Shawn Ellis SSI Tune Review

Hey guys!
So i have a modded raptor (look in signature for specifics) and before today it was tuned by Hovig Makhtarian who is an Armenian guy and is known for being the best tuner in the region.
However one of my friends referred me to Mr.Shawn Ellis of southern speed inc. although i had doubts i decided to go with it and honestly i'm glad i did.


Service

at first i experienced some issues with my SCT device, and saying that Shawn went the extra mile is honestly an understatement. He personally get involved called SCT, got them working on my device in a matter of minutes.
Since this was my first time tuning the car myself, he put up with my retardedness and gave me a step by step guide over the phone, he stayed extra hours just to get my car to 100%.

Tune Review

Now as i said, my car was previously dyno tuned by one of the best tuners in the region, i mean people drive hundreds of miles from different countries just to have him tune their cars and Shawn made him look like an amateur.
While i haven't tried the 5 star tune (nor am i taking away from their awesomeness) i honestly can't expect anything better than this. The car shifts incredibly smoothly, gained lots and lots of HP and is overall much quicker even though its incredibly hot and humid in here (today we reached 131F or 55C).

Overall

I honestly believe that a product is only as good as the service provided and this guy takes care of his customers and wont rest until they are 100% satisfied. As for the tune, i could write an essay describing the tune however i can describe it as simply the best there is.

Shawn works at Southern Speed Inc. and i really recommend that people try this tune.

p.s if you look him up you will find a bunch of people on other forums saying that he doesn't send them the tune and are calling him a thief. simply a load of BS, a guy this devoted to his work and clients could never do anything like what they described him doing.

p.p.s Yes, It really does get that hot.
No, the car was not parked in the sun in fact i was driving around for about 45-60 minutes when i took the picture.

I am glad to hear your experience went well.

I will preface this with I know Shawn has been trying to get into the Raptor and 6.2 market, so to hear he went the extra mile doesn't surprise me.

I had a SSI tune and personally dealt with Shawn on my EcoBoost. I walked away from Shawn due to poor customer service, not being able to fix my truck with a 'custom' tune and excuses on why it didn't work every time I called/emailed him.

If you do some research in the F150 Forum alone, you will see he is the most controversial tuner by far of all. He seems to have a clan that goes to the far ends to defend him on any negative comments posted. I was a member of the SSI forum as well and can definitely confirm he posts some pretty negative and poor comments to and about others.

I dealt with him over a year and a half, paying him more $ along the way as the next tune was that much better and fixed the other issues, or his PC died and he lost my files and had to rebuild so that rebuild was a cost upgrade and then another crash and his backup service also failed along with guys stealing from him, but I'd get a discount for multiple tunes...stories all sounded plausible and a nice guy on the phone. Truck was very fun to drive but had a surging issue he could not fix. I am still convinced it was overbuilding boost causing the blow off to operate and then getting the surge sensation. It would not happen stock. I honestly figured once he fixed my surge issue I would get a tune for my Raptor from him. When I called him the last time he suggested I take it in to Ford and have them look at it. They couldn't find anything but since there was an updated strategy Ford updated it. Well now I needed a new tune file to match my strategy and called Shawn and he wanted more $, with minimal discount as he yet had a newer tune out. I paid for 3 upgrades and none of them worked properly so I wasn't about to pay again.
Since complaining about my issue of surging on the forum I found many others that walked away from SSI as well with very similar stories "oh your the only one having this issue" "I swear I'll get to the bottom of this and get it figured out"....the other thing is I really think more people are having the issue but it really only shows up in certain situations and especially on longer road trips...
Again I am glad your experience has been good, but I would caution you and others in the future.

gwpfan said:

I am glad to hear your experience went well.

I will preface this with I know Shawn has been trying to get into the Raptor and 6.2 market, so to hear he went the extra mile doesn't surprise me.

I had a SSI tune and personally dealt with Shawn on my EcoBoost. I walked away from Shawn due to poor customer service, not being able to fix my truck with a 'custom' tune and excuses on why it didn't work every time I called/emailed him.

If you do some research in the F150 Forum alone, you will see he is the most controversial tuner by far of all. He seems to have a clan that goes to the far ends to defend him on any negative comments posted. I was a member of the SSI forum as well and can definitely confirm he posts some pretty negative and poor comments to and about others.

I dealt with him over a year and a half, paying him more $ along the way as the next tune was that much better and fixed the other issues, or his PC died and he lost my files and had to rebuild so that rebuild was a cost upgrade and then another crash and his backup service also failed along with guys stealing from him, but I'd get a discount for multiple tunes...stories all sounded plausible and a nice guy on the phone. Truck was very fun to drive but had a surging issue he could not fix. I am still convinced it was overbuilding boost causing the blow off to operate and then getting the surge sensation. It would not happen stock. I honestly figured once he fixed my surge issue I would get a tune for my Raptor from him. When I called him the last time he suggested I take it in to Ford and have them look at it. They couldn't find anything but since there was an updated strategy Ford updated it. Well now I needed a new tune file to match my strategy and called Shawn and he wanted more $, with minimal discount as he yet had a newer tune out. I paid for 3 upgrades and none of them worked properly so I wasn't about to pay again.
Since complaining about my issue of surging on the forum I found many others that walked away from SSI as well with very similar stories "oh your the only one having this issue" "I swear I'll get to the bottom of this and get it figured out"....the other thing is I really think more people are having the issue but it really only shows up in certain situations and especially on longer road trips...
Again I am glad your experience has been good, but I would caution you and others in the future.

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Hi there, thanks for sharing your experience.
I read the comments on F150forum however i deemed them as false straight away as i could not believe shawn could do this, your experience may give them plausibility.
However, did you try to contact him and explain your frustration? I'm sure he'd help
Never the less, since his customer service reputation is arguable, i can tell you something that is definitely a fact.
My truck was a lot more powerful after his tune, and so far his tune is safe although under heavy wheel spin in first gear on the road the rpm does go past 6k and that worries me a bit but only happened to me once and since then I'm a lot more careful about WOT at low speeds.
otherwise his tune for the RAPTOR is excellent.
About the surging thing did you replace the blow off valve? i don't have a lot of experience with the Ecoboost but i heard that after tuning you need to replace the BOV along with another part that i can't remember.

Im sorry you had such a terrible experience i really think you should give him the benefit of the doubt and give him another chance, worth a try really you can't be losing anything.

Again, thank you for sharing your experience and i wish you the best of luck with your raptor!

I gave Shawn plenty of chances, well over a dozen and the benefit of the doubt, it was a year and a half ordeal. Even at the beginning he had me mixed up with someone else that lived in the same city as me and claimed I stole from him. We got that straightened out, he made an incorrect assumption I was the other guy. The biggest thing is don't lie to me - "no one else is having this problem" yet when I talk to others I find out they were as well. Shawn even asked me to keep it quiet while he worked it out, which I did until I decided enough was enough - again a year and a half.

There are/were two blow off valve types, one electric and one mechanical. I was told my blow off valve was not the issue. I sent at least a half dozen logs, told rear end was wrong, strategy code was wrong, etc when I had proof I sent him the correct info all along. Ended up having to take pictures to help prove it to him. Took it to Ford twice to be checked out based on his suggestions. They didn't find anything either time. I changed plugs, re-gapped numerous times and more.
When I signed up he had free tunes for life (same truck and if your strategy code was updated he would update at no additional charge). When I took my truck in the last time on his suggestion Ford updated the strategy code. When I called Shawn to get an updated file, "Sorry man that free tunes for life was a bad business decision. For $150 I will update all 3 of your tunes." "But you never fixed my original issue." "I know but this tune will fix it and $150 is a deal." "But again you never fixed the original problem, why would I pay again when I've been told the same numerous times in the past and it still hasn't been solved?" "Sorry man it was just a bad business decision that I am no longer supporting."
I can understand a business decision, but to know that I still had the problem and I paid for a number of past updates that never fixed the issue and yet ask for more $, I was done.

I will say the truck was very fun to drive when tuned and again I am glad your experience was good. The other thing is Shawn doesn't like email, he likes a phone call. This kind of sucks because that was part of the confusion, he wanted my code over the phone, which I gave him along with rear end and then also sent him an email on it yet it still got messed up. Pretty hard to disprove an email and that's what I had to go back to prove to him I gave him the correct info.

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Badass69 said:

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I thought you had posted something...changed your mind or?

Badass69 said:

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I hope you worked things out with shawn?
let us know how things turned out!

Hows the update with SSI?

I recently purchased an SCT X4 tuning module for my 17’ Raptor, and went looking for tuners. After calling around to a few, I spoke with Shawn Ellis at SSI. If anyone’s dealt with SSI, you’ve spoken to this *******. You don’t get a landline, you get his personal cellphone number. He’s too low level.

when he answered the phone, he sounded like a used car salesman. The guy couldn’t praise himself enough during the conversation (which I should have taken as a bad sign). Unfortunately, I did not. I paid this guy for two tunes and was told he’d have them the next day. I reached out to him a couple days later, and he acted like he’d never heard of me before. Another red flag I chose to ignore.

when I finally received the tunes, I was semi impressed. They were definitely more aggressive than the stock tune. However, some seriously concerning up-shifting (or lack of) between 1st and 2nd started to occur. I’d start to redline between those two gears and the truck wouldn’t shift without letting off the gas. And that was just by rolling on the gas in the first place.

I immediately swapped the tune back to stock, and contacted Shawn. He asked me to shoot him an email and he’d correct what was happening.

I attempted several times to contact him via email and phone to no avail. This evening, I called his phone at 6pm and he finally answered. The only time he’s answered is after 5pm PST, and he’s always drinking. I know because he tells me that’s what he’s doing. “I’m out having drinks, what’s up?”



I explained to him that I’ve tried leaving emails and voicemails, but haven’t had any response. I’ve called during normal business hours and this is the only time he’s picked up. That’s when things turned south real quick. This belligerent ******* pops off on me like a true alcoholic. Spouting insults and name calling one would only expect from someone in a similarly drunken stupor. This happened back and forth through phone calls of him constantly hanging up on me, and text messages. I finally told him to keep the money I paid and didn’t want any part of his business.

ong story short, **** this guy and his business. I wouldn’t recommend him to my worst enemy. Oh, wait. Maybe that I would, but not to a stranger. Hope this helps you out if you’re looking for a decent tuner and not some low-life alcoholic ****** posing as one.