This letter is in regards to the proposal to open up the ECU allowance in street touring

At a high level, I don't agree with the proposal. I am one of those naive types who believes that everyone basically plays fair and if someone is sufficiently determined to cheat, there are dozens of things they can do that will never be noticed (think Spec Miata levels of shenanigans). So from the "we need to open it up to make it enforceable" perspective, I don't agree with that premise. Setting that aside, I have a few concerns about the proposal:

1) ST-all. Standalones are expensive, hard to tune, and less streetable than ECU flashes that mostly preserve OE functionality. I would contend that they should not be in the class in the first place (i.e. stuffed into OEM housings), but that ship has sailed. Why do we want to increase the perception that ST* is expensive? This is another area where spending a lot more money (buying the equipment and most likely getting someone to tune it) will probably get you small but measurable gains over cheaper solutions. That's the sort of stuff that ST should be getting away from.

2) STX. STX is in a really good place now with a lot of cars being competitive and very deep fields. What will it do for the class if everyone now has to have a Mini S (which just won and will improve under this proposal) or a WRX (which hasn't won for a while but stands to gain quite a bit)?

3) STU. This proposal takes two cars which have relative parity today (the Evo and STi) and advantages one over the other. Currently a typical STU Evo makes less torque than an STU STi but has better gearing (able to hit low/mid 60's in 2nd gear as opposed to more like 58 mph in the STi). Under this proposal, the STU STis will be able to make massive gains because there are no artificial hardware limits on what kind of boost they can produce. Here is Josh Luster's old car (currently in John Hale's hands) going between a street tune and an STU tune: https://forums.nasioc.com/forums/sho...&postcount=503 - the difference is +19 whp and +45 wtq. This would enable the STi's to be able to use 3rd much more easily on faster courses when they would normally be more penalized. The Evo does not gain power under this new allowance because there is a physical hardware limit in the stock boost hardware - the "boost pill". You cannot just turn up the boost in an Evo without changing this, and the current proposal does not add an SP-like allowance to change the boost hardware. I want to be as clear as possible - same car, same day, I told my tuner (CBRD) to make me a "street tune" for the time I wasn't autocrossing. I gained +1 whp and +3 wtq:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-e...116_211540.jpg

If you want parity to be preserved, ST should have a matching boost hardware allowance. Once you open it up at the ECU, you are allowing cars to do silly and possibly damaging things - so there is no real reason why a boost controller or similar would be any worse. I am guessing that the reason why the standalone allowance was proposed was that currently, some cars can use the allowance and some can't, and this proposal fixes that so that everyone can go standalone if they want. In my opinion, the same should apply to boost; if you open it up at the ECU, there is no good reason for not also opening up the hardware. That is the only way all cars will be able to use this. It is likely that future cars will have similar hardware issues as manufacturers try to prevent people from doing modifications.Thank you for your time and your service on the STAC.
<my name><region><member #>

Street Touring
#21196, 21199, 21205, 21216, 21219, 21221, 21224, 21225, 21229, 21238, 21242, 21260,
21269, 21323, 21346, 21380, 21426, 21471, 21496, 21508, 21528, 21622, 21652, 21676,
21702 Feedback regarding ECU Allowances (various)
Please see the response in item #14648

#14648 ECU Clarification
The STAC would like to clarify the context of the following group of rule proposals:
14648 ECU Clarification, 21094 Octane Rating (see above), and 21408 Making ST
Hot Again (see below). The proposal regarding the changes to allow open ECUs (open
boost via changes in the ECU) and plug-and-play engine control modules is intended to
address the inability to enforce the current rule, while continuing to allow common tuning
modifications. The proposal to create STH is also influenced by the potential changes
to ECUs/boost. By placing the majority of turbocharged cars in the ST classes together,
the impact of boost/engine performance changes would be relatively contained and
we would maintain stability in STS and STX. Cars that are moved may be re-classed if
warranted.