Toyota GR86, 86, FR-S and Subaru BRZ Forum & Owners Community - FT86CLUB

I hope Ryan doesn't mind, but I'm going to use some quotes from his PM he sent me to answer some of the questions I've been getting a lot lately. Primarily, I'm getting "Should I upgrade to the Vortech Kit??" Sometimes I can't help but chuckle at these questions, because anyone emailing a vendor asking "should I buy your kit," definitely knows (or should know) what the vendor will reply with.. "Heck yeah, you should buy my kit! Here's where you can send me money" lol.

However! Obvious bias aside.. genuinely, that is not my intent. You all know I'm a vendor and this is how I make my living. But one of the profound differences between myself and what I would consider "the average vendor" is, I really want to do this for the rest of my life. And I think a lot of these guys selling their products are primarily interested in making as much money as they can, as quickly as possible. And I wanted to make this post to try and help you guys understand a little better who I am, and what Visconti Tuning is really about. Because that's not my business model. Far from it actually. I'd much rather sell one "big power" kit to one customer that I knew was ready for it, than 10 big power kits, 4 of which I knew were for people who weren't ready. I would happily give up 10 sales if it meant preventing just one unhappy customer. As I've mentioned, we want you to start from square one with us, and stick with us for as long as you've got that itch for more power (in other words, forever lol). And the only way that's going to happen is if you trust our advice to be in your best interest; not ours.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ryan86

Thanks for being upfront Rich I appreciate your honesty.

My gut is telling me to start small and work my way up, meaning go through the motions that I would in reality need for when I decide to drop a Vortech in.

What would your recommendations be for additional mods.

Oh out of interest what is the process once I receive the tune and how long till you have had a chance to do your magic and have the car tuned 100%. This is to get an idea if we share a cable.

Once again thanks for all your support.

So this is all in response to Ryan's questions, which I am truly answering for him as one car guy to the next.

I think your gut is almost always the best advice to listen to :). Every time I've gone against my gut feeling about something (or someone, more specifically lol), it usually hasn't turned out very well. I know how easy it is to get SO caught up in modifying your car, and wanting to do everything as.soon.as.possible! But generally, it's almost always so much more rewarding to do it in stages. Then at each level, you have the opportunity to feel each difference you've made, and you appreciate everything so much more. As enticing an idea as it may seem to drop $6,000-7,000 into your car at one time (and I'm not saying that it wouldn't be flippin' awesome!), but if you work your way up there at a reasonable pace.. number one, you have the added advantage of much fewer variables to work through IF something wasn't acting right after new mods were installed, and number two, again, it's that appreciation and accomplishment you feel when you've literally built the car from the ground up!

So that's just my two cents on that. We're so much more interested in building a community of quality people and quality cars, than we are in selling as many kits as possible. Same logic I just talked about applies here too; it's so much more rewarding to have customers start at the ground level with us (the tune), and build their car up in stages until they're safely running close to three times the performance they were when they joined our team (and we do have several customers like that, and their loyalty to us is unshakable).

First and foremost, I do always advise the STG1 calibration/software first, regardless of which tuner anyone goes with. A lot of people choose to do the intakes and exhaust first, and that's cool too. But I believe in an "order" to things and I believe that each mod you add should be able to complement the existing mods or the next ones you plan on adding in the future, so they can make maximum efficiency and performance from each other. That's why I always start with "the brain." If we use the body as an analogy, the brain (the computer) is by far the most important and advanced component; it controls everything. So now that we have the ability to "know" when other parts are upgraded, we can easily tell "the brain".. "Hey, we just upgraded the lungs too, you can take in more air.. breathe harder!" That may be a silly analogy, but I think it's valid :)

So assuming you go with a STG1 calibration, here's what I would do next if this were my car. I would start next with the exhaust system, and if you can get a deal on the entire setup (the downpipe/overpipe and axle-back exhaust), I would buy it all at once since this is really an essential upgrade to any well rounded car (and also one of the most restrictive stock components; the downpipe/overpipe). After my car was comfortably "exhaling," the intake would be the logical next step, to improve the "inhale." I don't want to get too far into recommendations for name brands, because I don't have the experience with all of them that I feel I should have to make those type of calls. I can tell you what we do have experience with if you want to PM me for specifics. After the intake system (and I'm in including the Drop-In Filter (DIF) as part of that system), next comes the headers. At this stage, you should pretty much have a fire breathing monster :). You'll have picked up about 25-30 whp on pumpgas (with our tune anyway) and your car should sound like a beaaast.

So where to go from here? At this stage, you're more than ready to upgrade to forced induction. But that's a big upgrade of course, and it costs a lot of money. If you're not quite ready to put down that kind of cash, but you still want to continue to strengthen your platform in preparation of adding forced induction, you could go ahead and upgrade the fuel pumps and injectors.. you could purchase our e85 map if that fuel is available (and note that at STG1, it is not a requirement to upgrade the pumps and injectors to run e85, but again, if you plan to add forced induction, it will be a requirement so it's definitely a good idea to do it). At this stage you could also add some suspension work if you track the car (or just want that extra edge in handling), you could upgrade the brakes, upgrade the wheels and tires (tires are the single most neglected performance piece and they play such an integral role), anything along those lines will help you create the most well rounded car you can. And it's always a good idea to sacrifice a little horsepower for the greater good of the platform. It's not "mandatory" stuff, but we all know performance is a balance. And you don't wanna be one of those guys making 400+ whp with stock clutch, stock brakes, stock mounts, stock "everything else" lol. It'd sorta be like going to the gym 5 times a week and working out nothing but your arms. You're just going to wind up looking silly :).

So that's what I would consider to be a good basic upgrade strategy, giving you enough flexibility to branch off your own way depending on what's important to you.

Finally Ryan asks about the installation procedure once you have our STG1 calibration in hand. I'll run through that process in the next post, just for the sake of brevity and breaking these "essays" up into more easily digestible information pieces :). Like always, if there's ANYTHING I can help clarify or explain further, do not hesitate to email me, PM me or call me too. I need to add the phone number to my signature but for now, we can be reached at +1 (201) 477-TUNE or 477-8863. Thanks for reading guys!