Quote:
Originally Posted by Dimman
Basically the factory tune sounds like it is pretty tight. And small user tweaks can have large negative consequences. In the old days, the factory tunes were pretty conservative and it was pretty easy to pick up power. But when these STI's need a re-flash just because you put a low-restriction exhaust, that would indicate that they are already as lean as is safe for 'normal' conditions. (This may be for fuel economy as well as emissions.)
From the sounds of it the newer stock STI tunes are not mod-friendly without appropriate ECU rework to re-match the fueling to the adjusted airflow.
Now add to that, that some of the people trying to do that ECU rework are completely new to the tuning game, and just trying what someone posted on the internet. Recipe for disaster.
And also COBB claims that the tune can't be detected if users swap back in the stock base map. Now these people may be claiming that they never tuned their car and it is all the factory's fault...
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Coming from motorcycles, where we used to call a "reflash" a "remap," I never understood car guys who wanted to monkey with intake and exhaust parameters without then putting the car on a dyno and custom tuning the fuel injection map. Seems like lunacy to me.
On another note, some manufacturers over-build their engines, so you can extract quite a bit more power out of them before you blow something up. Honda motorcycles come to mind as an example. But I guess the Subaru boxer is brought to market pretty close to its tolerance limits.