OFT Review (Vishnu Tuning Tablet first impressions)
 

I just got my OFT tablet this week and I must say I'm very impressed with the tune so far. Here's a quick rundown of my take on the tablet:


Packaging & Shipping:

Packaging was pretty decent. I was expecting a flimsy box which is usual with cheaper stuff online, but what I got was a very solidly built box that fits the unit inside snug. Inside is also some Vishnu Tuning stickers which was a cool touch and wraps it up nicely & professionally.

I'd like to say I'm unimpressed with the Shipping window & times, however. I'm also not as impressed with the customer service which leads me to...

Customer Service

I don't know if Vishnu Tuning is swamped this month or what, but I was a bit thrown off with the customer service over email I got. I sent in a few questions that were mostly answered but my main concern was future F/I tunes and FlexFuel, both of which were pretty much shot down. This is sad because I would love to continue to use the OFT for my future mods but I know inevitably I'll want both of these and it looks like we're not getting any love here, for those of us not specifically with what Shiv tunes for. I'm just hoping it will get better in the future, but honestly right now N/A this tablet is great.
In addition to above, I ordered my tablet Friday afternoon, and I asked multiple times over the phone when the tablet would be shipping out since I had a family vacation this week and didn't want shipping to interfere. They said tablets were coming in *friday night* but shipping didn't go out until Monday at ~9pm which was passed the UPS shipping window. This normally wouldn't be a problem for me but since I had a vacation this interfered with that which was a bit of an annoyance, not to mention I asked for a refund for the *one day shipping* I ordered and haven't heard back since...

Very unimpressed with the customer service but hopefully this improves/doesn't stay this way in the future. For somebody that just wants a plug and play tablet and not worry about contacting somebody (and is ok with waiting), I think this would work great for though...

Also I'd like to update this that over the phone the staff at Vishnu were awesome & very polite. I will probably put in a call Monday and hopefully get the refund for the shipping resolved then. I personally prefer email as its easier for me (computer all day...) but they might just be more old school communication guys.

Tablet First Impressions

The quality of the plastic feels a little flimsy, but overall the build quality is *decent*. I do wish it was better for $500 but it is what it is. It works and seems sturdy enough. One thing I noticed is it has started separating a little on the seam which makes me a little uneasy but its just a general cheap plastic construction. It doesn't feel like its going to break though, so that's definitely good.

Once you plug this thing in to your car, it turns on right away and I was off tuning the car without any instructions. Just pressed "read", did its thing for about 2 minutes, then you press "write" and select a tune (I verified it stored my stock tune which is awesome). Takes about 5 minutes and its very much something you can walk away from, which is cool and I can *definitely* see myself switching between 91 for trips and e85 for hoonage :happyanim:. Love the fact no laptop or anything else required and its very easy.

After tuning, I let the car warm up for a couple minutes (heard this suggested online), and put the car in reverse out of my driveway. Immediately I could feel a difference, and the car seemed much more easy to module on the throttle and reverse out. The car also sounded a little different (in a good way) but all this was fairly subtle. Nothing that would interfere with regular driving for sure.

So once out of my neighborhood, I took off. WOT 1, 2, 3rd gear, damn this thing feels good! I thought the car felt eager to rev before, but now it feels wonderful. I had a smile on my face and headed towards the ortegas to do a little real world testing ;)

I must say this thing revs way better especially in the 3.5k-4.5k range. It seems like it improved/moved the previous torque dip or something because it really starts picking up ~4k and it sounds really mean as well. Really encourages you to rev it out, and in general I'd say the power band isn't a *lot* more powerful but there's a noticeably wider power band and it starts pulling a lot sooner than stock tune.

After some thorough canyon pushing, I can verify this is indeed a great tune. It just keeps pulling, and I noticed myself speeding much more than usual in the canyons. I honestly wouldn't say the straight line speed feels like night and day, but I think when really driving the car you notice how much better the powerband is & how *consistent* it feels and I'd say its definitely night and day there which is perfect.


Conclusion

So I'd say that in the end yes its worth the money to support the tunes alone, but only if you plan to stay N/A (for now). I also quite like the logging feature and am trying to figure out the software now. The only thing I didn't like was the build quality for the price & customer service which hopefully gets resolved for the future, because I really love the product.

Out of 10 in terms of 10 being I think this is a must buy for all FRZ owners, and 0 being not at all necessary, I'd give this a 7/10. If I had better experiences with the above I'd say 8/10 honestly.

E85 Tune

After a trip to Irvine today (ate at Veggie Grill for lunch - best fake buffalo chicken I've tasted), I took a trip a bit out of the way to try the e85 pump :D

My first reaction was something like this: :confused0068:

This car is very fast now. It feels much faster than a stock WRX (in the upper power band at least) and it just keeps PULLING. I opened the car up every chance I got and I must say I'm past satisfied with the power level. This is more power than I need for sure for daily driving, and living in my area there's about 4 e85 stations ~20 miles so its a great solution.

Power aside, it was really easy to switch from the 91 tune to the e85 tune. Only took about 5 minutes and it was basically done after I got some snacks from inside. Car starts up perfectly (just as good if not better than the 91 tune), and it pulls *everywhere*. I think the only spot that feels sluggish is 3k-3.5k but that's not a big deal because the peak power really feels great now.

If I wasn't such a power feind I honestly think this is very good for somebody who wants a quick car, and daily drives it. I never felt like I was down on power after driving all day in lots of traffic (usually after driving in traffic I'm a little upset with my car since it takes so much work to keep up with people ,today was *not* the case). And, icing on the cake I leave all the honda boy racers and soccer moms in the dust now (lol).

Anyways, if you have access to e85 definitely try it out. Its great. Really good stuff thank you @shiv@vishnu

E85 Mileage

After the first tank the mileage wasn't as good as expected. However, please note this is with a *lot* of flogging the car, and quite a few scares with how much freaking cops there are over here lately, and also probalby 50/50 highway/canyons&city.

Something also to note, even with this MPG I only lose ~$7 per 200 miles compared to my ~24 mpg on 91 oct, even with a (relatively) higher priced e85 pump.

~186 miles, 11.031 gallons = ~16 mpg
145 miles, 9.100 gallons = 16 mpg

E85 cold starts

So far cold starts have actually been pretty rough on e85, which is strange since I'm in california and the coldest ambient it really gets is ~50 F or maybe 45 F. Today, it actually stalled and then took gas to start up second time. Stalled again a couple days ago in ~60 F ambient.

Reserved

Crap I put this in the wrong forum lol, my F/I research addiction shows...

Can mods please move this to relevant section..? <3

Thanks for the review. (i have one and love it). Just wanted to add a small note about Forced induction. Shiv is going to add FI maps in the near future. Though you can always use romraider to tune for FI anyway.

Cool yea I'm hoping. I'm really liking the Jackson supercharger so hopefully that will be in the works.

Wanted to chime in on FI and my experience with @shiv@vishnu

Shiv has sent a large number of Phantom Supercharger buyers tunes. It looks like the next FI platform is the Vortech supercharger.

That leads to customer service. I sent Shiv a request for the Phantom Supercharger tune I was going to need the next day. I started this correspondence LATE. This was my fault. Still, he replied to two emails and produced a custom tune for my map at 12:09 am. I'm sure that can't happen every time, but this was home run service from Shiv.

Finally, I've been running e85 with Shivs tunes for a couple of months now. My Ethanol concentrations have various d from est e60 - e90 with the tune handling the variance seemlessly.The car pulls hard, revs smooth,, and has run like a clock on his tune.

The value I've gotten from the OFT and Shiv's tunes would make me recommend an OFT for 9/10 owners who don't absolutely NEED another tuning option.

I got my tablet yesterday. Packaging is good, the unit itself seems reasonably solid. There's a bit of flex at the OBD2 port and a small gap. The other 3 sides are solid, with no signs of flex or separation. I don't have any further impressions, I still have another month or so before I take my car out of storage.

Edit: Shipping was quick, though I didn't need 2 day shipping.

I had a similar experience to DAEMANO.

Before I got my Phantom ESC I used the stage 1 tune and it made a large


difference in performance. And I received it 3 days after I ordered it. And


that was by U.S. Mail. Whenever I got my ESC I asked Shiv for a tune and


had it the next day. The new tune makes a huge difference. The car now


runs the way it was meant to. It has just about the perfect amount of power


for a DD. You really can't beat the OFT/Phantom combo.

I really like my OFT, but I still cant figure something out. I have an automatic BRZ which I do regret purchasing now, but it is what it is. When I get to the 4K-5K range my engine makes the weirdest noise and as soon as I get to 5K it starts sounding normal again. 0K-4K also sounds normal it is just in that range. Is this normal? The engine noise is distinctively different in that one range of RPMs it is a little hard to explain. I can put the stock tune back on and that noise is gone at that range.

Have you had any issues trying to plug into your laptop? I haven't had too much time to play with mine, other then flashing my car, but I tried connecting to my laptop after taking a datalog and Openflash Manager just tells me the Device has not been initialized and automatically quits.

Tuning for FI isn't a problem because there are no tunes available. It's a problem because it doesn't support much of the required functionality (boost cut or boost control for turbo, fuel injection mode logging for tuning larger injectors, etc). It'll come in time, but right now it's definitely not just a matter of loading up romraider and making your own tune. Right now you'd be limited to superchargers and stock injectors, if you want to do it right.

Sonolin-- Thanks for the review! We appreciate it :) I'm very happy that you are enjoying the tune. And, of course, apologies for the shipping a day late when you told the guys that time was critical. As for shipping costs, definitely call the sales office and they will refund you the difference between what you paid for and what you got. Not to make excuses for them, but the day after we receive a big batch of OFTs is usually pretty crazy since they often need to prepare 50+ OFTs shipments so sometimes things can get a little delayed. Each one takes a few minutes to configure and pre-load so it gets pretty hairy when UPS pick-up times draws near. Also, if you feel that any part of the OFT enclosure is opening, please let us replace it. It's not been my experience for the enclosures to loosen as they are internally glued with compression fittings at all four corners. In fact, I've bent a few screw drivers trying to open enclosure!

DriftHappens-- Yes, indeed. We already support Phantom SC kits. And we will be supporting Vortech SC in the very near future. I'll be spending Monday at Vortech Engineering working with their tuner, on their in-house dyno, calibrating a supercharged 2013 BRZ that we provided to them last week :)

DAEMANO and WNDSRFR-- Thanks for the props. I'm enjoying Phantom SC as well. In fact, I'm installing a secondary dump pack this weekend.

Xabiss-- With the Stage 1 and Stage 2 EL maps there will be a noticeable change in induction noise right around 3800-4300rpm, at full throttle. This is caused by a valve timing shift which is intended to minimize the torque dip. Most people only hear it immediately after installing their OFT but soon get accustomed to it. Nothing to worry about. It's the sound of the engine making more power :)

WiebTech Performance- 9 out of 10 communication errors between OFT and Laptop can simply be solved by trying another USB port (use USB 2.0, not a 3.0). Or, in worst case scenario, another computer since some have port interference issues depending on what other applications you have. I have yet to see a problem caused by the OFT and not the laptop settings itself.

Thank you, I think I figured it out. Im running VMware on my Macbook, and thought that may be the issue. Tried the other USB port and booted a different way and it worked :thanks: