Self tune, or tuner?
 

That's the question I'd been asking myself for the last few days.

I've had an ecutek licence for a few months, left over from the sc I was running. Never gave a lot of thought to getting an NA flash, mainly because I was a bit suspect of remote tuning.

No local tuner had the ecutek tuner licence. So this relaxation of the ecutek software made me think I'll now be able to have a go myself, or get local help.

But then I thought, is it better for me to take the risk self tuning, or take the risk and use a remote tuner. I chose the latter.

I looked at the main players and their reviews/feedback, and ended up trying FA20club.

I'll refrain from reviewing the tune just yet (it's not a bad thing, I just want to put it up once I've gone to the track in a few days) but I'm already happy with the choice I made.

For the pittance these guys charge, for an experienced tuner that know these motors and tunes very well, I would urge those that are considering self tuning for financial reasons to reconsider.

I'm sure there will be those that will still want to, and hey I have no issue with that, I'll even applaud you for taking it on. Me, I'm one of those guys that pays someone to paint my house when it needs painting, because they'll do a better job in less time. There's certain satisfaction in doing things yourself, but sometimes it's not worth the hassle for what a pro charges.

FA20club have been excellent to deal with and it's all been very painless and straight forward. Does the car make more power, yes. Throttle response much improved. Car also cruises better now.

I'm absolutely kicking myself I've done 3 circuit days and 2 drift events without this flash; after now experiencing the product and service; and just how easy it was to do.

How does that work exactly? Over the cell phone; via PC??

Thanks for your original post and taking time to answer my question

I enquired via this forum. Asked some basic questions. Then rang and got things underway. Because I already had a licence and cable, Toni just needed my licence / dongle number (tune is secured to it) quick run down of my mods or lack there-of, and the ecu version I had, which is simply found by pinging the ecu.

10mins later he emailed me a tune. I flashed it on. Took car for drive and took a log. (He sends a document explaining how to do this, very easy) Sent log back. 20 mins later I had a revised tune that was much better in every way.

Just a case of rinse and repeat as you add a new mod. I'm cutting out the second cat tomorrow and welding in a straight piece in its place.

It is seriously simple. I was worried it would be a hassle, it really wasn't.

Appreciate the feedback Mike. We still have more more adjustments to make but at least youre making progress for the weekend.

Thank You for explaining this to me and sure does sound like a worthwhile investment.

I paid for a tune and it pretty much sucks at low rpms.

when will someone make an ECU with a "learning model" based on drivers input?

i wouldn't suggest that anyone should ever self-tune for the purpose of saving money, because you won't. i've put more gas through my car learning than i would have paid for a tune.

you should do it because you try it and you like doing it. it's a hobby. if you don't genuinely enjoy the actual process of doing it, then you will inevitably fail. the reason is because it takes a cubic shit ton of time if you're starting from nothing with little practical experience tuning cars (like most of us, myself included), and it's not 'fun' by the usual definition. most would say it's a pain in the ass, making tiny little changes then doing some test and another change and another test, it's a lot of damn work.

at the same time i think that just about anyone given the time and energy could pick it up pretty quick and do a decent job tuning their car from scratch. it will just take them a long, long time if they do it properly. there are long understood and accepted best practices to adhere to, and if you do you'll be fine.

so you shouldn't do it, unless you are very, very interested in it and willing to spend a lot of time with a pissed off wife wondering why you're driving around the block. the 'better faster cheaper' route will always be paying someone you know is great at it. but if you really wanna learn and are interested, you should give it a shot, because it's awesome lol.

fwiw the new ecutek stuff basically removes any barrier to entry as you guys can experiment on your own then just flash back your protune when you feel like it. best of both worlds. same with oft for n/a guys.

:laughabove: The most important factor

I originally offered Mike an open map but he refused based on the points he listed above.

I'd get another tuner. Mine is better than stock across the rev range.

Thanks for sharing your experience. That's the way I'll go most likely. Don't trust local tuners as most of them never worked on FA20 and generally don't bother touching NA cars. Masters of adding boost :)

I just need to complete my exaust with headers and then will start looking for a tune. FA20Club is my first choice now.

I would read a bit more, before chosing fa20club

You will regret this .
I bought tune from them and that is my only mistake about moding this car
I would find other good ecutek tuner or go for OFT

Just a public service announcement here...

I haven't kept up with all the various threads about FA20club, Visconti, Vishnu, etc. But I've been in their shoes. And I've also been on the other side, about 10 years ago, when I initially paid people to tune my projects.

When you're talking about any kind of professional service just keep in mind that somebody somewhere is going to have a bad opinion about a job. Maybe the work really was sloppy. Maybe the situation was beyond what the tuner's expertise was, and he got in over his head. Or maybe he underestimated how much time was involved. Maybe the customer had very high expectations and couldn't be satisfied, like the customer at a restaurant who will complain about anything. There's always a risk involved when you get a new tuner, a new lawyer, a new doctor, a contractor for your house. Nobody out there can ever spend as much time on your car as you can unless you hand them a blank check.

It can be a difficult decision to make. My best advice is ask yourself--what is the risk, and what am I willing to lose? The more modified your car is, the higher the risk of something going wrong, but the more time required to get the job done. Are you willing to risk your engine?

Are you willing to risk your engine with somebody else at the helm vs you running your own show? I eventually came to the conclusion, after a long journey, that for a big project if anybody's going to screw my car up it's going to be me. But know thyself, as the saying goes.

i think the biggest misconception about self-tuning is that it is risky. being stupid is risky, not tuning your car. if you can follow best practices and not do anything incredibly stupid, you're not going to blow your car up. it's not a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.

not saying everyone should do it, just that it isn't as scary/risky as some like to make it seem. i think it's a lot more risky to let someone you've never met do it for you, but that's just me.

I agree that being stupid is risky. And not educating yourself before attempting something is stupid. Experience is still important though, especially when you're sorting through "best practices" that are still being debated among the knowledgeable (how lean is too lean? what tables do I adjust first?). You still need to consider the magnitude of the job ahead versus the experience level of the person attempting.

"I'm going to give myself a crash course in engine operation, then I'm going to jump from almost stock to boosting a car that was never designed for it and while learning to tune at the same time." Moving so quickly with hardware AND tuning while having no experience can lead to problems.

For example, if you've never scaled a MAF sensor before, maybe you should first try it on a mostly stock engine, whether that's a mostly stock FT86 or a mostly stock WRX or whatever. Just sayin.

Repetition is the father of learning, right? I think I got that from a Lil' Wayne song...

i agree, but then there's no way to gain experience without just jumping in and doing it. following best practices and reading up (i.e. not being stupid) is your safety net. you can't be afraid to learn, and doing so means having to jump in and try. collect a lot of data, make small changes, understand what you're doing before you do it, and you'll be fine. if you mess up the maf scale and go lean for a few seconds it's not going to blow your car up. trust me, i know :).

these cars are incredibly good at saving themselves from your mistakes. as long as you know when to get out of the throttle and are monitoring what you're supposed to be monitoring, there is little to worry about in reality.

So in theory for those who buy a tune. Do you have to buy a new tune everytime you buy another performance part? How much do they typically run once you already have the hardware?

lots of tuners offer discounted retunes for small upgrades, thats certainly a question to ask when picking a tuner.

My last tuner was $150 for retunes for example.

for NA tunes, OFT is the way to go. Its open, good support with regular updates. More people are sharing there thoughts, maps, tips, etc.. because of all of these open nature tuning solutions. Should you tune your own car, I rather not. I trust what the community recommends.

I paid to have a local tuner provide me with tunes for 93 octane and E85. Both were tweaked on the dyno and have performed great with no issues. At the time I had no interest in self tuning and Ecutek was limited so I bought only the liscence and not the cable. However I am becoming more and more fascinated with understanding the tuning process especially since Ecutek has become user friendly. I understand that tunes 1 and 2 are locked but is it possible to buy the full kit, use my existing liscence, and build tune 3 with a little help as part of a learning process?

no it is not. your entire rom is locked. bullshit, i know. you can ask him to unlock it for you, but most won't.

that really depends on your setup more than anything. if you're running sd then yes, anything that effects volumetric efficiency will require a retune. if you're running a basic na setup with a maf tune, you probably wouldn't realistically need to change anything unless you swapped headers. you always could and maybe see some benefit, but it wouldn't be strictly necessary.

If you wanted to get a Cable kit and download the software you can start with a Stock ROM and just build from there. You can basically start modifying little things as you go and learn as you want. There is a lot to learn if you are starting from square one, but if you have some good resources for info it's not an impossible task. Just make sure you do a lot of research and reading to make sure you aren't modifying the wrong things or modifying the right things too much.

You could always flash back to your custom Pro-tunes at any time, so that's an advantage.


It's not "bullshit". That's your opinion.

We know you had an issue with a local tuner you chose to go with and he didn't get you taken care of the right way. Not ALL tuners are like the guy you had issues with. For that matter, he wasn't even an Ecutek tuner, so that's not even a fair comparison.

You should really stop bashing all tuners and lumping them into the same category.

If you feel you don't want to pay for a Pro-tune that's fine. If you want to tune your own car, that's fine too. But your choice is Your choice, it is not the only choice.

Lets keep it friendly and factual in here so everybody benefits and knows what their options are without bias :)


-Tristan

^someone jumped the gun and over reacted, reading helps.

Wow... touchy ;). I didn't say pro tuning was bullshit, actually quite the opposite. I said locking roms people paid you to create bespoke to their vehicle on behalf of them with their money is bullshit. Big difference. Did you even read the entire thread?

We did, you just didn't understand our response :)


I was exactly referring to that. I know a lot of your negativity comes from a bad experience you had with another Opensource tuner.

I'm not overreacting or arguing, I am stating a fact.

I'm not going to get drawn into another - "Why won't tuners unlock their ROMs" debate. It's been beaten to death on the forums. People on here know why. Whether you agree with it or not is your opinion. What I say here won't change your mind, or any of the other's who think that what we do is against their beliefs, so it's a pointless effort.

I just wanted to point out the members options on self tuning and reply to your comment to make something clear.


-Tristan

i'm pretty sure the only negativity in this thread is coming from you, but whatever. we don't agree. and you weren't replying to anything i said. you're comment had nothing at all to do with anything i said in this thread. it's almost as if you were responding to something you assumed i had said, when in fact i had pretty much said the exact opposite. it was completely off-base and out of nowhere, but yeah.... whatever lol.

So you say what we do is "bullshit" (referring to ROMs), and we respond, and we're being negative. Right.

This is why trying to have discussion on these forums usually goes nowhere, and then people wonder why there is a lack of good back-and-forth with the Pro-vendors and tuners on here.

It's a shame.

Ah well, back you your regularly scheduled program guys.

-Tristan

i didn't say 'what you do' is bullshit. by all accounts you guys kick out great tunes. i said locking people out of what they paid for is bullshit, and that's my opinion. i'm allowed to have one and express it, as are you.

this actually was a pretty constructive thread until you posted in it. but enough of that...

Sigh. OK, Here's the issue: You post in just about every single tuning thread on here. You like to paint all tuners on here in a negative light because you feel we charge for a tune, the customer gets a tune and they should be able to access all of the proprietary tuning solutions in that software.

That's not how it works. If you buy an iPhone does apple give you all of their proprietary software or hardware secrets? If you buy Windows XP, does Microsoft give you all of the back-end coding for that software? If you buy a Scion FR-S, does Toyota give you the code for the computer to get in there and change it?

Hell no. That's not how it works.

The Pro-tuners on here spend hundreds of hours fine-tuning their base maps and their calibrations for tuning. Some use special tuning calibrations for tuning cams, timing, fueling, etc. some of that yields more power, some of it yields better driving feel. Every tuner goes about it in different ways, some are better than others at it. It's their intellectual property.

You pay for their services and their tune, not for their tuning know-how. If you wanted to take a tuning class from the top tuners out there you'd end up paying quite a bit of money.

So you say - "But it's my tune, and it's just for my car, so what's the point in not giving it to me, nobody can use it on their car since it's different".

Wrong. The custom base calibrations that go into every tune are still there, but the tune needs to be tweaked for each car. So if you got an unlocked tune with your car, all it would take is one post on the internet and every Pro-tuner, garage-tuner, self-tuner or tuner-wannabe out there now has access to hundreds, if not thousands of hours of hard work and research, instantly, for free. And they can take that and start passing it off as their own. It happens, and that's why most tuners won't unlock their ROMs.

You make it a point in EVER SINGLE POST you make about how it's a scam. It gets old man. Really old.

Most Pro-tuners don't even want to post about it anymore on here because anytime we try and defend ourselves we just get bashed, like we're stealing from the poor.

Keep in mind, You wouldn't be able to self tune your car without Pro-tuners paving the way.

I'll say this again - Pro-tuning is really ideal for most people, I'm talking 90-95% of the guys out there that want or need a tune. You pay for a tune, and if you go to the right tuner, you get a solid turn key tune that you set and forget and just enjoy. Then there are the guys who want to do it themselves, they don't want to pay for a tune and they want the control and pride of doing it themselves, That's great, I'm all for it. We don't get mad or upset when people do it themselves. There are options, not ONE is the best. Pick the one right for you and don't bash the other one.

So if you don't understand then I don't know what else to say.

:iono:

^^ Makes perfectly good sense to me.

:clap: @Circuit Motorsports Good job digging yourself a grave. Are you trying to look like an asshat? Do you know the meaning of reputation? You're on your way to ruining it lol

i'm not even going to respond to that. we disagree... it hasn't been a topic of conversation on here for a long time... that's all. those arguments were already made a long time ago, and no one really cares any more. ecutek is open now, some tuners are offering unlocked roms on a case-by-case basis, some aren't. it's really not worth scrapping over for the umpteenth time.

we just disagree, and always will.

and just fwiw i didn't have to look at anyone else's rom to make my car run right. i put the time in myself, lots and lots of hours of it, literally thousands of miles logging and dozens of hours tweaking stuff, just ask my wife lol. now i'm doing everything in my power to pass that on to whoever will listen and make it easier on the next guy, and it's obvious that you don't like that very much.

if you had read my earlier post in the thread you'd know that i suggested protuning is the way to go for anyone not willing to put in the time. no one is trying to piggyback off of anyone. we don't need to.

heres the brass tax. air and fuel go in, pistons go boom, exhaust gas comes out. Not really reinventing the wheel here. The custom racerom map area I can understand maybe, but even then twostep, autoblip, nolifttoshift isnt new either.

its probably not even likely that x tuner could even take y tuners rom and really apply it anywhere becausr all roms are based off the car. Makes sense to me, I understand the concern, but i doubt anyone would really lose any "tuning money". It might even be the opposite effect because hey if you mess up a car with a tune not meant for it, thats money to retune.

But what do I know, people said you cant run big turbos on small motors.

For me it's quite simple, if a "pro tuner" is going to lock my map, I wont have my car tuned by them.


The good tuners around my part of the world don't tend to lock their maps. I have been stuck in the "Tuner wont unlock the ECU" situation before, citing if someone else tuned the engine it would explode. I did manage to get a copy of the map for that ECU (Autronic SM4) and there was a good reason the tuner was trying to hide their work... very average tuning.

I don't care if you share your tuning knowledge, I just stated above I don't. We're not "scared" if that's what you're implying.

If you don't want to piggyback then great, why do you care if the ROMs are unlocked :iono:

That kind of defeats your whole argument.

You're wrong. Tuner X can most definitely Take Tuner's Y info and use it.

Ask any of the big time tuners on here why they lock their maps, answer will all be the same.

It's been said "Oh well they have crappy maps, why else wouldn't they want you to see their maps"?

Which sure, I guess in some cases that might be true, you could try to hide your crappy tuning by locking a map. But it's usually the opposite, they have really good tuning tricks/solutions and they don't want their competitors to have that info. Simple as that.

But I can understand you wanting a unlocked map, there is nothing wrong with that.

I try to be pretty informational and transparent and it get's me a lot of flak on here but....what can ya do :bonk:

-Tristan

you're awfully defensive, and we all know where that usually comes from...

listen, i don't want access to your roms. i don't need access to your roms. i don't even own one of your tunes for you to unlock.

i just thought it was hilarious that you would suggest that we're 'couldn't do it without pro tuners paving the way', when not a single master tuner has contributed a single shred of useful information on this forum. they share nothing whatsoever.

bill at delicious made one useful thread right before ecutek end user tuning dropped that said 'hey look, here's what racerom can do.' and that was it. nothing else whatsoever. not so much as a blog post saying 'here's how to scale a maf'. nothing. and yet somehow you honestly believe that we just couldn't do it without them. the whole body of ecutek master tuners have literally contributed, combined and in total, that one post. and yet you somehow think you've built the house we live in. it's insane.

Virtualy every single shred of useful tuning information on this forum has been contributed by amateurs.

ok i'm done now.

You seem to be the one on the defense....

My point was that without the Tuners developing the software to use, it wouldn't be out there. Without Professional Tuners buying Professionally developed software, and utilizing it, there wouldn't be the amateur versions of that software. It's the trickle down effect so common in the commercial/business world.

Opensource stuff is all reverse engineered from the Professionally developed stuff too.

There's a lot of useful info given to guys on here by the Pro's. Is every post a library of info on how to tune your own car? No, but that doesn't mean there's still a lot contributed.

I know that you're just going to keep going back and forth, but, I like to address stuff like this so people can see both sides of the coin.

:thumbsup:


-Tristan

Being in the middle of the process of getting my Port and DI fuelling systems synchronized with many pointers from James and mad_sb, I do wonder how some of the remote tuners could really address this properly. I wonder how many pro-tuners even check the port/direct balance at baseline.