Advice on tune with future plans to FI...
 

So I have a 2020 with about 6k miles I bought 4 months ago. I do not track. I am pretty happy with all of the car dynamics other than the torque dip and torque at low revs.

I am getting ready to tune with the plan to run e85 most of the time but would like the ability to run 93, 89 and even 87 at some times I have no other engine mods yet other than sound tube delete :). I want to start with an off-the-shelf tune although I am not opposed to getting it professionally tweaked at some point. I expect to change headers, probably cat-less, and may or may not go FI (depending on how I feel about the tune/headers) in the relatively near future.

My biggest question is, given the above, what tune package would you go with based upon those factors. My current thought is either open flash or Ecutek but I am willing to consider other options.

Of course, if someone has insights/thoughts as to why they think my plan is terrible and has a better idea, I would love to hear that too.

By the way, I am aware that the search feature is my friend (and have done so) so if that is your only response, no need to let me know. Thanks in advance.

I believe both Counterspace Garage and Delicious Tuning have a flex fuel solution for our cars. Zack Tucker (sp?) is the preeminent tuning celebrity for the 86 and he is currently with Counterspace. Maybe they will chime in on this thread.

My suggestion would be to just do a header and tune and see how you like that. If you want more then consider e85 or FI. I am not a big fan of E85 or flex fuel setups so I am biased against it.

2+ on the tuner suggestions.



Out of curiosity why don't you like E85/flex fuel? Its rare to find someone who doesn't care for it on this platform.

E85 does make some nice gains. It has a much higher knock threshold than 93. It lowers EGTs. But that's about the only good thing I could say about it.

To start flex fuel setups are not cheap. The delicious one is $600. It's fine on an NA car, but if you go boosted then you start needing a bigger fuel pump, bigger injectors, etc. The cost starts to mount up.

Then there is the maintenance consideration. Ethanol is hell on fuel tanks, fuel systems, engine oil, etc. It is reactive with many materials and it draws water in very easily. You really should do more frequent oil changes, especially if your car sits a lot.

Your fuel economy goes to shit and the range you can go on a single tank is miserable.

If you do a straight e85 tune now you are always looking for an e85 pump like a junkie searching for a fix. If you do flex fuel it's a bit better, but you will still be craving that corn juice all the time.

For my taste I would rather put the money towards a nice FI kit and not deal with the hassle of E85.

Best advice right here. Keep it simple man.

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I suppose it depends on what you use the car for. I use my BRZ as a weekend car. I wouldn't DD on E85 simply because of the lack of range. I cant imagine how short the range would be while running FI. Maybe 150milea from a tank? However I do have e85 available at multiple stations in my area...

I feel you on the cost to properly run a Ecutek flex fuel i cant quite bring my self to spend $1600 + a laptop to flash from...yet. But it does offer a safer tune with greater margin for error FI or not. A conservative E85 tune is probably cheaper than a blown engine but not by much when you add up everything involved as you mentioned. Haha

As for the fuel system and E85 these cars have been running it for 7 years without issue. Carbon built up with gas vs E85 was night and day when I popped off my IM. The intake ports look brand new while running E85. Usually run E85 in the warmer months and 93 in the colder months where the car usually just sits in the garage.

But if I could make the same power or close enough without the corn, yah I wouldn't bother with it. Smells good tho.��

Flex fuel allows you the best of both worlds with convenience. Want power? Put in ethanol. Want economy/range? Put in premium.

Your sentiment on Ethanol and fuel systems/oil is outdated. Were this an Evo or a MR2, your statements would be 100% correct, but simply do not apply to this platform, and most modern vehicles.

Depending on your location, the cost of running ethanol per mile may be significantly cheaper than cost per mile of gasoline. THis is certainly the case for me in California, where 91 is $3.70/gal right now, vs $2.25/gal for E85. 25% fuel economy loss is worth a 40% savings to me.


As for FI, a typical bolt-on FI solution will net you 50% more power at a cost of $5000-8000. Add ethanol on top of that, and you will get another 50% gain for less than $2000. That's some great bang for the buck there, pun intended.


If you just want simplicity, pump gas is always easiest, as is staying NA.

You can run E85 , 93 or 91 petrol but 89 or 87 is jist no good on a 12.5:1 compressison engine.


Mike is correct modern cars fuel systems and modern oils cope with e85 fine anything SN , GF5 or better rated oil is fine on ethanol


I have almost 7 years and 80,000 km on my car all on E85

is that additional ethanol 50% gain on the baseline stock numbers, or +50% on the boosted numbers(260/190)? kind of splitting hairs sorry, but were talking significant numbers based on how im interpreting what youre saying.

Ie:

170wheel + 50%+50% = 340wheel

or are you saying

170wheel + 50% = 255wheel,
255wheel + 50% = 382 wheel

weird question, but if youre saying i can go from 262wheel(jrsc c30) to 380 for $2,000... DM me

I can, but you won't like how/why. Let me introduce you to nitrous...

Have you seen may JRSC over 340whp? I haven't :)

HAHAHAHAHAHA i mean ive never considered it, and im not gonna knock it till ive tried it. donut media just made an informative video about nitrous kind of debunking it from this mysterious thing that blows up engines. its a tool to be used for a purpose and if used correctly will perform correctly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIwL...nel=DonutMedia

Turn in Concepts up there where you are, work on and tune these cars, and is where I went to get some of my parts and my baseline dyno runs. Chris from Harrop USA in Dayton recommended them to me for my Harrop tune, which I haven't installed yet. They are currently tuning the Harrop SC kit for the Nissan Titan there.

Ultimately, I had Zach at Counter Space Garage do my remote flex fuel tune after I installed all the parts myself. Currently, that is the only modification to my car other than the Deatchwerks fuel pump. Otherwise, stock headers, stock exhaust, stock intake. I also invested in the ecutek ProECU kit so that I can do all the flashing at home in my garage.

We just got finished with the tune last week and it went very well. Zach is a very patient, understanding, and experienced tuner with these cars and I am a very demanding client, but I am ultimately very happy with his work. He is also the one who Harrop had develop the CARB tune for their TVS1320 supercharger (which will be the next big install for my car as soon as I get those raised letters painted). And Zach will more than likely be my choice to perform that tune as well.

There's also Dynosty in Louisville who sold me my ecutek kit, and Hal seems like a good guy also, but I don't have any tunes from him. I've never been the type to put all of my eggs in one basket so at some point, I will probably enlist them for a tune also.

The flex fuel tune definitely gives a noticable increase in torque, but I need to see the results on the dyno just to satisfy my own curiosity. I need to get back up to Turn in for that.

Why would you ever want to run 87?

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I second this comment. Run at least 91 octane. I ran 93 since the day I purchased mine. Keep the knock out of your engine with good fuel and don't lug your engine by failing to downshift when you should.