Which is better? Better can be interpretted in many ways, but I mean which is more tunable, whcih will have better company support, which will provide more power (if not the same), etc.

Do they basically both do the same thing?

Right now, I only have a turboback exhaust on my car, but I do plan to do a lot more stuff.

I'm in Socal, so I would probably chose XS Engineering to do the tuning (not really sure yet, other suggestions would be welcome).

Sorry if this is kind of a newb question, but I really don't know much about tuning, and reading all the posts in the vishnu and UTEC forums just confused me more.

I'm also gonna post this in the Exede forum.

 

I don't think xs engineering tunes either of these piggybacks, they tune the power fc....and afc/boost controller if that's all you got. I could be wrong though *shrug*

 

I'm sure there's a shop around that can. Most importantly though, which of the two should I go with?

 

I'm not a qualified expert on xede, but those features that turboxs is releasing in their new firmware soon are stuff the xede cannot do, that's why theres a xedeflash. Both are very capable systems and are similar in a lot of ways. For my case, what swung me toward utec was the ease of use (absolute values of timing used instead of offsets in xede for example), the stuff in the new firmware xede cannot do(need xedeflash), and the turboxs tuner package that works hand in hand nicely with the utec system. Which produces more power? I would say the same if both were tuned by capable tuners. I'm sure the xede would be nice to use once you get used to it as well though, I did consider it earlier in my modding phases when utec wasn't available. Oh, and the 5 maps on the remote switch of utec is also very convenient. =)

 

From a personal bias.. The UTEC of course.. From a feature standpoint their very similar.. though I have to say I chose the UTEC over the XEDE for three specific reasons.. the MAP Switching (5 of them), no Special software, and a true plug and play harness (like a 20 minute install for a first timer)

Specificially they use very similar methods for controlling fuel, timing, and boost.. and both do, or will offer open loop fueling (Bypassing fuel cut and RPM limiter) essentially bypassing the factory ECU and some safeguards for areas you choose to modify. From one standpoint it can be a shortcoming (Inexperienced users can hurt parts) but from my standpoint, that will be a huge advantage.

There's enough of these "Comparo" threads out there.. and usually turn into flame wars so its unlikely there will be a huge amount of good information. BUT, do your research and watch the forums for the XEDE and the UTEC.. make your decisions based on the user contributions and the technical information thats available to you.