Here are my 2 cents. Bear in mind they're not meant to be criticisms, just observations based off the runs that I witnessed and help administer today. Take it for what it's worth!
Disclaimer : I bear no alliance to any one company / turner / product!
So we've all seen the above dyno charts, let's break it down a little... Here's the runs in
3rd & 4th using mechaghost's STOCK baseline with the STOCK intake with a STOCK / OEM calibration vs the AirRaid Intake :
For starters, I think the choice of intake is very important, and as you can see if you haven't already deduced it, not every aftermarket part yields POSITIVE gains. In this case, the AirRaid Intake seems to be a little more restrictive than it should be. The results speak for themselves. Note that both runs in 3rd and 4th with the intake tend to lose power @ 6400RPM, and it's fairly consistent to that end.
With that, using either tune with the afflicted intake is a challenge in itself and as you can see from the above comparison in
3rd Gear, the Visconti tune would yield more gains globally from 4100 - 6700RPM while the FA20 tune made more power past 6700rpm - redline, at a range of about 800RPM. In terms of commanded AFR, leaner is meaner in this case and the FA20 tune has made more power up top,
timing not withstanding.
Now in
4th Gear, we see more of the same in terms of results and also issues faced with the AirRaid intake. We also get to see some insight into the tuning philosophies of these two different tunes. Before we get into that, some of you might be asking "how am I certain that this one AirRaid intake isn't any less restrictive than the next and that others flow better?" It just so happens that I happened to have an AVO intake that I was conducting tests on earlier last week and so, for good measure, I threw that on...
Here are the results from the Visconti Tune using the AVO intake vs the AirRaid one in 3rd & 4th :
... and then those from from the FA20 Tune in 3rd & 4th :
As you can see, while
changing only the intake without changing the tune, we see that the AFR lines are completely different. As an E-Tune provider, you'll have to do this "one size fits all" sort of thing and both tunes does a good job there. The Visconti tune tends to be more conservative and that would seemingly work in all fashions of BRZ / FRS with various intakes, restrictive or otherwise. Also notice that the top end is not neutered in the case of the AVO intake as opposed to when using the AirRaid one in
3rd Gear. In
4th Gear, there's a hint of richness at the top end, for engine 'conservation' I'm guessing. The FA20 Club tune, which mechaghost has already mentioned, have been tweaked thru data logs done on street tunes. To that end, he had an advantage so all the runs with the AR Intake will naturally run better.
I personally think it's a tad leaner than I'm comfortable with...
The bottom line : the combination of parts used may not necessarily be better and yield positive results. While the generic "one size fits all" tune works, gains are not always guaranteed. This is where I'll have to say going to your local dyno facility and having a competent tuner work their magic is extremely important in realizing the few extra ponies that we so need in this NA platform!