tuning help
 

so i'm confused on in terms of tuning. Where do I go and what do I need to tune the frs? I have the ark grip catback right now and plan on doing test pipe along with intake soon. Just want to know ahead of time. Detailed information would be fantastic. Sorry for the noob question.

Go with an Ecutek tune to maximize power. I went with Visconti and have been very happy.

so i see something about a cable, the tune, and a license. What do I do with those when I purchase those? Do i take them to a place that does tunes and have them do their thing?

If you are talking about ECU tunes. There seems to be 2 major ones. The most popular is ECUTEK and the 2 main people are FA20Club and Visconti. For a complete tune, cable, and license expect to pay around 800$. They send you a can file which you flash to your car. Then its up to you to log and send those logs back to your tuner. They then send you a new tune to flash. Rinse and repeat several times or till you are happy with your numbers. The other popular option thats gaining steam is the uni-chip. Thats an external box that controls the ECU. This option is a bit cheaper, but imo a bit more messy.

Nope, WAY easier than that. John will mail you the cable and a USB drive thats called a dongle. You download the Ecutek software, plug in your dongle, plugin is one side of the cable to your car, the other to your computer, pick the tune file John sends you, and click program, and 10 minutes later you are good to go.

John is pretty helpful and almost always available by phone if you need help. Its a pretty easy to do. Visconti tune is worth EVERY penny. Plus if you say N/A, free tune for life. Love it!

John from? so i'm assuming ecutek would be the way to go right?

John is Visconti. Do understand John is one person. So you need to be patient with him.

oooh okay. got it. sorry for so many questions. i'm clueless with tuning.

any link as to where I can get the things I need to get?

oh and how do i get a hold of john?

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21190

If you have E85 near you, it would be best to get both tunes, especially since he is coming out with a flex fuel package that will allow you to run 93 or E85 in whatever mix you want.

Link is in my signature below this post.

I have cable in stock and ready to ship

Basically you order the kit, fill out a form with all your car mods including vin number and ill shoot you a tune. If you need help with installing or flashing I can call or remotely connect. Once your flash just submit datalogs and ill review and make changes.

You'll need a windows based laptop to use Ecutek.

Let me know if you have anymore questions

John

seeing as the OP is new to this, i would just stick with 91 tune or 93 if its in your area. Get that dialed in and then go for E-85 (if its in your area)

Anyone know if the Ecutek software runs ok on macs with windows in a virtual machine?

You'll need to be in boot camp for it to work correctly

John

^^ I'll see about that when I finally order a tune (no point with snowy roads :D) :D

I figured as much, but I'm stubborn and will still try to make it run through a virtual machine.

Go do a local tune. Always better than E tunes imho

+1

Nothing against FA20club or Visconti, but they both know they can tune better locally than anything. Local tunes are PERSONAL tunes for YOUR car with your mods. Nothing beats that. Most do updates for life too when you buy a tune.

Agreed especially since your in CALI, Evasive motorsports could help you out.


Unfortunatly for me the closest tuner is about 7 hours so Fa20 or Visconti is the way to go for me

While it does work in boot camp, it WILL 100% work in a virtual machine. I've tried it in parallels and vmware fusion.

@wparsons
So, yes, it WILL work in a virtual machine.

Windows 8 doesn't work right in virtual machine and EcuTek also states they don't support it.

I would highly suggest just doing bootcamp ;)

I'm trying to work out how the new Ecutek license system works.

I understand that owners can now flash back to stock, which allows dealers to flash the ECU .. but can they then go back to their Ecutek tune?

What if I want to try a brzEdit or open source tune? Can I try them and then flash back to my Ecutek tune, or is that not allowed for some reason?

I'd be a lot more likely to try Ecutek again if I knew it didn't prevent me from trying other alternatives, should I ever want to.

I'd really like to hear from someone who has flashed an Ecuteked ECU back to stock, flashed a dealer (or other) tune over the top, then reinstalled their Ecutek tune.

Is it just promises, or has someone actually done it?

What's your end goal?

If your dealer replaces the Ecu or flashes it then your Ecutek licensing is gone. You then have to contact your master dealer and get with them to get you a new license.

New licenses are only provided when proof of Ecu replacement or dealer reflash has been done.

So if your Ecutek tuned, flash back to stock and use brzedit you will lose your license.

John

What is the likelyhood that a dealer can detect that you had a tune and just flashed back to stock prior to visiting them.?

Flash can't be detected at the dealer level.

The dealer tools can see the checksum info and ram info in the Ecu.

During larger warranty claims , aka motor Subaru of American will ask the dealer to pull up some info which will tell them if the car has a stock or modified flash.

That being said the dealer can not flash over a custom Ecutek tune.. Only a stock a Ecutek flash.

Most of the time the dealer has problems with their tools so if they attempt to flash over a custom tune they'd blame their equipment before pointing fingers - trust me I know.

But the current recall replaces the Ecu not flashes

I've had a few customers have their custom tuned ecus replaced under this recall already.


John

Well, I guess both of us should have specified the Win version. It works perfectly fine in Windows 7. Just flashed my car 5mins ago again.

:thanks:

Thanks for your honest response. It is appreciated.

Unfortunately, it means Ecutek is still not for me. I understand the concept of locking out competitors, but really good businesses don't need to do this.

I don't care what software a tuner uses. People who buy a car and own their ecu should have the freedom to choose the best tuner available at the time (without paying a new license fee to Ecutek every time they want to try an Ecutek tuner).

If this is a technical limitation and not a deliberate restraint on customer's choices, then Ecutek need to fix it.

Either way, thanks but it's not for me.

You might want to check out the Unichip offering, worth a look, not sure your goals.

Your not understanding what Im saying.

EcuTek's license lives on the ECU.

If the ecu gets erased, flash fails, or ecu gets replaced then the license is gone.

If you lose a license the EcuTek log file will show that, if the dealer replaces the ecu then you'll have a work order for proof.

In those cases licenses will be replaced.

If your car is flashed with EcuTek any EcuTek dealer with that software suit aka ProECU BRZ/FRS/GT86 can tune the car.

Since EcuTek has years of custom code development work in the ECU they lock it prevent a few different things.

1. Preventing Dealers from Flashing over the ecu
2. Preventing non-EcuTek products from reading out the ecu and potentially stealing their custom code
3. Preventing non-EcuTek products reading out the ecu and exposing tuners hard work.

This is why I suggest everyone to own their own ecutek cable - this gives them the freedom to do what they want.

EcuTek isn't the only company that does this, and to be honest I wouldn't have put 1/16 of the amount of time into my calibrations if i knew someone could suck it out and look at it.

John

Please spare me the sermon. I completely understand everything you've said, even the misleading parts.

If I buy a computer and buy an MS Windows license, I can try Linux and then put Windows back on if I don't like Linux. If I can't do that with Ecutek, it's a limitation of Ecutek, not a feature.

After reading what seems like thousands of posts saying "You can flash back to 100% stock", this is the first time I've seen it admitted that if you do Ecutek may refuse to reinstate your license.

Once it's 100% stock, there's no IP to be "stolen". Hence your points 2 and 3 are not relevant. The refusal or inability to restore the license is therefore of no benefit to the tuner, other than to restrict competition.

I said what I said, I've been clear.

If you can provide proof the license has been lost then you'll get another one.

If you lose the license because your screwing around with other software well there's absolutely no guarantees.

Licenses only get replaced when they're proof of loss.

If you don't like it, get a unichip.

Simple as that

Thanks for your assistance.

I won't be letting any Ecutek tuners screw around with my ECU.

Hopefully you wont let anyone screw around with your ECU.

I dont know anyone that would want their ecu screwed with.

If your looking for a tune you should get tuned by a experienced person...

But dont kid your self , you'll pay for experience, and delivery of that experience.

-John

Just so I'm clear...I have two questions.

I asked earlier if I can flash back to stock for the purpose of warranty work, and then flash my tune back on. So if I'm following this correctly, what I'm really doing is flashing back to a EcuTek version that is a "copy" of the stock settings, which in most cases is not detected by dealer, unless for major warranty work. From there I can then flash back to my custom tune, unless the dealer replaced my ECU, in which case I would need paperwork to get the license dropped back down on the ECU.
Did I get that right?

Second question, again may be a dumb question, but I'm new to this and why I like this forum so much.

What is preventing a person from purchasing a second ECU for the car and swapping them in/out as needed? Or is that not something you can do and why?

I don't get the animosity toward John on this. Completely uncalled for I think. If its not for you, its not for you. Done. I also don't get why so many people are weird about their ECU being locked by the tuner. I sure as hell don't want to get in there and mess around with it myself. Most of the EcuTek guys have free tunes for life and I'm even sure anyone of them would Dyno tune for you over IP.

Why would you want to "try" another tune? Just get with your tuner and say, this seems weird. Or I'd like it to do this or that. I'm sure anyone of the EcuTek tuners would be more than happy to oblige. EcuTek in general has all the features I need or will need for my upgrade path. I haven't seen anything non-EcuTek that is mind blowing. Price may be only small complaint but once you have it, you have it. But that being said, the car is so new, you gotta pay to play.

I don't see anything wrong with what @BEERzed was asking. If anything, I think John was more childish in his responses. However, putting that aside, what did you find wrong with what BEERzed was asking? They're perfectly valid questions.

What if I wasn't 100% satisfied with the ECUTek tune I was given? Let's say I took my car to a tuner shop to have it dyno tuned, to try and get a tad more power squeezed out. This shop uses something other than ECUTek. I decide later that I actually preferred the RaceROM features ECUTek offers, and try to flash back. I already bought the license, I bought the cable, and I bought the generic tune. So, why can't I flash back if I paid for everything?

I tend to agree with BEERzed, that I bought and paid for it...so why can't I experiment with other products and choose what I like the best. We're not stealing anyone's IP. Every tuner shop is going to prefer tuning with software and tools they are most comfortable with. It may not always be ECUTek. So, just because you can't imagine anyone not being happy with ECUTek...that doesn't mean someone else won't.

So, again, I ask you...what was wrong with BEERzed's questions? Where is the animosity you claimed he showed towards JV?

Yeah, this is still a little unclear. I know back in the EvoX ecutek days I could flash back a stock ecutek rom and still retain the license, but i think they have changed the license model since then.

So, If i have an ecutek tune and I flash an ecutek provided stock map back into the car:
1. is the license in the ecu retained
2. can the dealer reflash the ecu (lets say a tsb comes out that calls for a reflash before and part replacement). IE, is the ecu unlocked at that point?

Wow, if this is true I definitely won't be going with Ecutek...

DRM in my car no thanks.

BEERzed said please spare me the sermon. Just seems rude. IDK. Must be me. That being said, If wanted to see if I could get someone to squeeze more out of my car, and wanted to have a person there to do it, I would find a local EcuTek tuner or drive to the nearest one with the best reputation. I have a local EcuTek tuner where I'm at and still went with @Visconti because of his reputation in the tuner world. My local tuner has a great reputation but at the time I went with my tune, the weren't and Ecutek dealer. Tp each their own. I'm happy.

I haven't gotten my recall work done yet since I wasn't exactly sure what it meant to my ECUTek license. Thanks for clearing this up - so it's a complete ECU swap after all. Should I even bother reflashing back to Stock before going to the dealer? If they're just swapping the ECU out, I guess it won't matter, right?

Once the recall work is done, I just have to get another license key generated by you so that I can re-flash ECUTek, or do I just re-flash as normal?

To be clear, you already have DRM in your car. The stock ECU is locked. ECUTek and any other re-flash tunes work because they managed to crack the protection. I understand what you're saying though, and Piggy-back tunes, on the other hand, manipulate the information going to the ECU rather than changing the programming directly - so that's most likely the option you want to take.