Suggested Mods for a DD

[Davey]

Originally Posted by nwolsky

This is not true with warranty. Only if they can prove the part did it.

Everybody likes to say this and point to the Magnuson Moss Warranty act... Let me rain on that parade a little.

First the dealer doesn't have to prove anything to you; they have your car, and you're asking them to fix whatever is wrong for free. If they say no, what are you going to do? The dealer only needs to deny the warranty claim. Then you go to Corporate, who will side with the dealer. Now what? Your car isn't getting fixed without a lawsuit, so it's you versus Subaru of America. That probably isn't going to turn out so well for you, so don't act as if it is of no concern.

To that point, if you install a header/exhaust/intake and reflash the computer and you put a rod through the block, you don't really deserve warranty coverage anyway. You're making 50 more HP than the car was delivered with. The warranty covers the stock car, at stock power levels.

Now, what really is the case, is that your warranty isn't "void", it just doesn't cover the parts you modified. If your AC compressor goes out and you have a header installed, you should get a new AC compressor under warranty. Still, if the dealer are jerks, they'll say you were overspinning the motor and accessories and that caused early failure. Note again, they don't have to PROVE it, they just have to say it - and refuse to do warranty service.

So you're thinking to yourself "Well if I had a problem I would just put the stock parts back on and reflash back to stock and there you go" and that's exactly why the Subaru (and pretty much every other car manufacturer) ECU keeps track of how many times it has been reflashed.

Don't forget you need to flash back to stock and swap out every last part every time you go to the dealer for any kind of work because they can and will flag your car as modded whether you're there to claim warranty coverage for something or not.

Bottom line, better to just assume that your powertrain warranty is useless once you reflash the car and add intake/headers/exhaust. If you have a great relationship with your service department the just MIGHT go to bat for you when your synchros fail at 30K miles and get you a trans.

[Malt]

Originally Posted by Davey

So you're thinking to yourself "Well if I had a problem I would just put the stock parts back on and reflash back to stock and there you go" and that's exactly why the Subaru (and pretty much every other car manufacturer) ECU keeps track of how many times it has been reflashed.

I agree with just about everything you are saying but I have issue with this statement. People keep repeating it, yet there is no proof of its existence. Do you have or can you show any proof of the existence of the mythical flash counter on our ECUs? No? Its because it doesn't exist.

You points are all valid but there is no need to resort to scare mongering to get them across.

[s2d4]

Originally Posted by Davey

So you're thinking to yourself "Well if I had a problem I would just put the stock parts back on and reflash back to stock and there you go" and that's exactly why the Subaru (and pretty much every other car manufacturer) ECU keeps track of how many times it has been reflashed. .

Yeap, We've absolutely seen this magical flash counter and when writing back a stock rom, byte by byte, this flash counter overwrites the flash counter within the stock rom.

[Malt]

Originally Posted by nwolsky

So It does seem UEL do sap power, but EL add?
So I should be looking at the overpipe and front pipe? It seems one says it helps, one says it doesn’t 
Can I delete a cat and still make emissions?
As for tune, it seems some are unable to be detected by dealers?

This is not true with warranty. Only if they can prove the part did it. As for the tune, the tuning thread stated some could not be seen. Suspension is fine for me right now, wheels will be soon, and tires once I get some more power  Do you have experience with the open flash?

How have these made your car feel?

2nd this question

So how much are you losing with UEL V EL? OR does a tune even them out? As for cold air, $300 for one is not terrible, but if there are really no real gains, its not worth it.
What exactly does the ecutek route entail.

The differences in UEL and EL are for the most part in sound. You are not going to see a massive difference in the power increase from choosing one or the other, so no, UEL do not sap power (not sure where you got that idea).

Don't buy a cold air intake unless you want to get it tuned. Most intakes modify the location of the MAF and diameter of the intake pipe which may or may not make HP, but it does so by leaning out the engine (you don't want that.)

Catbacks don't add anything other than sound. A front pipe will net you some power, but the majority of power increase comes from removing the cat in the header, so if you want to keep a cat in for emission/smell reasons keep the front pipe stock.

Tuning choices. For someone who is going to be driving a non forced induction car or using a Vortec supercharger kit the Vishnu's open flash tablet is the best choice. Many of the capabilities that ECUtek provides are just not needed for someone with basic bolts ons.

Keep in mind that everyone's post about which mods you should do first are going to be highly opinionated. They will generally be what they chose to do on their car. That being said I'd highly suggest picking a reputable tuner that can provide you a tune that is easily flashable, has maps available for your mods, and provides great customer service. You could also find a local tuner that is trusted and has experience tuning FA20's and get a custom dyno tune if you wanted to go that route. With the mods you appear to want to run, just about the only difference between going with a custom tune and an OTS tune is going to be price. You make squeak out more power with a custom tune but you'll have to decide if that's worth the several hundred dollars extra its going to cost. For the record, shiv also provides E-Tuning which will get you maps built around your car and your mods for a modest increase in price.

In my opinion you should start with these mods and get a feel for what you want to do next.

Open Flash Header and Open Flash Tablet - $1015 (both a header and tune from a great tuner and provides excellent customer service)
Drop in filter - ~$50

[Davey]

Originally Posted by Malt

I agree with just about everything you are saying but I have issue with this statement. People keep repeating it, yet there is no proof of its existence. Do you have or can you show any proof of the existence of the mythical flash counter on our ECUs? No? Its because it doesn't exist.

You points are all valid but there is no need to resort to scare mongering to get them across.

I'm not scare mongering, I'm repeating the information I've been told about all of the other Subaru ECUs and assuming that this one would be the same.

Maybe I have been told incorrect information... Can you prove it does not exist? I'd be glad to be wrong.

[Davey]

Originally Posted by s2d4

Yeap, We've absolutely seen this magical flash counter and when writing back a stock rom, byte by byte, this flash counter overwrites the flash counter within the stock rom.

If that is the case then you'd be OK except if they did an update of the ROM and you flashed the previous version back on. If the tool saves the current program before flashing and puts that program back automatically, or if you are dilligent about doing that, then you wouldn't have a problem, still.

So Malt says the counter doesn't exist, and you say it exists but you can overwrite it. COBB (though they don't do this ECU) basically states they aren't sure if there is a counter or not but they rewrite 100% of the ECU.

Sounds a lot to me like nobody knows for sure.

[Malt]

Originally Posted by Davey

I'm not scare mongering, I'm repeating the information I've been told about all of the other Subaru ECUs and assuming that this one would be the same.

Maybe I have been told incorrect information... Can you prove it does not exist? I'd be glad to be wrong.

Can you prove that magical fairies under fountains or unicorns don't exist? The fact that I can't disprove they exist does not lend credence to the notion that they do exist. The burden of proof lies on you to prove its existence lest you want to concede that leprechauns have boiling pots of gold at the end of rainbows.

You were told incorrect information.

Originally Posted by Davey

If that is the case then you'd be OK except if they did an update of the ROM and you flashed the previous version back on. If the tool saves the current program before flashing and puts that program back automatically, or if you are dilligent about doing that, then you wouldn't have a problem, still.

So Malt says the counter doesn't exist, and you say it exists but you can overwrite it. COBB (though they don't do this ECU) basically states they aren't sure if there is a counter or not but they rewrite 100% of the ECU.

Sounds a lot to me like nobody knows for sure.

OFT prevents this from happening. If you are flashing back to stock for service and the dealer flashes a new rom on there you won't be able to flash your old tunes since it will be a different CALid. this is a simple fix, reset the OFT read the new stock map and use new maps.

Also, He didn't say that the flash counter existed, you read into what he said and got what you wanted to read. He's talking about the time since DTC reset/other DTC counters that steve99 mentioned.

[Davey]

Originally Posted by Malt

Can you prove that magical fairies under fountains or unicorns don't exist? The fact that I can't disprove they exist does not lend credence to the notion that they do exist. The burden of proof lies on you to prove its existence lest you want to concede that leprechauns have boiling pots of gold at the end of rainbows.

I'm not saying that if you can't prove that it doesn't exist, it must exist, I'm saying you don't have any real evidence that it doesn't exist. So you believe magical fairies don't exist because... Why? Maybe because "they can't" or "that's silly."

That hardly applies to this conversation about ECU hardware. I have been told the counter exists or may exist. It's not completely implausible, so unless you have some actual evidence it doesn't exist, it's simply a matter of two differing opinions, neither of which have any facts to back them up.

Also, He didn't say that the flash counter existed, you read into what he said and got what you wanted to read. He's talking about the time since DTC reset/other DTC counters that steve99 mentioned.

No, he said that the flash counter overwrites the flash counter, it can't be overwritten if it doesn't exist, can it? And nobody on this page has mentioned anything about DTC reset or DTC counters besides you.

[s2d4]

Originally Posted by Davey

So Malt says the counter doesn't exist, and you say it exists but you can overwrite it. COBB (though they don't do this ECU) basically states they aren't sure if there is a counter or not but they rewrite 100% of the ECU.

What I said makes no sense at all.

[Malt]

Originally Posted by Davey

I'm not saying that if you can't prove that it doesn't exist, it must exist, I'm saying you don't have any real evidence that it doesn't exist. So you believe magical fairies don't exist because... Why? Maybe because "they can't" or "that's silly."

That hardly applies to this conversation about ECU hardware. I have been told the counter exists or may exist. It's not completely implausible, so unless you have some actual evidence it doesn't exist, it's simply a matter of two differing opinions, neither of which have any facts to back them up.

And I'm stating that believing that something exists because you think it does without any proof is just as silly as believing in unicorns. You can't prove that something doesn't exist, which is why its a completely ridiculous reason to use that as a reason it may exist. This is why the burden of proof is on claimants of the existence of a flash counter to offer evidence of it being there, because otherwise people could justify believing in magical fairies with the same logic.

To the OP: There is no counter on our ECU's that tracks the number of flashes that have been performed on the ECU. Only counters that track the time and number of miles driven since the last DTC reset. Yes, this gets reset during a reflash, but it also gets reset with a dead battery or a negative battery cable pull. This is why the DTC tracker isn't proof of a flash as its easily explainable with a battery issue. You shouldn't be concerned with warranty issues with a reflash like the one you get with the open flash tablet because you can restore it back to exact condition it was before the flash, unlike ECUtek.

[Davey]

Originally Posted by Malt

And I'm stating that believing that something exists because you think it does without any proof is just as silly as believing in unicorns. You can't prove that something doesn't exist,

Sorry but that is just flat-out incorrect. You can prove that something doesn't exist in a specific case. For example if you say "there are no pink jellybeans" and I say there are, then it's up to me to show you one, that's true.

However, in this case, you're saying there are no pink jellybeans in that jar, and I'm saying "prove it." It's as easy as pouring the contents of the jar out and having a look.

I'm not asking you to prove that a flash counter does not exist in any ecu in the world ever made, I'm asking you to prove that one doesn't exist in the Subaru BRZ ECU. If you don't know how to do that or don't have any evidence that some competent engineer has disassembled the unit, looked at schematics, etc. then how can you say one absolutely does not exist?

[Davey]

Originally Posted by s2d4

What I said makes no sense at all.

No actually what you said makes perfect sense and on further research, I believe it to be the case. The ECU does have a flash count but it is stored within the writable area of the ECU so when you flash the stock firmware back onto the ECU, the counter is put back as it would have been had you never reflashed the car.

Thanks for the info.

[s2d4]

Originally Posted by Davey

No actually what you said makes perfect sense and on further research, I believe it to be the case. The ECU does have a flash count but it is stored within the writable area of the ECU so when you flash the stock firmware back onto the ECU, the counter is put back as it would have been had you never reflashed the car.

Thanks for the info.

Sorry, I was talking out of my ass.

[GotBRZ1691]

Open flash tablet + open flash headers + cosworth BPB

This is what I will be done to my car which I DD to and from work. I put on at least 100 miles a day and have to deal with some traffic on the way home.

If you are feeling adventurous get the phantom electric supercharger

My $.02


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