I'm new to the adaptronic, coming from the PowerFC world. I purchased an FD recently and the seller (senior forum member) failed to tell me about the low compression on the rear rotor until after I did a compression check after buying the car. Yes, dumb to do it after, but I trusted the brand new engine would have good compression and after I was told it's 110 across the board. Has 110 110 110 front rotor and 84 86 86 rear rotor. Long story short, several well known shops have seen this car and said the car had issues from the start. It came to a well known tuner with compression in the 60s across all faces. They figured out the injector wires were swapped and after fixing that, they tuned it and got it running pretty decent. They drove it around for a while and had the comp come back up to the high 80s.

After I test drove the car, it made a ton of power with the EFR 9174 so I assumed its all good to go. Paid $35k for it. Right after I transferred the money, the seller started adjusting the map to "turn down the boost" to make sure I don't kill myself with the 500rwhp on the way home. I'm new to adaptronic so no idea what was going on, so I went with it. Turns out that the target AFRs were adjusted to 13.5 above 12psi, timing on E85 was set to blow up the engine as stated by a well known tuner on this forum. Before knowing all this, I did a log run after the E85 ran out and I put 91 in it, making it go to wastegate spring of 15psi. I was hitting 13.1AFR at 15psi, 7,500 rpm. No idea about what damage could have happened from a few hard runs, but I'm waiting on a few parts to have it retuned properly.

Does the adaptronic have revision history to show that the map was modified the night I bought the car?

 

Here is the map that was supposed to be tuned by Abel...

 

I'm being told by the main turbo seller here, who I had look at this map right after I bought the car, that some things need to be adjusted on it, including the AFRs being off. I should have his tuner help me. I get a call right after from the seller begging to buy the car back while providing SOME of the history of the engine. Now, I'm having the tuner help me figure out if there are other issues and when he saw the map he said OMG it's 100% setup to blow up your engine. AFRs and timing etc. "Someone was really trying to make this engine blow up"

 

Wow..... probably a piston tuner doing something he had no business doing.

 

You'd think so, but it was 100% intentional.

 

 

Probably won't be too hard to tell if it was sold on here. $35k and EFR 9174 is not too common.

 

It wasn't posted on here. He wanted to keep the sale local and asked me if I ended up selling it, to let him know and give him the chance to buy it first (probably after it blew). I'm not exposing him since he claims he will help me with the engine. Hopefully that's true.

 

^ It is good to hear that the previous owner will take responsibility for repairing the engine. This is just not right. I've found though that promises don't always result in the action promised. I had an engine blow up on the dyno and the builder/tuner stated he would pay for the repairs. When the bill came in, he backed out, stating the charges were too high, even though the cost was 1/3 of what I had paid him to repair the engine he then blew up.

So, do you have anything in writing from the seller stating for what he will be responsible? I'd highly advise this so there are no problems later on.

Keep us posted.

 

Yeah, I'm not going all in on that either. Up to him to do the right thing. Spoke to a few shops and IRP is going to get the engine in a couple months when I pull it. Spoke to Ihor this morning, great guy.

 

 

Even though you're not the original customer, the tuner might be willing to send you a recent copy of the car's map. No-one in their right mind would use that AFR target map. Whether the current map is wrong due to negligence or sabotage, you're not likely to find and fix everything yourself on an unfamiliar software platform.

 

 

 

Log file attached running on 91 octane. I never did any logging when the car was running E85 and boosting 26psi. Can't imagine it was good.

 

 

Thanks man. Doesn't seem like this is going to go anywhere, so I'll just leave some closing comments.

Facts:
1. Bought the car and didn't touch the map
2. Map is set to use closed loop
3. Using closed loop would MAKE it use the AFR table; it's also set to allow the ECU to adjust the fuel map up to 25% to achieve that AFR
4. AFR table above 12psi is all set to around 13.5AFR
5. If the wideband on the car is bad, why make the car use closed loop, which adjusts it's values based off the wideband on the car?

Don't know who did what at this point and it's becoming fruitless figuring it out.

Shawn sent me a new map and we're going to give it a go this weekend.

Isn't that the truth. The seller claimed the compression was 110 across the board on both rotors when I bought it. Engine looked brand new so I trusted it. After the comp test I called out the seller and got some back story about the comp coming back to 110 on both rotors after the injector wiring issue was fixed. Both shops that have seen this car said that's not true, it was always in the 80s. He promised to help me with the rebuild cost to make things right... "stand up guy" and now he's no where to be seen.

 

Well post the name then. If they did it to you, save the next person from going through the same.

There are also always two sides of a story.

 

 

Right. The funny part is I kept hearing the words "full disclosure" as he told me about some really minor stuff, like the glove box needing to be shut hard.

 

It's official the seller, xxxx, will NOT help with any costs of the disaster he sold me. I got a text recently that I've stirred up so much drama that he is distancing himself from me, that I've created from my own violation somehow?

 

^ That is unfortunate. A person's true character comes out under adversity, as seen in this case.

 

That stinks. On the bright side, it's only an engine. You'd have to replace it someday anyway. Better than the care having some hidden frame damage or something.

 

Yeah, man, for sure. The car still is a good deal IMO, I'm just sharing about my exp. I didnt expect to have to replace the brand new engine right after buying it. I actually will drive it as is after getting a retune by Shawn for a year or two? The part that really bothers me is that it was setup to blow up the engine on purpose.

 

Take him to small claims court. Especially if you have text messages saying he will cover the damage caused by improper changes to a vehicle after sale.