OpenFlash Tuning Tech: Tales from the Dyno (Stock, Ecutek and OpenFlash tunes)

[lexusb3]

[QUOTE=nelsmar;1212209]Just to be clear I feel this thread was made with the wrong approach. If you wanted to join a market such as this that is full of fanboys, and full of internet kiddies I would take the more laid back approach just showing your personal gain over stock. Don't just start targeting other reputable tuners and firing away. Starting a small fire in a community like this and letting us play with it is just going to turn into a disaster.[/QUOTE]

I agree
Who ever starts a thread should just post there findings, facts, what ever they want, but should def read over there post and make sure that they do not bash or mistakenly bash others if that was not there goal. If i posted a thread stating this "tuner" is better than all these "tuners" it would start a riot. but if i re word it and stay this tuner has better output then the rest because of ...(facts, findings, research,etc) then we can all have a adult debate. so how untill the person who made that post and comes online and answers to the questions that are on the table to why he would bash the "fake Ecuteck tuners" we wont know and will just add pages and pages of war to this thread. I have only delt with FA20club and since day one has not said anything negative to anyone on this forum and if someone comes to me with negative i dig up proof facts etc. but i dont assume and def dont want war with anyone !

FA20club has a lot of supporters and many more to come because of the great success!!

[Frs300]

Originally Posted by Rombinhood@OpenFlash

Just an FYI, there was no mention of the Ecutek tuner in any post. But FA20club.com has made some comments that I believe Shiv would like to address when he has some time later today or tomorrow. I don't particularly like flame wars. Especially ones that will be moot over the next few weeks when more ecutek maps (both baseline and final) are read out and revealed for public discussion.

I personally think you should edit the first post. remove parts of it and update with new info.
fyi

[MrSlay]

Originally Posted by mad_sb

WOW, those are some enlightening results. I really didn't think th factory sensor was that far off. Has the factory sensor been compaired to a wideband on a catless car? I guess i will find out next week when i install my wideband,

Looking forward to the results. It has been my thinking that taking the reading from the exhaust tip was inaccurate due to the in increase variables. A sensor located in the tailpipe has to deal with air that has been filtered, air that has had time to burn extra fuel, and is more vulnerable to outside air.

The Factory sensor for my ISF was extremely accurate when compared to my aftermarket wide-band and multiple exhaust sniffers (tended to run a bit lean) on the dyno. Though I haven't touched fuel maps yet, im hoping that the stock sensor does a good job.

[mad_sb]

Originally Posted by arghx7

I'm going to make a highly technical argument here that most people are not going to follow. It's an argument based on firsthand experience with Bosch, NGK/NTK, Denso (like the stock FT86 sensor), and actual emission benches.

....

You cannot fully trust any wideband to represent actual in-cylinder AFR when the engine is in a scavenging condition. It doesn't matter who made the wideband or where it was placed.


[/B]

Great info as always @arghx7

Makes perfect sense to me. In the same way that a miss-fire will create a lean reading on an 02 sensor because of the lack of combustion, scavenge effect will throw off a reading due to introducing intake charge air into a portion of the exhaust stream.

Most tuners rely on external wideband data though to get in the right ball park, in the same way i have been relying on the factory "wide range" sensor. Knowing how far apart the two readings are, both on average and in specific ranges, is very useful even if it does not give a true in cylinder afr. Once your in a range, you will use power output, knock affinity, etc to arrive at the final fuling.

[Frs300]

@arghx7 @mad_sb im glad you two always give great info that the community can actually use

[nemes]

Lets end this right here. You cant post your biased response and then not have enough balls to just call my name. Thats just closet jesturing.

To be honest I don't think Toni's tune has done anything for me.

5 months ago I got a tune from Toni after i've gotten my fa20club Cai and nameless downpipe/overpipe, nameless axel back installed. I never got it dyno but my car seriously felt no different after the flash and Toni can really make a rookie car tuner feel like an idiot. Partly because I deserve it but now my car's gas meter is always off. Sometimes it says full, or empty random times of of the day when I drive my car. When it says empty for a while I would go fill up and it would only fill 15$.

I would ask Toni for help but I figured it's pointless because he would probably tell me it's my fault. So instead I'm waiting to buy the nameless header and getting a re-tune from someone else. That's my 2cents for Toni

[Cross]

Originally Posted by dwx

Jesus christ will you people stop saying stuff like the "Truth comes out about Ecutek". That's just stupid. And for the love of god don't quote a 5 screen post.

It's "the truth comes about tuner X who provided a shitty tune who will remain nameless"

Originally Posted by OrbitalEllipses

You quoted the WHOLE first post for that dribble? I'll spare you my wrath, as the depth of your inability to understand the difference between a product and a tuner has been explained in the posts previous to mine.

Please leave the technical section and never come back.

Also, good use of memes by @Sportsguy83 and excellent - as usual - knowledge dropped by @arghx7.

I was on my phone so sorry I could not edit out the pictures to your satisfaction, however maybe my post now will meet your requirements or maybe you can just sit down and stop crying about a posting you don't agree with.

EcuTek already has a reputation on other forums if you don't like it to bad you can't change it.
EcuTek is over priced and frankly the adoption its seen here has been out of desperation not quality of service nor product. It may not be a horrible solution but it is by far the over priced one. More than once I have outline bigger competitors on other platforms (multiple other platforms) who are far cheaper for a better product.

So if you're upset that those who actually have dealt with other options and realized this was just an option because of the lack of options in the first year go for it. I for one am not, as for the tuner after reading further its Toni and frankly its clear he did nothing wrong. However Toni is one of the few on this board (not in the world) that is worth talking to. However good Toni is though the cost of the product and the lack of openness is a complete turnoff for many of those in the tuning world. He does his best to help everyone but frankly I would rather do it myself as would many others.

As for those wanting knowledge, I can give you an indepth review of quite a few things from use across more platforms then most venture to go. So you can pack you bags and stop swinging from the curtails of others accomplishments acting like you have some increased merritt to tell someone not to come into the tech section. I have one for you how about you build something worth mentioning and join the rest of us who have built, raced and repeated the process many times over so far.

[arghx7]

Originally Posted by mad_sb

Makes perfect sense to me. In the same way that a miss-fire will create a lean reading on an 02 sensor because of the lack of combustion, scavenge effect will throw off a reading due to introducing intake charge air into a portion of the exhaust stream.

Sure, and a missfire can be caused by a lot of things. You can get a better idea of what's going on by looking at the CO% and combustion metrics. High CO could mean a rich misfire, low CO could mean a lean misfire. Unstable combustion due to combustion phasing (measured by standard deviation of indicated mean effective pressure for example) can also cause a misfire. Sometimes you need an engine dyno lab full of equipment to understand what's really going on in the engine.

Most tuners rely on external wideband data though to get in the right ball park, in the same way i have been relying on the factory "wide range" sensor. Knowing how far apart the two readings are, both on average and in specific ranges, is very useful even if it does not give a true in cylinder afr. Once your in a range, you will use power output, knock affinity, etc to arrive at the final fuling.

I agree. It's good to know how far apart sensors readings are on one particular vehicle, as long as you're careful about drawing sweeping conclusions. That especially applies since we don't know what reading is "correct."

Another thing I've seen that throws off readings is that in some cases with high scavenging, the AFR actually changes in the exhaust due to exothermic reactions. This can occur not only in the catalyst (as you'd expect) but right after the exhaust port due to a combination of temperature, pressure, and the right exhaust constituents (CO, HC, O2 reacting). I will say though that turbo cars are more likely to have the wideband readings be more confusing or skewed. So maybe these readings aren't so far off, but there's no way to be "sure" without another form of instrumentation.

But people get really hung up on wideband readings, because of widely held rules of thumb like "leaner than X is dangerous." Well, maybe. As we all know, it depends.

In terms of vehicle tuning on the street or chassis dyno, I've tuned with stock widebands, I've tuned with various aftermarket sensors. I'm just saying that getting bogged down discussing AFR readings is a bit of a sideshow here, since there's already a knock sensor and cat life or emissions are not an important part of this discussion. Look at a wideband as a "ballpark" tool as you said, and you're fine.

Spark and valve timing matter a lot too, as we've been seeing.

[lexusb3]

Originally Posted by nemes

To be honest I don't think Toni's tune has done anything for me.

5 months ago I got a tune from Toni after i've gotten my fa20club Cai and nameless downpipe/overpipe, nameless axel back installed. I never got it dyno but my car seriously felt no different after the flash and Toni can really make a rookie car tuner feel like an idiot. Partly because I deserve it but now my car's gas meter is always off. Sometimes it says full, or empty random times of of the day when I drive my car. When it says empty for a while I would go fill up and it would only fill 15$.

I would ask Toni for help but I figured it's pointless because he would probably tell me it's my fault. So instead I'm waiting to buy the nameless header and getting a re-tune from someone else. That's my 2cents for Toni

Why dont you just send an email and say how you feel and see what options you have an go from there! no question is ever pointless? it does not hurt to try. I personally have never done a CAI and exhaust work i just jump from stock to insane parts so i cant say "idk what your talking about mine was a huge difference etc etc" so maybe others can help you on that. But again never hurts to call and say can i get a tune and see what would happen! But from alot of clients that i know personaly and even those who pm me beyond the threads seem to love the results so TRY dont give up! just my 2 cents

[xwd]

Originally Posted by Rombinhood@OpenFlash

Just an FYI, there was no mention of the Ecutek tuner in any post. But FA20club.com has made some comments that I believe Shiv would like to address when he has some time later today or tomorrow. I don't particularly like flame wars. Especially ones that will be moot over the next few weeks when more ecutek maps (both baseline and final) are read out and revealed for public discussion.

My advice is to just drop this whole "OpenFlash vs. Ecutek" marketing ploy immediately. As has just been witnessed, it's already starting to damage your credibility as a company. It's already been said starting off by attacking your competition is generally just going to turn people off.

I would ask the moderators to just close/delete this thread and start over.

Post dyno baselines and then post tuned dyno results, simple as that.

[Squishy86]

If I could take all the two cents that everybody has left in this thread I could go buy some ice cream.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk 2

[Foobar]

Originally Posted by nemes

To be honest I don't think Toni's tune has done anything for me.

5 months ago I got a tune from Toni after i've gotten my fa20club Cai and nameless downpipe/overpipe, nameless axel back installed. I never got it dyno but my car seriously felt no different after the flash and Toni can really make a rookie car tuner feel like an idiot. Partly because I deserve it but now my car's gas meter is always off. Sometimes it says full, or empty random times of of the day when I drive my car. When it says empty for a while I would go fill up and it would only fill 15$.

I would ask Toni for help but I figured it's pointless because he would probably tell me it's my fault. So instead I'm waiting to buy the nameless header and getting a re-tune from someone else. That's my 2cents for Toni

Just curious - did you send any datalogs back to your tuner for review? If so, what did they say?

[Cross]

Originally Posted by nelsmar

Now lets talk hardware. Lets get something straight. I fucking hate the ECUTek way. But this is coming from someone who would have tuned their own car. And is always modifying the car every week and needs to revise again, and again, and again. I would prefer to just run an AEM stand alone or similar and have someone like Toni who has proven to me their experience on a dyno get me a nice running "basemap" that I can then tweak from day to day as I make changes to my car. I am also one to do lots of before & after testing of modifications and like to have control. So looking at that? Sure the OFT would make more sense for someone like me. I would love to be able to tweak my tune my self.

But how about people who are not going to tweak their tune them selves & having the ability to have multiple maps from other tuners I think this is great (such as e85 map and 91 octane). They don't need a laptop to work with it? AWESOME! I think this is great! I personally believe that locking a tune is garbage. Why? Because my car is not stock. It is not going to be stock. My car is not going to run just like my neighbors. Sure if you are taking 2 stock STI's the % of difference when driven side by side is going to be miniscule. So "sharing" a tune you got for your car may benefit your friend. But for me? This is never going to happen. My car is going to need a unique tune and my tune is nearly worthless to everyone else in the world. So locking a tune is worthless for "higher calibre" tuned cars. Vendors do this to protect their tune from being stolen and given away for free. Sure some vendors are trying to hide "trade secrets" to something they have invested a large number of hours resolving. However from what I have seen from a number of tuners mentioned in this thread they have shown the exact opposite. I have seen a few Ecutek tuners offer to help another tuner by sharing what they found in their "locked" tune.

So what am I trying to say? I think the hardware ability of this is better than ECUTek's crappy over priced cable. I think the ability to have your higher calibre car tuned (not a stock car with an intake) then be re-tuned by another tuner is quite nice if you are in a situation when your original tuner is not around, or you just need a minor tweak. I personally really like having this "openness". I am quite confident that Toni would show quite wonderful results on that customers car if he actually tuned it. And as Toni has mentioned many times before, he is more than willing to dyno tune customers cars.

I don't think I have met you yet but your already on the tab for a free beer/drink on me. You nailed it. I short end your post to mainly the highlights since it was longer and some get upset over length. But you absolutely nailed it.

[OrbitalEllipses]

Originally Posted by Cross

I was on my phone so sorry I could not edit out the pictures to your satisfaction, however maybe my post now will meet your requirements or maybe you can just sit down and stop crying about a posting you don't agree with.

rant rant rant rant

We agree...EcuTek sucks as a business model and I'm familiar with their dealings in various other platforms across time and space. I am NOT crying; I am a fellow traveler such as yourself. The fact remains that the contents of your original post were laughable at best. This new post is far better.