Can't go wrong with Mike, I can't speak for EQTuning because I haven't met the guy. But what I will say is, when Mike tuned my WRX he spent alot of time on my car and made sure it was running right. He does pay alot of attention to detail, especially when it comes to safety and making sure your car has a safe tune that produces good power.

His price is very reasonable too and hooks up the local guys. Assuming you drive a Suby and not an EVO. :P I keed, I keed!

 

Mike at Gruppe-S hands down. Nobody better.

Second recommendation would be Ed.

 

Mike has tuned a few of my cars...never had one problem. A bit hard to get ahold of at times, but the demand for him to fondle cars left and right sure says something...

 

lol....perhaps pricing will go down once Cobb releases their evo accessport. Supposed to have a lot more features than the current suby one

 

The only "problem" I had with my tune from gruppe-s was that my car was having boost duty cycle issues, and Mike made many changes to try and correct the problem but was unable to.
Mind you, these changes only happened after the first tune I got was just an uppipe, but then I started to add parts(short downpipe, catback).
Mike updated the map at no cost to me, other then the drive to hayward.
Several trips later, and finally changing the downpipe a second time, and going with a new boost solenoid pill, Mike finally charged me for an hour of his time(people have to make a living, time is not free).
After making these changes, my car had duty cycle issues when under heavy load(e.g. driving uphill over hwy 17).
Since I had about 4 people at the time I am friends with(duo, racenut, 1badrex, downshiftdan) that had all been tuned by Ed, and all cars run great, I would have Ed tune my car.

Ed did a Cobb Protune on my 04 WRX, made slightly better numbers(4-5hp/trq), but widened the area under the torque curve, fixed the boost duty cycle issue, and ran great with zero problems.
I have since then, made a couple final changes to my setup (added: MBC, 3rd cat del.) to quicken the spool up more, and yielded about a 15-20hp/trq. increase.

I have nothing bad to say about Mike, he is a great guy, but couldn't fix the problem my car had at the time.

BTW, if you have any concern about road tuning, Ed can do dyno tuning at other facilities in the bay area. Personally, the road tuning was OK with me, it was in a safe area.

 

did ed had a boost control solenoid? That may have been the major issue, the stocker isnt a very good unit

 

You must not have had much interaction with Mike. He might be busy, but far from flakey. There's a difference from being in the lobby asking questions while someone is trying to work, he's not the salesman, than being a competant tuner. His attention to detail and worth ethic is fantastic. I remember the first time he tuned my car, he spent 8 hours on the dyno into the wee hours of the night because "it just didn't look right" and I still only paid for my original tune. I remember him asking me if I minded him keeping it on the dyno to see if he could figure out how to get more power out of it, hmm let you work on your time to benefit me? umm hell yeah(I was one first 05s to get protune at gruppe-s). It turned out to be a problem with my exhaust and wierdness with the 05 but he chalked it up as a "now we know". Every time I've had my car tuned by him I've been thrilled with the personal service and great tune. He always has me take it for a quick spin when he gets it off of the dyno so he can get the paperwork in order. When I get back he asks all kinds of questions about did I notice this and that and makes sure that I'm happy with what was done. He has gone above and beyond every time I've dealt with him. I trust my subby tunes in only his hands.

I have little experience with the other tuners mentioned aside from Shiv(oh and Shiv? cram it in your cramhole!) so I can't comment and won't go by heresay.

 

Yes, Ed changed that out with the GM 3 port solenoid. I have since then changed to an MBC as it allows for significantly quicker spool up over the solenoid.

The downside is that I now have a **** that says "boost" on it. if anyone messes with it then bad things can happen. I only really have to worry about this at autox events though. I am going to be installing the stock mounting bracket to hide the MBC and make it difficult to change since I don't need to actually change anything.

 

I'm probably going to get flamed, but Shiv did what Mike could not on my car. I think most people on i-club can say Shiv knows his stuff, it's just other areas that he's lacking.

Don't get me wrong, Mike is awesome and is dedicated to customer service, and didn't charge me a cent for putting my car on the dyno twice for over an hour both times. I guess I could just say my car doesn't like Mike .

 

Okay seriously. Please let this NOT turn into another "You're wrong because I had a good experience with _____" or "____ sucks because ____ happened" thread. We all have our stories and a lot of them contradict each other. It is impossible to directly compare these individual and personal experiences.

I have made a conscious effort to swallow the crap that has happened to me in hopes of new beginnings. Unless there is a serious and/or current issue - I would humbly ask that everyone else do the same.

 

Yeah Ill be running a MBC as well, gonna make a black box around it =P

 

Shiv is a very intelligent person and definitely know his stuff. It's too bad he's such a *****.

 

True. There is no doubting his tuning abilities, however his customer service/relations seems to be very inconsistant

 

This is often the case with programmers and engineers - Very good at what they do, but no people skills

 

Sweet! I spent $$$$ there, Mike will take of me (and he has)