I actually planned on doing a write up tonight, stay tuned.

I wish I saw this before I left the house...we left the Cracker Barrel at 10am in Powdersville.

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5608/...9d49246c_c.jpg

Oh well, I tried. Don't have Facebook. :cool:

Here are my impressions of doing business with Motion Lab as well as some potentially unnecessary play by play :D:


I installed my Stillen Gen 3 CAI's before heading out and of course my FI cat-back with CF mufflers has been on for some time. My appointment was scheduled for approximately 11:00 AM so I set out to get there just a few minutes early, because that's more my style than being on time...never late. They use Google Calendar for appointments which was a breath of fresh air, so many shops seem to live in the dark ages in this respect and don't keep up these days. Around 10:00 AM I got a call from Alex because they had apparently melted an air line on their dyno in the middle of tuning the car that was directly ahead of me. He was very up front that it would take some time to find the parts needed to fix the dyno and asked if I had the time to wait until around 2:00 PM. He was sure they could get the parts and get things going that same day still. Since I was already over halfway there and I already had the day free I agreed and he sent the revised appointment. Luckily I had my 3DS XL and a fresh copy of Super Smash Brothers so I had plenty of stuff with which to kill time.

After tooling around and getting lunch, I arrived at Motion Lab's office around 1:30 PM and sat to wait for my time slot. They have an Xbox in the waiting area which is pretty cool of them. Knowing your target audience can be key. I then proceeded to have to sit around for the next 3 hours. Having made plans for the evening and now knowing there was no way I was going to be home in time, I was fairly irritated... mainly because no one said anything to me in a nearly 3 hour stretch of time. In the back of my mind I was assuming they were going to tell me they wanted to reschedule, if that had happened I would not have gone back based on my experience thus far. I'm an understanding/patient person and I know that **** happens and that it is sometimes beyond your control. When **** does hit the fan, communication is key and I'd have liked to see much better communication. I certainly wouldn't steer potential customers away, but I wanted to share the experience in case others are interested because I feel like it could certainly have been handled better.

I was finally spoken to when they were ready to start loading up my Z onto the dyno. At that point Alex made it clear that there would be no rushing and that they would stay as long as it took to get everything tuned correctly. Based on the fact that it took the next 2.5 hours to get the car tuned I'm inclined to believe there was no rushing...frankly I think the dyno graph probably speaks for itself in that regard. I got to speak to Todd briefly before the tune and he seems like a great guy and an obviously accomplished tuner. The way their dyno is setup there isn't really a place to stand and watch so I stayed in the lobby and played more Smash. They drove the car out, parked it in a good place for me to pull out and we settled the bill before I left. I asked Todd the outstanding questions I had and we talked for a few minutes before I left.

Tune Impressions:

• very noticeable mid-range improvement
• throttle feels much more smooth
• the car no long bucks on light throttle at low RPM as easily as it used to, this was unexpected but welcome
• cooling fans seem to come on at times that make much more sense
• noticeable top end improvement
• the car seems to be much happier at idle than it was previously
• it's hard to describe, but the car sounds the same...but somehow..fuller
• seeing about a 2 mpg bump in overall fuel economy as long as keep my foot out of it...which can be hard to do

FAQs:

• Would I reccomend Motion Lab? FOR SURE.
• Was it worth it and would I do it again? Without question, yes.
• Have I noticed any problems? No.
• Am I concerned about longevity? No, if anything the car runs/idles better now that it ever did in a fully stock form.
• Regrets? None.
• Why no TP's/HFC's? I don't like the VQ hiss.

Graph:
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b1...ps0eb04576.jpg

If you have any questions feel free to ask.

Yea thats cool. Where are you located? Shoot me a pm, and we can meet up sometime.

Is that a cop in the very back? And does he have everyone of you pulled over? Fill me in!!

Haha, no one of the club members has a retired cop car. He brought his wife and child on the drive so the Z wasn't an option. Makes for questions though!

Greg, myself and the Z32 were way over the speed limit in the curves a couple times so there was definitely call for being pulled if there was a cop.

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Thanks for the review Phantom! Got your text last night but I was already cutting Zs (haha). I'm playing at church this morning and am obviously up early. Between the fall drive and church performance I couldn't sleep in so I went to sleep at like 8:30 last night.

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So just to be clear, you sat there for 3 hours and then an additional 2.5 hours? Good god, smash brothers must be an awesome game!

Yes sir, it's amazing. I also watched a few shows on Hulu at one point. The 2.5 hour stretch on the back end naturally went by more quickly since I could hear my car making passes, lol.

Good writeup (old) Brandon :)

I'd rather be (Original/OG) Brandon, lol

On a side note, anyone up for lunch or anything?

Got lunch with the fam OG.

Mmm... Matching handles

Good thinking, OG Brandon it is. Handles look awesome. Just got home from North of the border.

Does that make me just Brandon now? One day we'll have to drop the "new" :tup:

Also, I need to get some mods done. I've been sitting on these test pipes for months, also have smooth tubes and wheel spacers to install. Someone's been slacking!

Take your time but hurry up. :tup:

I know the feeling though, I'd been sitting on the Uprev license and intakes for the better part of 6 months before I installed and went for the tune.

Do you need to buy a license before getting tuned? I thought that's what getting tuned did, but my only experience with this sort of thing is with VW / Audi cars.

The shop can just charge you for the standard license and the tune if you don't already have a license. I just got a killer deal on a tuner license and interface cable before hand so I didn't need any of that from them. When I went to Motion Lab, I was just paying them labor more or less. You definitely don't have to have a license before you go. Motion Lab offered me a standard license for $295 w/ the tune, but I already had my own. I'm not sure if that's their standard rate but it's definitely the way to go if you don't want the tuner version and don't need your own cable. The Osiris site has all the info you'd need to make that decision in the event that you're not sure which you'd want.

How about we do a dinner next week as a group? Maybe Thursday again? Who would be free for that somewhere between 6p and 7p?

"new" Brandon shall now simply be called "FNG", imo :stirthepot:

I'm not opposed but I don't get off until 7.

How about that mexican place we went a while back right after you got your exhaust? Haven't been there in a while...

I'm not available until after 8pm on Thursdays...dangit!

I'm down for 8pm Thursday at Tequilana.

Yeah we will probably be there late. Would Wednesday work better?

Also, guys pencil in November 22nd on your calenders. We are hoping to get the #07 World Challenge race car up to our local Cars and Coffee from Z1. If we do, Brian Kleeman is flying down to come as well. I'd like to propose that we get the Z's prime parking up front but we'll need to have at least a few to fill in. Hopefully we can know for sure by the meeting next week and we can talk about it then.

I'm going to Seattle this coming week, looks like I'm out! Boooo

Wednesdays are wide open for me (if it works for everyone else). I'd like to see about getting the Upstate Z Club in on C&C for that as well.

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I'm down for Wednesday instead of Thursday, how about everyone else?

Also, will upstate Z club charge us $25 dollars per person? Their website seems to suggest that might be their game. LOL

Uhhh...there are fees if you want to join the club b/c there are costs involved, there are also benefits (like the upcoming dyno day ($30 for 3 runs I believe)).

There are no fees to be among the club...:rolleyes:

Also found out why Bill stopped tuning cars. Apparently his insurance company was going to change some things around (assuming higher costs) if he were going to offer that service on a regular basis.

I know, I know, I was just poking fun :D

I can totally understand why he got out of the tuning game though, frankly I can't blame him.

I am curious why many of the folks here haven't joined the local club. I'm wondering if there's something that would entice others to want to join??? We have pretty decent participation (around 20 people in attendance for most meetings) and we have a really cool program where we are working with The Chandler School to educate these kids on automotive topics. The Headmaster is a Z guy (among other cars he races) and the president of our club teaches a 2 hour class every Friday morning. This leads me to another benefit of the club - he is getting a lift installed at his "garage" on premises which Z club members are allowed to use at no cost.

The Chandler School |

I never joined because when I looked at the calendar all I saw was dinner. Paying 25 dollars to be a member of a dinner club seemed strange.

Good feedback! For clarification the $25 is for associate only, it's $40 to be a full member. Basically though you want to see events, any in particular?

A phrase we throw around the office a lot is "perception is reality."

As a non-member, I don't have a clue what I'd like to see. That said it sounds like you do more than the calendar would lead me to perceive is happening.

Segway...
I'm just jealous of Patrick for getting to shoot the 1st gtr nismo delivered in the us today.

Bastard!

I think it's awesome we know the guy. Now we can name drop!

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Sounds like Patrick is holding out on us.

Paul... I can answer your question in two words: Katie Danner :facepalm:

For those not on Bookface, I had an epic day hanging out with Nissan reps here in NC. The delivery could not have gone better. I got a ton of great shots of this GTR Nismo, the first built for the US and also the first delivered to a customer. Nissan will be using my images for a lot of their media. All of this will drop on Monday so I have to "hold out" till then. At least that's not long. The bad news is I've got till Sunday at noon to get my shots done!!

Not much I can say there but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger!

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Thanks for considering the non-BookFace users.