Ok this is going to be a little bit long but I would like to get my whole story out there!

I have a MY00 WRX that has a VF22 turbo, Hitech TBE (with Hi Flow Cat), Walbro Fuel Pump, MAFless intake, CAI and all tuned on an Autronic PnP. I first bought the car in September last year as a Daily driver, but with the intention of taking the car to around 200kwatw. This should be an attainable figure on the stock internals and certainly enough power for the odd track day that I like to do. It came with the Hi Tech exhaust which sounded great, and probably provided a few ponies as well.

After the obligatory upping of boost with an MBC I decided to bite the bullet and get a VF22 turbo as I didn't think that they were as laggy as what everyone is led to believe. They are also fairly proven and should hopefully reach the 180-200kwatw mark. I ran this turbo at factory boost (15psi) for a couple of months on this setup, but was running into problems with the AFM's. I eventually went through 4 AFM's in the space of 5 months and decided enough was enough. I bit another bullet and decided to get an Autronic tuned on MAP and get rid of the AFM altogether. A very well regarded tuner in Wollongong did the install and tune (just shy of $4000 with boost solenoid and fuel pump that I installed). The following dyno graph is what it made:





Not good figures, I know but that is what it made on the day. It was tuned on 95 ron fuel which I suppose can make the numbers lower than what could be expected. This is a low reading dyno however and the plot does not go further than 5800rpm... However, of more concern is the fact that torque drops off markedly above 125kph, we believe this is due to the stock turbo intake pipe providing too much restriction for the VF22. Don't forget that the GC8's have a smaller intake pipe than the later MY01 on models. Apart from the poor power numbers and the torque dropping off the car is very good to drive and is a lot stronger than before. Cold start is like factory, although I did initially have a problem with the idle in the first week, they fixed that with a little tweak of the screwdriver and there hasn't been a problem. Fuel economy on the other hand has been atrocious. I have been lucky to get 400km's out of a tank with some highway driving, and all city driving has been pushing less than 350km's a tank. This is pretty poor considering I used to get 450-500kms before on the stock ECU. My driving style has remained unchanged other than I am probably using full throttle less due to the poor economy.

Fast foward a month or 2. Last weekend I had the car redyno'ed on the Haltech Dyno (yes the place where they make the haltech ecu's) in shootout mode where it made a just as disappointing a figure. The only thing that had changed was some new TMIC piping (silicon bits, as I blew the original TMIC piping when the car was tuned). As you can see, the new piping certainly makes a difference as the A/F ratios have increased significantly in the top end, up to around 11.8:1!





So there are a few things that I need to address with my car:

1- Needs a bigger intake pipe. This I will be doing shortly but I will definately need a retune as I'm sure this will push me into the 12:1 A/F ratio's.

2- Bigger intercooler. In order to support more power I am going to need a bigger TMIC. Simple.

3- Injectors. The stock 440cc injectors are at 87% supposedly and I assume that I am going to need more flow for more power.

4- Split Fuel Rails. Simple mod just for some extra security with fueling.

So whilst I am happy with the day to day driveability of the car I do have issues that are highlighted above. What I would like to know is what tuners in Perth are regarded as reliable? We have several "guru's" here, so I'm sure there are some in Perth? Also you can take this as heresay but I have heard that tuners in Perth are not equal to the Eastern states tuners? What am I to expect of this? I have only been back to my tuner once to have a small idle problem fixed, is this what can be expected in Perth? As I will be living in Port Hedland I won't have the opportunity to just take the car back to the tuner if there is an issue. Also do your tuners lock the ECU? This really really shits me as it is hiding what you have paid for. My ECU is currently locked and will be requesting it to be unlocked before I leave. I cannot alter boost or setup Lean Cruise and this really annoys me.

Comments welcome.

For Autronic Tuning - AJ @ Speedworks and/or Lane @ Race Torque are you best bets.

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MY09 Evo X - 1.6bar@3500rpm - got lag?
Barbagallo - 56.03 (S); 1:08.09 (L)
Collie - 50.77
Possibly the most under-driven Evo X in the world??

No tuners who are 'gurus' lock their ECUs .. that's what shoddy ones do so that you can't figure out why the engine blew up!

Well not correct..

Theres been a lot of ecu locking going on of late in perth, but mainly only by a couple of individuals..

what it does is force you to go back to them basically and use only the services they provided..

however, IMHO legally, they can't, the data in that ecu is yours and you should be allowed to look at it/manipulate it as you please, its your property, you paid for it, they will argue as they tuned it, it belongs to them, its rubbish, its yours, you own it, you paid them for work which was carried out, that property belongs to you..

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Jesus Built my car, Its a love affair, Mainly Jesus and my hotrod

Is it possible that the tuners are locking the ecu's so guys don't 'play' around with the settings, blow the motor and then try and blame the tuner?

They do this because there have been cases of people "fucking around" with tunes, and then blaming the tuner when something goes wrong.

You'll find that a decent tuner who locks his tunes, will happily unlock it for you, no questions ask, but will enforce the point that they take NO responsibility for anything that happens to the vehicle after that.

Bollocks, it can happen, but most people who dick around, don't put the original map back over, they compare maps, issue found

its to stop them going elsewhere..

and no most WON'T unlock it, i know a few people who have had this dilema

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Jesus Built my car, Its a love affair, Mainly Jesus and my hotrod

Nug

Which shops did that?
PM please.

warranty on modded car? not likley.

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Long live the WRC

I don't normally post , just observe but...

We can tune the Autronic , 4wd or otherwise and we are one of the distributors of the product in WA.
I can understand why some tuners lock the ECU but we don't .
As Denver said it is the customers property and he has paid for it plus also stated , there is no warranty on a tune , only the graphs given at the time of tuning.

The shops can't be held responsible for future fuel pump failures, regs failures , boost being wound up etc hence most places only offer a sort of driveway warranty.

We certainly encourage customers to supply us with feed back in regards to there tune and will bring it back in for small issues such as cold start or idling problems that may occur due the inability to cover all temp ranges on a 1 day job.
Any queries , feel free to contact us.

Cheers
Ken