its not any one thing...just seems that more people with intakes have problems than without....dont freak.

Cobb also makes a map for stage 2 with injen intake. it won't kill you...its just better not to have it. You can DL it from the web site.

 

Hey yall, just an update - got rid of the 100% atmospheric bov and just switched back to my stock intake airbox. I'm currently looking into getting a new filter to replace my stock filter. The car runs exactly the same as me using the injen map! (just quieter) Does anyone know if an aftermarket filter (blitz, perrin, k&n) would actually boost performance on a cobb stage 2 setup?

 

I just had a long conversation with the head mechanic (and owner?) of Dyno-Comp here in Scottsdale, and I would urge any of you who have access to a local shop that can tune to ditch your accessport and get an actual dyno tune. While the idea of a plug-and-play tune is certainly attractive, especially to those of us with no nearby Ecutek or Cobb tuner, he showed me a bunch of Accessport dyno charts and they were terrifying. The very day I was there they dyno'd a stock 02 WRX with an Accessport Stage 1 reflash and it looked like the NASDAQ stock market, leaping all over the place and dropping off like a stone after 5100 RPMs; the detonation sensor showed knock in three places and their own test drive found detonation in 2nd, 3rd and 5th gear. In all cases the knock was too quiet to be heard, and could only be found with an installed knock sensor -- which means many of us might be detonating and not even know it until we pull our valves and injectors and cylinder heads and find them battered and black.

They put it on the dyno and did an EcuTEK tune, and the 2nd dyno chart was smooth as can be; with the tune and a change of sparkplugs, the car was making 35 more HP than with the accessport and making 10 more lbs of torque below 2800 RPM. Again, this is useless information to anyone who doesn't have a shop within driving distance, but the idea of a plug-and-play tune seems more and more like a pipe dream -- use that accessport or UTEC conservatively! If any of you live near the west coast, I think it would be worth the trip to drive to a tuner shop in California or Arizona rather than try to do it yourself and shorten the life of your car. I know that I'm going with a dyno-tuned reflash when I hit my engine warranty, and I'll leave my ECU "virgin" until then...

 

Obviously a custom tune would be better than general maps. When the Access Tuner comes out, I'm sure a lot of shops will be tuning with it if you don't want to tune it yourself.

 

don't forget...a tuner shop is trying to sell you on tuning...if you get an AP you don't need their services. Sounds like a hard sell. Anyone who knows what they're doing can manipulate a dyno test to make it look like crap if that's what they wanted. I'm not saying that they're liars, but they have the motive. Its always a gamble when you get advice from someone who's trying to sell you something. Its very rare that a salesman will turn you away from his own product for YOUR best inerest.

 

I totally agree. If I hadn't been there in the shop and watched him dyno the car (with the owner of the car standing there) with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it. The Accessport map dyno was a spiky mess, and the custom one he tuned about an hour later was smoother and more powerful. Again, this is clearly only an option for those of us with a shop nearby, but now I cringe when I see those "is it OK to run the 93 octane map with an intake, BOV and 91 gas?" posts.

 

Here is a link to a thread that compares the stock ECU mapping with Cobb stage 2 (road dyno) https://www.i-club.com/forums/engine-power-ej20t-pre-2006-wrx-jdm-60/road-dyno-cobb-stage-2-without-accessport-68306/. I'm not claiming to know everything about dyno graphs but even though both runs dont looks very smooth the Stage 2 run looks as smooth as the factory run. The car that was tested was an auto.

 

Don't mistake me, I'm NOT saying that the Accessport isn't an amazing piece of technology or a productive mod for your car; clearly in the case of many mods (v34 turbo) it is essential, and many people have had great success. But if someone has an option for a dyno tune vs. an off-the-shelf map, for me at least the choice is now clear. I'm just lucky enough to live near a shop with an AWD dyno and a knowledgeable tuner...

Thanks for your link, but I'm not a fan of road dynos as a reliable source; too many factors involved, and the actual data resolution is pretty low. Still, a good chart to look at -- makes me glad I didn't go with a 4EAT :-)

 

I went with the access port so I could start at stage 1, now that I have my TBE and upipe ordered I can go stage 2 without haveing to do a second dyno tune. When the street tuner comes out I will go to Axis power raceing and have my car dyno tuned. As far as I know I will be able to save the custom map that Ron at Axis creates on the ST and I will also have the ability to toggle between that map and the other maps that are made available by Cobb.

I agree with you 100% that a dyno tune is much better than any off the shelf map.