silverEVO8

iTrader: (12)

I was just reading a thread about a fellow EVO owner's nightmarish experience with modifying his EVO. Part of his problem was a reflashed ECU... I was actually thinking about getting one of those because the price is right, it looks elegant, stealthty, etc. But then I thought, what if something goes wrong? It seems that this unfortunate fellow had his reflashed ECU diagnosed by another well known tuner and they found serious errors in the programming .... I'm thinking now that maybe the SAFC-II w/the fields harness extender and MBC might not be such a bad idea after all... I was actually going to send my ECU somewhere for this "magic" reflash and just sell my new, unused SAFC-II w/settings, the harness and MBC..... Maybe I better wait?


BTW, sorry about your problems shawn glass... Hope you get some satisfaction soon....

Eric Lyublinsky

iTrader: (5)

A off the self ECU map or tune is only as good as the tuner that tunes it to the same exact parts that are on the car. For example if you buy a ECU upgrade or reflash for a stock car and then add a intake that could cause diffrent readings to the MAF you could damage your car. (runing to lean). Off course having a full custom tune to your exact car and mods is ideal. I do have to say that I have delt with Vishn's base maps on there stage kits and they are dead on leaning towards the safe side (richer A/Fs and conservitive ing advance). There is some power left on the table but as long as you follow there and any others upgrade path you should be ok as far as reliablity. Now I do feel very bad for Shawn Glass. Worst nightmare for me to go throw what he did. But with the list of mods that guy had a off the shelf map would be a risky bet unless it's bin tested on more then one car with mulitable oct grades.

It really all comes down to the customer trusting the tuner.

Witch ECU reflash are you looking at?
Works is nice but they refuse to post A/Fs for some reason
A S-AFC with Bushers settings seams on the rich side so (ie should be safe if no knock is persent)

I have driven ever stage map for the WRX that VIshnu (shiv) made and I have never bin disappointed or saw and flaws, even on base maps on the dyno with A/F charts. Evey tuner can make any car run faster but to make it smooth, not ping and reliable takes a export that knows the ins and outs off EM cliabration.

(Sorry for the spelling, at work and Very busy today)

My Best
Eric

bigd

XEDE can be bypassed quickly and easily. Also, XEDE has the ability to control more with greater granularity. There are still some virtues to a piggyback solution.

silverEVO8

iTrader: (12)

Well, the tuner in this case is very well known for their EVO expertise..... I might be mistaken, but I think Shawn Glass had the entire package done by the same tuner.... One would think that they would put it all together to work really well.....


I've been looking at all of them, I actually was leaning towards RMR.... Works sounds good too from reading their PR and Real Engineering also seems to have a good bit of expertise.... The SFAC-II I have comes from AMS as do their settings.....

BTW, I did have a small nightmare (more of a bad dream really) with the TurboXS Unichip back with my WRX.... Of course, it was a much less expensive education that the one Shawn is getting I really think that tuners who get that kind of money and commitment from customers should go the extra mile to make damned sure that the customer gets a square deal.. Of course, there are 2 sides to every issue, but my opinion is that the business should take a loss from time to time if needed to make sure their reputation remains untarnished.... OTOH, there are lots more customers where that one came from...

Chris in HB

iTrader: (3)

Shawn's whining is unbelievable - I was there when his car was driven. It was about 60 miles round trip for a meet. Rhys showed off Shawn's car and was very proud. It ran fine. How do I know? Because I tailed it all the way up to the meet.

As far as the ECU goes, my car was getting reflashed at the same time and same place by the same people as Shawn. All I can say is that it's awesome. Idle is perfect - no stuttering, backfiring, nothing. Just nice usable power and a 1-2 mpg gain.

Anytime anyone buys any product they run a risk of something not working properly. All the RMR products have a 1-year warranty, and I believe that includes the ECU. If you read that other post, you would see that the problems mostly came from other manufacturers' parts.

The final thing Mr. Glass forgot to post was that he rushed the guys into shipping his car. How do I know? Because I was there when he kept calling, asking for his car. If ANY tuner did that much work in about 2 weeks, they would be hard-pressed to have it completely ironed-out. I can bet RMR would have been more than happy to get the car back to check what happened, but Mr. Glass blew a fuse. We all end up having problems with cars eventually. The thing to do was to have it shipped back to RMR at their expense and let them fix it.

Oh well. I feel very confident in the RMR parts including the ECU flash. Good luck.

N10S

iTrader: (4)

Regardless of what mods you do, you should always have a back-out plan should you run into trouble. It is also always a bit easier to ensure better results and identify bugs when you don't throw too many change variables in the mix at one time.

As far as the ECU-reflash goes, I have the Works re-flash on my stock EVO and the car runs great. Probably do the exhaust next and the throttle body a little later.

Sometimes pacing your mod installs can pay dividends later in not having to guess which of the 8 mods you just installed is causing the problem.Just remember a re-flash can be re-set to factory if you are unhappy. A little down-time yes, but very little risk overall.

my .02

N10S

cecilia

what happens if you have a buschur turbo back exhaust and you have WORKS flash your ECU?? will that change the way my car runs?

Eric Lyublinsky

iTrader: (5)

Sure, you will require more fuel across the open loop map and there could be some ing advance that could be added for a gain in power. The reason being is by adding a exhaust you gained more turbo effcenity because off less back pressure. (ie you added more colder air and need to add fuel not to run lean)

Eric

spyderturbo

I was just curious if anyone could answer this question:

If I were to get my ECU re-flashed by a vendor for a stock EVO setup and developed engine problems a few weeks later and the cause of the problem was pin-pointed back to the ECU.

Should the vendor take FULL responsibility of the damage?

Eric Lyublinsky

iTrader: (5)

,

Hard to prove it was the Vendor or user. This is why. Let say you never change your oil or use cheap low oct gain gas and your motor gives out well then how is it the Vendors falt.

How can you pint point it to the ECU?? Well if you get ping, or have a dyno confime your A/Fs and so on. It's a long matter to prove.

That's why the user/buyer has to have complete trust into who is tuning there car.

A end user can always add a boost controler and run up the boost and pop the motor. then take out the MBC/EBC and re-hook up the old boost control system. Whats to say it was the tuners fult.

The only real way to prove is data logging and haveing sold A/F and dyno sheets. Also having gauges like fuel Pressure, Oil temp, Oil Pressure, Boost, ETG and documenting all the readins asuming the are all correct.

Eric

broeli

iTrader: (19)

I don't think you got even close to the same amount of mods and didn't spend even close to the $ he did though did you? In my 12 years of experience in building and tuning cars 2 weeks is plenty of time for the basic mods that he had done. I have done complex reflashes on cars with a ton of mods. My personal Street Renegade 5.0 Mustang spent an entire 2 days and 10 hours on the dyno squeezing every bit of hp out of my setup. There is no way they should've felt rushed with a 2 week time frame. I'm not here to talk bad about RMR or anyone else...but tuner shops that do a ton of business like RMR need to take the time and make sure their customers are satisfied...especially when the customer is spending big money.
I'm sure your re-flash is fine like you say it is also, but when you start adding cams, different turbo, etc, the reflash and characteristics for drivabilty change. The thing is, they assured him that the cams and all he had done wouldn't hurt his drivability , idle, etc....but they did.

silverEVO8

iTrader: (12)

Without knowing all the details, it's hard to make balanced statements, but I tend to agree with you....
**$15K spent in one place is a lot of money
**The customer placed his trust and his money in the vendors hands
**The customer seems to have very serious problems
**looks like the vendor would do everything possible to make it right....

I know that this is not the same in terms of $$ or time, but VRS, the manufacturer of the exhaust I bought will just send me money to pay for any adjustments needed because their product did not fit just right...

The guys at Rspeed replaced a top just the other day at no cost to the client at all because it did not fit just right..

I could go on... On the other hand, I've been left holding the bag before by merchants or service providers who after getting my $$ they basically told me tough luck....

spyderturbo

Thanks for the reply. I realize under certain circumstances, its tough to blame a tuner or manufacturer for a problem.

But if someone were to follow the manufacturers maintenance schedule to a tee, only used 93 octane mobile gasoline and decided to have the ECU re-flashed to gain performance which the tuner claims wont effect reliability.

If the end result just happened to be a damaged engine caused by a detonation issue in any effect, maybe by improper A/F, timing or boost settings with the ECU.

I guess the owner of the car should be on their own for taking the risk in the first place with such a modification, unless they were to attempt to scam the repair through a warranty claim. Which if they were denied, would be rightfully so.

I'm personally thinking about having a ECU re-flash done with my EVO, but...just want to make sure I know full well all the risks associated with having such a modification done.

I personally believe if a Tuner feels 100% confident with their flash program, they should offer a limited warranty of some sort. But with so many possible variables, it is probably in the best interest for them not to do so.