Quote:
Originally Posted by sarguy01
Everyone that buys a tuner gets an MPG increase...don't believe everything you read unless they are offering up some detailed before and after testing.
And never, ever, ever, believe the claims of the people selling the product. They are salesman trying to make money. YOUR money.
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I agree and disagree.
I agree that people are shady as hell. On the product page, they have the text "See Dyno Sheet note the stock fuel curves wasting fuel!" and if you click it, [url=http://www.roadracemotorsports.com/images/SuzukiDynoRRM.jpg]here is the image[/img]. Holy smokes, a +15HP gain! I was sold immediately. But I examined it very carefully, in the bottom it says the blue line is "baseline" and the red line is "cold air, exhaust, pully". That doesn't even mention the piggyback at all. This before-after dyno result could very well the the same car but there is nothing to say they even installed a piggyback on it. Why would they even post this? That, the photoshopped images, sticker on the product's casing, and a few dead links on their website have made me aware that they are not perfect. But, they might know engine tuning. There is a chance that this is better than stock. Spare ECU, modified with this piggyback wired in, if I insert it to my stock system it MAY increase my fuel economy. It's worth a shot, even if it only helps slightly. I will not be using their sales tactics to convince me, I'm using the general public, and reading every user who buys it, specifically from them, and the success they have been having. Everyone is raving about it. People are going from 28 mpg highway to 31 mpg highway. Even if it brought me up to 29 mpg, it's technically better than stock.
On the product page:
We have maximized the fuel curves to better take advantage of basic mods like intake, header and exhaust. Regardless of mods, this Piggyback unit will increase h.p. for any N/A SX4! It is also proven to INCREASE GAS MILEAGE. .
So reading that they have designed their map to consider headers and exhaust, I think it will be more appropriate to have their piggyback installed once I have the header. The highway MPG numbers before and after the header will be interesting but also before and after the piggyback, and if I have the modded ECU in such a way that I can swap it out any any point, I can show you all 4 of those scenarios. And once I play around with it a bit, maybe I can tune it further. Step one is deciding which path to go down, but I'm thinking 80% likelyhood I will buy it from them, even if there is a bit of bogus going on. That's the plan currently.
However, it isn't the only option. Sure they have tuned that specific piggyback to 100% of it's possible capabilities, and it works just great and gives me what I want, but there are a dozen options for the same task. Look
here and there are 9 different A/F controllers, "split second" is just one of them. The 10th option, however, is the most interesting.
There's a company, Dynotronics, that reflashes your ECU to the ultimate settings, and actually I was reading online and the '03 Vitara is compatible with OBDII-port reflashes, it doesn't have antitune. Instead of buying perfected $250 part for $400, this is a $500 piece of software on your existing ECU. This is a scenario when having a spare ECU is handy. This make me want to have a stack of ECUs... Going to the junkyard on Saturday, there are 5 of these trucks and there's a guy who has a half dozen parting out, I bet I can get spare matching ECUs pretty easily.
"
It's a well sorted daily driver tune - meaning it has gone through extensive testing and tweaking and is NOT just a WOT remap. It is a completele ECU reflash, not a chip. You can expect a 2-3mpg gain at minimum during normal driving. Expect 8-10% power increase with a completely stock car, more with a car with exhaust/intake work. If you have a datalogger and want to really dial in your tune, they are more than happy to send it back as many times as you want to get it perfect (shipping at your cost). This means if you ad a header and exhaust or even an intake system down the road and want it retuned, just send it back at your cost and they'll dial it in for you."
So, interestingly, it's bascially what I want. Looks like they even have discounted it to a point where it's close to $400, just a tiny bit more than the piggyback would cost me. So both roads are going to set me back similar amounts.
In
this thread, they try both that EXACT piggyback tuned from RPM and the performance tune of the Dynotronics. The even took the two dyno sheets and laid them on top of each other, blue is the ECU tune and the red is the piggyback:
Here's the air fuel map for the same test. They are totally different.
They are basically saying the Dynotronics is better. What are your thoughts?