Ok, basically I'm a newb with an evo x. I live in Knoxville, Tennessee with no tuning shops nearby, or even access to a dyno. I plan on doing some extensive modding down the road after learning a bit more and driving it stock for a few months and for some reason I really want to do all of the mods myself. It just seems like installing new stuff on your car is the ultimate bonding experience and I want to be able to say I did it myself. There is a great shop in Atlanta that apparentally specializes in evos and ecutek. So here's my question.

What mods can I drive all the way to Atlanta (3 1/2 hours) with, before getting tuned? Is there any other system that just tunes itself with no dyno? I really don't understand ecu's, but I am a very careful person and I can ensure you if I do anything to my evo x I will know exactly how to do it perfectly first. I'm not into blowing up 30k's of happiness.

 

Well.... we need to know how extensive you plan to get. I would say you could do most bolt on's and do them yourself, and be able to drive to Atlanta no problem. Now if you have in mind what I am thinking about doing. FP Red Turbo with new injectors, you probally should not drive it to Atlanta. Here in GUAM I don't know of any tuner shops so I plan on doing a mail in flash or E-mail flash tune. I am still waiting on software to log the car paramaters, before putting the new turbo and injectors in. Also if I am feeling froggy enough I can ask for help here on EVOM and tune it myself. It sucks waiting, but at least I get to look at the new turbo and downpipe every time I walk into my house.

 

Well, I'm still figuring out exactly what I'm going to do, but I'm shooting for around 500hp on pump gas. I will be for sure putting in a different turbo, but after seeing fp red results on the evo x I might do something else and just upgrade the manifold. I'm also considering methanol/water injection as I've heard of some good results. Of course there will be alot of mods though those are just the big things.

When you do a mail in or e-mail in flash tune, how do they know how to tune your car? Like do you just tell them all the mods you've put on it and they take a sweet guess at it? One thing that may help is literally straight out of my driveway I have an about 3/4 mile straight. It has some gnarled up ground and a turn at the end of it so I couldn't use all 3/4 miles, but it might work pretty good with that road dyno software if I could do something like that. I just don't know how all that stuff works. Like when you said you needed to log the car parameters I didn't even know you had to do that. Another problem is I wasn't planning on doing all of this at once, and I don't really want to drive up to atlanta for multiple tunes.

 

Most mail in tuners will want you to do some logs.

You will need a cable to use the sensors on you ECU to log things like rpm, throttle position, etc. This cable will also allow the flashing of your ECU. do a search on ECU Flash for more info.

You will need software and a laptop to do logging. Evoscan is one product people like to use. Mitsulogger is also available.

you will probably need a wide band to do a mail in flash as most tuners will require logs of AFR.

You can get the cable at :
www.tactrix.com

 

Alright, this is coming together more. When I searced ecu flash I pretty much just go a bunch of websites selling stuff or touting how great their product is. What's a wideband do and how does it determine your afr? I didn't see anything on that website that said wideband either. Email flashes sound awesome. I'd much rather just get some codes I could put in myself with a custom unit then mail away my ecu. And wouldn't it be bad for your car to do logs on it after you install stuff like fuel injectors and turbos? idk, I'm just not sure if I really get how these tuners know what you have on your car. Thanks, and if you all have any good reads on this stuff that you could send to me please post them up.

edit: I watched a video on ecuflash and it looked so easy. He just like downloaded ecuflash and it read the stuff from his ecu, then he sent it to jestr tuning (which he acted like it was free, I don't see how), then he just sent it to his ecu. How does your ecu know if you did something to your car?

 

A wideband is an oxygen sensor that picks up Air/fuel ratios via a sensor atached to the exhaust. Search for AEM wideband UEGO sensor.....the kit from AEM's site is 302....bucks but if you search a little more you can find it for 200...its one of the best from what I understand.

EcuFlash is great.....but it should not be played around with if you don't know what you are doing. That said..... it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out how it works......it will take extensive reading up on the subject to figure out just the basics. But it can be done. I have a friend teaching me now. It's pretty sick once you figure it out...opens the door for so many possiblilites. Tuning and logging the car yourself without paying someone!! Evoscan is a great tool for logging but does not support EVO X yet....but supossedly will be out very very soon. Mitsulogger is good too and free but does not record knock....and you really need something that records knock........search for what engine knock is if you dont know.

Hope that is helpful.......

PM me if you have any questions that I might be able to answer for you...and if I cant help you I know plenty of people who do......good luck

 

alright man, thanks. The video I watched the guy just scanned his own ecu, saved the file, sent it to the jestr dude at gmail, and got a file back of the new tune, and uploaded it to his car. I might wait til something better comes out and just stick with an exhaust or something.