The got a baseline of 249HP and 254TQ. They then did the protune and dyno'd the car. With just the intake and catback, the results were: 313HP and 336TQ. W.T.F. That's a 60HP/82TQ gain, using the stock DP??? At first I thought the manager left out the fact that they tuned with a non-stock downpipe, but he stated that they'd only did the protune with the intake and catback. Soon after, the owner contacted me and stated that did another protune session with a catted DP (she didn't state which brand). They ran the dyno with that additional part, the intake, and catback, and saw no gains whatsoever.

I tried to attach the dyno chart he provide me to this post, but it is gigantic. I'm hosting it here, though.

None of what he told me (nor the owner) makes any sense...at all. I think the car owner may have been running an aftermarket DP and didn't know it...that makes more sense than that both of them told me.
I made up my mind that the whole thing was not adding up and because of that and the fact that they ran a stock tune up to redline when running that intake, I should not let them touch my car.



I will be looking into IAG next. I'm familiar with MachV and have autocrossed with some people that work there. I've heard excellent things of IAG, but mixed things about MachV. PTuning is like maybe 10 miles from me, but between them and IAG, I'm getting better feedback about IAG. And, I'm also considering an e-tune with RRE (Road Race Engineering) in Southern California, because I'm extremely familiar with them (I know one of their tuners and attended race events with them a lonnng ways back).

Thanks for your recommendations and for replying back.
 

HolyCrapItsFast

Drinks beer!
He then described the recent tune of a 2012 STI so I could get an idea of his shop's work. The car owner wanted a protune with an Invidia catback and Injen intake. They ran a baseline dyno run (stock tune) with those two parts on the car. That's a huge NO NO....the intake on the stock tune. That tells me the don't know WTF they're doing. That's not all, though. The got a baseline of 249HP and 254TQ. They then did the protune and dyno'd the car. With just the intake and catback, the results were: 313HP and 336TQ. W.T.F. That's a 60HP/82TQ gain, using the stock DP??? At first I thought the manager left out the fact that they tuned with a non-stock downpipe, but he stated that they'd only did the protune with the intake and catback. Soon after, the owner contacted me and stated that did another protune session with a catted DP (she didn't state which brand). They ran the dyno with that additional part, the intake, and catback, and saw no gains whatsoever.

One base run on the dyno with those parts is not going to kill the engine. As long as they monitored the AFR it should be fine. Anyhow it is usually recommended you not run these prats with out a tune for prolonged periods of time. One run isn't going to do anything.:tup:

As a tuner, I would reserve judgement as to whether they know what they are doing or not. This scenario doesn't suggest wrong doing in IMO and seems highly plausible to me. Sometimes the numbers are what they are and we don't know all the facts and variables. The gains from the first run are significant in on them selves and there may not be much power on the table after that due to other restrictive parts such as TGV's and the like, even though there is a down pipe installed. A down pipe does not automatically mean more power. Do we know what the diameter of the cat back exhaust is? Do we know the diameter of the down pipe? Do we know what the differences in atmosphere, temperature and fuel were from one run to the next?

I wouldn't write them off based on this. :)
 

Grinder34

Track Monkey
You can have aftermarket downpipes that are basically stock design and dont offer [m]any power gains. Most of the big names are redesigned to avoid that, but it's plausible they put on a shitty downpipe too.

Still, i've heard great things about IAG and Agile, and they're local.

Whatever you decide, please post up your experience in our tuner reviews section, as I'm always curious about tuners.
 
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