Bad Asses

This page was inspired by the 10% rule.

So what's the 10% rule?

The 10% rule originated right here at my desk and it is a profound mathematical reality that accurately describes the world around me.

It states that 90% of all people in all professions don't give a shit and do a horrible job which leaves only 10% that turn out quality work.

This page is here to highlight the 10% that are tuning race cars with electronic fuel injection.

Since the 10% crowd is naturally drawn to Injector Dynamics injectors, this is a perfect forum to show you some of the cool things these guys do.

Their hard work makes us look good and so we are proud to tell you about them.

So before I get started, it's time for a joke. This comes from my friend Jim Levi who is an orthopedic surgeon and a proud member of the 10% club.

Question: What do you call a guy who graduates medical school at the bottom of his class?

Answer: You call him doctor.

So if you're not featured here it either means you're a 90% schmuck who has done nothing noteworthy, or I haven't gotten to you yet.

(Or you never bothered to send me pictures...)

Shane Tecklenburg - ST Consulting

High praise?

Yup. And with good reason.

Shane started his career as a Project Engineer at Motec and quickly went from being the new guy to being the guy with all the answers.

After a short stint there, he left to do his own thing with the blessings of his former employer, and quickly climbed to the top of the ladder.

Now that I think about it, that's a lame description. He didn't climb the ladder, he jumped straight to the top and then kicked it over.

He's simply the best. Not because he was born with some magical ability to tune engines, but because he questions everything, and keeps pounding away until he gets the answer.

(You ever see a pit bull when it decides to grab hold of something?)

Knowing that something works better or worse is not good enough, he wants to know why it works better or worse.

Because of this attitude he learns more in a month than most of us will learn in a year.

This level of understanding led him on a quest to build an entire map mathematically.

The idea being that if you know a few things about the motor you should be able to predict its fueling requirements across the operating range and be close enough that the engine will run well before you even start the tuning process.

And this is where Injector Dynamics comes into the picture. An entire team of NASA engineers could probably derive the perfect algorithm to make these predictions, but it wouldn't work worth a damn if you didn't know the dynamic response characteristics of the injectors.

And even if you did know, if the injector was not working in its linear operating range all your calculations would be worthless.

To do his job the way he wants to do it, he needs properly characterized injectors. He also needs injectors with a broad linear operating range.

Since the ID1000's were released he seems to be on a quest to use them in every imaginable application, running them in pairs and even triplets just to avoid using an injector that has gross non linearities.

So am I bragging? Yup.

Bragging about him and Injector Dynamics injectors.

I never got around to mentioning some of the cool things he has tuned with Injector Dynamics injectors.

I'll start with a few of the craziest contraptions.

This is the Accufab race car owned by John Mihovetz. It runs on gasoline with 2 ID1000 injectors per cylinder.

It makes somewhere in the neighborhood of 3000hp, runs low 6's in the quarter at more than 200mph, and has set more records than I care to detail here.

For those of you unfamiliar with Accufab, you can check out their cool selection of billet throttle bodies here.

This monstrosity is driven by Ed Thornton, and of course Tuned by Shane T.

Similar specs to the beast owned by Mihovetz because they are team mates.

Four time champion, blah blah blah.

I'm not trying to minimize the accomplishments of these two cars, it's just that listing all of the records and championships seems kind of redundant.

In short, it's a bad ass car, it's 2:00 a.m. and I'm getting tired of typing.

Besides, there's a ton of cool pictures on Shane's website fastmotorsports.com. Many of them sporting Injector Dynamics injectors.

Whoa, I almost forgot. Did you notice that his logo shown at the top says "Onsite or Remote Tuning and Support"

Remote as in let me hook up to your computer using gotomypc.com and tune your engine from my office! No kidding!

I've done a fair amount of it myself after he told me about it, but only when the engine was already running reasonably and I was just doing some cleanup work.

The idea of starting from scratch is hard to comprehend, but he does it. By mathematically predicting the engines fueling requirements, and having the appropriate injector data he can get you up and running and finely tuned with the AC blowing in his face, and a cold beer in his hand.

I'm not really sure about the cold beer, but who would know?

Now you see why I say he's the top 1% of the top 10%?

That's it for Shane, I don't want to make him blush. Follow the link to fastmotorsports.com and check out all the cool stuff he has tuned.

John Reed - John Reed Racing

John's been buying a lot of these lately, and doing some very cool things with them. So how would I define cool?

How about putting a Lamborghini Gallardo deep into the nines at 169 mph on street tires?

That qualifies as cool in my book.

Since John is pretty low key, I decided to do the bragging for him.

There have been a slew of Supra's and Viper's but he only sent me pics of the Lamborghini. I guess he figured that after the 9 second Lamborghini, a picture of a Viper or Supra is sort of like kissing your sister. (Although some in the deep south may argue)

Wow! What can I say? It's like the sweet pretty girl next door, and the large breasted town slut all wrapped up into one perfect package.

I could go on, but my descriptions would only go deeper into the gutter. I'm sure you can draw a few parallels of your own.

Engine management is handled with a Motec M800, and the gorgeous turbo install was done by Underground Racing.

Seeing it is one thing, but wait 'till you hear it. Check out this video.

Be sure to turn the sound up REAL LOUD and when you get done follow this link to the Underground Racing website to see more cool cars.

As for John, he is currently finishing his website which I will link to as soon as it is done. For now, you can reach him at johnreedracing@gmail.com

You don't have to own a Lamborghini or Viper, but please don't rattle his chain unless you are serious, and prepared to pay a member of the 10% club to tune your car.

Tony Palo - T1 Race Development

What you might not know is how he ended up being the guy who brought these injector to the market.

We had been selling a fair amount of these to numerous Motec dealers when Tony tried a set on his Integra.

He like them so much he told me he didn't want to use anything else, and asked what kind of pricing I could give him on 100pcs.

He went through the 100pcs quickly, and kept telling me that it was just getting started. He wasn't kidding.

It wasn't long before it was all we could do to keep up, and pretty soon the word spread on the forums and I was getting regular calls and emails asking for dealer pricing.

Somewhere along the way I decided that I would prefer to deal with Tony exclusively for a number of reasons.

For starters, all the dealer requests were the result of his efforts. More importantly, he was working hard to sort out fitment issues, making sure everything shipped on time, and that everyone was using the data correctly. In other words, he was doing a damn good job.

I decided that he was the guy who should be the interface with the public and that would allow me to concentrate on production, and writing lots of smart ass articles for this website. I guess the rest is history.

In the next few days I will get pictures of some of the cooler things to leave his shop. You all know about the 8 second Integra, but you might not know about the 1000hp Supra, the 700hp S2000, or all of the beautifully hand fabricated cutom parts that go along with them.

Somehow he's able to supply all of you with injectors, manage five employees, and build some very cool custom cars without even messing up his hair.

This is the famed 8 second Integra. The car that started it all. Tony set that record on his first outing with the ID1000's and a Motec M800 ECU. I'll post some more PaloPics as Tony sends them over. (No, that's not a typo.)

Neel Vasavada - Apex Speed Technology

As the months went by we supplied injectors for 450hp turbocharged Suzuki Hayabusa motorcycles, supercharged big block street rods, a Ford GT, a 4 wheel drive Lamborghini, some secret project being put through its paces in an emissions lab, a 12 cylinder BMW engine, and a whole bunch of other crazy applications that I'm too lazy to list.

I'm still waiting for the day that he calls about injectors for an Amtrak train, or maybe an un-manned space vehicle.

I don't know how he does it, but Neel gets himself involved in the most interesting projects. Sometimes I think he's just plain nuts for taking on the projects that he does, but he always comes out smelling like a rose.

Not only are the applications crazy, but the choice of electronics is baffling as well. Motec, EFI Technology, AEM, Pectel, Magneti Marelli, Bosch Motorsports. If it can be hooked up to a laptop he has tuned it.

I don't know the complete history, but I do know that he started at EFI technology, and eventually left to do his own thing which is Apex Speed Technology.

While he's busy traveling around the country and sometimes the rest of the world, his wife Meghan stays at the shop to crack the whip and pay the bills.

Some of these guys have several cool pictures to share but with Neel, you could make a big glossy hardcover book.

I asked him for just a few pics, and you will have to visit his site to see the wide variety of projects he has been involved with.

Hey look, it's another Lamborghini! A Lamborghini LM 002 to be exact. Did you recognize it? I didn't. Apparently it's one of only 40 brought into the US which makes it quite unique.

Since it is unique, Neel just had to stuff a new ECU and fuel injectors into it.

I wonder if he's ever tuned a Ford F150, or a Chevy Cavalier?

Hey, that's not a Lamborghini!

What you see here is Michael Jordan's AMA Superstock Team. Can you tell which one is Michael?

Okay, just kidding.

He hired pros for the job and what you see here is his riders celebrating their one two finish for the 2008 season.

Shouldn't one of them be holding up two fingers?

That's a cool pic, but as I said, it's just the beginning. Go visit the Apex Speed Technology Blog for some more eye candy.

Apex Speed Technology Blog

Mark Blaha - Mahle Powertrain, LLC

Once racing gets to the level of factory funded teams, the engine builders tuners and engineers work in the background while the drivers get all the press.

And that's just the way these guys like it because they don't have time to talk on the phone, answer emails, or frequent the internet forums. They're busy building horsepower.

That being the case I'm not going to tell you much more about Mark except that he built and tuned the motors for the Volvo factory World Challenge team fielded by K-Pax racing.

What I will do is share an email that Mark sent me this afternoon.

Great weekend in front of the home Volvo crowd as their headquarters are in New Jersey. The company gave away 100 tickets to their employees and the head of the North American operations gave the command to start the engines. We qualified 1&2 beating the field by over 2 seconds for the pole time, set fastest lap of the race, and finished 1&2. Thanks for all of your help. Your all part of this win! The link below is to the article on the Speed World Challenge website.

http://www.world-challenge.com/news/story.php?ID=1269

Kind Regards,

Mark Blaha

MAHLE Powertrain, LLC

This really is a Volvo S60.

It doesn't look like your neighbors Volvo does it?

Under the hood you will find a turbocharged 5 cylinder engine fitted with ID1000 injectors controlled by a Motec M800 ECU. If I told you how much power it makes, Mark would have to kill you.

The cars were built by 3R Racing and are fielded by K-Pax Racing.

The cars are driven by Andy Pilgrim and Randy Pobst

Rhys Griffiths - Apex Speed Technology

Rhys and the rest of the Apex crew recently made a trip to the Texas Mile. Rhys didn't want to be left out of the fun, so he took his daily driver.

This email from Rhys sums it all up.

Paul,
Here are some pictures of our bikes at the Texas Mile in March.
We ran your injectors in both Leslie Porterfield’s bike and mine.
My bike is a daily driver with a stock engine, except for a Cometic head gasket and ape head studs.
Scott Horner of Heads Up Performance provided the turbo kit.
On the bike’s third ever run with Scott Horner, an experienced Land speed racer with multiple Bonneville records at the controls the bike ran 205.762mph.
I then got on, and on my second ever pass at a land speed event I ran 201.331mph getting me into the Texas 200mph club.
Due to your injectors, we have been able to put together a street able turbo Hayabusa that starts and idles just as well as a stock bike but also has the ability to run 10psi of boost at 200mph.

Thank you

Here's Rhys with his "daily driver" and the trophy it earned him.

Rumour is that this T-Shirt attracts women like a a Ferrari and an Armani suit.

So who is Leslie Porterfield?

This is Leslie Porterfield.

Any more questions?

And this is the Bike Leslie rode at the Texas Mile.

If you follow the link to Leslie's website you will find that she is responsible for several Land Speed Records.

I know, I know, this is supposed to be about Rhys.

If you need a tuner good enough to make your 200mph 'Busa behave in traffic, call Apex and ask for Rhys.

Taylor Sims - Dallas Performance

He adds variety to this page because instead of traveling all over the country tuning various cool contraptions, he builds them himself and then tunes them.

Taylor does a lot of tuning with factory GM and Ford ECU's which makes him unique in this crowd of Motec tuners.

I first took notice of Taylor when Tony Palo told me "This guy is an awesome fabricator, and is going to use our injectors in a 1000hp Corvette project."

When Tony Palo says someone is an awesome fabricator, you better pay attention!

Here's a few cool pics to get your attention.

Here's a shot of the Dallas Performance Twin Turbo kit for the Ford GT. - 1020rwhp

At the Texas Mile.

Under the hood of John Sblendorio's 1000+hp Vette. Now that's a neat and tidy supercharger install.

To fully appreciate the quality of this guys work, you need to visit his website and check out the performance packages for various American supercars. Hard to tell if they are art or car parts.

Injector Dynamics injectors are being used on race winning, record setting, championship winning cars in all forms of motorsports.

Can any of our competitors offering low cost alternatives say the same?

I'm just getting started, come back soon and see what other race winning, record setting, championship winning vehicles end up here!

Thanks for coming by.

Paul Yaw

Yaw Power Products/Injector Dynamics