now we are talking! Sounds like a nice overall improvement! All over the range. Get some videos up man! Great stuff
Great feedback and I think we all know what your talking about. Its a good explination of how the car now reacts.
If you can get video I would love to see that.
As for performance. Dont waste your time on 0-60 or 60-100. Wait a few months and take it to sac raceway when JHM has there race nice. That will be a real test and you can get all the same data in a safe and controlled fashion. Not only that but it wont land you in jail or have your car impounded for trying to get results.
the 1/4 mile is a good tell all and we all know what these cars run stock so that will be a great add.
Over all its great to hear that there is support from JHM that makes these cars have another lease on life with more power and more fun.
And my wait just became that much harder. ;D
My sincerest apologies ;D
Seriously though, I know the feeling… the wait is agonizing, but it’s worth it for 2 good reasons. First, you’ll have a brand new car when it’s done. It won’t even feel familiar to you anymore, it’s that different. Second, and more importantly, the wait is this long because JHM is so diligent about everything. I’m guessing your car had problems you probably didn’t even think to expect, I know mine did. I knew my suspension was a mess, my brakes were shot, that the hoses and such were probably a mess, but JHM really digs in deep to find every single problem. To their credit, their sales team did a fantastic job in identifying seriousness of different issues and helping me prioritize them. I laid out a budget, and asked them to find a good balance between fixing major issues, improving reliability, and increasing performance, and they did exactly that. My car still has a couple minor maintenance issues - I know my other motor mount is in bad shape, my tires have seen better days, etc… but JHM helped calculate how to get the best bang for my buck, so to speak, and I’m really happy with the results. OK honestly I went significantly over-budget in the end, but that is not the fault of JHM, it is the fault of my car having been so poorly maintained for probably its whole life. Now that everything is mostly back to where it should be, I consider it money well spend, no question.
As Justin and others have pointed out, these cars used to be $75k luxury sedans purchased by people who had ZERO interest in cars, they just wanted the status that came with owning one. They probably did the occasional oil change and fixing things as they broke, but I’d wager that almost none of them had ANY real preventative maintenance performed since the day they were delivered. As a result, we can buy them cheap. We just need to know that we aren’t really buying them for the asking price - we must always assume that we will need to invest another 50% into the car to truly get it to where it needs to be. That fact sucks, but like I said, it’s why we can buy these cars so cheap in the first place. And now, these cars are landing in the hands of people who TRULY care about them. For the first time ever, we’re seeing reliability and performance upgrades for these cars that as recently as 2 years ago had zero consumer interest.
My car has 120k miles on the clock, and it’s never been in such good condition. It’s better than the car someone happily paid $75k for 8 years ago. Honestly it’s even better than pretty much any new car anyone would drop down $75k for today. A 4500lb luxury sedan that can take your kids to the snow right after pulling a 13 second 1/4 mile at the drag strip, who can ask for more 
Whenever I come across a faster car on the road (Which isn’t often), I think about that. Sure, your sweet brand new Hellcat Challenger is a little faster now, but lets try that again in 6" of snow! Oh ya, and people can get in the backseat without having to fold down the front seats 8)
Sorry I’ve been lagging so bad on posting any useful updates or videos, I swear I’ll get to it! It’s really difficult to find the space on the road to do such a thing, and the free time with which to do it. But…
I just drove my car in the rain for the firs time since the overhaul. It’s absolutely amazing how well the traction control system adapted to all the changes. I don’t know if this was part of the tune or not, but either way, I’m blown away. Soaking wet roads, facing uphill at a stoplight, I mashed the gas when it turned green. Split second of broken traction, followed by a flickering TC light on the dash, and suddenly the tires just grabbed the road and the car pulled as if the streets were bone dry. It was absolutely incredible. If anything, I lost maybe 0.2 seconds off my 0-60 versus a dry weather launch. I’ve never driven a car that could do that. As I slowed down for the next light and other people pulled alongside, they clearly couldn’t believe what they just saw. A family sedan that just ripped it uphill in the rain like it was nothing. Oh, and the exhaust note didn’t hurt with grabbing their attention either
I’m still having an absolute blast with this car. Often, you get used to the power and the car feels slow again after a while, but that just hasn’t been happening. Plain and simple, this car has way more power than I can possibly use 99% of the time. Very rarely can I mash the gas pedal for more than 2 seconds at a time before I’m going waaaaay to fast for the conditions.
I haven’t tried turning the traction control off and letting loose in the rain yet, but that’s next. I imagine it will be completely freakin’ insane.
A lot of that adaption of the traction system is actually in the tune from what I have seen and been told. The thing that I dont think gets talked about enough is that the JHM tune isnt just a dyno wide open tune. Its a everyday every point of throttle every driving style kind of tune.
It goes WAY beyond just wide open throttle. Not that the wide open throttle results from JHM are not well beyond what other companys tunes offer but there is more to driving then wide open throttle.
The low speed low pedal throttle input is impressive. Getting the V10 to give you power down low and up top all through the rev and pedal range is what i think is impressive.
Great feedback. Im interested in hearing more feedback and for you to hit the track next month. that will give you the chance to really run the car through its range
YESSSSSS!!! So anxious to get my car back lol… I’ll make a post about the trials and tribulations since purchase, extensive shop stay, pics, tune (and eventually exhaust) to come, etc, etc, etc…
Six6 cant wait to hear about your car. Welcome to AR.
Just because this isn’t worth starting a new thread…
When I had my radiator replaced about a month ago, the dumbass local shop that did it put my front end back on too low. I didn’t even know this was possible - but the whole front bumper is prabably 5mm lower than it used to be, as evidenced by the larger gap between it and the hood. Also evidenced by the fact that my car almost always thinks the hood is open, even when it’s securely latched closed. Does anybody know how difficult is is to “loosen” the front end and list it up myself? And what exactly would I need to loosen in order to do that? The “hood open” warning is driving me insane, it commandeers my whole instrument panel display when it’s activated.
WOW scott this sucks. Add this to the list of I didnt even know that was possible. If your ok with it snap a few pix and post them up so we can see exactly what they mounted wrong. From there we can tell you exactly what you need to do to fix it and how long and how much work it would take.
Alignment of the front bumper can be a pain if you’re ocd and want it to look perfect.
There is actually height adjustment options on several of the bumper mounting points (at least there were on the B7 S4). When they pulled the bumper, they probably accidently messed with some of the height mounting adjustments. And then obviously with the front core support it would be easy to have alignment change slightly since the mounting holes allow a little bit of play.
Best bet, if you trust the shop and think they’re capable, let them know and see if they’ll fix it. If not, either spend some time playing around with height to get a fit that is more flush, or learn to live with it lol .
Thanks guys, I’ll play around with it a little later and snap a photo or two. I think it’s the core support, not just the bumper cover. I can’t really learn to live with the “hood open” warnings on my dash, it’s kind of a problem. Unfortunately I really don’t trust my shop to fix it - literally every time they fix something, they break something else. I really don’t want to find out what they’ll break while fixing my front end >:(
My whole area is full of half-ass mechanics. JHM is really the only shop within 2 hours of here that knows what they’re doing. For instance, earlier this week I took my car in to America’s Tire to repair a nail puncture. They worked on the car for like 5 minutes, gave it back to me, and immediately the brake on that corner was making a god-awful “CH CH CH CH CH CH” sound." Wtf… Turns out they rebalanced the wheel even though I didn’t ask them to, and put the lead weights on the wheel in a spot where they were rubbing on the caliper. So frustrating.
Best of luck finding a halfway reliable shop apparently. And I didn’t catch where you’re getting a hood open warning, I thought you just meant visually it appeared open. That is definitely fault of the shop that did the work.
Scott your not alone. This site is there to help and expose what you just noticed. Lots and lots of people think these cars are like a 84 camaro or a standard easy car to work on. Most shops know less then lots of well educated and well traveled guys on here that have worked on these cars.
If you can get those pictures it will show just how good or bad it is and how hard it might be to fix
Not to defend crappy shops (as we’ve all sadly had to deal with them), but typically when a nail puncture is repaired (properly) the tire has to be dismounted from the rim and repaired from the inside. Once the tire is re-mounted on the wheel, it’s usually out of balance as the tire is not lined exactly the same in relation to the wheel. So it then has to be re-balanced.
As for the lead weights rubbing on the caliper- Inexcusable
The core support has 4 bolts on each side right behind where the bumper beam mounts are. The holes are slotted. Pop the skin off and you can loosen the nuts a turn each and slide the whole core support up.
Hope that helps.
Thank you JRach, I’ll give that a try, I haven’t even had 5 minutes of free time this week but I’ll give it a go this weekend!
Oh… my… god!
Alright, so I just got sent off to Europe last minute and now going to miss JHM night at the local raceway. BUT… tonight I decided to have a little fun.
There’s a stretch of highway in my area, where you pass an onramp, and then climb a hill for about a mile before the next onramp. The highway was empty tonight, so I decided, what the hell. Completely opened 'er up. And, as the beginning of my post suggests - holy fucking shit.
Started at about normal freeway speed, passed the last onramp, smashed the throttle. Watching the speedo climb to obscene levels… Climbing UP A GODDAMN HILL, hit ((4^2)*10)+5 mph (hmm is my math right?) before the next onramp. Jesus H christ. This car is absolutely insane. I can honestly say, it is faster than I could ever possibly use 99.99% of the time. Oh, and evidently the JHM tune seems to relax the speed limiter ;D
It was STILL accelerating, might I remind you, GOING UPHILL, when finally I let off. This is EASILY a 190-200mph car at this point, though I will never test THOSE limits. Goddamn. Just thought I’d post an update.
oh man that sucks. I was excited to see what your car could do.
Sounds like you got a good chance to feel that JHM tuned power on the open road. Nice update.
Some 19year old got arrested for allegedly going 208mph in a Mustang here last night… I was thinking he must’ve had ALOT of K&N stickers on that thing!
Nice! Just sold the coupe, so it looks like I might have the cashola to do the reflash. Does your jump away from a full stop? One of the cars I test drove did that; annoying. Was impossible to pull away smoothly. Mine’s pretty lazy from a standstill unless you really stomp the loudpedal.