Custom tuning for V1-4 WRX & STI factory ECUs now available at NZEFI in Chch

[nzefi]

Hi Guys. We thought we would just give a bit of feedback now that we\'ve retuned several V1-4 WRX and STI cars on the factory ECU.

First of all, the bad part - setting these ECUs up to make them tunable is quite difficult especially on the V3-4 GC8 cars. Additionally the parts required to do this are a lot more expensive than on most of the other cars that we offer factory ECU retuning for. So these are the two reasons that the initial set up cost is high. Unfortunately, we\'ve been forced to increase our price on the ECU setup part of the job to $900 as we were actually loosing money on the ECU setup on the jobs we\'ve done so far. Even at this price it isn\'t particularly profitable for us. However, considering you end up getting a fully programmable plug-in ECU with closed loop boost control, closed loop knock control and the starting point for the tune is your factory Subaru tune, we still feel that this offers good value for money compared to the other options. The factory ECU makes the Apexi Power FC look pretty average. We still prefer the Link G4 plug-in ECU as the ideal option especially for motorsport cars, but at $1943.50 (this doesn\'t include closed loop knock which adds another $818 for those that want the KnockBlock G4 as well) the price difference is significant and outside the budget of many.

The good news is that these cars have been tuning up very well and the tuning process is quite efficient and straight forward. Tuning time has been quite short and we have been really happy with the results. On a lightly modified car (exhaust, intake, intercooler etc) with stock VF series turbo, yellow STi injectors etc the average dyno tune price is working out between $400-500 including dyno setup and removal. This is roughly half of what a typical retune costs on an aftermarket ECU. The time savings come from being able to just play with the areas where we are looking to make more power (i.e on boost) and leaving everything else like the light load mapping, acceleration enrichment, cold start, etc on the factory settings. However, we can tune higher powered setups with bigger turbos, injectors upgrades, AFM upgrades (or even MAFless).

Some more good news for V5/6 owners is that we will soon be able to retune the factory ECUs on these cars too. Pricing hasn\'t been officially set, but the cost should be cheaper than doing a V1-4 ECU as these ECUs can be reflashed via the OBD2 port.

[nickmcgill]

Would that possibly now include the BE/BH series legacy\'s with the new hardware to do the v5/6\'s ?

[nzefi]

Hi Nick. There is a possibility of 98-01 BE/BH Legacy support in the future. We can already retune the 01-03 BE/BH facelifted models.

[rslegy]

with this ECU upgrade can u tune for just a map sensor and remove the AFM?

[Karl Fxcking]

This is awesome!! And yeah I am also keen to know on rough quotes on how much this service will be. I got a v2 wrx.

[reaperblitz]

I know you covered this in a previous post but would you reconsider mail service?

I have a 6s ecu but due to my block/ head and car configuration the boost solenoid is useless and I really want to be able to not get boost cut from early boost (for example 1st gear 14psi when factory limits it at 12psi on load etc?)

Hope that makes sense-

[nzefi]

Hi. To reply to the past 3 questions:

RSlegy - Yes, once we have set the ECU up to be fully tunable we do have the ability to remove the AFM and tune on just the MAP sensor. However, this will take a little bit more time on the dyno to set up correctly.

Karl Fxcking - Between the ECU setup and dyno tune most of our V1-4 tunes are working out to be around $1450.

reaperblitz - Yes we could do this, but we have no faith in mail order tuning especially on modified cars and if there is nobody checking the end result afterwards. If you have a local tuning shop that we could work with to check the tune afterwards and give us feedback on any changes required then we could consider it. We have now made up a bench test harness for the V3/4 ECUs so we do have the ability to power them up, test them and make tuning adjustments without having the car. However, if we just start raising boost limits etc and sending off ECUs to hope for the best then we become no better than the morons selling mail order chips on TradeMe. The better long term solution would be to get a couple of the major North Island tuning shops set up to tune these ECUs after we had converted them into a tunable state. But we aren\'t quite ready for that at this stage.

[reaperblitz]

Thanks for the reply and I appreciate the feedback.