If you have those basic mods a simple reflash would be the cheapest and easiest. if you want to modify the A/F ratio, you would need a piggy back ecu. the only purpose of getting a fully stand alone is if you want some serious power and you have serious mods done to the engine. intakes, exhausts, headers, and no larger than 25% than stock injectors are not serious mods and would only need a piggy back at best. most standard ECU's will crap their pants if you try to adjust the A/F ratio on anything larger than 25% stock size injectors. The basic reflash will remove the limits (if they do it) on the ECU and give a cleaner running car with better power gains. so to answer your question a reflash is best for your application, if you want larger injectors and turbos on stock internals go to a piggy back...if want better internals (cams, pistons, etc...) and throw on some big boost, a larger (or smaller) bore and stroke, you will need a fully stand alone ECU.

 

oh one more thing, i cant tell you the kinds of HP/Torque you will get with a reflash, its gonna depend on who's doing it, what your car can take stock with the ECU it has, and the basic mods you have...

 

lol 'chip' is such a 90's term!

 

yea, you are just putting in a tuned ROM inside the ECU. and a good one costs a lot over seas. Bee*R costs about a grand and so does Mine's and Top Secret.

 

A simple ECU reflash does not help get all of the power out of a VQ engine. I found the best thing to do is put on a piggy back ecu or tuning device like Greddy Emanage or air/fuel controller like Apex'i SAFC II. Those two products are fully functional and you can keep adjusting them with each mod. I have not modded my G37 beyond intakes at the moment (still deciding if I am keeping my car or get another G).

My gains with using a tuning device on my previous vehicles were instrumental with gaining true numbers with aftermarket parts. Adding headers, and exhaust will have your car run rich. You need to tune you ECU with another device to lean out the A/F. I tried just tuning the ECU on a dyno before (with out a piggy back device) and the ECU would just reset back to normal over time.

If I can ever get my accident situation take care of, I will mod heavy and add the SAFC II and post tuning gains. When? After my accident settlement

Here are pics of my old device on my I35. I will install one on my G37 and hide it in the same location (Sunglass holder).

 

I forgot to mention. IF you do get like a technosquare reflash done to your ecu, you need to make sure you are done modding (as far as power is concerned). Especially if you are getting the full ECU reflash. Otherwise, you will have to keep sending your ECU for a reflash everytime you add a new power mod. Trust me I did it before.

If you get a technosquare reflash, then I would just get the one with the raised rev limiter + timing Advanced + removed speed governor and save money. Add the SAFC II to get more power out of the I/H/E.

 

If you do use a stand alone, you often have to give up simple things like a/c control, for example. This is fine if you are making a full time, competitive track car, but for a daily driver, this is not the way to go in my opinion. A reflash is often times perfectly adequate as the stock ecu is generally more than capable of managing afr and timing based upon load, octane, temps, etc. Unless the piggy back or stand alone has substantially higher resolution or magical features (knock retarding, for example), then generally a reflash is all you are really going to need. SAFCs will let you alter afr's on the fly, but they have no timing or boost control.

 

what about the rumored COBB Access Port for our cars... similar thing to what you describe above, right?

Is it considered piggy back, reflashing, or neither, or both! lol

 

The Cobb access port is simply an interface for flashing your factory ecu. You can either buy software from one of the companies out there, learn to tune, reverse engineer, etc or buy an Access Port and then flash the car with pretuned maps for your ecu. What it seemingly does not let you do is tune the car yourself, rather you would load maps made by Cobb for your car and level of mods. The only way you can tune it yourself is if you buy software from Cobb to do so.

http://www.cobbtuning.com/products/?id=3120

"The powerful tool to use in your quest for maximizing the potential of your Subaru. The AccessPORT allows you the ability to upload pre-programmed maps to the Engine Control Unit (ECU) via the diagnosis port located below your steering wheel."

 

LOL my car was a daily driver. Why would you keep reflashing your ecu everytime you get a mod? Thats wasted $$$. When you reflash your ecu, you are basically sending your ECU out with the specs you have currently on the car. For every other mod added after the tune, the ECU will not recognize it and may alter the added hp + tq. In fact, it may decrease it. My A/F controller was not the one for FI. There are other A/F and piggy backs for FI mods. Plus everytime I added a mod, I would go get a dyno done, the shop would adjust my A/F controller and that was it. On my previous car with with pratically every bolt on mod, I was only putting down in the 220ish for hp. After a couple of dyno tunes and bigger MAF housing, I put down close to 250whp. My I35 was the biggest sleeper.

 

I'm sorry but personally I don't want a bunch of tacky units added to my interior. It feels WAY too ricey for my taste. I'm waiting until i get my intake added to my car and then will go with 1 flash of the ECU. I've already added headers, HFC's, and cat-back. Intake is the last mod as far as gaining HP/TQ so I'm straight As far as any device that requires displays mounted somewhere in the interior to adjust them Yuck!! Might as well be a civic. If they can be completely hidden and never seen, then maybe...

 

I don't see a point getting a flash for every mod you do unless there is going to be a discernable difference made with the flash. Getting an intake that is going to alter maf readings that requires a flash? Sure. A flash for a catback? What's the point? Do you really need to advance timing and alter afr because you went from a 2.5" catback to a 3"? Absolutely, not. Furthermore, these flashes are all fine for whatever level of mods you have, but it leaves out the inherent differences between specific cars that may be present. So you could have done a reflash for every little mod in the world, but it's pretty pointless to do so unless you are doing some serious changes.

Using just an safc for mods just limits what you can really do. For example, if you want to run different octane maps, you can't get the full benefit of doing so with just an safc as it only modifies air and fuel, not ignition timing which means you are missing out a whole level of potential power, especially if you ran higher octane gas or water/alcohol injection.

 

LOL, are you serious? Most turbo cars have gauges and units all over the place in the car. My friend drives with his laptop in his 335i all the time. lol. It's not about tackiness, it's about function. IF you have one and it's just for display purposes and non functional then I can see that being riced. Most of the times people hide there piggy back ecu or A/F controller in their glove box or center console. I chose the sunglass holder because I usually wear my sunglasses or have them on my head. I never show my unit unless I am tuning it for something. To each his own.

Oh and unless you are getting an intake that is putting down 10whp, you might as well reflash now. Until the new Z comes out with the same engine as us, I seriously doubt there will be anymore REAL power mods coming out right now.

Does technosquare have ECU Flash out for the G37 yet?

 

Most stock turbo cars have the same amount of gauges that a normally aspirated cars do. There is no boost gauge on the 335i, right? In some cars, such as the WRX, it is a factory add on, same with the Evo. It is certainly not present on Saab's and next time I hope in a Saturn Sky Redline, Solstice GXP or Cobalt SS, I'll let you know if they come with boost gauges or otherwise.

People who modify their cars often add extra gauges such as egt, oil temp, boost and afr to show off their cars, free time and extra money more than for functionality. Unless your gauges are recording their data for playback at a later time, such as in some of the Defi units, you will be hard pressed to find someone on the track pushing their car hard and staring at their gauges at the same time since it's simply too dangerous and generally unnecessary. Most often, these gauges are really only useful for troubleshooting issues when they arise.

 

^^ yeah, technosquare has flash out for G37 for $550. There's a thread on here where someone had it done with very respectable gains. also, I'm waiting on the infamous Injen intake that's been rumored to give very considerable gains, so I'll wait on the flash.