Tigger73's MY15 2.5i

[tigger73]

Ive never had a car tuned before, could you give me some insight on the process? Also, i see mention of warranty above... i only have 6,000 miles on my car, is this something i should wait to do until my warranty is up?

Thanks again

 

Firstly because you don't live near a tuner or have a tuner travel to your city then you'll need to do what is called "remote tuning".

 

Essentially this means you have to buy a cable (tactrix) and software to run on a (preferably) Windows laptop. You'll then need to plug the cable into the cars OBD port (under the dash) and download the stock ECU file, send it off to the tuner who will make the required changes and then you can upload the file the tuner has sent back into your ECU.

 

You'll then need to go for a bit of a drive while your engine relearns and then you're pretty much good to go.

 

All up it takes less than 10 minutes to upload/download and do any resets. Plus another 10 minutes for the test drive.

 

In terms of warranty the manufacturer can't obviously warrant for things that they have not done to the car. If something that you do causes something to break then you have to pay for it. Now if it's outside warranty and you tune it then you pay for it - same as if it's inside warranty and you break it. So this whole thing about waiting until warranty is over I don't really get. You break it, you pay for it to get fixed. Simple.

 

I'd generally wait until at least the first service and possibly second service before tuning. If anything is wrong in the manufacture of the car it will generally show up early in the life so if you get through 5,000-10,000 miles without an issue more than likely you'll get to 100,000 miles no problems (as long as you keep up regular oil changes, etc). Obviously if your AC condenser goes or motor for your window winder fails then these things would still be covered under manufacturer warranty.

Edited August 3, 2016 by tigger73

[kayslay21]

Hopefully he can get someone E85 flex tuned down there in the near future because I would be all over that once he knows everything works fine, theres a station less than 5 miles from my house that has it

[15LegacyRyan]

Hopefully he can get someone E85 flex tuned down there in the near future because I would be all over that once he knows everything works fine, theres a station less than 5 miles from my house that has it

 

 

 

+1 on someone needs to get an E85 flextime so I can try it out. There's a couple not far from me.

 

 

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[tigger73]

I ran some more 0-100 times. There's only a marginal improvement:

 

 

It had me scratching my head a bit but throttlehappy said that where the tune is stronger is in the bottom end and the car spends hardly any time there with foot flat. 90% of the time is up above 4,000RPM where there's not really any change in the file.

 

However driving through the hills on windy roads you can really feel the extra low end torque as the car pulls nicely out of the corners. It used to sometimes get caught in an rpm that was a bit "flat", however now with the latest retune these dead spots are gone and it pulls well everywhere

[aotus]

Thanks for sharing all this.

 

any recent dyno numbers? What are your total gains?

[15LegacyRyan]

Thanks for sharing all this.

 

any recent dyno numbers? What are your total gains?

 

 

 

I plan to have my car on the dyno on the 26th. I will post my results here and possibly make my own thread for it

 

 

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[tigger73]

Thanks for sharing all this.

 

any recent dyno numbers? What are your total gains?

 

I do plan to put my car back on the dyno. I just haven't got around to it yet. Peak power won't have changed but I'm expecting a bit fatter curve at the bottom end.

 

Area under the curve is what you're after - particularly for a road car where you use a wide rev range.

 

Once I get the dyno results I'll post them up here as well as in the 2.5 tuning thread: http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/6th-gen-tuning-2-5i-248081.html

 

Don't be put off by all the negative comments along the lines of "should have bought a faster car to start with". There are some decent gains from tuning the 2.5 - a 2 second improvement in 0-100km/hr (~0-60mph) is definitely very noticeable and a huge improvement in terms of drivability and enjoyment compared to the stock showroom car.

[aotus]

What has been your peak gains over stock so far?

[tigger73]

What has been your peak gains over stock so far?

 

I've posted all my dyno sheets/tuning result at the start of the thread here: http://legacygt.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5319074&postcount=4

 

I've done it this way so there's a summary that is easier to refer to rather than having to trawl through the whole thread to find the info you're looking for.

 

Long story short the stock tune had a peak of ~92kW (125hp) if you ignore the blip at 6,200rpm due to gear change.

 

Compare this to the rev2 tune with ~99kW (135hp) and you can do the maths that you're looking at ~10hp gain in terms of peak numbers.

 

 

However the peak numbers/dyno chart only tells half the story. The other part that is important is how the car drives/feels and that is the subjective part.

 

I've run some GPS timed runs which give a good indication on the improvements - 2 seconds in the 0-100kph (0-60mph) is substantially quicker. I believe a big chunk of the improvement is due to throttle remapping and indirect CVT tune that allows the transmission to transfer more torque through.

 

You wouldn't get a 2 second drop just from a 10hp increase by itself - hence why I was saying that this is only half the story.

[aotus]

All the reporting is super useful, and entertaining besides. If I could think of one thing I'd like to see that's absent, it would be time on some kind of track in addition to your straight runs. No pressure though, you're doing great. Edited August 9, 2016 by aotus

[tigger73]

All the reporting is super useful, and entertaining besides. If I could think of one thing I'd like to see that's absent, it would be time on some kind of track in addition to your straight runs. No pressure though, you're doing great.

 

Yes I could do track times, and on a slower speed track with more corners this would show more of the low end torque improvements. Though the problem with track times is that unless you're a very consistent driver there are far more variables than say a dyno run or 0-100 time. Even quarter miles can have an element of reaction time. So in the interests of removing human error and variability I chose the 2 tests I could do in a repeatable way and have some reasonable consistency in the results. At the end of the day I was looking to have some data that I could compare as I went along the path of tuning/upgrades.

 

Though the main thing for me is how the car feel/drives on the road and this is where it gets subjective. I am actually really happy with how the car is running now. It corners well, pick-up is good particularly in the low end and with the upgraded 3.6R brakes at the front there's a bit more stopping power than the stock brakes that I felt were a little on the weak side.

 

Of course in a straight line it doesn't have quite as much punch as some other cars, however in all other areas I'm really quite happy. At the end of the day the acid test is - knowing what you know now would you make the same decision again. Right now I'd happily say that if I was in the same situation with the same options then I'd be getting the 2.5i and doing the upgrades to take it to where it is now.

 

Is there much more planned? Not right now but I never say never...

 

Though right now I'm just enjoying driving it. We'll have to wait and see what the end of the year has in store - who knows I may find some more bits to install yet

[tigger73]

Just a small update - since I haven't posted anything for a few months.

 

Had a set of Bridgestone RE003's in 245/45R18 fitted up today.

 

My Goodyear F1 Asymmetric 2's have served me well for the last 40,000km / 25,000 miles. I think this is reasonable for a set of performance (summer) tires.

 

Though both of these are a massive improvement over the stock tires we get here (Dunlop SP Sport Maxx 050) which lacked grip and would squeal when pushed.

Edited December 5, 2016 by tigger73

[3.0R-AUS]

Are the Bridgestone RE003's as quiet as the Goodyears & therefore quieter than the Dunlops were?

[tigger73]

Bridgestone RE003's are quieter than the Goodyears, however I suspect the Goodyears will have a longer life. Time will tell...

[3.0R-AUS]

Thanks tigger. The Potenza RE050As on my first Liberty (gen 4) lasted 35,000km. I did 40,000km in my gen 5 and the RE050A tyres on that car still had quite a bit of tread when I traded it. Interesting to see the life of the RE003s.

[tigger73]

Yes I was tossing up whether to fit RE050A as I do think they are a better wearing tyre, though the guy at the Bridgestone shop said that they'd got 50,000km out of a set of RE003's which I find a little hard to believe but I guess we'll find out soon enough!

[ripstik]

Yes I was tossing up whether to fit RE050A as I do think they are a better wearing tyre, though the guy at the Bridgestone shop said that they'd got 50,000km out of a set of RE003's which I find a little hard to believe but I guess we'll find out soon enough!

 

I probably got close to that out of my set and only got rid of them because of an unpatchable puncture, they still had some life in them. they last great... because they ain't so sticky.

[tigger73]

I haven't updated my build thread for a while... mainly because there hasn't been a whole lot of activity to report.

 

My Xmas present to myself was a set of C-LEDs and LED indicators.

 

Installation photos.

 

First pull the front bumper off and remove headlights:

 

 

Pull headlights apart - be careful/gentle and use regular applications of heat.

 

 

Note there is a connector for the parkers/factory C-LED that has to be undone before the 2 parts will come apart completely:

 

 

 

Prep for painting. Any bits you want to keep silver need to be masked:

 

 

End result:

 

 

LED indicators with switchbacks:

 

[tigger73]

So time has come to end this part of the story and move onto the next chapter of my car life. Car is up for sale to make way for the new set of wheels to be parked in my garage.

 

At the moment I'll be looking to sell the car complete as-is, however may look to part it out if there's enough interest. Tough thing is to find gen6 guys locally who want the parts.

[SubiFTW]

Part out!! What were you looking at for your next car?

 

 

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[tigger73]

Yes but shipping cost on the exhaust system, brakes or wheels is going to kill it. These are the bits that I'd want to sell if I did part it. So I am really only looking for local / Aus based guys. Not so many of them around with 2.5's (for the exhaust).

[leolfds]

I would have loved to take those wheels away from you. Are you planning on staying with Subaru or moving to a different manufacturer?

[tigger73]

Here's the new car. It's a Scirocco R which runs the same engine as Golf R - 2.0 turbo which outputs 188kW/252hp in stock form.

 

[TruNoLies]

So time has come to end this part of the story and move onto the next chapter of my car life. Car is up for sale to make way for the new set of wheels to be parked in my garage.

 

At the moment I'll be looking to sell the car complete as-is, however may look to part it out if there's enough interest. Tough thing is to find gen6 guys locally who want the parts.

 

what would be a possible time frame from part out to pick up of your new ride? if the time allowed I would save a little more for shipping cost of the exhaust. you are running dual exhaust correct?

[TruNoLies]

I was looking at a WRX and the BRZ yesterday and had some serious thoughts but If I found an Forester XT I could afford I might jump on it for a fun ride.