Developments

Today I took the Giallo up to Warrington in Cheshire to a tuning company called Tuning Developments. They have a good reputation on the Toyota GT86 & Subaru BRZ Drivers Club forum and I decided it was worth making the trip rather than getting the work done locally by someone who was not a GT86 specialist. I also knew that I wanted an EcuTek map and this has to be done by an authorized tuner.

giallo on rolling road

Tuning developments offer a GT86/BRZ ‘Tuning Package’ and this is what I bought. It consists of the following:

‘Before’ Dyno Run Session
Stainless Steel Exhaust Manifold – EL or UEL – GT86 / BRZ
Stainless Steel Overpipe – GT86 / BRZ
Titanium Heatwrap
FA20 Cylinder Head To Manifold Gaskets – GT86 / BRZ
Exhaust Manifold Gaskets – GT86 / BRZ
Overpipe Gaskets – GT86 / BRZ
K&N Drop In Air Filter – GT86 / BRZ
ECUTeK License – GT86 / BRZ
In-House Remap Using ECUTeK With RaceROM Suite – GT86 / BRZ
‘After’ Dyno Run Session Incorporated With Above Remap

You can read more about this here – GT86 Tuning Package.

The ‘before’ dyno run reported 183 BHP (a bit down on the 200 BHP that Subaru/Toyota claim) and the ‘after’ run delivered 205 BHP. But perhaps as important is the power curve which is much smoother now, with the annoying dip between 3250 and 4750 rpm now removed. You can see this on paper but you can also feel it. It feels significantly quicker.

The ECUTek RaceROM suite gives you four different maps which are selected with the cruise control lever and I had thought that this would entail losing the cruise control function but this is not the case, which I am quite pleased about because driving up the M6 this morning and back down it this afternoon I used the cruise control for ages in the 50 mph average speed zone. With the maps you also get three goodies –

Launch Control
Downshift Auto-Blip
Flat-Foot Shifting (No need to lift the throttle on an up change)

I haven’t yet played with these yet but this video shows how they all works,

All this of course puts my out of the Standard Class in the Toyota Sprint Series but since I was the only one in that class I am looking forward to the competition in the modified class. I’ll miss the next round at Kendrew but will be back for round 4 at Anglesey on 20 August.

I also had a 30,000 mile service as next Saturday we are off on a road trip in the Giallo down through France, over the Pyrenees and across the north of Spain to see Fernando Alonso’s new motor museum. (I think I told Jacqui it was to see the Picos de Europa. Well we’ll see them too and it will be no surprise to her that we find a motor museum somewhere along the route). Talking of motor museums and non standard engines, here are a few engines we spied in the Malaga Motor Museum back in March…

That’s all for now!

 

3 thoughts on “Developments

  1. So was yours down on power or are toyota a little ‘optimistic’ in their original claim? The reason I ask is it may be worth scanning the odb port for any faults that may give you a bit more power (I’m thinking maf, o2 sensor or egr valve)

  2. Hi Greg, Long time no see. Have you still got that MX5? I scanned the odb2 port – no errors. Other owners have also reported low power figures. Seems odd to me but I guess every car is different, right?. Though I’m not sure it should be in this age of quality control.

  3. Will be putting my BRZ on a rolling in the next couple of weeks the only change is a KN flat panel filter, the reason to get a base line

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