I'm thinking that the Mitsubishi engineers have finally caught on... and it's going to be a great success (Borat ) for Mitsubishi. Think about it.

1. With the typical bolt on mods, the ecu is already running pretty lean and proper
2. It cranks out gobs of power with those typical mods
3. It comes with a good downpipe already
4. Just crank up the boost and good things are happening safely (104 hp anyone... yut!)
5. Top tuners have already said that it's not running overly rich or lean.
6. BOV's don't upset the car like they do on previous Evo's or WRX/STI's... which means we don't have to tell noobs that bov's are bad every week. People want to hear bovs...I'll admit they sound cool, but I've never run one on my Evo or WRX because it's bad.

Feel free to add to the list. I don't want to hog it up.

Just keep this in mind. My IX was running a Vishnu v400 package. It had a full exhaust and an Ecutek tuned ecu. Soooo, when I returned the exhaust back to stock to sell my IX (in anticipation of the X)... I noticed that my IX behaved very politely and ran a lower boost pressure... it basically returned to stock. THE ECU WAS BACICALLY HIDING THE BEAST WITHIN. The new owner just had to slap on full exhaust and they would find the following:

1. With those typical bolt on mods, the ecu is running pretty properly
2. It cranks out gobs of power with those typical mods
3. It runs good with that aftermarket downpipe for the IX
4. It's running higher boost pressures... and 406 bhp feels gooooood.
5. A top tuner tuned that ecu to be that way

You guys get the point. You guys seeing any similarities here or is it just me?

 

IMO NO. i just think mitsu gave themselves room to "add improvements" later on when all they're doing is leaning out the ridiculously rich AFR. remember this car and likely this engine will be around for another 10 years at least. why give it some super amazingly tuned engine that you can't really improve later on?

for example look at the S2000 and NSX. both great engines that you couldn't really extract more power from. in the end they had to increase displacement. when displacement was maxed out for the given block. development stopped and the cars are basically discontinued. part of this is honda's insistence with NA but with turbos it's the same thing. the restriction becomes boost on pump gas. you can go with a bigger turbo but you will reach a limit of driveability sooner or later with the lag of a big snail.

also the DP is like 1 foot long or something. mitsu should be shot if they f*ck up a 1 foot long pipe.

 

Nice point. However, from what I've been seeing I can tell you that I can appreciate the stock ecu air/fuel ratios and mapping more than I did with my stock IX ecu... and if I was part of the Mitsu engineering board, I would definately design the X ecu to work wonders with the mods that this car is no doubt going to recieve. It's not like this car is a base BMW with no aftermarket. This car was and always will be a heavy player with the tuner crowd... so why not make it an even huger success by giving it an ecu that likes a freeer flowing exhaust? It makes perfect buisness sense to me.