Hey guys, I am looking at buying above, but it has a short ram intake, FMIC and TBE. I like all these parts but I'm concerned that the car has not been tuned??? Does anyone think/know if this would cause any damage to the engine? I was planning on getting a compression test before I buy, is there any other test that can determine anything? I remember reading a long time ago that on a 2.0 litre wrx a intake and TBE is a no no without a tune... I am really just an amateur though and that's why I ask you guys for help. Any thoughts/ ideas are welcome. Thanks in advance
Yeah, that's basic bolt ons. But you should ALWAYS get a tune for your mods. Get the compression test done to make sure there isn't any damage to the engine internals. If it's all good to go, take it to Nuke or Bullwinkle on the forums, both of them do excellent road tunes. With the mods listed, it's a pretty common basic mod list. It should be a simple tune for them.
if the car was retuned there is a good chance they could atleast tweak the map and get more out of it, whether it be mpg's or a bit of power
It turns out it could have been tuned... it's tough to say. Do you think a compression test will rule out any possibilities of damage?
What gas are you guys using to tune? I really like Kwik Trip because it's top tier, but the octane rating is only 91... If I get tuned on 93 BP can I still buy 91 octane if I go on a trip or something?
Do NOT tune your car on the best gas available. If you get tuned on the best 93 you can find, then you are stuck running ONLY the best 93 you can find. Tune your car on some Holiday or KwikTrip 91. That ensures that all 91 and 93 should work fine in your car.
It's just common sense. You pump the best fuel in there, and you are stuck using the best fuel all the time. Ever driven to Duluth? They have piss poor gas up there. And there isn't a thing you can do about it. If you drive up there, and you get low on gas, guess what? You're going to be limping around on Holiday or KwikTrip 91 octane, if you can even find it, until you get back to the cities. Getting a tune is not about posting the best numbers, it's about making your car run properly for your mods on gas-pump fuels. Tuning is about SAFETY. If you tune your car for 93 octane and you tune it for performance, the second you start running 90 or 91 octane fuel, you will have to drive like a geriatric because your car will detonate. Get tuned on the ****tiest gas you can find, that way you KNOW no matter how bad the gas you pump in your car is, that it will run 100% safe and happy.
I'm going to take the other side of the coin here, or I guess, the edge of the coin. When people typically ask about gas, I tell them that the Subaru ECU is a smart cookie. However, the ECU only has negative corrections. When you are tuned, the tuner typically tunes so that all of your fine corrections are zero, and your rough correction (also called IAM, or Advance Multiplier) is the highest it can be. They do this for a reason. Both fine and rough corrections exist to protect your car from poor gas. These corrections exist to pull timing when the car is knocking, in order to protect the engine. With a well designed tune, these corrections act swiftly and immediately, and are able to protect your car from suffering damage. However, these corrections do not go positive. When you are tuned, your car is going to make the most power it ever will. If you put in higher octane gas, or some octane booster, your car will not make power. If you put in race gas to your "tuned on 91" car, you will not make more power. For this reason, my recommendation is more generic. "Get your car tuned on the gas you will be driving daily." If you decide to simply get tuned on 91 octane gas when you have 93 readily available everyday, you are leaving otherwise safe power on the table. If you get tuned on 93 octane, and have to fill up with 91 octane gas, be nice to the car for about 50 miles of highway driving. The car will learn quickly, and will run safely thereafter. I will caveat this whole statement with two things: 1) This advice is dependent on a well designed tune. I've seen many tunes that have the correction logic hampered, and this will prevent your car from learning quickly, and could cause major issues long-term. 2) This advice does not scale well to high HP cars. Timing is only one piece of the puzzle, and the Subaru ECU does not have as extensive compensations for boost (basically, there's only an ON or OFF switch). Cars running a lot of boost will likely have issues with lower octane gas, as lowering timing causes an increase in EGT, which will be quite hot on a high HP/boost car normally.
