I just flashed v400 Stage 1 Aggressive ST, it feels A LOT better than v301. People on the U.S side describe this as smooth but I think the word 'smooth' portrays that it's 'boring' and linear...well this isn't the case. It's smooth in terms that there are no longer the three power stages as you go through the rev range (a bit, a bit more, all of it feeling), it's progressive as the power builds but feels very strong, particularly after 4000rpm where things get very fun and fast. There seems to be more low end torque right down by idle which is great for town driving and not labouring the engine so much, better MPG for me here too. I like this map a lot, much more refined and no where near as jolty feeling as v301 when you were progressing through the rev range and get a bump in power.
I had a run in with a Bentley Continental GT Cabriolet yesterday, he was very surprised. Looking at the spec though, I am not, it's 1000kg heavier so his extra power didn't really count for much...still, I expected more from it.
I want to be honest with all my posts here so I'm going to mention any problems I have had. Further to my mishap with updating to the beta firmware, where the AP got stuck doing it because I wasn't running the latest beta of AP Manager, I ran into another issue this weekend and I believe it's off the back of the last issue.
I downloaded the v400 Stage 1 Aggressive ST from COBB's website and moved it to my AP via the AP manager. I went to change the map on my car with my AP using the Tuning menu and it was unable to communicate with the car at all, it got stuck on the 'Communicating with ECU' screen with the two rotating cogs and went no further. I had to disconnect the AP from the car by pulling the cable, I then retried and this time tried to uninstall the AP and I got the same problem so again after 10mins had to pull the cable. For a third time, I connected the AP to the car and read the error codes, I had two but these were just random codes thrown while playing with the AP, nothing to worry about.
I then cleared the codes and went to try to read the live ECU data (timing, boost, rpm etc) but the AP couldn't communicate and an error popped up telling me to contact Cobb and tell them that I have encountered error 1014.
This all of course happened on the weekend when COBB were out of office and I feared that the car would now be rendered useless, luckily it started and v301 software was unharmed, the car still ran flawlessly and like a beast. I was still concerned though and mentioned this to HotCoupe (who's been a great help to me the last week, thank you) when I popped over to his on Saturday, he offered me the details of a good indie who could flash my car to stock if need be.
I decided to sleep on it Saturday night and I then had a dream about flashing my car (no joke, it was doing my head in) and I woke Sunday morning wondering if there was a new v301 beta to update that AP with, essentially clearing it and starting over with fresh maps. I connected the AP and checked for beta firmware in the AP Manager, there's was one, v3.0154754687 or whatever so I updated the AP with no troubles. I then transferred my stock ROM from my PC back to my AP and Stage 1 v400 also, I wondered if deleting the stock ROM file was also a reason why the AP couldn't read the ECU properly. I then sat in my car flashing v400, everything was working fine so updating the AP again and putting the stock ROM back on seem to have fixed it. This thing is temperamental or maybe im just retarded, either way it went successfully.
Perhaps COBB should make an FAQ guide on their website for these hiccups, I seem to be the test pilot
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I just want to stress that it is SO important to update your AP Manager before updating your AP firmware, otherwise you stand to have the same problems that I did. This isn't to say that the AP is bad, it's absolutely amazing but most issues aren't realised until they are in the field, I guess that's the hazzard of being a beta tester essentially. If you want to play it dead safe, don't use the beta software/firmware, just go with the official releases after people like me test the beta versions so COBB can perfect it, it is after all impossible for them to test every potential issue before release and 99%, the AP is flawless.