Yes, that’s him.
Nice guy. I had sold my fast intentions and JHM downpipes to him last year, but then I had to unsell them to him when the guy who bought my car decided he wanted to keep them on.
I can see where he’s coming from…however I don’t understand his problem.
The story I ALWAYS tell (and you’re about to hear again) is this
when I first got tuned in Detroit in Feb 2010, I drove the car from the shop back to my hotel, and was like ‘WHAT THE FUCK HAVE I DONE!!!’ My silky smoothe car was all of a sudden trying to kill me. The drone made my ears want to bleed, and the throttle response made me look like a fucking retard, so all I could do was go low speeds in big gears to avoid bucking the car like a rookie driver. Of course, that put me in the drone zone around 1000-2000 RPM.
JHM’s tuner the next day said ‘let’s go for a drive in your car and make sure everything is ok’. So we did
He hooked his VAGCOM cable up and off we went with me driving.
So I asked him about drone, and he showed me…don’t get on the throttle in 5th gear at 1500 RPM and you’re ok. If you’re going through the drone zone RPMs, just go easy on throttle and you won’t get drone.
So I asked him about the bucky throttle…felt like 10% = 90% now. He said ‘ok, let’s log throttle while we drive’.
He told me ‘give me what you think is 25% and hold it’…so I did. He showed me the laptop and it was ticking along at 22-26%.
He told me ‘give me what you think is 50% and hold it’…so I did. He showed me the laptop and it was ticking along at 46-52%.
He told me ‘give me what you think is 75%’…and you can guess the rest. BANG ON.
If you do the above test on a stock car, 25% pedal position gives you like 10%. 50% gives you like 30%. 75% gives you like 100%. It’s fucked.
JHM turns the throttle into drive by cable. It just reminds you how
a) shitty the stock tune is, and how it’s written for people who can afford $65,000 cars (a.k.a. 60 year old fat men)
b) bad you are at modulating the throttle.
The best trick to deal with the throttle in 1st gear when starting or going through a parking garage at low speeds…is to wedge the right edge of your right foot up against the right side of the footwell, so it’s ‘rooted’…and isn’t bobbing up and down.
If you free float your foot, you’ll hit the pedal too hard…then the car lurches…then you fall back…then you let off the gas…then you fall forward…then you hit the gas hard again…then the car lurches…then you fall back.
It’s as simple as this for anyone with reasonable driving skill. You just have to know what you’re doing. Some people are terrible at this stuff and for them, maybe a tiptronic or DSG is the solution.