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[adlerx]

Not sure how I got pulled into this. Things I do know, my bike was "tuned" by, ok, lets go ahead and say the name, I'll never darken their door again. I have been screwed by him 4 times on two different tunes that rendered the bikes almost unrideable, Mike Stegman at Latus HD in Portland Oregon. Totally over rated, doesn't seen to care about getting tune right on any bike he doesn't build. Look in Latus' dyno library, you'll see bikes they built have 50 to 100 pulls to tune, builds done by "customer" or elswhere, NEVER OVER 30 pulls. My last tune by him was a piece of crap, I knew as soon as I looked at the sheet and saw that it had been "completed" in 22 pulls in less than 2 hours, this including disc tuning on a supertrapp supermeg pipe,could never happen! The bike ran poorly, super rich, less than 25MPG, black smoke pouring out, wouldn't idle at all in any conditions. And yes, a comparison of the tables reveals that the AFR tables had been changed and virtually all other tables were still identicle to the canned base map. After a month of complaining, Latus had me bring my bike in to retune. What a debacle! mike had it on the dyno for two hours, made a complete new custom map ond Oh By The Way, he does no dyno pulls and informs me that he actually never even put the sniffer in the pipe(this is what he said). Now I don't know what this magic methodology that they are so damn protective of is but if it will build a complete custom map for a built motor with no dyno pulls and not even an AFR check, no wonder they are so protective. That is truly some MAGIC!
I didn't even make it the 70 miles home without fuel fouling the plugs. As soon as I got home, put in my original break in map in it. When I called to complain, Fred King the service manager got really pissed and said I was reading the internet and that my tune was right to which I replied. Doesn't matter what I read or where I read it, the internet isn't making my bike get 20 MPG and pour out black smoke so badly that the whole rear of the bike is covered in heavy black soot and I smell like I have been mowing the lawn all day with a bad lawnmower.. When I told him that Mike had done the second map/tune without doing any dyno pulls and without sticking the sniffer up the pipe, he said that simply wasn't true and when he offered me a refund I said "send the check!". About an hour later my phone rings and he has a whole new attitude. Sugar wouldn't melt in his mouth! Not only is he gonna give me a full refund, he's gonna send the truck pick up my bike, make sure it's tuned perfectly and bring it home.
Anyhow, I took him up on the offer...


The refund of course, I'd never consider letting those idiots touch my bike again!!

Anyhow, I spent a day between data runs and some dyno time on my friends DJ 250i I got a tune that runs decent, gets 37 mpg. The bike runs decent, is smooth, no bad flat spots, and idles perfectly but is by no means tuned.
I go to Nor Cal occasionally, will try to get it to RC Cycles for a real tune some day but for now it will do.
I tried to lay low on all this and keep it mostly to myself. Since it all cam up again, I thought it was time I tell my story.

OBTW, I never really expected to see the check but low and behold, about a month later, there was that sweet $485 "letter from home" as I call a check in the mail!