I was talking to a fellow Impreza owner about the new setup I've bought and will have installed soon and engine management came up. I just wanted to get the general consensus of this board. I already have a UTEC from my 02 WRX. I am under the impression that this will work with an 06 STi. With that under consideration it was recommended that I use the UTEC and get an ECUTek reflash. Why would I need a reflash if I have a UTEC? Thats what I don't understand. The reflash is like $800. I don't really want to spend $800 everytime I want the change the settings on the ECU. This setup will also be using an Apexi AVCR. Whats the point of that? Can't the UTEC control boost? Any advice from anyone who has experience with big turbo upgrades on STis would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
I'm pretty sure that your 02 Utec wont work on the STI. With Ecutek you only pay the $800 once, after that you just pay tuning, or you can buy an ECU thats already been unlocked.
people who i have known to run UTEC on top of ECUTEK have used to ECUTEK to set a base map and the UTEC runs on top of that to tweak little things... this is primarily because i believe UTEC can only control, boost, timing and fuel but ECUTEK can control a LOT more... personally, I dislike the UTEC... I had it on my WRX but it would run nice for a few days after the tune but then it would go to crap... i was MUCH happier with ECUTEK... bigboosting made a LOT of power with UTEC and the FP red... so you might want to get her opinion on it too
Okay its sounding like the UTEC needs to hit EBay. I thought it could be flashed to work with an STi. Oh well. So what do they do to the ECU that costs $800 to unlock it? Do they have to run some brute force cracking software on a Cray or something?
Meaning if I want to sell my "license" I have to pull the ECU out of the car, sell it as an unlocked ECUTek ECU, then put a stock ECU back in my car?
Switching ecu's is alittle more complicated with the 2005 and on STi's. There are issues with the immobilizer and the new ecutek flashing app locks out the ecu. This currently prevents you from being able to use the openecu tools to make any changes your self.
when protuned, the cobb accessport can do everything ECUTEK can do with the added advantage of having multiple maps and the ability to un-marry the AP from your stock ECU if u plan to sell it...
Is "switching maps" on the AP basically reflashing your ECU with maps you have stored somewhere other than in the ECU itself. Could you just borrow someone's AP, tune the car, and then use something else to switch maps? Not trying to be a cheap bastard here but who wants to spend $1000+ on engine management if you don't necessarily have to?
You don't have to, but if you want a professional tuner to do it be ready to fork out some real coin.
Well, $600 on the AP then $300 for the tune. But if you get street tuner (another $195) you can tune things yourself and tweak.
not all the time... u could run off a fixed base map and drop different real time maps... this does not flash the ECU, just changes the pointers i believe... however the real time maps are stored in a separate unit that needs to be plugged in to your OBDII port no you cant... once married to one car, it can only be used on that car until it has been unmarried... you need to unit to switch maps look at openECU, its free... there's a very rich thread developing here
And things are moving along quite well for the openecu stuff. The Enginuity team is very close to realtime tuning, which would have a HUGE impact.
Yep, and Dan over at Battlground will tune with ecuflash, and maybe enginuity too, so getting a professional dynotune on an evo or wrx is an option without having to pay the $600+ dollar cobb or ecutek entry fee.