I decided to take my ATS-V to Scott after reading some bad things that were done from a previous tuner……and it was a decision I didn’t regret.

Let me first talk about customer service. You will not find any better than what Scott provides. None. Always responds quickly and provides his knowledge even if it isn’t tune related. Haven’t seen this level of customer service in many, many years in this business if at all.

During the tune, everything he does is 100% transparent. Shows you everything under the hood he connects, the car files being downloaded, what parameters were set by the previous tuner versus stock files, heck, he probably would’ve let me sit in the car while doing the dyno pulls if I really wanted to. After each pull he advises the results and his recommendations to move forward. Each while showing the HP and TQ results on a large TV screen.

He found three or four parameters from the previous tune that were very concerning to him. That alone made it worth it for me to get this thing retuned.

I ended up with 488rwhp and 503tq on a stock A8 (+62rwhp over stock baseline). A couple of immediate things I noticed after Scott’s tune…….the engine idles/runs a lot quieter and so much smoother than what it was when I brought it in. And with hitting max boost of 18, this thing just pulls and pulls and pulls. This is a daily driver and I do not track it so I’m certain there’s another level this thing can do that typical road driving won’t allow.

Most important of all is that I know everything is running at a safe level and that peace of mind is priceless. If you’re on the fence you won’t regret it, just do it.

I was recommended to Scott by James Renick and how he was the only tuner he trusts personally.
So I thought to myself, If James R. trusts him then I have no doubt in my mind that I would want my car in his hands.

From the moment we first made contact with each other, the communication was amazing, bar none.
Scott would immediately to reply to all of my questions and concerns, even before I purchased the service. I was fortunate enough to be part of the new HPTuner MPVI2 module and made the process a breeze for me.

Scott made sure my car was safe for the entire process, we would do various amounts of test runs to be sure everything looked good before we started to actually unlock the cars potential. I never had the feeling that my car would blow up. Scott worked around my schedule and made himself available when I needed him. We communicated mainly through Texts and email, and every step of the way I would get a nice explanation of what my car was doing and what he was changing to make the car perform better.

As the car stands now at the time of writing this testimonial, the car is making 489 WHP and 523 ft-lbs tq!, and this is a nice wide band from ~4k-6.5k rpms! The car feels amazing and alive! I purchased the colder spark plug and can’t wait to see what else Scott can squeeze out my ATS-V!

I was fortunate enough to run across Scott when I did because I had long suspected the so called pro tune I received from a well known Performance Shop in Cincinnati was not all it was cracked up to be.
I contacted Scott at Tapout Tuning because others w/ similar tuning issues spoke very highly of Scott and his ability to fix poor tunes.
Scott took the time to show me exactly what he was doing and why during each dyno pull.
What follows are observations I made during the 4 hours Scott had my car on the dyno.
1) From start to finish Scott does what he said he is going to do
2) Scott’s years of experience as a “car guy” has prepared him to tune the ATS-V perfectly
3) Tapout Tuning uses the best Chassis Dyno in the tuning business
4) Tapout Tuning uses industry standard Correction Factors when determining the RWHP and TRQ
5) When the process is over you will receive a color dyno printout that will show actual HP and TQ values using SAE correction factors. Misuse of Correction Factors is a common tactic to artificially inflate peak RWHP values.
6) Best of all Tapout Tuning Dyno printouts also show the actual air/fuel ratio and the boost overlaid on the same dyno chart.

When Scott was finished with his tune he essentially gave me a new car that I did not recognize. I spent the next day driving around town getting used to the new found HP and TQ when a guy in a newer Porsche Panamara Turbo pulled up to me going North on I-75. I moved over into the next lane and dropped back a bit but he just followed me over a lane and he once again parked himself next to me.

I heard him drop down a couple gears so I slipped my ATS-V into manual mode and dropped down to 4rth gear and about 55 mph and slammed the right pedal to the floor and very quickly Mr. Panamara did the same. From the git-go I started to pull away from the Panamara and he was not able to regain an inch on me.

He pulled up to me again for another go-round but I waved him off and gave his Panamara the “thumbs down” as he did the obligatory Loser’s Fly By and disappeared into the distance.

Needless to say I couldn’t be happier with my Tapout Tune and the great service Scott provided.

Tapout Tuning stands apart from other tuners by providing a consultative, transparent approach to the calibration that is customized to the customer’s needs. There was very good communication throughout the entire process, always with the focus on meeting my personal goals. The emphasis was on safety, and I greatly appreciate that all of the factory mechanisms for protecting the engine are left intact, and that alternate safety protocols that were not part of the GM calibration were also implemented. My goals were optimization, safety, longevity, and a wide, flat powerband. I got all of those things, along with a boost in fuel economy by way of his protocols for optimizing efficiency of the LF4. Scott was able to add a significant amount of power without sacrificing driveability, while also increasing my fuel economy by almost 2mpg.

An added benefit was how much I learned during this process. Scott always took time to advise me and help me understand the changes he was making. And by scanning the car myself via VCM Suite, I have multiple files available that detail exactly how the car operated under multiple driving conditions and calibrations. I see things like KR, fuel trims, AFR, timing advance, IAT, and many others and Scott helped me to understand what they meant. That was a bonus I did not expect, and is now something I can do anytime to see how the engine is operating.

I can’t think of how a remote tuning experience could go better than this. This was a HUGE improvement on a tuning experience I had in person, from all angles. Can’t recommend Scott enough!