AVO BRZ Back in Operation - Thanks AVO and Visconti!

[vubaru]

I'm back from my hiatus to report good news, finally.

After my AVO BRZ started throwing P000B, P00014, P0017, P0019, and some other bad DTC/CELs due to the slip light/CEL/Idle stall issue, it appears that the end may be in sight.

I've been working with Paul @ AVO and John Visconti to address these issues, and they have supported me every step of the way and deserve major credit for their customer service, knowledge, and patience. I sent them a log a couple weeks ago showing my exhaust cams being improperly timed in idle and they recommended that I take the car into a mod-friendly dealer.

Livermore Subaru accepted the car for warranty repairs as of last Wednesday, and they have replaced a cam angle sensor and re-flashed the car to the JA00C ROM version, for free under warranty under the TSB! Cost to me: $0.00.

I took the car home today and drove it 60 miles to test. When at stop lights after driving for 45 minutes, the car's idle is rock solid and there is no idle shudder or shaking at all. There may be a slight idle fluctuation still but that was extremely rare.

I owe Paul @ AVO a major thank you for his customer service, which included sending me many ROMs to see if we could address the issue by tuning, reviewing hours of logs, and handling my emergency phonecalls when the car threw CELs.

John Visconti has been with me since almost my first month of owning the car and he was also a huge help in helping me get warranty work done from Livermore and addressing some Ecutek issues including removing the tune from the car. Visconti even talked to the dealer to tell them when they were wrong or when they didn't know something.

John also deserves major recognition for his turbo tune. Although I have used AVO's base map in the past and there were no issues with that prior to the OEM cam sensor failure, the car is currently running Visconti's 3 BAR map tune for the AVO kit of the A00C ROM revision. The boost feels like it comes on quicker than the base map, throttle response is excellent and torque feels great. Apples to apples, I prefer John's map right now.

I haven't used AVO's base tune with the re-flash and new cam sensor but I will also test that this weekend and report back.

Finally, I wanted to make sure everyone knows that none of the problems I had were from AVO's parts, WORKS' work or tuning, or Visconti or anyone else. This was an OEM issue apparently from the start.

If you are in Northern California and need warranty work by a mod-friendly dealer, go to Livermore and ask for Matt! At @PMok 's advice, my fiancee talked to Matt @Livermore early on and found him extremely helpful.

Best regards,
Mark aka Vubaru

[King Tut]

Glad you got it sorted through the dealer with the turbo kit installed.

[vubaru]

Goal #1 was not to re-incur the expense of uninstallation/reinstallation, so I'm ecstatic.

TBH, I don't know if I would want to own this car without a turbo kit on it anymore.

[SmsAlSuwaidi]

It's really nice when things end on a happy note, especially with a dealership and great after market support (John and Paul )
Enjoy the car and Kudos to your dealership, @AVOturboworld and @Visconti

[Clipdat]

Sweet! So glad to hear everything is back to normal!!

[Visconti]

Glad the dealer did the right thing and fixed the car.

A lot of times dealers won't want to cover anything because you've installed mods when clearly it's a warrantable item.

A lot of hard work went into my AVO calibration so enjoy it!

Let me know when your ready for ECU Controlled Boost !

-John

[vubaru]

Originally Posted by Visconti

Glad the dealer did the right thing and fixed the car.

A lot of times dealers won't want to cover anything because you've installed mods when clearly it's a warrantable item.

A lot of hard work went into my AVO calibration so enjoy it!

Let me know when your ready for ECU Controlled Boost !

-John

You'll be hearing from me sooner rather than later...I think I'll need a 7psi actuator first so we have more to play with!

[Pete156]

Glad to hear things got straightened out Mark

[Norkoastal]

Cheers all around.. Glad Livermore stepped up to the plate.. I got some flack from them for my leaky lights but they eventually came through.. Looks like the chirp fix part 2 will be sent to Livermore to be completed.. Diablo isnt going to breathe next to the car.

[BigFatFlip]

Glad to see you back Vubaru! The folks at Livermore are great (even got compliments on the Milltek, lol) other than the issue I had with getting tail lights swapped (mostly Subaru's fault) I've been pretty happy with them too.

[Sportsguy83]

Awesome Mark!!! Glad to see you back!!

[vubaru]

Originally Posted by Norkoastal

Cheers all around.. Glad Livermore stepped up to the plate.. I got some flack from them for my leaky lights but they eventually came through.. Looks like the chirp fix part 2 will be sent to Livermore to be completed.. Diablo isnt going to breathe next to the car.

You've got the right idea, none of our Subarus are ever going back to Diablo Mazda Subaru. They refused to even warranty my tail light issue prior to any modifications and were pretty rude to us when we asked them whether they would diagnose the BRZ with the turbo kit.

Good luck with Livermore they are great, I just wish they were closer.

Originally Posted by BigFatFlip

Glad to see you back Vubaru! The folks at Livermore are great (even got compliments on the Milltek, lol) other than the issue I had with getting tail lights swapped (mostly Subaru's fault) I've been pretty happy with them too.

Thanks Brian, glad to share the good news. Livermore is the best mod-friendly dealer we have in Nor Cal, sorry you had some issues with the tails. They complimented my Milltek, too, but they even complimented the turbo kit! Matt physically watched me removing Ecutek from my car and he didn't care at all.

Originally Posted by Sportsguy83

Awesome Mark!!! Glad to see you back!!

Great to be back David, I need to catch up on your build.

[Visconti]

Originally Posted by vubaru

You'll be hearing from me sooner rather than later...I think I'll need a 7psi actuator first so we have more to play with!

With the normal actuator we can make 11PSI

I'm guessing you have E85 in mind?

[vubaru]

Originally Posted by Visconti

With the normal actuator we can make 11PSI

I'm guessing you have E85 in mind?

Wow that's a lot of boost on the stock actuator. Very cool.

Will also need to take care of injectors and fuel pump, but yeah, you've guessed right!