Ooooo UTEC! (Preliminary dyno results)

[Mach V Dan]

I spent the day with the Legacy on the dyno (an AWD Dynojet), and got some good numbers from the UTEC. For those of you who haven't heard about it, UTEC stands for User Tuneable Engine Computer. It's from TurboXS, and we sell tons of them for the WRX. In fact, I'd wager the UTEC is the most popular WRX engine management system in terms of units sold. There are thousands of them out there.

The UTEC is a fully programmable piggyback system. It bolts on the back of your stock ECU (which is under the passenger footwell carpet), and can be easily installed or removed. It's plug-and-play, so there is no splicing of the car wiring.

You can pop it in and run with the default map, or you can get custom tuning done at a local shop with a dyno. You can even tune it yourself on the street; get a friend to help. :) All you need is any kind of laptop computer that has a terminal interface. The UTEC software is all built-in to the UTEC, so you don't have to worry about compatibility with the computer hardware. You could even tune it with a Palm Pilot.

Since the Legacy shares a lot of parts with the WRX STi, the UTEC is compatible. Today I bolted it in the car and after a few hours on the dyno, I have a base Legacy turbo map that I'm pretty happy with.

The stock car made max numbers of about 198 hp and 222 ft-lbs. With the tuned UTEC in place, it produced 222 hp and 250 ft-lbs. It feels that much better on the street, too! You can certainly feel the increased power.

So far I haven't tweaked the boost at all -- I was running about 15 psi, tapering down at high rpm. The small stock turbo isn't going to make big boost up high, anyway, but we might be able to get a bit more mid-range punch with some added boost.

The UTEC has a ton of features and capabilities. I won't go into them here, but you can read more about it on our web page (http://www.fastwrx.com/turusencom.html).

I didn't get a chance to move the dyno charts off our dyno PC so I could post them; I'll have those up tomorrow.

--Dan
Mach V
FastWRX.com (www.fastwrx.com)

[Jaxx]

In fact, I'd wager the UTEC is the most popular WRX engine management system in terms of units sold. There are thousands of them out there.--Dan
]

mmmmm dunno about that i woudl tnd to wager that there are more AP out there than utecs

but still it is a great system dan are you going to release your base map to te public afaik your is the only one in extistance

[Xenonk]

For the potential and how many WRXs that are running around, I would say that it's a top-10 things to buy for the WRX over the AP if one is to continue the mod trend.. You would have to buy the AP-Tuner package to compare at the same "apples to apples" level.

Keefe

[Xenonk]

24 whp and 28 lbs.ft... I can live with that! Just imagine what injectors, tmic, header, uppipe and 3" turboback exhuast can do after that. 60+ whp and 60+ lbs.ft over stock number would be my guess.

Keefe

[Mach V Dan]

mmmmm dunno about that i woudl tnd to wager that there are more AP out there than utecs

Okay, I don't want to get in a big argument about this little point, but...what are you basing that on? I've been selling import parts since long before the WRX came out, and have watched that market emerge. I am familiar with all the engine management systems available, and have a good feel for how well they sell, based on talking to customers, being online, and seeing cars come in the shop. I can also just look on the web -- the wrxhackers.com (www.wrxhackers.com) site ALONE has more posts about UTEC than Cobb Tuning's own forums do about the AccessPort. I obviously don't have exact sales numbers for each product, so who knows, I could be wrong. But this IS what I do for a living...

Anyway, as to our Legacy base map, we haven't really decided about "releasing it to the public," but certainly if you buy a UTEC for your Legacy from us, we'll pre-load it with our Legacy base map.

--Dan
Mach V
FastWRX.com (www.fastwrx.com)

[kanoswrx]

I have an AP but know lots of people with Utecs and have been to turbo xs to see friends cars tuned twice. I would say the UTEC has probably sold more then the AP, but the UTEC/unichip did come out about a year before the AP so they had time to get their name in the market place. That said I think the Utec and AP have different markets (although now with the street tunner coming out thats going to change). Currently if people just want a good safe stage 1 or 2 map and don't want to mess with tuning most people would agree the AP is a better way to go, even people I know who own utecs usually agree with this. But if your looking to get mods outside of stage 1 and 2, or are looking to get the most out of your car by doing custom tuning, the utec is deffinetly the way to go right now. All in all I would never say ones better then the other, they are both good products, just depends on what the person wants.

[Jaxx]

the number i heard was 4000 in the first 4 months -thus the supply proublems
i am not a huge fan of the utec.. its too much control for 99% of the people out there that have no idea how to tune a car (but now have the tools to blow it up) i have a standalone and after 2+years of working on it and reading books on EM tuning i know that there is still alot left in it

there is no question that it is a great tool.. just don't put a 44 magnum the the hands of a 89 year old grandmother

[Mach V Dan]

I think most people are scared of tuning tools that turn out to be easier to use than they expect. We are big fans of teaching our customers how to use the parts well sell them, so I hope we can win over some of those 89-year-old grannies!

:)

Here's the chart:

http://store1.yimg.com/I/fastwrx_1834_4360532

--Dan
Mach V
FastWRX.com (www.fastwrx.com)

[RobY]

The only thing I dont like about UTEC is that it can get touchy sometimes in the weather. It will run great the day you tune it but 20 degrees and a few notches in the barometer later it will run like crap. The probelm is that it dosent use the factory ingition control logic. It uses its own ignition control which is a bit more rudimentary.

I think the Cobb Tuner would be better for a daily driver because you are setting goal values in the ecu not piggyback values. The ECU will work directly to acheive these values as if it were programmed to do so from the factory. The way the streetuner is looking it will provide full control over most ecu functions and will act like a standalone computer.

The cobb tuner offers multi level control beyond Ignition, Fuel, Boost.

It can be used to adjust open loop/closed loop latency, TBW latency, Advanced AVCS control. CEL threshold levels ect.

[Autophysics]

Dan,

What peak injector duty cycles are you getting? I'm using a UTEC legacy GT base map from another vendor and I get 93% IDC.

[ShaggyGT]

With my STi VF39 setup I am seeing 88% IDC's. That is running a 11.5-11.1:1 A/F ratio.

And the UTEC is a great Engine Management solution for those who are either located close to a dyno or have some knowledge of tuning. Once you get the hang of how it works its a piece of cake to tune and make adjustments. But if you are doing the tuning/adjustments yourself, it would be wise to have a Wideband monitor.

-Matt

[driggity]

24 whp and 28 lbs.ft... I can live with that! Just imagine what injectors, tmic, header, uppipe and 3" turboback exhuast can do after that. 60+ whp and 60+ lbs.ft over stock number would be my guess.

Keefe

Why do you think you'll need injectors with that setup? On a well tuned car it seems like you're going to have a hard time maxing out the stock injectors with the puny stock turbo. The 60/60 gains are probably less than you'd see with that setup though.

[Xenonk]

If you look above, some people are running into the 80 percentile (anything over that is where an injector is not closing or opening the ports fast enough, thus becomes an issue). Nothing wrong with having just a 60% IDC at full throttle. It's just one of those precautions I would take to have a life long car that can be driven hard every day.

It's very scary to see when you start running into timing issues and fuel issues when boost is way up there. I am pretty sure the Stock turbo can spin and maintain a 20 psi level all the way to redline before it starts to have the effects of diminishing-returns of effiecency.

On my WRX, with a stock turbo, I ran it very close to 17 psi all the way through to redline but the stock injectors and air temperatures became a problem. The only thing I could do was to taper the boost down to 14.5 psi at the top to keep everything else running hard. You'll just run out of room to play with eventually.

Keefe

[Xenonk]

Note: I just love how the torque raised a good 20 lbs at 3000 rpms.. that's passing power right there!

[kelly]

Is the reason why there is so many squiggling lines on the the power curve is because the ignition can keep up? Does the LGT have a weak igition?:confused:

Kelly

[Xenonk]

no, that's just the accuracy of the plot. The software can display a less accurate, but smoother plot of the graph.

Keefe

[Mach V Dan]

That actually IS smoothed. But Keefe, you are right that the Dynojet software/hardware resolution is higher than some other types of dyno where they only plot a few points for the curve.

You'll notice the bone-stock Legacy has the same squigglies, just smaller. I'm guessing it has to do with boost control. As the boost solenoid tries to center on the target boost level, the valve cycles up and down "hunting" for level boost.

Here's another stock Legacy curve -- same squigglies.

http://store1.yimg.com/I/fastwrx_1817_19619846

--Dan
Mach V
FastWRX.com (www.fastwrx.com)

[Mach V Dan]

I think the Cobb Tuner would be better for a daily driver because you are setting goal values in the ecu not piggyback values...

My goal in posting this thread was to talk about the UTEC and my dyno results with it. Please, let's stick to that topic, at least in this thread.

--Dan
Mach V
FastWRX.com (www.fastwrx.com)

[Mach V Dan]

Dan,

What peak injector duty cycles are you getting? I'm using a UTEC legacy GT base map from another vendor and I get 93% IDC.

If memory serves, in the high 70's to low 80's.

--Dan
Mach V
FastWRX.com (www.fastwrx.com)

[Jaxx]

which could very well be atributed to the stock boost levels

but very encouraging that that much power can be extraced with fuel/advance/avcs alone

[driggity]

but very encouraging that that much power can be extraced with fuel/advance/avcs alone

If you're referring to Mach V's numbers its even more encouraging because the UTEC can't control AVCS (at least I don't think it can) and from what I've heard from ECUTek tuners the Legacy's stock AVCS maps are quite conservative. Which is probably one of the reasons that Cobb and the ECUtek tuners have seen such large low end gains from just a reflash.

[Xenonk]

Dan, do you have the AFR ratio chart that goes with that dyno chart run?

I would like to see how you guys cleaned up the tuning from that point.

Keefe

[dynoguy]

not to bash here, but why does your tune fall off so bad after 5000 rpm it;s looks lower than stock. my AP stg1 93oct gained 27hp &47 ft/lbs and stayed above stock levels?


mike

[Xenonk]

just a conservative tune at the very top end, and it doesnt drop below stock curve... it holds out well.

Keefe

[dynoguy]

ops my bad, what i meant to say is it's alittle low off the bottom and is great at 5000 .i really need to proof read my posts first.


mike

[Mach V Dan]

ops my bad, what i meant to say is it's alittle low off the bottom and is great at 5000 .i really need to proof read my posts first.

I'm a little confused about your posts. Were you looking at the second graph in the thread, which is of a stock car?

--Dan
Mach V
FastWRX.com (www.fastwrx.com)

[Mach V Dan]

Dan, do you have the AFR ratio chart that goes with that dyno chart run?

I didn't output that, but it's around 11.0:1 most of the way out. It dives rich at first, as it transitions from the stock fueling as the boost comes on.

--Dan
Mach V
FastWRX.com (www.fastwrx.com)

[Xenonk]

Sounds good Dan! I can live with 12:1 and 13:1.

Keefe

[dynoguy]

dan what i see in the 1st posted graph is the power seems the same untill 3000+ rpms between stock and the tune. my stage 1 AP tune about 15 better from 2000 than stock.


mike

[Mach V Dan]

dan what i see in the 1st posted graph is the power seems the same untill 3000+ rpms between stock and the tune. my stage 1 AP tune about 15 better from 2000 than stock.

mike

I usually start dyno runs from a steady state 1500 rpm, but it's difficult to get exactly the same throttle tip-in from one run to the next, so I would discourage trying to draw conclusions on the low-end of the chart, before about 2500 rpm. (I try to roll onto the throttle gently, so as not to make the car buck on the dyno. But not being a robot, I can't reproduce the same roll-on with each run.)

But I'm glad you are happy with your car, Mike.

--Dan
Mach V
FastWRX.com (www.fastwrx.com)

[Mach V Dan]

Sounds good Dan! I can live with 12:1 and 13:1.

Erk! 13:1 air/fuel will almost certainly result in detonation at wide-open throttle and full boost.

--Dan
Mach V
FastWRX.com (www.fastwrx.com)

[dynoguy]

i seen the same thing when we dyno'd my car but being an auto it was easier to dump the throttle the only thing that happens it depending if i was hi or lower in speed when the boost came on seemed to make a difference in my lower rpm #'s