Why engine management? Well without boring you with technical jargon like others, we will give it to you straight. Your factory ECU is setup real conservative. In fact the power of your car is all restricted in your fuel, boost, and timing. Yes the boost already runs at 18.5psi but has room for more. The car is setup to run real rich to prevent from detonation, and the timing is not retarded (Depending on how you look at that statement!) What engine management can do for you is change these parameters.

That’s great, but what do these parameters do? Basically by adjusting your fuel, boost, and timing according to your mods you can maximize the power your car puts out. With simple tweaks of leaning out the car, retarding timing, and increasing boost, you can achieve up to 40 wheel horsepower on the stock car. Combine the tuneability with your modifications you may have done like exhaust, intake, and more, and your EVO is now producing more horsepower at a safe level.

How do I do this? Well you have several options. Stand alone ECU's, Reflashes, or a UTEC. Stand Alone ECU's in our opinion are for the serious full time racer. Extreme attention to tuning, maintenance, and monitoring is required. This completely deletes your factory ECU. The next option is a reflash. Reflashes can be done via mail order or by direct tuning. We feel that reflashing is an inexpensive good alternative, but limits your ability to excel in your modifications and enthusiast side of your car. Mail order reflashes are not road tuned or dyno tuned with your car so some problems may exist. Yes the same maps can be used but the car and environment you are in may differ from where that map was created. Another problem is that you the end user does not have control over the tuning. Whether experienced or not, the reflash can only be done by the companies who own the software.

OK, what about the UTEC? The UTEC is the 3rd option that appeals to both the weekend racer and the daily driver. UTEC stands for User Tuner Engine Controller. The UTEC is a piggyback system that has shown huge success in the Subaru WRX market. Now there are 2 good main points about the UTEC. All the top tuners know how it works. Since it uses a basic interface, having it dyno or road tuned by a professional is not a problem. What makes it better is that it is USER controllable. In essence you can hook it up to your own laptop to tune or datalog. And since a large amount of customers use the UTEC, map sharing is simple. Using a basic TXT file, you can swap maps via email and work from there if you choose. Another strong feature of the UTEC is its optional map selector (this can be done in the interface as well). Unlike other engine management systems that may only hold 1 or 2 maps, the UTEC is capable of holding 5 different maps. Why would you want to hold 7 maps? You can dial your car in for many different situations. Race gas, pump gas, mix gas, valet, kid mode, commute mode, and whatever else you choose to setup. This gives your EVO a setup for any driving condition you put yourself in.

UTEC sounds cool. What else does it have? First off, it is a plug and play unit. Plugs directly into your factory ECU with no splicing, dicing, or cutting of any sorts (vegetables optional). Takes probably 20 minutes to install. Unscrew your glove box and there lies the ECU. You are now done in the time you have read this! The UTECs are loaded with a pre-programmed base map if you choose to tune yourself. Soon you can download maps from our UTEC database on VRSM. The UTEC uses a closed loop boost control, programmable via Throttle Position and RPM. It also has built in Knock Control. Having the check engine light flash if your engine is knocking. It will also retard your timing to prevent any damage from occurring if the knocking is present. These are just some of the basic features the UTEC can offer.

Sounds good. But I am still not sure? Well there are more features available that can take your car to the next level. We can only prove how good the UTEC is by what it did for us. After using a boost controller and Apex I fuel computer like most EVO owners, we were maxing out our capabilities. After putting a Greddy T67 turbo kit on our EVO, we needed some serious tuning. Bringing the EVO into the dyno shop, our baseline run on 91 octane was 250whp. Most EVO's make that with a turboback and intake. After plugging in our laptop to our UTEC, we were able to map out some changes quickly to our EVO. Out first run we gained over 90 wheel horsepower with adjustments. After some more tuning we topped our EVO out on pump gas at 371 wheel horsepower on a conservative Dyno Dynamics dyno. In 1 hour we achieve over 100 wheel horsepower with tuning. To further our UTEC’s and EVO’s capabilities, we but C16 gas in our car to setup another map. With adjustments of boost(increasing), timing(retarding), and fuel(adjusting it for a smooth A/F ratio), we gained another 50 wheel horsepower to achieve 420 at the wheels.

Nice numbers. It looks like something I am interested in. Can I see where to buy one? Vivid Racing stocks the UTEC for the EVO and the Subaru’s. We also stock the map selector switch which is optional. The UTEC’s retail from TurboXS at $1049 and the switch at $89. Vivid Racing offers a special price to its customers of $995 and $85 on the UTEC components. This can be purchased by phone or via our VR STORE HERE - http://www.vividracing.com/catalog/a...?keywords=utec.

For more information or assistance regarding the UTEC product, please contact Dan at 1-480-966-3040 x222 or sales@vividracing.com.