well i've decided to tune my 05 sti..i've got enough experience on my other cars that i am planning to attempt to tune it now lol..i just want to know what would be the easiest/cheapest way to be able to do that..the car is currently on an ecutek reflash so i dont know if it'd be easier to get everything to tune ecutek or to swap to something else..any help would be appreciated..thanks
Well, since it is ecuteced you pretty much have to get a new ECU or get the stuff to be able to tune Ecutec. In theory there are some people you can send it off to to get rid of the ecutec so you can go cobb or open source.
Just a friendly warning, take everything you just learned in that efi101 class with a grain of salt. All they teach is theory none of that is practical.
yea that's what i was mainly weighing as options..i know i would need a stock ecu to do AP or OS but i was wondering if it'd be any easier or cheaper to get everything to tune the ecutek? i have no ecutek software or license or anything..was the only mod on the car when i bought it in late 05.. and Matt yea i know what you mean..i really didn't pick up on much new while i was there..was good fun though..already knew a decent amount but i figured there is no better way to get experience at tuning than to tune lol. i've done a little on a couple of na cars so its either the sti or the speed 3 to get experience on and i'd rather risk my own car that has plenty of other problems than my fiance's mint speed 3..btw how did you know i took that class?kinda creepy lol don't think i posted anything about it
lol dude i thought about it right after i posted it,i just made my last response before you said from facebook..i was like hmmm ohhhh thats the same matt lol
If it's Ecutek'd already then just let the MASTER tune it? When I say MASTER I mean Doug Wilkes. That will be the most cost effective and easiest way to tune it. He knows things that would take you forever and possibly a blown engine to learn. Plus basic setups are CHEAP tunes too. Call them up.
I can appreciate him wanting to tune it himself. Its kind of nice to be able to say I built it I tuned it. There aren't many people who can.
yea doug is a great tuner and i've already spoke to him a while back about tuning it..the car doesn't really NEED a need a tune at all,so i am not pushed for time or the wait of getting a new ecu..i just want to prepare myself for when it does again and i feel pretty capable that i wont blow it up..just may not make any power lol.i would like to tune if myself even though i know it wont run like it would if doug tuned it or like it does now with the ss tune..always wanted to tune and i'm trying to get an early start at it so maybe i can be pretty good at it one day
ecutek's most recent version has some cool features for the 32bit ecus. I even think they now have user tune features. Certainly worth checking out
yea i've been looking at the ecutek stuff and i am not really sure of any prices..everything i see says call for prices and i dont know if it'd really be worth keeping the ecutek unless there is actually a user tuneable feature
i have a 2003 WRX. i tuned it myself. ended up with cobb turbo back, evoIII 16g, ID1000 injectors, larger topmount, PDE uppipe, e85. cobb access port, innovate wideband, wideband is absolutely necessary. i used access tuner race. when i started i assumed i would install the hardware, do a limpmode tune and have it pro tuned. but i wanted to be able to move back and forth between e85 and super and i wanted to be able to tweak my own tune. tuner i was dealing with at the time who had a good rep said no. so i ended up doing it myself. and im pretty pleased with the results. i went very slow. i started with a gas tune and when i felt confident starting adding e85. i think i was not finished for 2 months. but this is a second (toy) car for me. i also have the complete tactrix setup, cable and i use the opensource for logging sometimes and learingview. if it was me, it return my ECU to stock, either via a replacement or reflash, and then start with either cobb or opensource. opensource is good, cobb with ACR allows tweaking of many things in real time. i would do a short 2nd or 3rd gear pull, pull over, load the log into excel, look at what i was interested in, adjust while the car ran and do another. so doing it yourself can be rewarding. the key is the go very slowly at first with very small baby steps and dont get greedy with boost and/or advance.
i've been doing the same thing with my first gen miata the past couple of months and i think i have it pretty good by now..i already have 2 wideband's and many other various tools
pretty much how I've been doing it. Started out just playing with the boost a little. Then moved on to just smoothing it out. Learn how the car reacts to different changes, then moving on to bigger and better things. It's been a great experience so far. If you have a safe, long, flat road nearby there is always Airboy's dyno spreadsheet which I've found to be accurate enough for my purposes. It just about nailed the stock hp/torque on the head, and is nice when you want to quantify your efforts.