# Switched from Trifecta to BNR Tune & WOWWWW!



## bL1Nd (Aug 26, 2014)

Listen up, I had the worst experience with Trifecta, they have god awful customer service and extremely low quality tuning, I almost blew up my turbo running their garbage - but that's a whole other review for a whole other post...

I just wanted to say from day one of making the switch, my questions were answered in timely fashion, communication was on point, the quality of items sent to me (EFI Live handheld/cords) are top notch, easy to use, super quick loading and can store multiple tunes. 

Jerry spent a great chunk of his day reading my logs and slowly tweaking them up to where I am today - which is dialled in. 

THE CAR PULLS HARDER AND FASTER THEN EVER BEFORE, he even backed off my tune a bit because he wanted to make sure I was safe zoned. That was when I realized he cares. Unlike Trifecta. Leaving Trifecta was the BEST decision I've made for my car. 

DO NOT BE CHEAP! if you're going to mess with your vehicles ECM, do it with trained professionals. Trifecta is not that. 
Unfortunately this forum is littered with people who joined the Trifecta hype train that occured about a year ago, (such as myself) since then BNR EFI live came into the market and many many Cruzes have made the switch and ALL - and I mean ALL, have said they are glad they did. 

Good luck finding someone who's made the switch and say they wish they were with Trifecta still. That is not possible.

5/5 Performance - 5/5 Customer Service.

Will continue to do business with Jerry @ BNR.


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## titan2782 (Nov 4, 2011)

I always disliked Trifecta's business model and their customer service was terrible. I'd get responses like, "Well, maybe you just bought a Cruze that was built on a Friday" and I had to use a dyno to prove the select-a-tune wasn't working before they'd do something about it and then all of the sudden, "oh yeah, others have reported it as well". Also not allowing vendors to view the logs, which meant depending on Trifecta to review them which made for terrible process and caused vendors nothing but trouble. That may have gotten better after I left, but I'm glad to see that BNR is doing their own thing and it's working. Lot of good options for tunes now for you guys, that's awesome!

Any before/after dyno sheets?


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## razercruze15 (Feb 15, 2016)

Thanks for the input, personally I'm looking at a tune for my next performance mod and already having the K & N intake, sounds like BNR is the way to go. Can't wait. A dyno sheet would be awesome too. What else do you have on the car?


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## Terryk2003 (Sep 22, 2014)

I've also made the switch. I am just getting started with the base BNR tune though so I don't have much input as far as performance goes as mine is not dialed in just yet. I can say that Jerry's customer service is great, and has been even before purchasing the tune. One thing to remember when dealing with Jerry though is that he is a very busy guy so he may not get back to you right away, but he will get back to you. A lot of times into the late hours of the night. Highly recommended and can't wait to get my tune dialed in!


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## Patman (May 7, 2011)

Been wondering about my car and MPG since I installed the Trifecta tune. As some of you may remember, I installed then uninstalled then they had a Select a tune upgrade which I am currently running. I am kinda on the fence about the performance of the car and now hearing this should I switch? I have always been a person that kinda "settled and said that is how it is" I am not looking to race my car etc. but I am looking for getting my car to run its best and I am not sure the Trifecta tune is doing that!? It does seem since I installed the Trifecta tune, I don't hear my turbo much and power? I don't like to continually "tinker" with things either like I felt I was doing since I installed Trifecta Ideas? Give BNR a shot?


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## NickD (Dec 10, 2011)

Can't believe my stock Cruze averaged 38.5 mpg driving at 75 mph on winter gas on a 380 mile trip last week. What I put in the tank or get struck with, is my major problem. Keep the air cleaner clean, good spark plugs. Higher octane with an anti-knock sensor provides more spark advance for a long combustion chamber cycle.

Running either too rich or too lean has problems, former, excess carbon build up and a much shorter life on the catalytic converter, latter, combustion temperatures increase burning out valves.

Not easy to get the specs on all the sensors, in particular with GM, but sure have these for my Supra, full curves and all can be bench tested to these specs. Idiot CEL only detects an open or a short, nothing to do with the linearity of these analog sensors.

Admit to being both dumb and stupid with a tune, but would like to know exactly what parameters are being changed, and how its affecting the overall reliability of that very tiny little 1.4 engine.

Ha, been asking this same question for over four years now. Air cleaners and exhaust only make more noise, but zero in performance. 

Main attraction for both my wife and myself after test driving a lot of competitive vehicles, Cruze was the quietest. Like to keep it this way.


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## razercruze15 (Feb 15, 2016)

NickD said:


> Can't believe my stock Cruze averaged 38.5 mpg driving at 75 mph on winter gas on a 380 mile trip last week. What I put in the tank or get struck with, is my major problem. Keep the air cleaner clean, good spark plugs. Higher octane with an anti-knock sensor provides more spark advance for a long combustion chamber cycle.
> 
> Running either too rich or too lean has problems, former, excess carbon build up and a much shorter life on the catalytic converter, latter, combustion temperatures increase burning out valves.
> 
> ...


a little off topic, but I test drove the new volt today. It actually shocked me, as I would expect a hybrid/partial EV to drive weird/numb. It had more power (HP, not just the electric motor's 100% torque) than my 1.4T cruze, and it had a smoother ride too. Very nice car. Lease special was 399 with 3988 down, and get $500 tax credit from government, $1500 cash check from state, and HOV/carpool lane access....itll prolly be the cruze's replacement as a DD. DUring my fairly long test drive where I was Heavy on the gas/throttle I used 0 gas. Was impressed.


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## bL1Nd (Aug 26, 2014)

woops double post!


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## bL1Nd (Aug 26, 2014)

I personally do not have Dyno's but there are a few out there who have and are showing 177whp/235wtrq. Which on the road feels great, the car has a very smooth acceleration. One thing I noticed on the Trifecta tune was my car was surging with power, I figured it was my spark plugs blown out - but nope it was the tune. He sent me a screen shot of the data log to prove it.

Click this to see it --- SEE THE GREEN LINE? That should be somewhat flat, thats power surging. Waste gate is drunk.

View attachment 183681


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## LiveTrash (May 24, 2015)

bL1Nd said:


> Listen up, I had the worst experience with Trifecta, they have god awful customer service and extremely low quality tuning, I almost blew up my turbo running their garbage - but that's a whole other review for a whole other post...
> 
> I just wanted to say from day one of making the switch, my questions were answered in timely fashion, communication was on point, the quality of items sent to me (EFI Live handheld/cords) are top notch, easy to use, super quick loading and can store multiple tunes.
> 
> ...


No tune is going to be perfect. All of them are going to put extra wear on your vehicle's engine. When you say it pulls harder with BNR than Trifecta but it's in a "safe zone" doesn't make sense. I went with Trifecta because I feel they deliver power that isn't too excessive. I've never had any problems with my car. Maybe there were just some bad components in your car that cause your problems.


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## neginfluence04 (May 14, 2015)

I have to disagree and say that Trifecta has gone above and beyond on more than one occasion for me. I don't have a BNR or other tune to compare them to but my car pulls hard as **** through the whole power band. As far as their customer service goes I have YET to wait longer than 1-2 business days for a response to a question or for them to address an issue or concern.


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## Iamantman (Sep 24, 2018)

Sorry this is old but just read through and my gut reaction is that the OP feels "wronged" so he gave a 1 star review which is kind of shitty. I haven't tried either tune yet though so full disclosure, but I've read and watched enough videos/reviews to feel confident with either tune honestly. BNR seems like they go for the absolute maximum though, so like another user said I'd honestly probably go with Trifecta when I do because they're not going to be putting as much strain on the drivetrain in the long term. I don't want a car with 50,000 miles that runs like **** because I was squeezing another 20 hp out of a small 4 cylinder ya know?


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## XtremeRevolution (Jan 19, 2012)

Iamantman said:


> Sorry this is old but just read through and my gut reaction is that the OP feels "wronged" so he gave a 1 star review which is kind of shitty. I haven't tried either tune yet though so full disclosure, but I've read and watched enough videos/reviews to feel confident with either tune honestly. BNR seems like they go for the absolute maximum though, so like another user said I'd honestly probably go with Trifecta when I do because they're not going to be putting as much strain on the drivetrain in the long term. I don't want a car with 50,000 miles that runs like **** because I was squeezing another 20 hp out of a small 4 cylinder ya know?


They don't go for maximum, they simply find ways to make power that Trifecta doesn't. Simple as that. They have more experience tuning more modifications and making more power, and know how to make it safely. Want a mild tune? They can do that. Want a hot tune? They can do that too. Their standard tune is 100% safe, as I can attest to from some ridiculously harsh driving. I tow with my Cruze, which means high boost for extended periods of time, and the BNR tune has been absolutely solid. 

The drivetrain can take everything a BNR tune can throw at it, and then some. I have 74,000 miles on mine and my internals are perfect (partly thanks to AMSOIL). I don't consume any measurable amount of oil in a 12,000 mile oil change interval, I get great fuel economy (when I try), the tune is strong and smooth all the way up to redline, and the modification support is great. 

This year, I threw on the BNR GTX turbo, stiffer valve springs, wastegate actuator, LS7 coils, and e85 kit. Currently still on pump 93 but I've been thrashing it hard whenever I drive and the valvetrain is still solid.


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## Iamantman (Sep 24, 2018)

XtremeRevolution said:


> They don't go for maximum, they simply find ways to make power that Trifecta doesn't. Simple as that. They have more experience tuning more modifications and making more power, and know how to make it safely. Want a mild tune? They can do that. Want a hot tune? They can do that too. Their standard tune is 100% safe, as I can attest to from some ridiculously harsh driving. I tow with my Cruze, which means high boost for extended periods of time, and the BNR tune has been absolutely solid.
> 
> The drivetrain can take everything a BNR tune can throw at it, and then some. I have 74,000 miles on mine and my internals are perfect (partly thanks to AMSOIL). I don't consume any measurable amount of oil in a 12,000 mile oil change interval, I get great fuel economy (when I try), the tune is strong and smooth all the way up to redline, and the modification support is great.
> 
> This year, I threw on the BNR GTX turbo, stiffer valve springs, wastegate actuator, LS7 coils, and e85 kit. Currently still on pump 93 but I've been thrashing it hard whenever I drive and the valvetrain is still solid.


Well that's good to hear (except the amsoil plug from a dealer haha) but in all seriousness that kind of long term results mean so much more than "I just installed this thing a week ago and it's great!"

The OPs response still felt salty though and I think it's misguided behavior to bash an entire company for one bad result. I have that pet peeve with all products though so I'm always a bit defensive when I see posts like this. 

On a side note, what's the story with BNR and Trifecta? I can't seem to find that anywhere online. It sounds like they used to be one company and had a split?


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## XtremeRevolution (Jan 19, 2012)

Iamantman said:


> Well that's good to hear (except the amsoil plug from a dealer haha) but in all seriousness that kind of long term results mean so much more than "I just installed this thing a week ago and it's great!"
> 
> The OPs response still felt salty though and I think it's misguided behavior to bash an entire company for one bad result. I have that pet peeve with all products though so I'm always a bit defensive when I see posts like this.
> 
> On a side note, what's the story with BNR and Trifecta? I can't seem to find that anywhere online. It sounds like they used to be one company and had a split?


Trifecta's support a few years back was questionable at best and outright atrocious if we're being honest. They seem to have improved lately. 

I work from home full time so I don't care for fuel economy anymore. I just have fun with my cars when I go out, so it's all wide open throttle driving to redline. My redline is currently 8000 RPM, and I'll typically shift somewhere between 7200 and 7500 if I'm on the highway. I can top 70mph in 2nd gear, haha. Still, that's been my driving style for the past 3 years. When I pulled the cam caps off to do the valve springs in the spring of this year, the factory crosshatch was still on them. Zero wear, zero deposits anywhere. Everything was spotless. AMSOIL did its job, and clearly the extra power wasn't harming anything in my engine. I was impressed. I'll post pictures here at some point so you can see what they look like. It was at around 12,500 miles on the oil (over 2 years), when I pulled it apart, and I was so impressed that I proceeded to burn 2/3 a tank of gas datalogging with the new modifications at high boost levels on the old oil before changing it. The car handles the power levels just fine. 

As for the story, here's how I remember it. Some time in 2014, BNR set up a group buy for Trifecta tunes, which they used to sell. People expected a SAT (select-a-tune) style tune. After orders were taken and payments received, Trifecta delivered a PAL tune. People were very unhappy. To make matters worse, I had actually tested that tune for Trifecta and told them it was undriveable, but they released it anyway. A significant number of people felt the same as I did, and it turned out to be a throttle mapping inconsistency that resulted in the gas pedal being an on/off switch. Undriveable. The dissatisfaction in receiving a tune other than what they expected (and paid for), and the issues people had with the tune flat out not running right, and not being resolved for months, left a sour taste in many peoples' mouths with Trifecta. To top this off, BNR was told not to say anything and to let WOT Tuning; Trifecta's support "company," handle the issues. They promptly placed the blame on BNR (threw them under the bus), for a "miscommunication issue" with customers. That's when their relationship ended, and BNR started developing their own tune. They were able to make a better tune that held power more consistently in the top end, and right around the same time. Trifecta's owner became absent from the forums. WOT Tuning's service degraded, and I even had friends sell their cars because of how bad the tune was, believing it to be too slow on the stock tune. 

I've talked to Trifecta's owner since and they're trying to repair the damage done, but everyone knows that it's much harder to regain someone's trust once it's lost. BNR has been a community supporter here since this forum was started and never stopped supporting our platform. The fact that their tune makes more power is just a bonus in my mind. They develop new parts and are constantly trying to improve the platform, whereas until recently, Trifecta only sold canned tunes (with perhaps a few changes if you bought their most expensive option).


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## Iamantman (Sep 24, 2018)

XtremeRevolution said:


> Trifecta's support a few years back was questionable at best and outright atrocious if we're being honest. They seem to have improved lately.
> 
> I work from home full time so I don't care for fuel economy anymore. I just have fun with my cars when I go out, so it's all wide open throttle driving to redline. My redline is currently 8000 RPM, and I'll typically shift somewhere between 7200 and 7500 if I'm on the highway. I can top 70mph in 2nd gear, haha. Still, that's been my driving style for the past 3 years. When I pulled the cam caps off to do the valve springs in the spring of this year, the factory crosshatch was still on them. Zero wear, zero deposits anywhere. Everything was spotless. AMSOIL did its job, and clearly the extra power wasn't harming anything in my engine. I was impressed. I'll post pictures here at some point so you can see what they look like. It was at around 12,500 miles on the oil (over 2 years), when I pulled it apart, and I was so impressed that I proceeded to burn 2/3 a tank of gas datalogging with the new modifications at high boost levels on the old oil before changing it. The car handles the power levels just fine.
> 
> ...


Ah I see. That's pretty interesting. I've seen similar situations with other companies/products where there was a rough start that burned a lot of bridges and then a couple years later new users came in unaware of the past drama. Well hopefully they have learned from their mistakes from a customer service standpoint, it does seem like the product has improved though. You don't see a whole lot of complaints online lately so that's probably a good sign.


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## pontiacgt (Jan 12, 2011)

There have also been people on here with Gen 2 installs from Trifecta and they have been happy with them after they made some changes. So it seems they have fixed their issues some.


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## MP81 (Jul 20, 2015)

XtremeRevolution said:


> whereas until recently, Trifecta only sold canned tunes (with perhaps a few changes if you bought their most expensive option).


Maybe for the Cruze, but their Cobalt support was always top notch and entirely customizable. Has been over 9 years since I got my initial tune for the M62 swap from them. Vince and I must've tweaked the tune 15 or 20 times (I had some very strange sensor issues that were only able to be solved once the car _finally _popped a code, so there were a lot of changes we tried to fix that issue) getting it **** near perfect. I've had a couple updates to it in recent years (one to tweak for the slight difference in diameter on my 225/40R18 ZIIs vs the stock 195/60R15 tires, and another to try and help the car behave correctly on the dyno).

But they didn't have "levels" of tunes back then, either.


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## XtremeRevolution (Jan 19, 2012)

MP81 said:


> Maybe for the Cruze, but their Cobalt support was always top notch and entirely customizable. Has been over 9 years since I got my initial tune for the M62 swap from them. Vince and I must've tweaked the tune 15 or 20 times (I had some very strange sensor issues that were only able to be solved once the car _finally _popped a code, so there were a lot of changes we tried to fix that issue) getting it **** near perfect. I've had a couple updates to it in recent years (one to tweak for the slight difference in diameter on my 225/40R18 ZIIs vs the stock 195/60R15 tires, and another to try and help the car behave correctly on the dyno).
> 
> But they didn't have "levels" of tunes back then, either.


Have you visited the Regal, Cobalt, and Malibu groups lately and asked about Trifecta? I'll leave it at that.


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## sailurman (Sep 29, 2016)

All I can say is that I purchased the Trifecta Select-a-tune(Cruise Control Engaged - ECO Mode, Cruise Control Disengaged - Performance Mode)years back for my 2013 Sonic 1.4T Automatic from BNR and the tune was SPOT-ON. The performance tune was aggressive and the ECO tune gave me amazing gas mileage (when I could get myself from using the performance mode with a Cheshire Cat smile on my face). I had a couple of questions that were responded to in a reasonable amount of time (1-3 business days). I was (and still am) a satisfied BNR sold Trifecta Tune customer.


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## sailurman (Sep 29, 2016)

3/27/2013
TRI-SONIC14
Trifecta Tune 2012-2013 Chevrolet Sonic 1.4L Turbo
*Transmission Type: Automatic
Modifications: Injen CAI
Tune Requests: AT Tune ECO Mode Select-a-tune *


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## TRIFECTA (Feb 17, 2011)

Iamantman said:


> Ah I see. That's pretty interesting. I've seen similar situations with other companies/products where there was a rough start that burned a lot of bridges and then a couple years later new users came in unaware of the past drama. Well hopefully they have learned from their mistakes from a customer service standpoint, it does seem like the product has improved though. You don't see a whole lot of complaints online lately so that's probably a good sign.





pontiacgt said:


> There have also been people on here with Gen 2 installs from Trifecta and they have been happy with them after they made some changes. So it seems they have fixed their issues some.





MP81 said:


> Maybe for the Cruze, but their Cobalt support was always top notch and entirely customizable. Has been over 9 years since I got my initial tune for the M62 swap from them. Vince and I must've tweaked the tune 15 or 20 times (I had some very strange sensor issues that were only able to be solved once the car _finally _popped a code, so there were a lot of changes we tried to fix that issue) getting it **** near perfect. I've had a couple updates to it in recent years (one to tweak for the slight difference in diameter on my 225/40R18 ZIIs vs the stock 195/60R15 tires, and another to try and help the car behave correctly on the dyno).
> 
> But they didn't have "levels" of tunes back then, either.





sailurman said:


> All I can say is that I purchased the Trifecta Select-a-tune(Cruise Control Engaged - ECO Mode, Cruise Control Disengaged - Performance Mode)years back for my 2013 Sonic 1.4T Automatic from BNR and the tune was SPOT-ON. The performance tune was aggressive and the ECO tune gave me amazing gas mileage (when I could get myself from using the performance mode with a Cheshire Cat smile on my face). I had a couple of questions that were responded to in a reasonable amount of time (1-3 business days). I was (and still am) a satisfied BNR sold Trifecta Tune customer.


We appreciate the awesome feedback guys and the recognition that what was mentioned was over 4 years ago. We're still here and in fact, we never left the community, despite what some might have you believe. The mistake in that release 4 years ago was corrected, and then corrected again and the calibration offering has done nothing but gotten better over time as we continued to refine it and the features we offer.

As always, there are two sides to every story. Details that are omitted or simply not shared or even known. Fact is, we continued, and still continue to develop exciting features for the platform. As far as he "canned" tune comment goes, thats a bit of misleading comment since we've ALWAYS supported modifications on most platforms we offer calibration products for. Here are just a few threads to projects we had/have going on and support for new mods we have added:

https://www.cruzetalk.com/forum/257...fecta-chevrolet-cruze-1-4t-intake-mpfabs.html

https://www.cruzetalk.com/forum/257...-results-racer-x-luj-luv-intake-manifold.html

https://www.cruzetalk.com/forum/9-g...more-power-more-fun-your-chevrolet-cruze.html

https://www.cruzetalk.com/forum/34-gen1-1-4l-turbo/235293-trifecta-billet-bits-your-gen1-cruze.html

https://www.cruzetalk.com/forum/34-...theres-enough-fuel-injector-here-1600whp.html

https://www.cruzetalk.com/forum/377...ta-gen2-cruze-1-4t-turbo-upgrade-testing.html

https://www.cruzetalk.com/forum/257...0-lb-hr-fuel-injectors-your-1-4t-luj-luv.html

https://www.cruzetalk.com/forum/377-gen2-powertrain/224537-trifecta-cruze-ss-build.html

So, anyone that says we do not develop for the platform is flat out wrong and misinformed. Anyone that says we don't support mods, is misinformed. Anyone that says we charge for tweaks/tune revisions, is misinformed. Just contact us for more information and we will be happy to answer any questions.

We care about this platform and the people that are a part of it


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## sailurman (Sep 29, 2016)

TRIFECTA said:


> We appreciate the awesome feedback guys and the recognition that what was mentioned was over 4 years ago. We're still here and in fact, we never left the community, despite what some might have you believe. The mistake in that release 4 years ago was corrected, and then corrected again and the calibration offering has done nothing but gotten better over time as we continued to refine it and the features we offer.
> 
> As always, there are two sides to every story. Details that are omitted or simply not shared or even known. Fact is, we continued, and still continue to develop exciting features for the platform. As far as he "canned" tune comment goes, thats a bit of misleading comment since we've ALWAYS supported modifications on most platforms we offer calibration products for. Here are just a few threads to projects we had/have going on and support for new mods we have added:
> 
> ...


Well be sure to remember me on Black Friday in case I break down for my Diesel Tune:sigh:


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