Noob Here
 

Hello all,
I have spent the last few days perusing the site and am trying to figure out this whole tuning universe. I came from a F150, and before that, a VW Passat. Tuning in the VW world was pick one of 3 main companies, send them your ECU, the send it back, you plug it in, and boom, 50 more HP (they were turbo'd engines). It does not seem like that here, and looks like I have to modify everything on my own? I have seen ECUtek and am confused by them and if they sell the kit to tune the car, or a prebuilt tune. I know how novice I sound here, but I am not novice in the car world at all. Have rebuilt engines, swapped engines, ext, but I am at a loss with this tune. I would appreciate not being yelled at for not doing enough research, and yes I have read the tune faq sticky.

So my questions....
-What do I need for a tune
-How can I keep by warranty (seems like I can't just flash it)
-How much am I looking at
-What gains can be expected (assuming both stock and adding exhaust/intake and maybe headers)

Thanks all
Nate

A tune could void the warranty....

You said you've read the tune faq sticky, yet every single one of those questions is answered in it.

flash it back to stock for dealer visits

In the other thread op is worried about keeping warranty so not tuning is just one less hassle.

Thanks,

As long as you have access to a device such as oft or tactrix you can easily flash back to a completly stock byte for byte rom. A tune would likely be the easiest and quickest mod to reverse. while providing usefull gains in drivability add E85 and you have usefull power gains all easily reversable in minutes :-)

Unlike adding headers which are a pain to swap out and are likely to cause warantee issues

Thank you for all the hate :) Figured it should come with how noobish this thread is.

I will make more pointed questions then...

So ECUtek... they make the equipment to flash the rom in the car, but do they actually provide tunes? I am thinking the Racerom from them is a tune the put out? If not, who does make the best roms?

The thread states that reflashing can show up in the history of the cars rom, this is what I am inquiring more about..

Thanks for the helpful posts!

As has been said, the info you seek is probably in the FAQ. However, since it can be hard to find:

ECUTek with the Racerom is probably the more advanced solution for now, but not for long. You can do far more damage to your car with it if you choose. Two drawbacks being it's expensive and proprietary. It also requires a dongle and a laptop. There are "stock" tunes for various mods, and local ECUTek shops who will dyno and tune to your particular car. Racerom is an add-on that provides access to more things to screw up.

The OFT tablet is cheap for what it does, and "open". Everybody and their brother can share tunes, and you can do it yourself using BRZEdit or ROMRaider. OFT has "Off The Shelf" tunes for stock to turbo cars, with more coming along with regular updates.

If you are worried about warranty, leave it alone. The jury seems to be out on what the dealer can or can't do. We know for sure that a flash back to the stock ROM for your car zeros a few numbers, just like pulling a fuse or the battery would do. Can they really dig and find out it you have been messing with the ROM? I'd bet yes, if they really wanted to.

The OFT has been the best 500 bucks I've ever spent on a widget for a car.

ecutek like OFT or tactrix is a hardware device to flash a tune.

oft includes tunes
ecuteck tunes are extra
racerom is an ecutek package of enhanced features such as map switching custom maps ect thes features not available on other platforms at present.

ecuteck does leave behind some licence info when their stock rom is flashed

brzedit and ecutek can lok and or encript rom to prevent reading or flashing by dealers of other tuning platforms.

oft and tactrix/ecuflash roms flashed back to stock are exact byte for byte the same as original rom, they also do not lock or encrypt or change seed keys .

no one has yet found a flash counter
their are a couple of counter in ecu that log time since last dtc reset and distance since last dtc reset and distance/ time since dtc occurred.. These are reset when you flash with any device or dealer reflash. However they are also reset on flat battery of batt terminal removal or ecu fuse pulled so not proof of a flash, and if the rom is stock their not much proof anyway.

Thanks for all the help here guys! So if they are just different hardware, it sounds like OFT is better as they can change the same properties? Where can I find TRUSTED tunes for OFT?
So it sounds like the factory cannot see them if I reflash with OFT when I go to the dealer?

Thanks

It all depends what your end goal is if its just basic bolt on mods and your happy with an off the shelf tunes then possibly oft suits your needs. Or their particular FI kits.

It possible for any tuner to use OFT/Romraider to tune but like most people they want to work with what they are familiar with and if they use a different platform they will want to use that for various reasons.

Yes it flashes back original rom to car.
No one is 100% certian they cannot detect someone has flashed alternate tune to car but Techstream software that dealers use does not appear to have the facility to do that. Its possible that if ecu was sent away or they were rearly keen to find something and brought in some specialist help they may be able to detect something, but very unlikely at a normal service if you have flashed back to stock and their is no rod poking out of the block.

site is here http://www.openflashtablet.com/

tunes and various software you will need (as well as OFT for flash)

http://www.openflashtablet.com/produ...ads/index.html

check out the other's and make an informed decision.