RedGTS

Update: I picked up the car yesterday afternoon, and still can't wipe the smile off my face. The only thing better than a Gallardo is a TT Gallardo! But on to the details. When I arrived, the car was freshly detailed and spotless inside and out, and after Kevin and I went for a drive, Kevin and KC went over everything with me (how to operate the boost controller, etc.) and answered all my questions. I also had an opportunity to talk with the technician who did most of the work on my car, and was very impressed. One of the things that helped me decide to send the car to Underground was the fact that I had an opportunity to visit the shop several weeks ago and observe what was going on. The entire operation is very impressive and professional (clean, well-organized, etc.), but the thing that impressed me the most was the techs--the guys who are doing most of the fabrication and installation of various systems, etc. To say that these guys were different from the typical automotive tech at a dealership would be an understatement. I realize this is a personal opinion, and my intention isn't to knock all dealership or other automotive techs as there are certainly some good ones out there, but these guys projected an air of confidence and professionalism that I hadn't seen before in an automotive environment. I mentioned my impression yesterday to Matt, the tech who worked on my car, and he answered simply, "It's a passion. We love what we do, and we treat customers' cars like we would treat our own." And that in a nutshell is the impression I got several weeks earlier from hanging around the shop for a while. Kevin and KC are really fortunate to have guys like Matt as part of their team. The install looks even better in person than it did in the pictures (of course!). It looks like something OEM IMO. But even better is the driveability. It is not similar to stock, from what I experienced; it is stock. I drove the car the almost 4 hours back home including some very heavy traffic, a couple of stops, etc. and noticed nothing at all any different from stock, with the exception of some cool hisses and whooshes coming from the engine compartment occasionally . Outside temps varied between 85 and 97 with high humidity, but the water and oil temps and oil pressure all read basically the same place they did before, and stayed there. In short, I detected no driveability issues whatsoever. No idle issues, starting issues, no nothing. Maybe I'll have a hiccup of some sort sometime, but not so far. There is one other thing that is different, however, and that is the exhaust. I was curious about how the car would sound with the addition of turbos and the X-pipe, deletion of cats and the factory muffler, etc., and I have to say it is just about perfect for me. The sound is similar in tone to the Tubi I had on the car, but maybe 30-40% louder at moderate to WOT, which is just right as far as I'm concerned. But even better is this exhaust doesn't appear to have the drone or resonance that the Tubi sometimes had at cruise/low rpm. The car definitely seemed quieter at interstate cruising speeds than it did before. As far as power goes, unfortunately cops were crawling all over the interstates between Charlotte and here, and any significant WOT action (in the few places where traffic didn't preclude it anyway) would have been nuts. I did get into some boost briefly a couple of times though, and could obviously feel the major difference over stock, even at the low boost (4 psi) setting the car was on. At one point I was in the left lane with a car on my right and almost missed an unexpected exit ramp, which happened to be an almost immediate 90 degree bend to the right, and while just a touch of throttle easily squirted me past the car on my right quickly enough to dart onto the exit ramp, as I got on the brakes I realized that my very modest touch of throttle had caused me to hit the sharply turning ramp a LOT faster than I thought I was going and I was on the verge of breaking things loose--not good! But I was able to settle things down, and reminded myself that driving a powerful turbo car requires a substantial readjustment of one's driving perspective. It had been a while since I drove anything this fast, and fortunately my reminder didn't come with a price. In any event, by the time I got home, ate dinner, and cleaned the car up it was too late to try do any WOT testing. The weather wasn't very cooperative either (and looks iffy for the next few days as well), so for now you'll have to rely on the dyno numbers, which are undoubtedly more accurate than my butt-dyno anyway! I'll update things again once I have an opportunity to get out and do some boosting. Overall, the delivery, like the rest of my experience with Underground, was handled very professionally. I'm very happy with the build and looking forward to putting some miles on the car over the next few weeks!

You know it! Probably won't sleep much tonight. But at least once I get in her I won't have to get out until she's in my garage. I don't know how you ever got back on a plane in Miami!

Congrats on the car!

Thanks Alex--looking forward to getting some seat time in her this weekend!

Good deal, and good luck!

Fadi, are you dynoing AWD or 2WD?

You did start the darn thread after all! Congrats on getting her back, and we'll look forward to some more kill stories soon!

Yes--but not nearly as good as it's going to feel to get behind the wheel this weekend!

Thanks Kyle! We definitely need to get together and do some TTG cruising before the summer is over. Maybe we can hit the Dragon or something.

There wasn't really a single deciding factor. As I said earlier, I've done business with Jason before and would be perfectly comfortable sending a car to him, but decided Underground had more than earned a shot as well with all the good things I'd heard about them.

Ditto! We're all part of an ongoing learning process that started with the first TTG Jason did several years ago now. And yes there are risks involved, but there are also amazing rewards! Oh and Fadi, one of us needs to buy a Vbox soon.

Thanks Jerry. I need to get a ride in an R version sometime soon!

Thanks. Just to clarify, your post makes it sound like UGR enticed me in by promising (and delivering) huge horsepower gains that wouldn't be reliable over the long term, which was irresponsible on their part. That is not the case. I only discussed pump gas numbers with both Jason and UGR, and they told me the exact same thing. I never discussed running race gas and higher boost or what the car would do with it with either tuner, and UGR has not told me it would be safe to run any specific amount of boost, although obviously lower is safer. I decided literally the day of the dyno to ask Kevin to make a couple of pulls with race gas at 8 and 10 psi, for two reasons. First, I discovered there is race gas at a pump near my house (which I thought had been removed). And second, I knew Fadi was running 10 psi on his setup so I was comfortable that the car wouldn't immediately pop something. The results are what they are. As I've said previously, I will likely never run 10 psi, but will run lots of 4 psi and maybe use the 8 psi setting on rare occasions.

Thanks Doug. I think Fadi and I both are on cloud 9 right now (well Fadi is--I'll have to hang around cloud 7 until I actually get the car back in the garage!). BTW I'd love to make it down for the next runway event whenever that is and meet some of the south FL crew. I'll have to keep my eye out for that.

Hey John, a couple of questions. I'm assuming the Gallardo has factory knock sensors, correct? Is there not a way to take control of the OEM sensors? And can any additional knock sensing be accomplished via the AEM as opposed to the Motec? Thanks!

I guess the question is, are we both sane, or both insane?

See that's the kind of info that would be awesome to have, but is probably impossible to derive, at least with that degree of precision. Aside from important variables associated with the individual car (did the factory get all those rod bolts good and tight, etc.) and the build (e.g., the tune), you have maybe the most important variable in how an individual owner drives the car. I'm not someone who beats on their car that much, but I'd say there is a good chance I'll stick to my original plan and build the engine over the winter even assuming it runs like a Swiss watch until then, just as an insurance policy, but we'll see.

John, thanks a million for your work on the car--I do feel good knowing you were involved in the wiring and tuning process! FYI to the rest of the board, John tuned the AEM with my Heffner Paxton setup on my GTS years ago, which at that time was one of the first Viper AEM's to be installed and tuned. He even put in some custom knock sensors (GTS's did not have them from the factory).

I don't disagree with you at all. Jason told me essentially the same thing, as did Kevin, but they were talking about pump gas. So maybe one key issue is whether the engine is significantly more at risk with race gas at say 8 psi than pump gas at 4 psi? I'd love to know the answer to that question. Clearly the higher octane helps reduce the risk, but how do the higher cylinder pressures and other variables factor in, and at what point does the risk of engine failure go up significantly? I'm counting on Fadi to answer some of these questions as he's good for 3 races a night.

That's an entirely reasonable proposal for discussion. I'm not sure there will be any good evidence one way or the other though until the bolt-ons get some more miles on them and we see how reliable they appear to be. And there are always variables involved--giving a reckless customer a bolt-on car with a boost controller can be a recipe for problems. Personally, as I said before, I don't plan to run more than 4 psi with pump gas, or 8 psi with race gas. But I also understand that there are risks involved even at those levels.

Thanks Grant--hope to see you sometime soon!

I really don't want this thread to turn into another mindless juvenile back and forth as the board has had way too many of those already IMO, but just to reiterate, all 3 of the major tuners offered to put a bolt-on system on my car, and as far as I could tell all 3 seemed quite "happy" to do it. Now it may be that they'd all 3 prefer to do built engine setups, both for reliability and profit issues--I can't answer that. And I completely agree that building the engine is the safer way to go, and IMO probably the only way to go if you must make big hp on pump gas. But these bolt-on setups are getting very interesting. We now know of three out there (mine, Fadi's, and the yellow DLM car) that are making big power--it will be interesting to see how they fare as the miles accumulate. My original plan was to probably build the engine over the winter while I wasn't driving the car to speak of anyway, but then again I didn't expect the bolt-on system to make anywhere near this much power either. We'll see.

I assume this is directed at UGR directly and not me (and I've already addressed these issues above to the extent I feel comfortable doing so), but as I said pricing was not a factor to me (not because I didn't care how much it cost but because they were all in the same ballpark). I seriously doubt any of the 3 tuners are going to want to jump in here and post details about pricing and warranties, but as I also said above, I think the direct answer to no. 2 will be "no" from all 3 (although as stated they will do whatever they can to help their customer). And I did talk to all 3 of them, but won't purport to speak for them. Do you really think it's reasonable to expect a tuner to guarantee a stock engine against failure with the power these systems are capable of making, and without any way to prevent the customer from beating the car like a rented mule? If I were a tuner I would handle it exactly the way they say they will.

Hard to say but I wouldn't sell it short until you dyno it. My tune is supposed to be conservative too, and I doubt I'll ever even use more than the 8 psi setting anyway, but I'm sure there are also some mechanical differences in the two systems that may factor in. And I totally agree about the pump gas--no pump gas for me above 4 psi!

Thanks! Makes me wish I had a clear rear bumper, but I guess that would look kind of strange.