That is cool, unless you are a noob and couldn't even know what it means to check for knock. Guess it depends where you go, no one has complained of a bad tune from AMS ever that I have met.

 

Agreed AMS is a stand up company. One of the best in the buisness. Your car we'll be running great coming off their rollers.

However I feel when dealing with high performance forced induction vehicles. I think it is so critical for the owner and or driver to be able to keep tabs on such thing as knock, AFR, Trims etc especially once you start modding

little things can effect the way the car runs making it a time bomb

 

For example:

Contractors are normally overseen by local govt. If a contractor screws up, they normally have a surety bond which the customer can go after for reimbursement. It's an occupation which requires licensing and has some amount of regulation at the local and/or state govt level. Also, to get the license, some amount of expereince and/or education is required. Also, there are checks and balances available to the customer should the contractor be a weasel.

There is no licensing and no requirements to be a "tuner" or to be involded in the automotive aftermarket. All that is required is the cash to buy the software, and an internet account from which to advertise. There is no education or expereince requirement, and the most "successful" are often just the loudest. There is no regulation of the industry and therefore there are no checks or balances should a "tuner" be a weasel.

You may be suprised by your own capabilities in comparison to some of the "professionals" in the aftermarket industry that I've dealt with in the past. This is why I do most everything on my own. Sure a shop can probably do the same job faster than I can because they have more infrastructure, but when I do it, I know *exactly* what I've got when I'm done.

 

It is $300, not $350 for the license fee.
EcuTeK is not for the guy in Idaho, Alaska, or Zimbabwe who does not have a professional tuner in the area. EcuTeK is for someone with a competent tuner in his area that wants his car mapped and does not self tune. Its for someone who whats a longstanding relationship with a tuner in his community that can meet his needs. Its not for the DIY hobbiest. I think you and I can at least agree on this. I have a wonderful dyno facility and Evo tuner in my area that I use. They have EcuTeK, I wanted my X mapped, I now have an EcuTeK license. I've already been back for updates when I added a full exhaust and to go to ECU boost control. Everything has gone great.

If you look above, I said that this is the one thread that I will allow to be the debate thread. Naji has taken pot shots in several different threads in the X forum, without having ever tuned an X himself. For him, its Ecuflash or personal ridicule to the other poster. The first Vishnu PROcede thread he attacked, I moved to the Vishnu forum. The second, I moved to trash. There have been two other Ecuflash threads where he sprung up to attack EcuTeK and license costs, so I removed posts and/or moved the thread to the Ecuflash forum.

And here we are again. Instead of moving it or worrying about reported posts, I am letting it play out here in this one thread.

I think I've typed that "Ecuflash is great for a D.I.Y. person and that EcuTeK is great for a shop that likes the support and more advanced software with map tracing and integrated logging" until I almost have a repetitive strain injury from using the same keystrokes, but I typed it one last time.

These products can co-exist in the market. A DIY tuner is not going to go to a shop and let someone else tune his car, as an enthusiast who knows zero about tuning is not going to buy a Tactrix cable and try to road tune his $35000 car on the interstate the first time out.



As a side note, everyone take the high road and watch the personal attacks.

 

Indeed they can. I do know that our EcuTek hardware co-exists at our shop... The EcuTek sits in the drawer and OpenPort cable sits hooked up to my laptop.

Wasn't my choice either, the customers dictated it.

I've actually had a few of these as customers. They wanted a good map to start off down their road of DIY tuning. I have no problem doing this.

 

Noize, While I agree with you 100% that nobody should be attacking EcuTeK, you repeadedly refer to ECU Flash as some kind of backyard tuning tool that only amateur's use, and buddy that is not the case. That may be your opinion but it's not true. Not only that but I've also seen you generalize that people that use ECU Flash are just hackers stealing maps. In fact it offended me when I read that because I've invested a good amount of time and money learning how to tune EFI engines as have quite a few others and I choose to use ECU Flash for cars at that power level, my next choice would be a stand-alone. Do you realize how much R&D the ECU Flash community has collectively done for the CT9A platform (Without charging anyone anything)?.

I hope EcuTeK makes a healthy profit just the same, they made an R&D investment and hopefully it will pay off, but honestly - That's their concern, not mine.

 

These two products will not co exsist soon. Noone in their right mind is going to pay a licensing fee when they can get the same and potentialy more and not pay the initial 300. Not that I think its unreasonable cause its only 300 but thats the way it will be. Tuners will have to do their mapping using ECUFlash for tuning the x OR THEY SIMPLY WILL NOT TURN A PROFIT

Kudos for the engineers at ECUTek for hitting the market first. But as stated 100 times just as for the VIII/IX platform it will become extinct quick

 

This thread reminds me of those stupid threads where someone asks, "what is better , the Evo 8 or the Evo 9" and each user that owns the each version of the car votes for whatever they drive.

Noize is no exception, he is clearly biased toward Ecutek because he payed for the Ecutek service. His opinion should be taken with a grain of salt.

 

+1

 

 

What is Ecutek again? Oh i almost forgot. My bad.

 

Start cracking some codes Dave!

 

I agree that the Ecutek initial investment and license fees are well worth it for having a competed, tested and fully functional end product which requires zero investment of my time to sort out bugs and issues.

At the end of the day a PRO tool is going to cost more as there are professionals standing behind it to assure that it works 100%.

Furthermore, having access to full time professional guidance and tech support from Ecutek is a huge asset and resource that I would not like to have to do without.

At the end of the day I believe the Ecutek represents a fair value for the product and everything that goes along with it.

Al

 

There are interesting points

There have been a lot of tuners who have come along with no shop, no dyno, no experience, no race car, no track record of tuning any fast cars and no formal training. A lot of customers have been very pleased with the tunes obtained from those same tuners with little or no actual back ground. In many cases I have observed that price is a huge consideration - meaning that whom ever is the cheapest is very popular. I query how many customers know the difference between what is a good tune or what is a bad tune and if they could discern the difference they may be tuning their own car.

I am sure that in other markets over the world, consumers are more discriminating in whom they utilize to tune the cars and the paths they take in the modification process. I feel this is becuase in other markets the costs associated with owning ultra high performance turbo cars for gas, insurance and taxes are significnatly higher and the vehicles are only in the hands of more wealthy and professional types.

Al

 

Frankly, given that Steve admited that he applied for Ecutek dealer status and was rejected or ignored makes his comments some what less credable to me.

it would be like if I was complaining about the V pro ater HKS blows me off when I inquired about tuning with it

How HKS runs their buisness is just that their business - if a customer or tuner does not care for the business model - too bad. Choose another less effective ecu and tune yourself. HKS could care less what i or anyone else thinks.

Ecutek is a global outfit and the business plan is set to work with the other markets where they do not have the self tuning movement to such a great degree.

On Evos the customers are spoiled due to the ease of using Ecuflash. In my Subaru tuning business where the etock ecu is vastly more complex and where pro tools like Ecutek and Cobb AP have huge technical advantages to facilitate the ease of tuning there is no uproar about Ecutek license costs or AP unit costs.

The X is a more complex car to tune and less forgiving than the 4G63. Customers should think twice before they start buying $49 or $99 eflashes which have not been carefully tested. I have been tuning Evos since they came out and we were amoung the first to have a X and tune it and I have hundreds of hours of R & D into sorting out the ecu at this point and getting good base maps. No one can do this overnight and get a excelent result. R & D, testing and time spent all mean that the end user will be having to pay a rational price for the tuning service and the invesment in tools and time to have a very good end product.

Al