Ok, maybe I missed something. What was actually done to the car that it need this 500 mile break in? I assume pistons and or rings? Why would this affect it's daily driveability? I know a tiny bit about motors and this seems a little confusing.
New forged pistons, new bearings, Proprietary Macedo Cam, Jeff Morys Street Striker heads, port match Roe intake manifold, new fuel system, David Weaver Crank Pulley, 10 pound Roe pulley, new stock clutch, original flywheel reinstalled, a lot of etc., crankcase blowoff electric pump, new older model PCM, a lot more etc., custom roll bar/cage, extra Roe water/methanol tank, fire extinguisher, 6 point seat belts, & more etc.
500 mile break in is for piston rings and clutch, I understand.
Daily driver drivability severely compromised by violent surging a low constant RPM, but greatly improved by addition of grounding wires to TPS and PCM, but still very much present. Also, high idle hang up around 2,000 RPM for over 2 minutes in neutral and longer hang up in gear (think cruise control). Also hard starting and often gets caught in a loop where the engine must be shut off before it will run with a load on it (driving on a street). Most people I've talked to think it's a too agressive cam profile, a few think it's the Striker heads, and some think it's a combination, and a few think I have a vacuum leak.
Kenny, I agree if you give a car to a TUNER and pay all that money, it should be tuned right as promised. I know there are always 3 sides to every story, but Larry hasn't added much to another side, so I have to believe Kenny is honest in the course of events.
Larry told me it ran pretty close to perfect in Florida except the intermittant loop problem when starting a cold engine. He was very surprised it ran as poorly as it did ince the temperature got above 85 degrees. The hotter the air temperature, the worse it ran. Larry was pretty sure it's because Ohio at 975 feet is so much above sea level compared to Florida. He also thought there would be much higher power numbers once the 500 miles was completed and he was getting a knock sensor that he was going to bring with him when he came back to Ohio in a few weeks after that. Unfortunately, he had a family matter come up and wasn't able to return to Ohio to retune my car and another Viper at the same trip. I sent Larry reports on how my car was driving on lightly traveled country roads along with temperatures and humidity so he could reprogram the VEC2 cards. He was only able to retune my car using the VEC2 cards once and it did run better out on country roads, but the surging, high idle hang up, hard starting became the main issue. Larry has emailed the programs to Superdavz, another Viper owner near me and I should get the new VEC2 cards tomorrow. I don't know if Larry has improved the tune on them or not at this point.
Larry is trying to get it tuned right...it's just taking a whole lot longer than expected.
Kenny, I do think you are crazy installing the AEM, unless Larry is giving it to you for free, because the current setup he sold you doesn't work. If not, I sure hope shipping and any other charges are non existent. Do you have a guarantee the car will run as promised after the AEM is installed? Anyway, getting back to the beginning of my post, I hope I'm wrong about what was installed. I'm hoping it's some magic newly discovered stuff that was installed, that actually takes 500 miles for it to run right.
A lot of people think I'm crazy, and that was before I even knew what an AEM was. No, Larry isn't giving me the AEM for free and it was not in any of the original estimates, but he is very concerned about getting my car to run right. There are installation and tuning charges also.
I've asked Larry about a guarantee on the car running right once the AEM is installed and tuned, but he hasn't answered me yet, and I'll ask him again.
Other than the two fuses blowing on the first two runs on a track, I'd say the car has a lot more power than I had before, and Larry is the expert on the engine, so if he says he can get more power out of it once 500 miles are put on it I don't doubt him.