Kingpin08

My roommate has an STi, and he recently found that there are companies that have downloadable software to reprogram your ECU, for free. I was wondering if anyone has heard about anything like this for LSx's.

here is a link to the Subaru one
http://www.enginuity.org/

Tony Orlando

I haven't, and even if I had I wouldn't touch it. I won't even install freeware on my $800 PC for fear of a virus, so there's no way in hell I'm loading freeware into my $50,000 car- not to mention the fact that I know as much about tuning VE tables and timing maps as I do brain surgery.

LV_V

Tony, you're a brain surgeon?? Or am I taking this in the wrong context??

Tony Orlando

Haha.

I am NOT a brain surgeon, nor do I know jack **** about tuning a PCM.

sb427f-car

Enginuity is still in development stages. I've looked into it a few times for my 05 USDM WRX. They JUST recently got wideband O2 capability.

As far as "freeware" concerns, hell, what's to say that "developed" commercial software doesn't carry an uncaught coding bug? There are just as many issues with any software code that's written by for profit corps as there are individual "hacks" that are banding together.

Quite frankly, it'd probably crash your computer before it would crash your car's ECU.

Tony Orlando

I'm not worried about it "crashing" my ECU, I'm worried about it blowing my engine apart. It only takes a second to toss a rod through the block, so I'd prefer to pay a little money and have it done by someone who knows what they're doing.

sb427f-car

I understand your concerns, but, if major corporations trust open source software to run their companies (IE Linux) than I think a bunch of gear heads who have the same car have each other in mind.

Unfortunately, there is no "off the shelf" solution for the home tunner for those cars unless you spend 1000s for a standalone. Factory ECU tuning (as long as you educate yourself) is VERY reliable, as proven by many of our members here.

I've tracked enginuity, and like I said, it's not at the user friendly state that I would like to see it before I researched it further, but, as far as the source, I would be comfortable using it, once I educated myself as to how to tune in Fuel trims, VE tables, and spark advance. After all, it is not rocket science, and making sure you go in VERY small incriments is the key.

Tony Orlando

That's cool. I'd still rather skip the time, effort and risk by just getting someone with experience to do it. I paid $400 for a tune that was developed by a CTS-V owner over 20k miles of driving on the street, strip and roadcourse. If I add up how long it would take me to get a similar result and what my time is worth, I think I got a better deal than doing it myself.

sb427f-car

Understandable...and then there is do you want to use it, or do you want to learn so you can tinker? You're in the user bucket, I'd be in the tinker bucket. To each their own of course.