hello, i have a 2013 cooper s with 205k miles. i installed a big turbo and had mario tune it at 200k roughly. it has a stage 3 tune. the day installed the ecu and went to start it the car fired instantly but was barely chugging to life and stalled. it was very easy to start it and keep it going though. i had assumed maybe he disabled the cold start sequence but he said no. i ignored it and contributed it to maybe the new plugs or the mass air flow sensor. so i ignored it a little longer because otherwise the car ran fine. a week or 2 lately i drove from northwest Ohio to Tennessee and and filled my fuel all of the way up on the way down and through a check engine light and around that time i realized my car was hesitating and popping when id give it tiny amounts of throttle while at a low rpm. i thought it was somehow related to the dmtl fault codes that just popped up after filling the tank all of the way.
fast forward a few thousand miles later and the problems have only gotten worse. it is very hard to cold start and get it to run smooth enough to idle. the idle had a misfire and the throttle response when rev matching was horrible and it would hesitate and break up very quickly before revving. at this point i knew the maf sensor was acting up from testing it. i replaced it andthe engine was warm so it fired up and idled great now. but every other problem was apparent still. the next day still had cold start issues. ive checked, maf sensor, sparkplugs, codes, inspected and tested for air leaks post maf, and i used my scanner to monitor fuel pressure. at idle it read around 75 bar which equates to 1080psi. im not sure if it could be hpfp but it definitely seems like signs of it but i believe the pressures look good. id like to add the car runs great while cruising and at full throttle.i have videos but will have to figure out how to post them here.

 

Your MAF meter is likely disabled. Replacing the MAF meter won’t change anything. Read here for a little more information:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...not-happy.html

When you are done reading through that thread, take a look at this one:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ototype-r.html

 

I was going to go with lou and had talked with him for a while but after seeing and hearing from other people who had a tune from mario I thought that was going to be my best option. So long story short I went with Mario because he seemed reputable and claims I would get X amount of horsepower. Which I definitely believe I got the horsepower. But I have tried to be as nice as possible with him hoping that he would offer to take a look or fix the issue. But instead has insisted that it must be something with my car. But I have checked everything that I can think of.

 

From what I've read, that seems to be his MO to blame any issues on previously existing issues being exaggerated by the tune. I think he doesn't want to fault the tune because he can't offer a fast solution without going back to RPM Power. I think his "Stage 1" and "Stage 2" tunes might be OK, but the big turbo "Stage3" and up tunes just aren't built for the specific car like they should be. One of the threads I quoted up there, the OP had the exact same issues as you, and it turned out to be a poor tune.

Maybe reach out to Lou again and offer some money to see if he can help you with logging and diagnostics?

 

I do not have either a Lou or Mario tune, nor do I intend to.

Just an observation from reading different forum posts, I am yet to see one that has anything negative to say about Lou.

Lou helped me when I initially started playing with NCS Expert. Jumped right in and freely gave of his time to answer a N00B's questions. If I were to go with one, hands down would be Lou.

 

Yeah I’ll reach out to him. I feel awful doing so because it the past I wasted a lot of time asking questions because I was positive I was going to buy from him and last second decided Mario for cost and convenience and i had thought he was legitimate. Which ultimately is biting me in the ***. It’s my only running car which sucks as well I’m this situation. Putting the new maf on made everything worse most likely because it started demanding the proper running condition and obviously something must be wrong with this tune.

 

I had a good conversation with him. Mario has agreed to pay for shipping and take a look at the tune and get another opinion from a friend to make sure it looks good. If afterwards I am not satisfied I do have the option to get my money back. I might even go the route of having him give me a different tune completely temporarily. Just to see