Smokey’s Dyno shop is located in a strip mall in Akron, Ohio. The plain exterior appearance of the shop is deceiving. Inside, you’ll find a bustling team of mechanics and computer guys providing more power to all sorts of cars and trucks.
Since 2006, Smokey’s has been a full-service, high-performance shop serving luxury, exotic, and performance vehicles. They have a substantial client list including many local dignitaries. Their modifications include custom tuning, wheels and tires, and performance parts. They have worked on everything form Bugattis to Ford Raptor pickups. The team at Smokey’s doesn’t just tune vehicles—they race them as well.
Brandon Masidonski is part owner of Smokey’s Dyno.
I recently visited the facility to speak with Brandon Masidonski, who is part owner of Smokey’s Dyno. Here’s what he had to say.
eBay Motors: What is one of your favorite cars you have tuned?
I enjoy tuning the newer 5.0-liter supercharged Range Rover, because of the amount of power we can pick up on them.
eBay Motors: What are the most popular tuning requests?
Domestic cars are the most popular simply because of the large amount of options for them, as far as parts are concerned. The new factory turbocharged European cars are quickly becoming common for upgrades because of the amount of power we can gain out of them from just a dyno tune.
eBay Motors: Do car computers make tuning them easier or harder?
It’s made it easier simply because we can monitor all the sensors in the vehicle and use them to our advantage to make calculated adjustments to increase the horsepower, torque, and drivability of the car.
eBay Motors: With high-performance models like the Dodge Hellcat offering a lot of power right from the factory, do you see a decline in your business?
No. As a matter of fact vehicles like the Hellcat have room for improvement from the factory that allows us to unlock even more power from the car.
Smokey’s has worked on everything from Bugattis to Raptor pickups.
eBay Motors: What is a simple, at-home modification many people can do which will quickly improve performance?
The most common upgrade on most vehicles is an air intake. This can be done fairly easy depending on the application. In most cases, it can improve performance out of the box. But, as with any modification, the only way to unlock the full potential of adding the part is to have the vehicle dyno tuned afterwards to get everything running optimally.
eBay Motors: What is most often overlooked when people tune cars?
The major factors we monitor during a tune are air-fuel ratio and timing. Depending on the modifications done to the vehicle there is an optimum air-fuel ratio that we adjust to increase timing to a safe level that will not allow there to be any engine-knock based off the octane fuel the customer is running in their car. There are a large number of other sensors we monitor and use to make changes with every tune we do here.
Domestics are the most common candidates for tuning but turbocharged imports are becoming increasingly popular.
eBay Motors: What do you think of the new trend toward smaller displacement turbo-charged engines?
I am very happy that manufacturers are doing this. When a turbo is added to the engine from the factory, it allows us to achieve larger gains simply from a doing a dyno tune on the vehicle. On most factory turbocharged cars we are getting anywhere from 40 to 120 safe extra horsepower out of the cars with no additional modifications.
