Hey everybody, it’s time to address an issue that has come up in recent months related to the practices of AJ at EMP tuning. There has been a lot of online drama related to things being said “behind the scenes”, so this post will attempt to elucidate the concerns publicly, so they can be settled once and for all. I would like to preface this by disclosing that I do tune these cars and others, and while that indeed makes this a conflict of interest, it’s also why I am qualified in this regard. I will attempt to be as objective as possible and keep my feelings out of this, the community can form their own opinions on the matters. This is a long post, but it's an important issue for the community not just as it relates to EMP but also as it relates to tuning in general and the way people try to hide information or enlist an army of those who are not qualified to begin with, to stand up publicly and quell rumors with numbers. So lets get rid of the rumors, shall we.
The issue at hand:
It was alleged recently that AJ Hoti at EMP tuning is selling re-branded BMS back end flashes for customers paying for custom tunes, with no (or very few) changes made. Firstly, to shut down one thing I’ve seen over and over, even if this is completely true it means nothing legally. Professionally this is another story but I don’t want to get ahead of myself here.
What is custom tuning?
I submit that at its essence, custom tuning is to make sure a car is running safely as possible for a specific goal or goals. How it gets to the goals will vary by tuner, but often this includes adjusting hardware on the car or modifying tables in the computer. Which tables and how can vary based on the tuners knowledge of the software environment and many other factors. Custom tuning is, as such, a very broad term. If tuner A changes only 4 tables, and tuner B changes 60, is tuner B better? What if those 56 other tables are largely useless or don’t amount to any real difference, then is tuner A better because he’s more efficient? These questions are rhetorical, and I don’t care about their answers. What I care about, and what you should care about, is the base definition of custom tuning, is your car running safely as possible to meet your goals. No matter your stance on what I am showing the community, keep that in mind.
Story and meat:
After the facebook drama I was contacted by a few people I have tuned recently, all of which wanted to share their previous experience with EMP. I had no idea anybody I had tuned worked with him prior to this. Without going into details, their stories were compelling and similar enough for me to look a little further. It so happens I also had a request to review logs and a tune file from somebody local to me, I usually ignore requests like this but decided to so I could see what was really going on. What I found was a map sent to this person to be used flash only, but it was in essence a JB4 backend flash (specifically, the JB4_BB2_IJE0S_E85 from June/July). The only tables with changes are AFR, timing, WGDC and airflow adder, and raised boost limit. The image below shows changes made to WGDC, AFR and TIMING vs BMS:
Worse than what was changed in these tables (which was shockingly few things to me), were the tables that I did not see changed for flash only use. There are numerous tables that are JB4 specific, this is the case because the JB4 has control over boost reported to the DME. Throttle safeties are one of the areas where the JB4 has very specific needs for mapping, and this table was left JB4 specific:
So how did this map run on the customers car? I have re-uploaded (with permission) 3 logs, one from a V5 and two from this V6 map. I see lots of timing corrections and lots of throttle closures, timing past MBT, boost near the sensor max etc. From talking to the person, it was concerning him as well. The actual BIN is available at the bottom of this post labeled 'CUSTOMER A'. Re-uploaded logs- https://datazap.me/u/v8bait/emp-tuning-logs?log=0&data=3-22
This is only one example. There are others, but this is a very recent customer of his so I feel it's most reflective. I have uploaded two of the files I have seen personally, one was this BMS map “modified” for flash only (CUSTOMER A, discussed here), and another one was a SPX map sent as “custom” (CUSTOMER B). Both maps logged equally poorly for the customers, so whatever your definition of custom tune I feel these examples fail to hit the minimum standard. They are not final tunes sure, maybe all this would be fixed in later revisions. The conclusion here, is if you try to reconcile the logs and the BIN as I have, it paints a picture of somebody who is experimenting and does not understand many of the tables he is working with. Which brings me to the point of all this.
Why does any of this matter?
For many people, it doesn’t. For me, since this isn’t my real job, and I'm not EMP tuned, it also doesn’t. I’ve become apathetic with the influx of amateur tuners to the platform. I tend to help them out where I can but leave them to their own devices and could care less how much they copy/paste, as long as I don’t see them capitalizing on their learning process as that’s where I draw the line. It comes down to professionalism, that is why this matters to me. Ask any of the guys I’ve helped learn about tuning and they'll tell you I told them all to read books (real ones) and learn the basics first, then find a car (theirs or somebody who agrees) to start making changes on, lots of changes one at a time to see how it effects things. Don't copy tables or modify tables you don't understand without testing them or asking "why is this". Additionally, tuning is much more than just table changes (those can be copy/pasted). it requires a strong understanding of how the car works and how the software works. The common thread in all of these people who came to me, was the car was just not running right. While it’s incredibly unprofessional to me seeing such blatant copying, this experimenting on paying customers cars and lack of base understanding about the tables or flashes he is copying from is poor judgement. I understand he has a very loyal following, and he’s made a lot of horsepower. The problem is unless you're a little experienced in tuning you may not recognize these issues, and as for having a high power car... I’ve said it many times, these cars are INCREDIBLY forgiving. That makes them both a good platform to learn on and a bad one- just because you can get away with a lot of bad things, doesn’t mean you should.
I hope this thread serves to take this discussion out from the shadows. EMP continues to profit off this community so this discussion should happen with the community. Others can contribute if they want, I have tried to keep identifying information out of this post for now so people can give their own feedback. There have been many documented cases of lying and misleading customers, lying to other tuners, and various other questionable practices behind the scene. My goal is for those issues to be brought out of the shadows and posted here where people can see them for themselves and pass their own judgement, the community has to self-police itself and since there's no "tuning police" the other tuners will have to contribute their expertise, this is mine. These are the facts I am privy to and my interpretation of them, there are many more.
The issue at hand:
It was alleged recently that AJ Hoti at EMP tuning is selling re-branded BMS back end flashes for customers paying for custom tunes, with no (or very few) changes made. Firstly, to shut down one thing I’ve seen over and over, even if this is completely true it means nothing legally. Professionally this is another story but I don’t want to get ahead of myself here.
What is custom tuning?
I submit that at its essence, custom tuning is to make sure a car is running safely as possible for a specific goal or goals. How it gets to the goals will vary by tuner, but often this includes adjusting hardware on the car or modifying tables in the computer. Which tables and how can vary based on the tuners knowledge of the software environment and many other factors. Custom tuning is, as such, a very broad term. If tuner A changes only 4 tables, and tuner B changes 60, is tuner B better? What if those 56 other tables are largely useless or don’t amount to any real difference, then is tuner A better because he’s more efficient? These questions are rhetorical, and I don’t care about their answers. What I care about, and what you should care about, is the base definition of custom tuning, is your car running safely as possible to meet your goals. No matter your stance on what I am showing the community, keep that in mind.
Story and meat:
After the facebook drama I was contacted by a few people I have tuned recently, all of which wanted to share their previous experience with EMP. I had no idea anybody I had tuned worked with him prior to this. Without going into details, their stories were compelling and similar enough for me to look a little further. It so happens I also had a request to review logs and a tune file from somebody local to me, I usually ignore requests like this but decided to so I could see what was really going on. What I found was a map sent to this person to be used flash only, but it was in essence a JB4 backend flash (specifically, the JB4_BB2_IJE0S_E85 from June/July). The only tables with changes are AFR, timing, WGDC and airflow adder, and raised boost limit. The image below shows changes made to WGDC, AFR and TIMING vs BMS:
Worse than what was changed in these tables (which was shockingly few things to me), were the tables that I did not see changed for flash only use. There are numerous tables that are JB4 specific, this is the case because the JB4 has control over boost reported to the DME. Throttle safeties are one of the areas where the JB4 has very specific needs for mapping, and this table was left JB4 specific:
So how did this map run on the customers car? I have re-uploaded (with permission) 3 logs, one from a V5 and two from this V6 map. I see lots of timing corrections and lots of throttle closures, timing past MBT, boost near the sensor max etc. From talking to the person, it was concerning him as well. The actual BIN is available at the bottom of this post labeled 'CUSTOMER A'. Re-uploaded logs- https://datazap.me/u/v8bait/emp-tuning-logs?log=0&data=3-22
This is only one example. There are others, but this is a very recent customer of his so I feel it's most reflective. I have uploaded two of the files I have seen personally, one was this BMS map “modified” for flash only (CUSTOMER A, discussed here), and another one was a SPX map sent as “custom” (CUSTOMER B). Both maps logged equally poorly for the customers, so whatever your definition of custom tune I feel these examples fail to hit the minimum standard. They are not final tunes sure, maybe all this would be fixed in later revisions. The conclusion here, is if you try to reconcile the logs and the BIN as I have, it paints a picture of somebody who is experimenting and does not understand many of the tables he is working with. Which brings me to the point of all this.
Why does any of this matter?
For many people, it doesn’t. For me, since this isn’t my real job, and I'm not EMP tuned, it also doesn’t. I’ve become apathetic with the influx of amateur tuners to the platform. I tend to help them out where I can but leave them to their own devices and could care less how much they copy/paste, as long as I don’t see them capitalizing on their learning process as that’s where I draw the line. It comes down to professionalism, that is why this matters to me. Ask any of the guys I’ve helped learn about tuning and they'll tell you I told them all to read books (real ones) and learn the basics first, then find a car (theirs or somebody who agrees) to start making changes on, lots of changes one at a time to see how it effects things. Don't copy tables or modify tables you don't understand without testing them or asking "why is this". Additionally, tuning is much more than just table changes (those can be copy/pasted). it requires a strong understanding of how the car works and how the software works. The common thread in all of these people who came to me, was the car was just not running right. While it’s incredibly unprofessional to me seeing such blatant copying, this experimenting on paying customers cars and lack of base understanding about the tables or flashes he is copying from is poor judgement. I understand he has a very loyal following, and he’s made a lot of horsepower. The problem is unless you're a little experienced in tuning you may not recognize these issues, and as for having a high power car... I’ve said it many times, these cars are INCREDIBLY forgiving. That makes them both a good platform to learn on and a bad one- just because you can get away with a lot of bad things, doesn’t mean you should.
I hope this thread serves to take this discussion out from the shadows. EMP continues to profit off this community so this discussion should happen with the community. Others can contribute if they want, I have tried to keep identifying information out of this post for now so people can give their own feedback. There have been many documented cases of lying and misleading customers, lying to other tuners, and various other questionable practices behind the scene. My goal is for those issues to be brought out of the shadows and posted here where people can see them for themselves and pass their own judgement, the community has to self-police itself and since there's no "tuning police" the other tuners will have to contribute their expertise, this is mine. These are the facts I am privy to and my interpretation of them, there are many more.
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