Question for you guys. I just bought a used tuned ecu. The guy i bought it from said it was tuned by viva performance with rica program. I installed it tonight and took it for a drive. Couldnt honestly tell a difference. I only drove it maybe 3 miles total but felt stock. I even turned my mbc all the way down and didnt boost over 12. Do i need to reset the car after installing this or did i get a dud. He said it takes a little while for the car to adapt to the ECU. What do you guys say. Im ready to file a paypal claim on this guy.

 

I'd file the claim. Should have felt a difference immediately.

 

take out your MBC... if you dont boost past stock in 4th gear on the highway get your money back!

 

Yeah i am planning on removing the mbc and seeing how it drives. I know one thing, it def still has the torque limiter in 1st and 2nd. That was my first sign that its not rica or tuned or at least i dont think it is.

 

doesn't matter what ecu you have in it, if you have a mbc in, it's going to boost to whatever that's set at.

And the tune might be set for 12 psi. Stage 1 tunes are usually set around there. I'm currently looking for a stage 3 tune and from what I've read, RICA tunes are tuned pretty conservatively.

 

well he told me it was a 18 psi tune. All i know is i couldnt tell a difference in how it drove compared to stock ecu. I turned MBC up didnt make a difference.

 

+1

Do you not have a boost gauge to see what your boost is at? Installing a boost gauge would be the first thing I'd do right after removing the MBC. Also, what year is your car? In my '97 850R the wastegate settings were all off and caused some low boost issues...

 

I would never even consider running a MBC or tune of any sort without a boost gauge. Thats really the best (and only) way to tell quantatively what your turbo is actually doing.

 

Amen to that. If you have a boost gauge and turn up your boost past 15psi you should hit fuel cut off. A dead sign of tuned or not. If you get past that point then you have something. Curious, what boost were you set to before the ECU? (probably a mute Q without a gauge).

 

I have a boost gauge installed. Thats why i said i never boost past 12 psi max. When i took the MBC out and ran the factory one, it would only boost to around 5 or 6 psi so i highly doubt this is a rica ecu. Like i said, it didnt feel like anything special or any tune. Felt stock.

As far as boost before, i had turned the MBC down to like 3 psi for fuel economy to see how much it helped or didnt help. Before that i was running 10 psi on my stock ecu. I eliminated the MBC so i know thats not the problem. Maybe my wastegate is out of adjustment but the MBC should take care of that.

 

Hmmmm, 12psi max on a MBC....If I wanted I could destroy my engine with a MBC. Sounds like you have something else wrong.

 

i dont know, i know a month ago or so i turned the mbc up with stock ecu but kept hitting fuel cutoff so turned it back down.

 

The MBC won't adjust for the wastegate that's not set properly.

 

Thats good, now try it again with this ECU.

 

i did and could boost past 11-12 psi so something is up with this ecu. i talked to the guy to give me a refund. he said he thought his tranny was going out but its obvious his tranny is fine and this ecu is his problem