WORKS VS Dynoflash theory of tuning
 

I am a bit of a newbie, but have been checking out the forum for a couple months. Please help me with a couple quesions:

1. WORKS says that individual EVOs don't vary much from car to car and therefore individual tuning of a stock car (no aftermarket parts) yields little additional benefit; Dynoflash seems to assert that the opposite is true - which is it?

2. I have seen that intake change doesn't yield much for EVO - approximately how much can be gained by an aftermarket catback?

- ps my EVO arrives in less that 48hrs and I only plan on doing a flash (no heavy tuning and likely no exhaust change) {blob}

so what do you think the reason is behind that someone's Evo is faster than another one's Evo when they are both stock. There has to be differences. Humans can never duplicate the same exact thing every single time. Plus, we are talking about engineering here. We can never get the exact number every time. There are miniscule amounts of error from time to time.

When WORKS say that individual EVOs don't vary much from car to car, they are true about it. But this means, they DO agree that every EVO is different but not much. But not much means that it varies from around ~10hp in each car. Some may be more some may be less. Hope I answered your question. I am not saying WORKS is not good but everyone has their own opinions. I rather have my car on a knock sensor, a wideband O2, a dyno (street tune better but dyno's still good enough), and a computer than flashes my ECU.

Basically..from my experience that my own eyes have seen...is that the DynoFlash theory is more on the ball. When i got my car DynoFlashed, the car before me ran a base run of 232whp...whereas my evo did horribly and only pulled 205whp. DynoFlash has reflashed many many evo's on the dyno....Dyno #'s don't lie.....there really is a large variance amongst the evo's in terms of base whp....too bad i had to get a "weak" evo. =(

AND - those two numbers were the same day using our consistant and exacting methods of assuring repreatability - down to checking the exact coolant temp for the run.

What matters the most is that the DynoFlash method can tune out the car to car variance by a large degree and all our post dyno flash cars fall within a very tight range compared to the stock ecu cars.

Doing reflashes through the mail is a half assed method of tuning and something that you CAN NOT ACHIVE high performance with and maintain a good margin of saftey. WHY do you think :mitsu: designers after so many years of EVO experience STILL leave the cars PIG rich in the 9's on a/f under boost? Do you think they do that becuase they like to waste fossil fuels and create polution? NO - they do it becuase they have to allow for a sufficient margin of safety for the wide car to car variance caused by numerous factors and allow for a sufficient margin of safety in case of bad fuel or climatic extremes.

We feel by creating a custom - individual tune measured on the actual car we can push the envelope a bit futther than :mitsu: becuase we KNOW what that particular car is doing by monitoring how it performs under load.

THERE is no way we would ever sell a through the mail flash that goes to the limit of performance.

Our through the mail flash is a very mild tune which only yields 10 - 15 whp and is very safe. Its not nearly as potent as the on the car individual tune - so we DISCOUNT it to the low price of $225 which we think is fair considering it makes about half as much hp as the regular on the car dyno flash.

It takes us about 5 mins to do the through the mail flash vs 1.5 hours for the dyno tuned flash - - don't you think it would have been a LOT easier for us to just do all the flashes through the mail instead of spending thousands of dollars on dyno time and hours upon hours breathing toxic dyno fumes every week???? We do it one the dyno becuase we would be ashamed to release a through the mail flash that didnt work on some cars and which was dangerous on others.

Bottom line is it takes us about 10 - 12 pulls and adjustments on the ecu to dial in a tune on the Evo and EVERY Single one requires this many adjustments from our base maps to get the HP, smoothness and saftey margin we require

Time will tell the tale when some of those other companies cars start winding up on the dyno and the car owners start seeing the lumpy bumpy rough dyno sheets ladened with detonation and the ultra lean a/f ratios they pump out through the mail

NOT only are we proud of our dyno sheets - we give one to every customer at the time of the flash so they KNOW what they are buying - offer them a FULL refund if they dont like what they see AND we post up most of them on the forum here so you all can see how we do it

For reference what is your a/f target for the mail order and custom flash tunes?

10.9 dyno - - 10.5 mail

PS my evo runs 10.00 and makes 450 wheel hp with no spray - not bad for a daily driver !

You purposfully forgot the Race Gas part

Purposely? He was asking about a/f's

At least my Evo makes some power!

100 octane unleaded pump gas I buy at my local sunoco - thats all I run - on my car - I could easily make another 30 whp by running at 12.0 a/f's but I choose to run much richer to keep everything nice and cool and safe - its my method of tuning

This may not be true.

ECUs in cars today are very powerful. They don't just adjust for quality of gas and the climate outside but also for your driving style. If you are a speed racer they will add timing. If you drive like a granny your car may start acting like one.

There are more variables than you take into account when you say your car was dynoed on the same day as another evo and put down less power and so therefore your car must be weak.

If it is weak, I ask where.

Your engine? I doubt it. I'm sure you could mod it to hell and make it a beast.
Your exhaust?
Your intake?
Your ECU? Ding! Ding! Ding! we have a winner!!!

Works makes sense. Read their webpage throughly.

I know that my last turbo'ed car would turn into a slug with stop and go driving during the work week (I live close to work and there is nowhere to open it up - even now). To get the car performing I would pull the fuse and reset the ECU periodically.

The only car which I have driven which doesn't have this problem, or at least gets the message in seconds is a Porsche 996. Never reset the ECU and it has all the drivability around town while still switching to an aggressive map when power is demanded.

The Evo seems to have similar behavior to the first car I described, just not as bad. So I think that you have something.

I have wondered why people don't pull their car off of the dyno, reset the ecu, go for a drive / train the ecu and get back to tuning. Someone must have done this?

Shiv even has a trick for the wrx (we could ask him if there's a similar trick for the evo) where you would drive the wrx at a certain rpm for a certain time to fool the ecu into advancing the IAM (Ignition advance multiplier, I believe). He posted it on NASOIC.

He would use this trick while he dynoed cars to make his tuning life easier.

My point is that if you did this little trick on a hot day with substandard gas you would knock like hell. Driving routine also is responsible (at least in Subies) to either advance or retard IAM.

Thanks for all the info!

I reread the WORKS lead article, and I must say that they plainly completely disagree with the custom dynoday approach, as they say that the dyno is under artificial conditions in one gear etc, etc.

I am fairly simple, so I don't know which opinion is more correct. It seems both dynoflash and works have all satisfied customers that I can see. The only proof I can think of is to have equally equipped cars of each run at the track and see results.

Not trying to create a war, I know this is controversial, but I do think I know a contradiction when I see one.

Cheers :D PS - my evo arrives tommorrow :drink:

My car is going 11.62 in the 1/4 mile - tuned on dynos - whats the fastest Work's equiped car??

I am dying to get my hands on some more Exede or Works equiped cars for free dyno runs - we love to run those cars on the dyno and see what kind of a/f's and timing they run - its a pretty humerous experience. I wonder how we can run richer a/fs and make 10% more power - OH - maybe its becuase we tune to match the individual car.

Through the mail flashes only work when you use them for marginal, modest gains. You can't reach higher performance levels when tuning on the generic level - if you could the OEM guys would be doing it

Al,

Please tell us WHERE these major car to car variations occur in the mechanics of an evo.

Also, please tell us why the evo would have greater car to car variations than the wrx or other cars for that matter.

We make no claims about WRX's - I dont care to ever look at another SLOWbaRU!

I can only tell you these facts:

1. The dyno jet is dealdy accurate

2. We test each Evo with the same exact methods

3. We see wide variances

4. Each custom tune that I have done is vastly different and I cant ever use the same tune twice

5. I road test each evo on the highway and the ones that make more power on the dyno feel much faster and the ones which make less power feel much slower

6. On the drag strip there is almost a 10 mph varaiance in trap speeds on stock Evo 1/4 miles. This confirms the dyno results and butt dyno feel.

In conclusion, It does NOT matter WHY there is a variance for me the tuner. All that matters is that i am able to tune out 80% of the variance and get at least 20 whp gains on 99% of the evos I tune and up to 90 whp on some.

Right now we are offering a special promotion of $450.00 for the reflash - including up to two hours of dyno time to individually custom tune your evo on our own Dyno im Milford, CT. If you rather spend MORE money to buy someone's through the mail flash - then go right ahead.

All I can honestly assert - is that I can NOT wait for November 1 so you all can finally see the dyno figures from the Works Dyno day. its one thing to post up a "sample" dyno sheet on your web page. Its quite another to get the customer's car to perform the same way on any given day and any given dyno. It should be an eye opener. I hope they run a wideband o2 sensor at the dyno in St. Louis so you all can see the wide variation in power on the flashed cars (assuming a good sample size) and also hope you can see the kind of a/f ratios they run. I'm also doing a dyno day on that date and I plan to post up all my dyno sheets here fo reveryone to examine and compare.