Is tuning safe?
 

Hey guys im new here, and Ive been wanting to mod my car for a while now. when I got the car, I had the trd exhaust installed and it sounded great to me, however now it is losing some of the excitement I initially had. im looking for more sound, and after hearing the borla uel header I knew I had to have it! the only thing stopping me is that I want to have the power that goes with it, so I was thinking about getting a tune with it at drift office. to me it looks like the ecutek tune is one of the best options as it has such a wide variety of options, but the plug and play kits look good too! I want to do it right, and I think this will be the only mods I do for a while. other than the header, trd catback and the tune it will be otherwise completely stock. ive searched the forums for thoughts on this, but with so much info out there im just getting way overwhelmed! what do you guys think, should I just do the ecutek or would the plug and play be enough? I just want more power and that subie rumble! one thing that worries me about ecutek is that it voids the warranty. if that is the best option, id be willing to do it, but first I want to make sure the motor is alright to handle the new power and tune? I haven't really heard any problems where the engine warranty has been needed by anyone, but just wanted to ask around first before I throw that away. I need advise, sorry this is so long but I don't want to cause problems with my car! thanks for any advise!!

If you put a tune on your car, it will literally lock the doors and burst into flames.


Make sure you have an escape tool.

A proper quality tune is probably going to be safer than the OEM tune that is designed to intentionally make the engine knock to find out the quality of fuel you currently have.

Bob over at drift office knows what he is doing, and always tends to lean more on the safe side of things when it comes to tuning. I would highly recommend him. Give him a call and he can help answer any concerns you have! I actually drove way way way out of my way to go meet Bob about a year back when I drove up to Seattle and after chatting with him for about an hour he is one of the few people I would let tune my own car. =)

Is this THE charmader FRS?

If you aren't interested in modifying your car more, I would recommend the Open Flash Tablet and their header. That way, you get the boxer rumble you want and an entry level tuning tool.

ok cool! so a tune is definitely on the list then, but which do you recommend? a unichip, oft or ecutek? I plan on staying na for a few years, maybe a turbo down the road a ways. ive been hearing a lot of good things about him, I plan on heading over there when I figure out my plans:) little bit of a drive for me too, but well worth it for the higher quality job!

no hes on the east coast, im here on the west...ive talked to him though and hes cool with charmander being represented on both sides:D

Myself and others have had great success with using Delicious Tuning. They have quite the extensive resume and a really good reputation. Also, if you're intersted in ever flexfueling your car they have an awesome kit.

check out their website...
http://www.delicioustuning.com

Now give me money DT for plugging you LOL j/k the tune and flexfuel makes me happy every day!

Being in Canada, you should give BRZWorld a holler. They dealer of ours and do excellent work. They can get you sorted out with the mods/tune that best suits your needs. You won't be disappointed :)

http://clubstore.brzworld.ca
Cheers,
Shiv

Pick a tuner, and ask them what platform they feel fits you best that they are willing to work with.

You should pick the mechanic, not wrench the mechanic is going to use.

More thumbs up for Bob at Drift Office. He knows what he is doing. Talked with him over the weekend when he had our 86 meet. I was wary of adding a turbo on the car but after hearing that there were no issues on the cars he worked on, I'll be heading his way next year.

Shoot him an email with what your plans are and I'm sure he will give you a reply back. :)

thats true, good point!


looks like the jdl is way better quality than the borla. is the price difference worth it?

Barrington is an awesome guy to deal with. Would answer my questions in a matter of hours, no matter what time of day it was!

yeah ill definitely talk to him and get his opinion, sounds like hes one of the best! thanks!

im actually in Vancouver Washington, sorry for the confusion!:D

Could be Vancouver WA (across from Portland OR)

-alex

Doh! I was every that good at US geography anyway :)

BTW, the next big update for the OFT is coming soon. Major enhancements to data logging, displays, diagnostics, etc,.

Would I have to do all the testing myself then or could I have that professionally done?

OFT is a tool to flash your car & datalog. If you were using their generic ROM's then you would simply just flash their ROM on your car. If you were getting a custom tuner from a tuner they would use the OFT as a tool for programing your car. Shiv is just pointing out he has new features coming out for his product. =)

If you were wanting a custom tuner I recommend talking to a tuner directly before jumping to buy something.

Oh don't tease us like that!

The updates I was referring to are automatically apply whenever one connects the OFT to the internet via computer. Nothing for a customer to do. For your current needs, the OFT can deliver the ECU tune you are looking to get. It an be installed at home in minutes without the need of a laptop. If you do want to do additional custom tuning (either yourself or through our e-tuning service) you an do that as well. Ecutek is another tuning option that is sufficiently different. So different than you shouldn't have a problem picking what solution is best for your needs. Just research both adequately and feel free to ask any specific questions here.

Cheers,
shiv

Any mods have potential to cause warantee issue if a related part fails.

The dealer will notice you headers before a tune.

The ability to flash back to a 100% stock rom with the same CVN (checksum value) as the stock rom andthe same calibration id is the best option if you conerned with warantee. they are the two things the dealer can easily check.

Most aftermarket tune knock less and run safe afr and incorporate the latest factory updates and would generally be better for your engine than the stock tune especially on 91 fuels

Ok wow that's good to know! I emailed Bob at drift office, so we'll see what he has to say!

FYI, bob is 100% against OFT, and for good reasons... you'll have an ECUTEK tune which will be custom tailored to your car, and should achive the best possible gains for your mods.

I haven't seen or heard a Boral in person, but I do know that my ceramic coated JDL UEL header is definitely a piece of art. I wouldn't hesitate buying one if I were you.

All Ecutek dealers are against the OFT for good (to them) reason. Furthermore, we custom tailor mapping for our OFT customers every day using the OFT so custom tuning isn't exclusive to Ecutek.

If you go to the Subaru dealer he\she wont recomend you buy a Toyota 86\FRS
If you go to the Toyota dealer he\she wont recomend you buy a BRZ

Even though they are the same car why ?

From tuner perspective IIRC it may take a bit longer to tune, will require learning new toolset, will disable ability to 'lock'/encrypt tune for it to not be used on other cars, maybe some less important features will be left out, eg. on the fly tune switching and maybe something else.
From user perspective OFT will bring tune that he himself can work on later eg. using info from this forum threads due no locking of any kind, OFT will be easily resellable and usable by other owners on other cars (no tie in for only one). About the only drawback i see in OFT that most commercial tuner shops are ecutek only. Unfortunately it usually is main reason why one may chose ecutek over OFT, if customer is going for full custom dyno ecu tune to some tuning shop, he has to get whatever they work with, or do everything by himself, using only their dyno facilities.

I don't know of a single respected tuner that recommends OFT, so your argument is moot.

An oft is a device to flash a rom just like an ecutek cable or a tatrix adapter.

The reason most tuners dont use oft or tactrix\ecuflash is they dont provide the ability to lock the tune and your ecu.

Quite a few tuners use tactrix\brzedit as it does provide locking of ecu\tune and some have coded flex fuel option.

Not this shit again.. OFT vs Ecutek, N/A vs F/I, Rota vs Volks..

moto-mike
 

i worked with some ecutek tuners and i do not like share my experience here.

finally i worked with moto-mike and the result was awesome.
more than 1.51 seconds 0-100km records from stock with moto-mike stage 2 tune.
3 of my friends use mike maps for their NA tune and the result is great.
in my view:
mike is great
mike is awesome
mike is professional tuner

I should thanks him and i 100% recommend him.

Hmmm.. someone who charges for a service that someone else offers for free? I wonder why they are against it?
I know of electricians that tell me that it is illegal for me to work on my own residfential AC power system. (I wonder why they lie????)

Same answer as above

That is because they are loosing money to OFT products.

I used the off the shelf OFT tune for a Stock BRZ and it works beautifully.
Just pick components that OFT has a tune for, install them, flahs the corresponding OFT tune, then post some logs for people to look at.
That way you get free online support.

I am not going to knock any of the tuners here because from what I have read, most do a fantastic job. However, I find this to be a common misconception. Faster car=Better tune. Is the tune safe? What are your AFR's? Are you getting knock? There have been a few companies that have blown boosted motors and left customers high and dry.

Got a dog tuner?

You can do that with an ECUTEK cable and dongle... I flashed an OFT tune on my car and it was the biggest pile of shit ever.

As of now, my own street tune is working flawlessly and the only thing it has from OFT is the O2 sensor scale.

I can easily post my ECUTEK logs online and get the same free support.

Empirically, what made it the "biggest pile of shit ever."

Lmao! Oh man, apparently I need more coffee.. Epic fail

Lets just say that it lost power after it learned the parameters, and the fact that it pushes the car to over 30 degrees of timing which is rediculous, and a recepie for knocking. MAF scale was whack causing horrible FTLT.

The stock tune ran way better than OFT.

I see. So where did you get an ECUTEK tune for free?
And I guess "no tourque dip, noticeable increase in HP, and alleviating the stock transient timing bug" is "biggest pile of shit ever" - Noted.

I will redfine what "pile of shit" means in my dictionary.

What mods were done to your car?? Did you data log the stock tune? When I first picked up my OFT, my IAM was 0.7 and I was getting a lot of tip in knock (factory tune). Running the 93 tune from Shiv, the only time I get knock is if I am in stop and go traffic, and then smash the gas in a higher gear. IAM is 1.
Here is a log I took about an hour ago. Started in 3rd gear at 2700RPM shifted into 4th at 7200RPM.
**Ambient temp is about 72F, RH is 46% and 29.98"Hg**
http://www.datazap.me/u/dthissen/log...data=1-6-11-14