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      01-06-2011, 02:20 PM   #158
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bigdaddycane View Post
AWD Addict,

What kind of time frame for this? What was typical for the Suby flashes....approximately?
It's hard to say, and my guess is it'll be different for a few reasons. I think there are a lot more light level tuners on BMWs than on Subarus who will stick to the Cobb issued maps. You could replace a blown long block for $5000 on a WRX. It's not quite so simple on this car. People seemed much more willing to push the envelope on those cars than in general here. Some of that is platform driven (fuel system constraints)

Also, I think a lot of BMW owners who spent 2.5x the money on this car than a subaru, are less likely to be kosher with wires and harnesses winding around their engine bay, bent pints, and boxes stuffed with a spaghetti mess of wires. Hacking up a $22K WRX is one thing. On a $50K BMW it's another. This is such a clean, easy way to tune the ECU and make more power, I think an entire different set of tuners are going to appear in the marketplace. This will also be compounded by the people uncomfortable with modding while under warranty, and the 2008's approaching the end of that period, as well as the second hand E9xs that will be cheaper for more tuner firendly 20 somethings to buy.

On the same note - there's also a lot less upper echelon modifications for this car than the suby's were relatively. It didn't take long at all for people to start swapping turbos, and having a selection of all kinds of turbos (multiple VF series, mitsu 16gs, even garretts and others) because of the relateive ease of upgrading the fuel system compared to this. So I think there'll probably be less really advanced (stage 3+) tuners sharing maps earlier on. there simply are less combinations of tunes as a function of less variability in upgrades. I had a first gen USDM WRX, and two years into owning it, I could have picked from dozens of configurations of bolt ons for stage 4 (all new fuel system, turbo, decatted exhaust, intercooler hoses, intake, FMIC or TMIC, etc). There were just so many options of bolt ons driving the number of maps floating around, and I'm not sure we'll see that very soon.

My guess is in a year, the Cobb off the shelf maps will be substnatially improved, but there won't be a large custom tuned map base (as Cobb will probably provide the best Stage 1 / 2 maps). It'll be specific to the more common mod groups (like the meth guys) as it was with the big blower suby guys. Quantity of advanced maps will also be subject to how quickly cobb rolls out it's dealer base regionally. The quicker local tuners are dyno'ing these cars, the quicker the maps will start circulating. Dyno days are a big boost, as even people with just standard mods might spend a few hundred to tweak their tune and get their own runs on paper.

Ever time someone posts up a "hey I got dyno tuned yesterday by Cobb" there'll be 3 guys saying "hey, can you send me your map?"

Last edited by AWD Addict; 01-06-2011 at 02:25 PM..
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