Why OFT?
 

So I am curious as to why OFT is so popular.

I've read a lot of threads and watched a lot of videos and I know its easy and reliable

BUT

The gains from it are not very good.

I've watched multiple videos of before/after tunes using Open Flash and it appears that even with headers/exhaust the gains are averaging ~15hp to the wheel.

I'd expect more like 20-30hp for a headerback and tune.

Are my expectations too high or is it just a matter of using EcuTek and getting a custom dyno tune?

You don't have to use a canned tune on the OTF though. You could get a custom tune too.

Because its cheap, easy and proves gains. The gains are plenty on E85.

The former. The only thing that makes more significant power in a headerback arrangement NA is a catless header and to a lesser degree a catless FP. You might get an extra 1-2 WHP from an OP and the same from a CBE.

BUT

With that OFT, you also get a free e85 Tune (good for ~e50-e90). So if a person has that in their area, then they unlock that lovely extra power for nothing. To me, this is what makes the OFT a bargain for NA owners.

It's easy to use and quite a bit cheaper than an ecutek setup. For NA, which most people are, it provides enough options to get close. If you're going for every bit of NA power or forced induction, most of the time ecutek is the better option, however the OFT is pretty good with some supercharged setups and the SBD kit utilizes the OFT as well.

I would be very curious on a dyno comparison of an OFT flash tune with a couple of tweaks to the MAF curve and load compensation tables through street tuning vs an ecutek e-tune with a few revisions. I bet it would be very close...

People like things to come easy. OFT is easy. You plug it in, you push Read, you push Write, you flash your tune, and you're done. At some point you plug it into your computer too, but most people are going to equate that to plugging your phone in to copy some music over.

ECUtek is more involved and requires a little more effort to get going for most people and it doesn't have the pretty package that the OFT does. It doesn't log to a nice little box with visual gauges, and you have to have a laptop in your car if you want to do anything with it.

All that being said, yes, you can custom tune on OFT, but the thing is, most people aren't going to want to do that themselves. The only person that's going to tune you on OFT is Shiv, which as good as I know his tunes are, I seem to remember he's kind of slow, probably because of his workload.

ECUtek isn't that much more expensive if you're planning on getting a custom tune from the start, and it's the only thing most tuners will use, because they don't want to have their work stolen and can lock the tune. My tuner on the other hand, who actually provides you with an unlocked ECUtek tune, won't use OFT because it doesn't have the custom mapping that ECUtek affords for additional functionality and safety features, especially when FI.

For as little as this car weighs, 15hp is a pretty healthy leap. When paired with a catless header that gutless feeling your old FRS had would have felt worlds better. The little valley we call the torque dip is smoothed out significantly.

I'd say your expectations require a little real life experience. :)

#stirspot

You don't get anymore gains from an OFT tablet than you get from an Ecutek cable. It's a device for flashing the ECU.

A tune is what will give you a performance increase.

The OFT is supplied with base tunes that you can use if you desire, or tweak them yourself or let someone else do it. The software you use to do this is called RomRaider.

So in the end your car is tuned with RomRaider and flashed with OFT.

Ecutek is not supplied with any base tunes, so you have to tune the car from scratch or let a tuner do it.

You can also use Tactrix to flash your car and tune with RomRaider. Or use other software like EcuFlash or BRZedit.


NA, you get max 10-15 hp from a tune on pump gas and close to zero would be due to the headerback.

20-30hp on pump gas is realistic with a quality aftermarket header and with a well dialed in tune (with or without a change to cat-back).

Both above goes for Ecutek ProEcu as well as RomRaider.

Here is link to variois tune systems for these cars.

OFT is just a flash device, for Naturally adpirated csrs you can get same results with any tine system. Custom tuning on any sysyem will get you a little more power


http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=106068


Your adjusting same tables with all tune systems naturally aspirated

I've run both systems now, just throwing in my 2c, my car starts much more reliably in the cold (~30F) on ecutek with a FF kit than it did on OFT e85 tune only. This is almost certainly just an effect of the tune, not the platform. As far as power they seem about the same. OFT is definitely easier to use.

because i like the logging, the odb2 reading, and until i got FI i dont feel like paying for ecutek. when i do i can just sell it

I've used both ECUtek and OFT prodcuts, there are advantages for each platform. For most people the ease of use for OFT wins hands down. To have a single device responsible for flashing, logging and even clearing codes it wins and is my personal choice for my cars. Another bonus, if you are savvy with tuning, OFT is OpenSource and provides base maps to dial in your project more.

Love the OFT for its simplicity and obvious uses as a flashing. diagnostic, etc device, The real worth lies in its good off the shelf tunes totally worth the 500 bucks especially if your car is your mildly modded NA daily like mine. Now with that being said that does not say Ecutek should be totally off your radar, for example when I get my FI kit I'm going to use the Ecutek to load my CARB tune while continuing to use my OFT occasionaly to monitor stuff like AFRs and oil temps. I'm going to keep both because they are great tools to have on this platform. Lastly if I were going to do E85 I would only do it on the OFT if I lived in a state with an ABUNDANCE of E85 stations to keep my car on 100% E85 all of the time. Where I live now they are few and far between so personally I would run a quality flex fuel kit on an Ecutek tune so my car knows what blend of corn juice its running on and can adjust accordingly to give me the maximum safety and performance. Sorry for the wall of text.

For me the OFT is worth the money. Resale value is good too, if you decide to try it and decide to move on. With a JDL catless UEL header and stage 2 tune, there was definitely an increase in power, and a flattened out torque curve.

Best $500 I spent on accessories/parts for my car was on the OFT. No contest. I purchased mine when Vishnu first release this product. I suppose you can get a tactrix for less and do almost the same thing, but you wont have real time sensor readouts. I'll likely end up getting one of those as well just for data logging. (more channels and better resolution on logs)

Why not sell the OFT and buy the EcuTek BT-EVI? Better logging, better displays that you can customize and possibly even control over your maps if the tuner adds it in. You can't guarantee the OFT for logging/display will work due to the reliance of using certain ROM IDs in the OTS maps.

Basically the long and short of OFT is, it's only better if you don't want a real protune on a dyno. It makes a lot more sense and it's a fair bit cheaper for that kind of person since it offers Stage 1/2 and E85 OTS maps. Nobody will dyno tune you on OFT.

There's also the Android and Torque option for monitoring. I wanted an OEM look so this is where I view most of my vitals.

It was a gift from my wife and I dont like to sell gifts. I also already have a cable run and a custom mount for the OFT in my car for when I actually want to use it as a gauge pack. Thanks for the heads up about the ecutek Bluetooth thing, haven't even looked into it but now it's on my radar.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

my FRS ran 14.3 @ 97 (DA corrected) on a OFT e85 tune and a CNT (budget) uel header... still had the spare tire/tools and a toddler seat in the car half a tank of gas and normal street pressure in the tires... less than a thousand dollars worth of mods/ minor effort and the car is significantly quicker than it was in stock form. Thats why OFT is so popular.

Also the OFT is flexible. I can flash a number of different tunes or go back to the stock tune and it only takes 10 minutes. It's easy as you want it to be with OTS tunes, or you can mess with Romrqaider and make it as complex as you like and do your own tune, or get a custom OTS tune from someone like Wayno or a custom E-Tune from Shiv himself.

I have no experience with Ecutek so I don't know what it can and can't do.

What does a stock one do? 14.3 @ 97 is not super slow but it doesnt sound too fast at all. lol

Id wager a stocker would do mid to high 15s if not low 16s in the 1/4 depending on elevation, driver, tire wear etc.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

From a magazine review in Australia


Performance Statistics Subaru BRZ
0-60 km/h 0-100 km/h 0-400 m Top speed
3.7 8.2 15.8 144
Performance Statistics Toyota 86
0-60 km/h 0-100 km/h 0-400 m Top speed
3.6 8.1 15.7 144

I guess 14.3 @ 97 is a pretty decent improvement. As fast as this supercharged one.

Stock MY13 14.8 @ 93.6

Supercharged with 224 WHP 14.3 @ 98.5

https://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/...ck-tested.html

ACtually that's only half true...
 

Running techstream or ecuedit with tactrix and you can have real time sensor readout...

Only problem with techstream is that for instance, I get a 4 psi map sensor reading at idle N/A because I have an omni 3 bar and afaik you can't rescale the sensor in techstream...

Jaden

Can you run either of those apps on a tablet or phone to display sensor data like gauges, or do you have to use laptop computer?

One function I found useful is being able to log while sensor data is visible. Can you do this somehow using tactrix with whats available?

you can with ecuedit I believe...
 

I think you can with ECU edit. Both the viewing on the tablet and logging while viewing sensor data. Also, Ecuedit allows for logging and viewing of third party wide bands.

Jaden

That would be an almost ideal setup.. tablet that does all the things the OFT does with more channels, better resolution (in logs and on screen), simultaneous sensor data display/logging, AND tweak your tune on the same device that's open source.

These are not 1/4 mile cars clearly. They shine in the turns though.

If I had a reputable tuner in my area I would probably get an ecutek tune but my car now performs very nicely with uel header and e85 tune. Not a rocket ship but day and night difference from stock.

These cars are hard to launch consistently

While I was running tomei EL on E85 I was going faster than some fairly decently quick cars. My neighbors Cayanne S, coworker's AP1 S2k and G35 coupe. In stock form all 3 of those cars "supposed" to have a quicker ET than 14.5, if I'm not mistaken.