Tony Martino knew he was in for a fast ride with his 2002 GMC Sierra 2500HD Duramax LB7 when he applied to Beta test EFILive Flashscan for the Duramax. Little did he know how far that journey would take him.

Although his truck responded with good track times to a range of pre-canned tunes and plug in modules, Tony was constantly looking at improving the drivability and street manners of his vehicle.  “Each time I added new performance modifications to my vehicle, the lack of ability to really dial-in the new modification meant I was never able to truly optimize my combination” said Tony, “I really needed a personalized tuner who would change my vehicle’s tune to suit it’s needs, a tuner that would listen to my needs - not a massed produced one size fits all solution. I wanted a 500HP tune that I could drive daily with stock like street manners.  Every vendor I approached told me it couldn’t be done, but I wasn’t deterred.”  The issue was there wasn’t an affordable solution on the market for this enthusiast, that was until EFILive.

With Flashscan hooked up to his truck, Tony spent literally 1000’s of hours data logging and writing new calibrations for his truck. “It was a very satisfying challenge to go out and data log my truck, make a single change, and measure the impact. I learnt a lesson from every single change, in the beginning for every step that got me closer to my optimal tune it seemed at times I took two steps back. But over time I developed a tune that had everything the pre-canned tunes had and much more – it had the power I wanted, the throttle response, the drivability I sought and a little extra smoke for good measure, but best of all it was very smooth to drive at all RPM ranges.” said Tony. In just under 3 months Tony had written over 1000 different tunes for his vehicle, each one building on the previous one.

Tony’s tune called “Moonshine” was born, and he was off to the track and dyno to quantify his seat of the pants performance.  With a current ¼ mile time of 12.95 seconds at 103.37mph on fuel only and a ¼ mile time of 12.25 seconds at 109.57 mph on nitrous  it matches up to the best pre-canned tunes out there but with the drivability he desired. Nitrous was controlled by EFILive’s Custom Operating System DSP²,  which allowed nitrous to be cycled on and off automatically during shift changes and allowed Tony to eliminate the usual nitrous accessories including a Hobbs switch for boost, a WOT Switch and a RPM tip in.

Dyno measurements on a Super Flow Load Cell Dyno were just as impressive with readings of 498 HP and 1010 TQ measured at the rear wheels on his otherwise stock LB7.  Moonshine has since achieved significantly higher results on a vehicle modified with 20% oversized injectors and a BD Turbo delivering 578HP and 1122 TQ on fuel only.   Within a few short months, and 1000’s of hours invested in testing and tuning, Moonshine is delivering impressive results on both LB7 and LLY trucks that were superior to most off the shelf solutions. 

With the Duramax crowd now wanting a taste of Moonshine, and more than willing to pay for the privilege, Ridge Runner Diesel Performance was born.  “To do this properly I needed to make sure my tunes drivability and HP/TQ was repeatable, so I needed a few Beta testers with a range of vehicles and different applications.”  Through customer feedback, Tony knew that not all customers wanted a performance tune 100% of the time, so a towing application had to be tailored to provide an all round package via EFILive’s DSP² Custom Operating System.  “That DSP² system is something else, for my customers it’s usually a power tune and tow tune at the flip of a switch, but for racing it DSP² takes on a whole new personality controlling my nitrous injection at predetermined intervals” says Tony. 

In collaboration with SoCal Diesel, Moonshine is delivering superior, personalized tunes, while delivering exceptional Customer Service. “It’s funny how life works: says Tony, “Twelve months ago I needed a personalized tuner to customize my setup, who would have thought that I’d become that guy.”