You ignored my statement that ECU should be asked to give a money-back guarantee, which gives the lie to what you posted.

 

As you must've overlooked, I said ECU ought to be asked to give a money-back guarantee. Pitching in a dyno before & after wouldn't be unreasonable for an owner.

 

I posted this an age ago, more than once. However, our cars have twin 32-bit CPUs which I believe those other cars don't. We're in new territory from what I found out. It makes ECUTG's claims suspect and maybe is the real reason they won't step up with a guarantee or before & after dynos.

 

I am right there with you!!! Now I have to justify spending 5-6k (guessing on the price) on the STR. I might have to sell another toy to get it.

 

Might not be a bad time to show a "$ per HP" comparison of the various upgrade options for the STR. Based on some facts, some hearsay forum info, some shipping & professional labor included, everything approximate. All comments/criticisms welcome.

Upgrade option------Cost------CHP gain----- $ per HP

K&N filter............... $50.............. 4...............$15
Mina intake........... $200.............11...............$18
1.5 lb pulley.......... $250............12.............. $21
3 lb pulley............ $350.............17.............. $21
Quiketz intake....... $250........ ....10 ............ $25
Caldoofy intake..... $250............ 10 ............. $25
Hi-flow cats.......... $500............ 12 ............. $42
S/C porting........... $450.............10 ............ $45
ECU tune.............. $995............ 20 ............ $50
S/C twin screw.... $6000........... 100 ........... $60
Mina Exhaust........ $850............ 12 ............ $71

 

You also need to take labor costs into account, those prices are purchase of the item alone.

18hrs min to remove/reinstall a supercharger (for the twinscrew install & Eaton porting) @ $100/hr? more?

3lb pulley needs grinding of the nose, several hours more than the 1.5lb pulley. 3hrs for the 1.5lb, maybe 5hrs for the 3lb.

Add more $$$$ & another 40HP for the twinscrew, plus again 18hrs install.

The exhaust/cats also needs some hours as well.

Unless of course you can do EVERYTHING yourself?

Have a read of Jeff in Tucson's thread in the XK8/XKR section, he listed out the costs of his build incl. labor.

 

Great feedback, thank you. Maybe we should have a separate DIY column and another (cost+labor) column. But note:

1. No grinding needed for 1.5 lb pulley, my indie charged just over $100 to fit. OEM pulley came off without any cutting.
2. Maybe add another 3 hours labor for the 3 lb pulley? Another $300?
3. Twin-screw is vague - I assumed a basic T/S system (100 HP) for $5000 plus $1000 labor. I have heard that for another $5000 plus much more labor labor you can go to 200 HP.
4. Would you say another $1500 labor for S/C porting?
5. Would you say another $200 labor for the Mina exhaust?
6. Hi-flow cats include labor - latest prices are $125 each for Magnaflow 59975 converters, plus $100 for Magnaflow 11385.

Maybe I'll do a revised table when I have everyone's opinion.

 

Doing in yourself saves lots. Here is a rundown of mine with costs

Remove rear mufflers $100 for pipes and tips installed
Test Pipes $0 sold old cats for more than what it cost to build system
Mafioso Intake $250
Eurotoys 1.5 pulley, puller and s/c oil $300
Mina Gallery v2 intake $135
Bored Throttle Body $99
Meth Kit $325

This doesn't take into account hoses and gaskets needed as I pulled the whole s/c off to replace the coolant hose below the s/c, but gives you an idea of what I paid for parts. Also I did do some basic porting on the intake side of the s/c which just cost me materials.

 

That looks very cost effective.

 

I paid $235 for my Magnaflow 59975 converters, $104 for the 11385 and $135 for the Mina intake. I took my Jag to the exhaust shop that did the cat backs on my Tahoe and they installed everything, including the intake for $200 bucks. So $674 total. I thought that was a good deal. So far, no CEL and great performance. I haven't dyno'ed anything, but I can definitely "feel" the difference. And so can the wife, who had no idea what I was doing. She just thought I was getting the car fixed.....it's "fixed" alright..

 

You must mean post #41:
It seems patently obvious that in the particular case of ECUTG, there is no money-back guarantee on the table. This is probably the case with many canned tunes as it is ripe with opportunity for fraud on the part of the purchaser.

Therefore, it is not a question of the dyno runs. The question under consideration is the entire $1400 expenditure. That makes it a far larger risk.

 

If the company owns the software, then the only exposure they face with a money-back guarantee is a few hours of time. If the guarantee also included refunding the cost of dyno testing, then there would be some financial risk. I would cheerfully go for that option.

Plums, I prefer your idea of an up-front freebie to a selected forum member. However, as GT42R says, these guys are obviously not confident that their product will perform.

 

@Robin,
They don't own the software, but buy at wholesale probably around $300-$350 per tune. By no means I am taking it up for ETG, not because of their margins that's their choice, but more about the misleading (i.e. claim as if they do the tunes themselves) and the lack of interest in the forum. I don't doubt that there is a little to be gained by the tune (15rwhp is my best guess), but it’s a fixed tune for a fixed setup. Anyone with higher levels of boost need a more custom tune, or you could even loose power.

PS The TS kit can give about 150 bhp more (depends on the upper pulley size you choose), and can go with cheap mods much higher than that. But lets see what it will bring for the STR.

Imho you need to compare apples with apples if you do calculations of $ per hp. So take your power increase into consideration and then compare what's available to achieve that. Its important then to know the aggregate hp level of the individual mods, as you just can't add up all estimated individual items.

 

Looks like ECUTG are a waste of time as well as crazily expensive.

 

No, the exposure they face is a severe shrinkage of units sold unless the conditions for refund are quite strict.

Even if before and after dyno tests were required for a refund it would still be a problem. Remember how many times it has been claimed here that dyno results can be fudged. If the guarantee was for say 15hp on a 20hp usual result, how hard would it be for the dyno operator friend of an owner to lose 6hp on a run? Not hard at all.

It still remains that the best way to sell a tune would be to ensure that an opinion leader experiences the tune and is willing to talk about it as well as post trustworthy results. The best way to do that of course for any tuning company is to monitor a forum, pick out the small subset of members that everyone respects, and contact him directly with an offer of a free tune under condition that the results be disclosed.

The Jaguar market is special for anyone with a good proven tune ... there is *no* viable competition. That's quite different from other marques where there is often a number of tunes that are liked.

It has been suggested that the tune is a resale. Well, the investment of the wholesale cost of *one* tune as a demo ought to be a good investment as opposed to paying for advertising to a whole bunch of people who won't buy without solid evidence. And there is nothing wrong with being careful. Those dollars didn't fall from the sky.

Opinion leaders count. That's why companies get into celebrity endorsement deals for millions of dollars. It pays.

 

That's probably why no one will fork out $1000 for an upgrade that can't be reliably proven, and ECUTG won't guarantee the upgrade for the same reason.

I've seen enough now - intakes, pulleys and hi- flow cats are the way to go until we have news from avos. Thanks, forum.

 

Agreed.

 

Do any reputable places to get a dyno tune for a Jaguar even exist in the US?

I'm not sure I have ever seen a thread on this forum where someone has reported a good experience with an ECU tune.

 

I'm confident they don't exist. It's probably because the variant of the Denso PCM is so rare that no-one sees a big enough market.

Because there's Open Source for a related PCM it may be that someone could adapt that but so far it seems no-one has.

The related PCM is used in a lot of cars: a few Fords, many Hondas, some Isuzus, Mazdas, Mitsubishis, Nissans, Subarus, Suzukis, Volvos, and various motorbikes.

 

For someone who wants to do it, that is actually a pretty good headstart.

With a known cpu, someone experienced in embedded systems knows where to look for certain immutable structures. The existing body of work gives clues as to the strategies that the Denso engineers tend to employ as do several Denso patents.