Canned tunes versus custom ones
 

How much difference is there between a canned tune and a custom tune? I'm thinking about the BTR one and I dont know if I want to go ahead and buy the canned tune ECU off their website or wait and go to a tuning event. The main advantage I can think of with a canned tune is I'll have still have my stock ECU in case I have to take the car in for warranty work.

You can get a spare ECU either way and swap out your stock anytime.



Custom tune on a dyno will of course get you extra HP and more reliability with better AFR because it's tuned specifically for you. A canned tune will be more conservative to account for variables that differ from one engine to the next.



Either way, you'll be fine. BTR is the only company touching my ECU. Since you're in Mass, unless you're driving to northeast Ohio there may not be a tuning event near you sometime soon. Talk to Bill Wolf and see if you can get a canned tune now, and if they bring a tuning event near you see what the cost would be for a custom retune on your spare ECU.

Majik....can or will BTR do a custom tune on the ECU you buy from them that has the canned tune on it? Or do you have to use the factory (stock) ECU to get a custom tune? If you can re-tune the canned one, then you could always just save the stock one for warranty work. But I can see some people not really want to spend the money twice on both a canned and custom. :dunno: I'm kind of in that boat. I desperately want a tune but I'm fearful of my clutch going to hell (still need to buy a clutch and flywheel) and then figure out what's the smarter way of doing things...custom or canned, and do I want to pay twice if I buy a canned initially and eventually move on to a custom, or just have the my stock ECU custom tuned and risk the chance of not having anything to swap in if warranty stuff needs to be done.

I'm not entirely sure that I follow your question.... but....

You can get a canned tune on a spare ECU or on your current ECU (ship it to them)

You can put a custom tune on top of a canned tune, it just wipes the old stuff and writes the new stuff. So, you could order a canned tune now, keep your original ECU for warranty work at a later date, and get a custom tune on top of the canned tune ECU at a later date.



In a nutshell, the ECU can be reused over and over, canned to custom and back to canned (not sure why you would, just saying you could). If you have basic bolts on, you can get a canned tune now... then if you want to throw a bigger turbo on it you could then get a custom tune on the ECU at a dyno event.