I find that interesting my boss "the owner of the company" drives the Evo8 every day. He doesn't have one complaint about drivability. My honest of opinion the evo8 crossover was the first to get the sick smoothing features, when using a map sensor for load it works flawlessly. In my eyes it was completely tunable.

The idle was is bit rough. We have some stuff we are playing with, but I don't have a final direction from the software guys so I can't say what's going to happen. With the cam shafts in the ideal cam position to make decent power we were able to make the car idle as well as a car with cams and OBD compliancy will idle. It can get better with some idle control features though.

As my said in my bosses email, we can't possibly make everyone happy but we can do our best what we do. What we do is offer a plug and play engine management solution that is capable of keeping OBD compliancy and offering User Tunable Features like actual Timing Control, Boost Control, Fuel Control and optional solenoid abilities.

Jermaine~

 

I understand, just posting some more information. I've got some time untill I upgrade the turbo and go all out with this car, so they've got some time in my book. Good luck with your future plans.

 

Jermaine

Let's be honest here, and this is not intended to be a bash. If you were to add up what you would spend on a utec (espically for a map load), and what you would spend on a brand x, you might find a better deal. I mean to say that you will be able to adjust more parameters. Granted, the TXS Utec is an obd-2 compliant vehicle ems, but there are ways around that at inspection time.

Like I said in my statement in your quote, I did enjoy the utec for my stock setup. Hell it even handled my atp3071R resonabley. The problem I have is that I feel that I need the adjustability that the utec doesn't off right now. The update may be coming out next week for all I know, but it is too late. Customer service, and support is excellent, just the upgrades are way too slow. If you guys had already seen this, as stated in you post regarding one programmer, then hire another one or two. I hate to even use this statement, but it takes more that one person to make up a team. Maybe then you could have offered an update sometime last year, and gained a bigger following. There have been many utec users that have switched to maftpro for the speed density. As far as I know it doesn't even offer timing adjustment yet, but people want speed density. See what I mean?

As also stated before, I wish nothing but the best for TXS. I will continue to use my TXS titanium tiped exhaust, my TXS intercooler, and my TXS boost controller. If you come out with a new hardware, I would be hard pressed not to look into it. It is just the software side that makes me go elsewhere.

 

HA! Add me to the software Beta testing / phone tech support tree as well, just give me free lifetime dyno tunes, an intercooler and DTEC. ;-)

Jermaine (and Mark, excuse me for thinking your name was Peter), THANK YOU for chiming in with a bit of information on TurboXS Evo 8 UTEC plans. Though it is easy for we EvoM users to think that this forum is an "official" TurboXS forum that you are obligated to pay attention to all the time, I know that you have many priorities and this is not the only one of them. That said, we do appreciate your honesty in revealing that we will in fact receive a Speed Density capability along with many other upgrades in the next software cycle. However, I must take issue with your decision not to be more transparent with your company plans for time your software developer will spend on this project as opposed to others in the coming weeks/months/years.

You've stated that you don't like to get into offering up "release dates," but it is precisely this information that is most critical to most of the users here, because we cannot plan our builds, upgrade paths and projects accordingly without knowing some level of clarity on a timeframe for release. Those that demand Speed Density functionality above all else have at present the AEM EMS, MAFTPro and perhaps a handful of other solutions to employ. If you are willing to write us off as users and see our used UTECs compete with sales of your new UTECs as we auction them on eBay well below your list price, then so be it.

As it stands now, I could auction my UTEC, buy an EMS, plug it in and go, with regular forum-based support available with a large team of personnel at AEM such as Jason Siebels with plenty of time to support and upgrade the product. If you come out with the UTEC speed density upgrade in a year, I could likely auction the EMS for near full price (market rate for those on auction sites) and then purchase a used UTEC for almost no loss, as they are selling quite a bit below MSRP now. In this example, I compete with your sales twice.

If, however, you decided to give even the roughest of timeframes, we could all plan accordingly. Frankly, if you tell me you'll release this update within the next 4 to 6 months, I'll most likely stick around. If you tell me it will be over 6 months, I'lll most likely bail. If you tell me it will be 1 to 3 months, I'll continue to help you market your product excitedly.

The Evo tuning community has evolved from the early days. When the UTEC first came out, it was revolutionary at its price point for flexibility and power out of the box. But as our tastes and needs have grown more sophisticated and competition has improved, the UTEC has fallen behind and lost some of its original appeal as a platform for tuning, as reflected in its "market price" on the larger auction sites.

All many of us are asking for over and above what Jermaine posted is a note from the top that we are an understood customer base that you respect enough to trust with even the roughest of estimates about a release date (even, I suppose, if it's "within the next 2 years." At this point, a tiny bit of guidance could go a long way with me, and I suspect many others here as well.

If you decide to tell us anything, you should think about posting these plans on your company web site for sure to tantalize buyers, just a marketing tip.

Wish you well and thanks for a powerful product.

Regards,
Adam

 

I am using the UTEC with the gt35R, cams, MAF, map sensor etc on our car. I did have some problems with the MAF based setup on the 35R (but not on the non ball bearing 60-1) with cams. Jermaine sent us the MAP sensor and it is much better. Tip-in hesitation is just barely noticeable.... but barely... idle is a tiny bit rough... but there is no cross over transition, because we spent ALOT of time logging stock ecu timing and transitions. I do believe that some features could be upgraded, but all in all i have been happy with the functionality of it.

we have had experience with the utec tuning many customer wrx's and sti's though...

just takes time, and it is tedious at points. I would love some updates... but for now... im ok with it...

cheers

cb
cbrdspeedfactory.com

 

You kinda lost me here. I gathered that you were using a MAP sensor, then Jermain sent you "the" MAP sensor and it is much better. Are you saying you were using another brand of sensor or something at first, or Jermain sent you a replacement that was better somehow?

 

I think he is saying he went from the MAF reference to the MAP reference.. which makes sense, I had decent results with using the MAP sensor for the load reference, unfortunately I rather would use the MAF reading since it was reflecting the true air demand of the engine where the current map sensor reference really only uses boost/vacuum which isn't always going to give you the best results in daily driving.

Of course, the points he made are very very valid, and I have said this from the beginning, the key to getting a smooth transition, is to do alot of logging and try to find a good transition point that your not always dancing in and out of in your driving style, and then try to match the load site from the transition, to what the OEM ECU wants to run at that point, and you'll end up with a fairly smooth transition which should be fairly unnoticable.

 

Let me add that anyone who has ridden in my car always comments on how smoothly it drives, both idle and part throttle drivability.. Keep in mind that I do use a blowthrough sensor, however overall, I spent alot of time making adjustments to make the car pleasant to drive, and not necessarily the fastest it can be with the mods it has.

 

Man I wish you would make a video or DVD or something...maybe UTEC Training Seminars. A lot of us (primarily ME) really don't have this thing figured out like you do. When you talk about setting a good transition point, I don't even know where to start with that.

I'd rather not have someone else just do it for me, I don't learn anything that way, but I started tinkering with the settings before and managed to kill my boost and didn't think I was ever going to undo whatever it was that I did. (still don't know to this day what I did and/or undid) Now the car is running pretty strong, but is surges and flutters at partial throttle, so I'm not sure if it's really the tune or something mechanical. Either way, I'm afraid to mess around too much with the UTEC and make things any worse. (again)

 

So is there Anything Official About the Utec Being Able to be tuned for Speed Density in the next release?

 

Post #317 is about all we've got.

 

I guess i should have read it all........

Ok How about any info on windows based tunning software?

 

Get the UCC for windows based tuning.

 

Kinda glad i sold my UTEC. I couldnt wait for the updates anymore.

 

Kinda glad I kept mine

-still the best bang for the buck for an all around unit that doesn't require baseline routine set up.

Anybody buying these used at or around $500 is getting an absolute steal.