Who's got the best ECU tune?
 

There's a bunch of threads on this topic and i'm having trouble sorting thru it all.

We can discuss the pros/cons of each vendor's offering please?

I read the most about Visconti? But what about Perrin? Cobb? MRT? Any others?



A little about my goals. I'm hoping to keep my BRZ 6AT NA. I just want to clean up the tune and add ~20hp on crappy CA 91 gas. This can be done thru a combination of I/H/E and ECU. I'll wait until the warranty expires before exploring FI options.

Cobb has no plans to offer a BRZ solution.

Visconti and FA20Club.com have them available now, Perrin hasn't released any pricing that i'm aware of and xjohnx is correct i don't believe Cobb is supporting this platform. John probably has the most experience with the car although Perrin does a lot of R&D before releasing anything. FA20Club has a nice loyalty program on their tunes after you buy the first one anything you get later has a significant discount.

They all have their own merits i would suggest talking to each one individually with what concerns you have and see who comes up with the best answers for you.

anyone have the fa20club tune? I'd like to hear someone has it? and some review

I have FA20clubs tune but haven't flashed my car yet

E85?

93

i was also wondering the realease date of Perrin @ Chris_Perrin

I plan to go with FA20club because it seems more optimized. I like how visconti does the general all car tunes but when you break it down to my car the FA20 Stg 2 seems like it will give me the best gains

You are aware that Visconti will tweak his map for your specific setup if you send him datalogs, correct?

so will FA20club

I have sent him multiple data logs for a couple of his tunes. Never heard back.

Make sure you fill out the form if you email logs.

Good idea, that would be one important step I am missing.

Got the fa20club stage 2 with my Perrin catback and drop in filter. Loving it so far. Feedback and support is very good .

Tap'd from my G-Nex

Here is my review....

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17974

CUSTOMER service was awesome (as it should be)!!!

watching!

I am aware of the but for the most part everyone Ive seen and or known to try have said it will take forever or you wont get it. Even the shop that I work with has said FA20 are much more responsive. Im not here trolling as it seems that you are I am just giving my opinion.

This is one of that main reasons I want to work with them a lot of people have told me that their customer service is awesome.

Subscribed...

they all tweak maps for you based on setup.

they all make power

all ecutek dealers sell racerom, so all dealers ell the same blipshift, flat foot, launch control etc
what remains to be seen is who offers what in terms of octane options, map line ups, etc

Its hard to try to be objective on this topic but I shall try to share what i think is of value to you all

Perrin is just OC about testing his stuff, hence the oddly long delay for his shit. You know its gonna be a solid and safe offering for your motor. His time and effort testing is unlike any other vendor from where I sit.

I have NOTHING but goodness towards FA20club, he's polite, prompt, no I havent gotten any interest from him using me or apparently others on line as a real world tester. But I would not hesitate to do business with him. I think fa20 would get more than interest and see orders if he expanded his online tester base- peer reviews work.(hint: send me a tune file)

We all know who the only game in town is, and he is a bird of his own feather-probably not as test intensive, but he has a user big base of early adopter ginea pigs and as such a bunch of live testers who may not know theyre testing. there are lots of posts regarding the customer experience there, so you can make up your own mind and get, and wait in line fill out a form, yada yada

Not to knock Visconti, I've driven the product, it does feel good, every bit as good as my perrin tune from the little exposure I have had. I'm never sure if the version being released has really been tested thoroughly, is how I feel. That said, visconti seems to have the most r&d time on e85, and I would buy the Visconti e85 product myself, fwiw, just with reserved cust service expectations knowing how busy he is etc.

basically you want it now its fa20 or Visconti. I think fa20 can be another visconti, and he's a pleaasure to talk to.

again, feels like a smaller, one man show kinda deal, but I could be wrong.

if you think its worth the wait, Perrin is working hard on this. I know he is collecting logs from me and others and making updates seems almost daily, I've tested like 3 revisions in past week, all little tweaks, all improvements.

I'd love to hear more feedback from folks running the fa20 tune, seems full of win too

seems a bit contradictory. "This product isn't as good because i feel like i'm a tester, but i love this product that i'm a tester for."

LikeI said, you all know I am a bit biased. Just trying to help. Like I said, the Visconti tune feels plenty powerful. Never driven the fa20.

sorry I cant help more with who to choose- in summary
-I'd buy from Visconti myself with customer service reservations
-I'd buy from Fa20 myself with testing reservations
-I'd buy from Perrin with release date and e85 availability reservations

at present only fa20 and Visconti offer the e85. This may be something I will be testing out later for Perrin, but thats all; TBD. I still have some reservations on the longer term use of e85, and am gonna do a heck of alot of testing myself before I track that. I know it makes more power, but what else comes longside that? I got the Perrin tune, and if he ever does release the e85 stuff too, I know it too will be uber safe, or he wont do it.

At present Perrin is the only shop that will be an authorized dealer for the Vortech SC system. It was a no brainer for me given my plans for my BRZ. I'm far more comfy adding a tried and tested SC from a big shop like Vortech, with warranty than running e85 longer term with only the tuners telling us its okay to run for more power, at the expense of higher gas consumption from a not yet readily available fuel.

There is no "Best". It's the one you are happy with.

Agreed... We are all testers for the product, and right now John has the biggest tester base, with the most information coming in. He may not be the most responsive person because of how busy he is, but any issue I had come across and notified him of, he was aware of and working on a fix.

Also, when my ecu went down John called me immediately and worked on my car remotely until we had determined that it was beyond us. He also reimbursed the cost of the overnight shipping to england, and rental car while my car was down within minutes of me sending him copies of the receipts (digitally).

I will admit he can rub people the wrong way, and has his own vision for things, but he's 100% committed to making the best product he can, and updates his product extensively.

I wont say much but every vendor will have its pros/cons and every tune will probably be similar in ways but as far as who i would trust tuning my car i would go visconti hands down. I've seen john in action and he doesn't stop until he gets it right, and im not exaggerating. He will test from 6am to 10pm 3-4 days a week on an actual car and the rest will be viewing logs to see where he can improve on his tune. As u can see john is 24hrs pretty much on tuning and im not even joking. I honestly don't think any vendor has put more time into tuning than john has and i'll bet money on that! Another reason why i trust him is because he's not new to the ecutek platform. Im not sure if this is perrins or fa20's first time using ecutek but john has been in the game for quite some time so im sure he knows how to utilize everything more efficiently. Hes so good with it im sure hes the one giving ecutek ideas on how to improve a few things like fuel %, 0-60 dash, 1/4 mile, afr, boost control etc ;)..Ive never seen someone so excited about tuning. i'm sure fa20 is great as well as perrin and to me its really preference at the end of the day. Im sure everytune is great, and regardless of who u choose please get one lol...it will change your life lol

I think he hit it on the nail- i personally dont care whose tune you end up driving- get a tune, it transforms the car. its your longer term plans, budget, locality etc -all play factors into who you choose and why.

everytime I drive on the stock base map, its so lazy..tires and tune should be everyones 1st upgrades

What do these guys charge for a tune ? I already have cable & tune from Visconti, but may look at other alternatives

Thanks :thumbsup:

EDIT: Nevermind found what I was looking for ;)

I think the tunes will all be effective. Best tune after the dust clears will be the guy who prices it right. EcuTek has its fees so that's a given. 300-400 for the maps is too much as far as I'm concerned. $99-199 seems reasonable.

I'm sure they make something off the cable/licenses. Maybe not much.

Just flashed FA20Club Stage 2, will report back shortly...

ok i don't have John's flash yet to compare to, got tired of waiting and FA20Club sent me files within 20 minutes of payment. I will compare the two once i get my files from John but so far i'm very happy with the FA20Club tune, i don't know how to describe it but i'm very pleased. Can't wait to get the E85 tune next to see what else we can get out of it.

I have a Cosworth air filter, Perrin Pulley, and Motiv Test Pipe. I won't say i had a bog at low rpm's but it wasn't extremely responsive, that has changed with the tune as it goes as soon as you get on it. I ended up hitting the rev limiter in second gear, never done that before just wasn't used to it pulling that hard i guess.

I'm a little paranoid here but is anyone concerned about their AFR after these tunes?

It's common knowledge that a slightly leaner mixture will create the most power. Actually, a good buddy of mine blew his S2000 F22 engine with a Toda chip, I/H/E only. This was at the track but thinking it was "Toda" and rather high quality JDM we didn't even think twice about taking it to the track.

I'm hoping all these tunes run safe AND produce power and smoothness :)

This is why my savings account is getting hooked up, and not my FR-S right now.

FACT is NOBODY knows.

There are a lot of people with 4-5 Mods already, and NONE of the parts have the proper street time in them.. Unfortunely if one of these cars take a dive it'll be hard to tell what parts are the problem.

Tune-Intane-Pulley-Exhaust.

We can rule out the exhaust, but you catch my drift... ummmm drift...

To be honest.. now is probably the time to do this since most ppl are covered under warranty still. That's all I have to say about that. It's just a huge PITA to have to go thru the mess though if something catastrophic does happen.

I'm excited about the FA20 tune. Thanks JoeBoxer for your feedback.

Im not sure if what im saying is right but to what i have been reading the stock ecu's afr is crazy from the start and the tune actually cleans it up..dont quote me on this but maybe somebody can clarify

The best tune is the one that your local tuner is most familiar with, and can exploit it's abilities the furthest.

This point has already been made, but I do want to pitch in and agree wholeheartedly with brichard0625 and gmookher - get a tune. Who you get it from right now isn't as important, since they are all coming from ECUTek and you'll get the RaceROM features and basic stage 1 tune either way. All three of these players will tweak the map further after receiving datalogs from your specific vehicle.

Visconti and Perrin are both ECUTek Master Tuners. Not sure what difference that actually means at the end of the day, but since ECUTek went ouf ot its way to make that distinction, I figured I would throw that out there. Maybe it just means they can sell you some additional products or services that may not even be relevant to our specific platform.

All three of the ECUTek Tuners that have tunes for our platform have proven to be pretty reliable as far as customer service is concerned.

Yes, Visconti has a lot going on right now, so you can decide if that comes into your equation or not, but like others have said, the man is an absolute machine and goes after tuning with a tenacity unlike what I've seen before. If you don't need a whole lot of hand holding, and you're patient on getting his attention (if needed), then you cannot possibly go wrong with Visconti.

Perrin has also shown promising work and has satisfied customers going to bat for him before he's even officially released the product for mass consumption. I've had some offline conversations with him regarding the work they're doing and I've already invested in some of their other products. If you need reassurances that your product/service is backed by a reputable company with resources available to handle your needs, then Perrin is the way to go.

FA20club.com came on to the scene after both Visconti and Perrin, but they've got quite a few vocal customers that have provided positive reviews. It appears that they're pretty flexible, very responsive, and have a delivery model that puts Dominos Pizza to shame. I haven't had any opportunity to deal with them, but from what I've seen through others, you can't go wrong with these guys either. They may not have the history or ECUTek Master designation, but their track record is proven by the feedback provided on these forums by some of our peers.

Cost-wise they're all about the same, so as far as I'm concerned, you can't go wrong with any of them. Just do it.

I haven't seen a stock AFR dyno but i'll search for one. I'm mostly relying on the reputation of these vendors in the Subie community like Perrin & Visconti to not blow up my engine. Call me paranoid. I blame owning and tracking an expensive platform like the NSX for several years...I'm sure the risk is small if any on the FA20.

Really? You're willing to bet money on this??? You do realize Perrin has been around for a LONG time. He was one of the premier MINI tuners, when I was tracking my car back in 2005. Everything from pulleys, to tunes, to exhaust, to intakes. I've found threads from 2008, from Perrin tuning Mitsu Evos using ECUTek. So, I know he's been working with ECUTek for at LEAST 4-5yrs. I believe they're pretty well known in the Subie world also. The times I've dealt with them, they've been pretty great to deal with.

I can't speak for FA20, but how do you know what his background looks like? Kind of a dumb statement to make, just because Visconti was one of the first to offer a tune for our cars. And for Visconti...nothing against you. I'm still debating on which tune to get myself. But your "fans" can get a little overbearing at times.

I had a local tuner (LJ at Fullblown) do some datalogs and dyno pulls with my FRS that has Visconti's latest tune and aFe intake. He said AFR's look good, and there is not much more he could adjust to make it better. It does run a tad lean between 3-5k, but nothing that he said was cause for concern. The stock tune is pretty decent until you get to about 6k to redline, the AFRs plummit to richville.

I wasn't talking about other cars, i was just talking about the amount of tune time put into the frs/brz itself. As far as perrin and visconti i've never heard of them until coming to the forum and thats why i said that im not sure about perrin or fa20 but i know visconti has been working with ecutek for a while so thats why i trusted him and After telling people about the frs/brz tune alot of my friends that have subbie's actually knew his work and said he was great so i knew he was a known tuner. While perrin might be a great company ive personally watched john at work and he puts alot of time into the platform and he doesnt stop until its where he wanted it to be. Nobody is a "fan" just speaking from my personal experience with john and i trust his work. Maybe i went a little too far about the betting money part but i still think he puts in more time...point is someone asked who has the best tune i put in my two cents and just basically said its preference but who ever you choose just get a tune! by far the best upgrade i think.