What does Giles do that I can't?

[gilligan5000]

Everyone always talks about these Giles pumps and how awesome they are, but what does he do that a DIY'er can't?  Does anyone actually know exactly what he does to them?  Please tell me what he does to justify the price!
 

[subsonic]

We can't tell ya, because he won't tell us
The price appears high, but its in line really with the market place.
Price a new (reman) pump with a core charge.  Not just a re-seal.
So you get basicly a new pump with the added feature that it has been modified for performance.  Is it better than what someone else can do with a rebuild and turned up fuel screw? Who knows?  He is king of the mountain for now.
I would not mind seeing  someone put together a pump for the same or less money and have head to head tests runs.  Perhaps a well built 1.6 or 1.9 on a Dyno.  Run it hard, Swap the IP, Run it hard again! That could be verrry interesting..... :twisted:

[saurkraut]

I was thinking about sending a pump to him, but I've found that didling with the LDA pin and the high speed throttle stop (governor screw?) i can put more fuel into my engine than it can handle (EGT wise) at 20 PSI booste.

So cough it up...  Bosch certified pump rebuilds are $700 usd here in the states.  What justifies the higher price?

Oh, BTW, he does not respond to Emails

[Vincent Waldon]

There's an old joke about a guy with an engine that wouldn't run right... he took it to shop after shop and no one could get it to work.

Finally he takes it to "The Wizard"... the dude recommended by all the other shops in town.  The Wizard pops the hood, listens carefully, and says "I can fix it for $1000".  The owner is desperate at this point and says sure.

The Wizard goes back into his shop and comes out with a hammer.  He reaches in to the engine compartment and taps the engine once.  Instantly the engine begins to purr like a kitten.  "That will be $1000" says the Wizard.  

The owner is outraged !!  "Are you kidding  You can't charge me $1000 for that... I demand an itemized bill"

No problem, says the Wizard:

Tapping with a hammer................$10.00
Knowing exactly where to tap......$990.00

[Slave2School]

Hahaha, good joke!

My Grandpa did something similar in his home fencer business.  He normally had people drop off the fencers at the co-op and he'd have them delivered.  This time he allowed a customer to come in because he was in a rush and needed the fencer back ASAP.

Grandpa fixes the fencer after about 2 minutes of troubleshooting and tells the customer how much it would be.  The customer balks and grandpa takes the fencer back and desolders the fix

After the guy changed his mind Grandpa sent him on his way (repaired) and told him that he was paying for the experience/knowledge, not the $5 capacitor etc.

[Audi80]

Anyone have any numbers (cc´s) from Giles?
I paid 1000 euros for custom 12mm pump here :roll: 200cc+@6000rpm

[Black Smokin' Diesel]

Giles' contact info: http://vwdiesel.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=7397

[Darth Garry]

Don't you guys know?

Giles makes black voodoo magic happen in that shop of his.  He'll never tell any of you.  Or me.  

Garry

[lyeinyoureye]

I think we could figure it out if we dug far enough.  

[subsonic]

You guy's gonna start killing chickens now? :shock:

While I am sure some people could reverse engineer the pump, This is how the man makes his living.  He appears to be helpful on this site.  No need to pee in his cornflakes. :wink:

[Benjamin]

the pumps are not magical, he probably do a couple modifications, but its not all that easy to tune a pump.

i saw several engine failure's and engine's who never ran just becouse some guys thought VE tuning is simple, its all very complicated. What do you choose, a engine failure or a GOOD modified pump  :wink:

on this board i see you guys talkin like its all so easy, but after you think you know it all, you start realizing its all damn hard. Even with pumpdyno.

Guys, i'm not telling you to send your pump to Giles, i'm also the kind of man wich wanna tune it his own, but if you realy ask me the cheapest solution, go for a Gilespump. For VE pumps, dont think there is a DIY, if you know how long a BOSH-VE training takes you start understanding what i mean  :wink:

Look it this way, if you go to a local tuner to chiptune your car you also dont know what he do, he also dont need to jusify his price.

Just my 2 cents, Benjamin

[hillfolk'r]

i think its great that giles is doing vw hot  rod pumps for us
but im glad that "my guy"  built me a pump for about 1/3 the price(parts included)
and ive never been in a giles equipped car, but if mine is 80% as good as his,im happy
mines been workin great for a  couple of years now+no complaints here
awesome throttle response(almost too good!),good power+some room to turn it up a little more
if you are in a pinch,research locally+try to find a good "diesel pump guy" that you can talk to
even just a plain pump with a 12mm head  will add alot of power to your car,even if it doesnt"have the correct advance curve+specificaly tuned with  your vw in  mind" like giles
most pump places  that have a clue can probably convert a ve pump for around 6-800$$

[lyeinyoureye]

While I am sure some people could reverse engineer the pump, This is how the man makes his living.  He appears to be helpful on this site.  No need to pee in his cornflakes. :wink:

Heh. There'll still be plenty of people who go to him regardless of whether or not someone can figer how to do what he does. This would just be for those of us who would rather spend our time than our money.

[DVST8R]

What he does that you a DIY'er can not do is put it on a calibrated test bench, and make accurate changes to both the timing curve, and the total advance, as well as the fueling vs rpm, and fueling vs boost. Not to mention all the other little bits of knowledge that he has picked up about what combination of parts works best that comes from building thousands of pumps. No pump building is not rocket science, but it is damn near rocket surgery.

Yup there are lots of people who can build pumps out there, but Gilles to this point is the only one I have come across that has taken a special interest in these pumps in specific, and made them custom to our needs. As far as the big power IDI's in North America, they are all powered by a Gilles pump, think that is a coincidence? Don't think that lots of us tried our own homemade performance pumps first before dropping a grand on pump? Only to go WOW, once we stepped up.

I'm sure you could take a Gilles pump to any half decent pump builder and they could replicate that specific pump, but could they do it for any cheaper??? And what about if you want something other then that pump. All of Gilles pumps are custom, that I know of, you tell him what you are planning on doing and he recommends what he thinks will work the best for that application, if you still have your heart set on another direction he will build the pump as best as he can to you specs I.e: 9mm heads or 14mm heads, cummins cam plates, tdi cam plates, or 1.9 cam plates, Twin turbo, single turbo, nitrous, race car, street car, no smoke, lots of smoke Ect...

[commuter boy]

You're paying for his years of R&D, experimentation with non-standard settings and figuring out how to make it run smoothly and more efficiently all around.

A DIY could start playing, but you'd also need some sort of test rig on the bench to help you understand what's happening properly, or an awful lot of swapping pumps in and out of their cars.

The price he provides for the "extra" tune isn't that much more on top of the rebuild price, only a couple hundred bones.  And I know that also includes replacement parts, not just what you send him, so I don't think you're paying a lot extra to him for his additional time to put things together.