CA-Greater SF BayArea: Snail Performance Tuning

I wanted to post my feedback and experience from my recent tuning experience with Snail Performance.

I met and spoke to Travis Barnes of Snail Performance at SubieFest 2013. I knew of him through a few friends in the Bay Area Subaru community and that he recently relocated to California, from Arizona.

I spoke to Travis about my '08 Legacy GT Spec B and what I was planning for it and wanted to have it tuned by him for both 91 and E85. I told him that as soon as my 20g arrives I will be doing the installation work and that I will need to get tuned. I told him I was concerned about the DW 1000cc injectors and that some tuners won't tune on them, and that I purchased the injectors used (from my friend WPMarky, who put down 392 on E85 with his 18g Spec B). He put me at ease and quickly dispelled that myth and said they are no problem. He said to contact him when I'm ready and he'll get me all squared away with the tuning when that time comes.

I emailed Travis my mod list and he called me right back and said Mondays and Tuesdays are best. I mentioned that the BPV was the stocker and he suggested to get a replacement to ensure leak-free boost levels. I also said I have SI Drive and that would like to have varying boost levels when in Sport and Sport# with WG pressure in Intelligent mode, again no problem he'll get me setup.

When I finally got the installation completed and sorted out the minor issues (uppipe leak), I called Travis and left him a voice message on Sunday and said i'm finally ready, and will be there on Tues. He quickly sent me a base map for the 1000cc injectors and also wastegate pressures (finally a little boost!). He said I need to make sure I have only a little 91 in the tank since he'll be tuning on that first. Also, another friend on his monster '06 STi was getting tuned that same morning.

Arrived at my appointment around 1pm with 10 gals. of E85 and a 2 gal. spare of 91 (just in case), the low fuel light came on around 30 miles prior so I calculated the correct distance and remaining fuel. Went and installed the KSTech BigMAF CAI and the car was strapped onto FW Motorsports Mustang Dyno.

Travis asked me what I was looking to achieve, I said what he believes would make the car come alive with safety in mind, so it was 16-17 lbs boost in Sport mode with 91 (355h/346t) and 18-19 in Sport# (374h/367t), and 17-18 lbs on E85 in Sport mode(405/415), with 22 max in Sport# (430/455).

Overall, highly satisfied, excellent experience, and definitely would recommend Travis and Snail Performance for any tuning.

Good to hear you had a good experience with Travis at Snail Performance!!

I also recently went to Snail for a few baseline pulls on their dyno. While I was there I had Travis flash the Cobb OTS Stage1 map, do a few more pulls to document the gains, and to make sure everything was running right. And it was good to talk to someone as knowledgable as Travis.

Now my mods at this point aren't anything like yours 510Finn, they are limited to a set of Nameless Performance axlebacks, an AEM Dryflow filter and the AccessPort. On 91 ACN, my 5th Gen put down 287whp/264wtq on the stock map and 289whp/340wtq on the OTS Stage1 map on the Snail dyno.

When I get to going Stage2, Travis will definitely be doing my Pro-Tune!!!