CupertinoSteve

Hi All,
Its been a while since I last posted and there seems to be a bunch of existing threads ... EcuTek = "good", Unichip = "not as good", but a lot of these were in general comments. I hope I can provide a little more insight into this.

I have zero experience with UTEC and Link (so don't ask). But have used a dyno-tuned TEC3'd WRX for a few weeks (hands down the Reflash is a lot smoother, without any sacrafice in power).

History
I've lived with:
Vishnu Stage 0 (Unichip) for 5 months
Vishnu Stage 1 (Unichip) for 3 months
Vishnu Stage 2 (Unichip) for 2 months
Vishnu Stage 2 (Unichip + EMI Adapter) for 1 month
Vishnu Stage 2 (ECUTEK) for 2 weeks - 900+ miles

History Review
The jump from stock to VS0 was incredible ... so much power for so little $$$. It made my car feel like a new toy. The same sort of excitement happened when I went from VS0 to VS1. Beautiful power and the excitement returned. The partial throttle boosting was noticeable, but was livable. The move to VS2, made an insane amount of power with HP gaining all the way to redline (7300rpm). But the partial throttle boosting became increasingly annoying and holding a constant speed was becoming incredibly difficult (mainly due to the jump to the STI injectors and the unichip's inablility to set its configuration breakpoints along side the factory ECU's breakpoints). Now with the EMI Adapter, it made things a lot smoother ... I wouldn't say it totally eliminated the partial throttle boost issues, but it probably reduced it by about 90% (I'm sure that if I had the stock injectors it would be even less noticeable). To be honest with you, I don't live at WOT ... only during HPDEs and the occassional onramp rush, most unichip programming are designed for WOT - hence the inconsistencies during day-to-day driving.

Today with the Vishnu ECUTEK
To be honest with everyone, I didn't think it could be any better than Unichip+EMI ... I couldn't have been more wrong. Holy cow ... my car is so silky smooth, no matter how much or how little I press on the throttle. Partial Thottle boost = zero, holding constant velocity ... oh, yeah. But more importantly the linearity of thottle vs. engine response was beautifully matched. With the reflash, my peak HP only rose by 5whp (at around 13.5psi), but came in about 600 rpm sooner (peak boost was only 16.5 psi and tapered down to 12.5psi). There a lot more usable power (surface area underneath the curve has increased at all rpms above 3300rpm). Torque was smoothed out and I matched my previous peak torque by 4300, the new peak torque is continued to climb up to 5700 rpm (+9 ft.lb) ... not to mention it doesn't fall off as much as the Unichip+EMI setup.

For some odd reason I cannot post attachments (of my dyno plots) ... but for a comparison I stock'd in at 158whp (I don't have the stock torque graph) and finished with 254.5whp and 226 ft.lb.

For those who may say this is low ... please check out my DynoDynamics/Dynojet comparison ... http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/show...hreadid=286440

I'll probably swing by ATP again to measure on their Dynojet (I'm pretty sure I'll be somewhere between 310-320 whp) - and let me tell ya ... "the ladies love the big dyno plots"

All I've got to say is that if you're planning to get your ECU reflashed, go to a place that has the most experience and the largest database to pull from. From what I've seen there are at least 6 distintly different WRX ECU ... a tons of differenet mod combinations. You need to live on a dyno in order to build an appropriate starting point. I don't believe street tuning can provide a consistent platform to build accurate maps (despite what some "other" vendors might say). Some changes are so minute, that the butt dyno might not feel it, but it could make a different in other areas. Its also pretty difficult to look down at a laptop, make changes, log information ... and drive safely. (just my opinion)

If you can't seem to get a straight story and all else fails, call the guys at ECUTEK and see who they would honestly recommend (though they have to be careful how they phrase their responses - just ask who moves the most units).

In my book ... the Vishnu ECUTEK gets two thumbs up.

Thanks to Shiv and friends ...

Steve

CupertinoSteve

i've got the dyno plot ... but its 300+Kb ... what's the best way to shrink a picture?

CupertinoSteve

Hi Blk03WRX,
"Your dealership" ... do you work at the dealership? Just curious, which dyno were guys picking up? And from what I've heard, the ECUTEK folks were from the UK ... i'm just a little confused.

Steve

Wingless Wonder

iTrader: (7)

EcuTek is a UK-based company, but has a subsidiary in Australia. MRT (big surprise) is the exclusive distributor in the land down under.

http://www.ecutek.com.au

...and furthermore, here is a list of US-based companies which are licensed with EcuTek.
--
^ww^
"...axles of evil..." - George W. Bush

Wingless Wonder

iTrader: (7)

First try resizing the image to see if you can still read the graph numbers and text. Then reduce the quality setting of the JPEG (save a copy of original!) until it gets down to a post-able size. I'm assuming you have access to Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, CompuPic, or some other graphics program that can resize/re-save images. If not, PM me and I'll give it a whirl.

--
^ww^
"...axles of evil..." - George W. Bush