If anyone in the area is familiar with cars or just wanna hang out, hit me up..... Just moved here and haven't met many do-it-yourself car owners, other than 4x4 guys. Are there any normal meeting places?

My name is Brent.

Here is my build thread. Nothing special, just some minor mods.

https://www.rx7club.com/build-thread...4-rx7-1069753/


Here is my whip.

 

Yea, the do it yourself guys are located in colorado springs

 

Yeah I figured.

Unfortunately, I have no desire to move there.

Maybe I'll drive there sometime and meet up. Who knows.

Not to mention, I just got a personal shop to start working out of, so I'm locked into a lease. Let me know if you breakdown out this way. Lol

 

Hey another FD owner in Colorado +1 to the group 👍 lol welcome!

 

I'm out in the Boulder area too and I've been restoring/rebuilding my FD for about a year and a half now. It's finally at the tuning stage, so hopefully it'll be on the roads soon. Maybe we can meet up when the weather is better.

 

Steve Kan is coming to the Denver area to tune the 7s out here around April 20th-25th, I doubt my car will be started but just passing along the message....

 

I'm absolutely in for Steve's tuning - any more info on how to get in on this?

 

if you got facebook a really fast & active page we're all in there called "Mile High Rotary Club" or add Michael Bergren he's the ones that organizing this stuff...

 

Sorry to hijack this thread (sort of) but is there any way to get in on this for those of us cavemen without Facebook?

I'm trying to find someone to fix my FC; it has AEM but is not running well enough to drive to a dyno currently, so not quite ready for the dyno yet. But it might be by April. I'm gonna start posting around looking for some help here in CO, so if you know of anyone (even in the Springs) let me know! Thanks!

 

im here in the springs, I'm not sure who deals with AEM here in CO, maybe Denver like MAC auto or another shop I heard in Longmont (don't know the name of it) but best bet is to get a facebook lol we're all active there than here I only come here to look for parts and recruit people from here to there haha...

 

Ha, well, I had one for years but deleted it because of all the BS.

Could you by any chance do me a favor and post on there just saying that a guy named Andrew in Denver is desperately looking for help fixing and tuning an FC with AEM? I can be emailed at andrew@finzel.net, or pm'ed here... Or could just link to this thread. I would *really* appreciate it! Thank you!

 

no problem my man

 

found a guy in your area haha I just copied and pasted what he said

"Don Walker 720-212-5838, I am in CA atm but can do remote tunkng or he can wait till I am back in the area in a week or so."

 

Thanks for doing that!

That's pretty ironic, because Don was actually the guy who last had my car. But I haven't been able to get a hold of him for 3+ months, so I just figured he had given up on the project or something. So I was/am looking for someone else who might be able to help. He probably knew you were referring to me, because I'm pretty sure there's no other Andrews in Denver with FC's with AEM.

Thanks again! Please let me know if you hear anything else from anyone else. Really appreciate it.

 

For sure! And yea Don did tell me he did, he said he still has your contact info I guess he's been busy also working on his Rocket Bunny FD, but sure sure I'll keep looking around for others.

 

I am local to the Longmont area right now which is close to boulder(roughly 15-20 min drive) I just bought myself a 1983 rx7. Would love to meet up with fellow rotary heads here in Colorado sometime.

 

if you got facebook join our local pages we're more active in there than here

 

Thanks again. I tried reaching out to him again but still can't get a hold of him... Starting to wonder if I should start seriously warning people to stay away from Don... Seems like he might be more interested in personal projects than fixing customer cars!

 

yea sorry to hear that, I wish we had tuners here locally that would be nice haha, been trying to work my *** off to build my car before Steve Kan comes but I keep getting delays lol.... Yea just remember that day if your car still needs a tune by that time.....

 

I'll throw in my opinion. I wouldn't go to Don Walker for anything. He is a thief and sucks at what he does. I haven't heard anything good come from him. He shafted someone down here on something he purchased. He shafted a guy with a supra, and he didn't solve a problem for another owner, but sure sold him a lot of parts and said it would fix his problem.

I wouldn't go to him with your car.


As far as tuners. The real way to tune a car is by driving it and logging. The dyno/tune days will get you an ok tune, but it might not be the best tune. I suggest either learning tuning yourself or finding someone local who can spend some time on the car. You need to find a tuner who knows your ecu and buy that ecu.

Don't buy an ecu in hopes that it is the most amazing thing ever, because if no one knows how to tune it, it won't be the best thing ever.

I would rather push the limits of the ecu on a decent platform, than have the best platform and push the tuners capabilities on the software (when he doesn't know the software/ecu).

 

Thanks lOOkatme; I'm sure you already figured this out but I'm also White TII over the coloradomazdaclub.

I'm basically feeling the same way about him right now. I think a big part of me doesn't want to admit I fell victim and lost a ton of time and money on him. I've read the supra guy's threads, and in some ways I feel like I might have gotten screwed even worse than him.

I do know how to tune myself decently well, but I don't have experience with the AEM. I got a cable to hook it up to my laptop finally. I'm actually more concerned with the hardware and wiring than I am about the actual tuning. There are wires hanging out in the engine bay and by the ECU that aren't connected to anything. I'm planning on calling up AEM to see what help they can offer, if any.

I agree with you, but for some context, again, I got burned on this. As I said in my thread on the other forum, the AEM is actually my THIRD aftermarket ECU. Every time I've switched it's been because of exactly what you said--I bought the ECU to go with a tuner. In the most recent case, the AEM was Don's "specialty". But finding someone local is why I've been posting here and elsewhere; it seems like there really isn't anyone anywhere in CO or even adjacent States who would be willing or able. My best bet right now is it ship it down to one of the rotary shops in TX, but I really don't want to do that if I don't absolutely have to.

It's not that I'm not willing to learn it myself, I just flat out don't have the time at my place in life right now. I used to do all the work on my car, including tuning, but that was when I was younger and wasn't up to my eyeballs in responsibilities. But that being said, I'm still doing what I can to work on it a few hours here and there on the weekends to try and trace down what's wrong. I'm gonna look around on this forum and see if I can find any AEM specialists.

Again, agreed. Except I will say that I've heard that AEM is one of the most widely known platforms; things like Haltech are a bit more specialized. This is one of the reasons I agreed to let Don put the AEM in it, because I figured if he disappeared there would be a better chance of finding someone who could tune it. One of the reasons I gave up on the Haltech I had was because I couldn't find ANY support on it; the best thing I could get was sporadic and inconsistent help on this forum; no local help whatsoever.

I'm actually not 100% sure I understand your dichotomy here. But if you're saying that you'd rather have a great tuner with a less great ECU (versus the opposite), then I agree.

I appreciate the post though. I hope I don't sound too whiny; I really am trying to find the solution. But I think I'm also licking my wounds a bit and trying to recover from the shock of being so apparently screwed by Don.

 

I wasn't trying to be mean, but I just got angry about the whole situation that has happened to you with Don W.

 

I really do appreciate the support and sympathy. I'm posting over in the AEM forum looking for help, hopefully I can make some headway over there. Already feeling encouraged. Thanks again.

For now, unless I hear from Don and he actually makes an effort to clear his name, I am very strongly recommending all car owners of all kinds, especially RX-7 owners, stay far away from Don Walker.

 

This summer if you haven't figured it out, I might head your way on a weekend and try figuring out how to tune the car. I tune powerFC's and can probably figure it out with time. The sad part is after reading a lot of your posts, the problem isn't related to the things you changed, that is what scares me. I am a decent trouble shooter but not great. Perhaps Jesse should check out your stuff as well. We can both come to where you are at if the car isn't driveable and see what we can do. I can't promise a positive outcome though as we are just DYI's like everyone else.

It would need to be in June though when my family goes on vacation and I am free to do whatever.

 

I'm in Longmont as well.