My son came over last night to get me to help remove some really stuck oil gallery plugs in his 04 sti heads. He had broken a ezout in one trying to get it out. I have a bluepoint kit that you drill a hole through the plug and then drive a splined shaft into the center and then put a hexogonal sleeve over it that you put a wrench on to remove the plug, broken stud or whatever. this doesn't put as much spread on the broken or stripped part so it is easier to remove. I used them in industrial maintenance.

While we were working I brought up the romraider deal and he reminded me that he wasn't using rr anymore because the main guy from rr now works for cobb. The guy at cobb will support only the cobb customers. Soooo he thinks the best way to get the best programming on stock ecu's is now through cobb. It's about 500.00 and it's a piggyback, but he thinks it's worth it if you are using speed density which seems to be the best way to go for a hotrodded motor. I told him the quickest way was to me the link or other brand of standalones. I remember just changing the air filter and the length of the intake track on his sti was not a easy thing to do as the maf got confused. The first complication was the new at the time drive by wire throttle body. His motor has so many mods it's a good thing he is a me or he probably would need to pay a tuner to handle it. For the motors that do not use cam control romraider is probably ok, I think. The 04 sti uses a 32 bit speed ecu and the 02 wrx uses a 16 bit speed ecu which als makes the wrx easier to work with he says. I think all the newer subys may use cam advance and retard control and drive by wire since about 05.

I thought everyone into subys might be interested in his opinion on romraider for the later motors if you are planning on improving their performance.

I was hoping I could rely on him for my tuning but I bet I will need to know it all as I'm never satisfied with anything as being the best it can be.

While installing a WRX engine in my car I found that the following programs
will do most of what you want.

ECU
Rom Raider or Ecuflash
with KKL Vag com cable

To read the DLC codes and operate the relays
FreeSSM

Tablet with bluetooth to read real time data
OBD2 blue tooth adapter
Tablet using TorquePro

Or for us less competent people get an aftermarket EMS from Outfront, have them make the right harness for your motor, early or late, and plug it all in. It does cost more, but I seriously doubt I could sort out all that OEM wiring without making mistakes. Or breaking something divorcing the wife, kicking the dog, or doing something else I'd regret later.

I would have to disagree with you on that, I did go to them for a Vanagon swap and bought the "Stinger", installed it, and thought the world was great. But That ecu has not Knock sensor input. That made the ecu a pre 90s ec in my mind. On our lighter cars with out turbos it can be tuned to work good (domtune.com is local and legendary) but on a turbo engine the knock can keep a missed value from getting expensive. I had Bad knocking going over the passes or up steep grades. And there was an engine destroyed in Cal. from knocking useing the Stinger in a Vanagon.

You can go to google and find all kinds of subaru ecu unlockers. I think even the early ecus run 32bit. they just dont have as many chanels for input/output. The SS turbos from 91-94 unlocked and retuned would still be better than cheap aftermarket. But realy i would take it to a good tuner,dyno and retune! Most of them have the 04 dialed in perfect.04 was the first year of the variable fuel pump i think.

And to answer you No Cobb is not the Bees knees. They are very good but not top dog any more.

jcl

Huh. I have the Stinger on a WRX motor running over one bar and no problem, including some VERY active driving over the local mountain passes here, to 11k feet. The Outfront maps I got were good, specific for my engine, and actually a little fat across the board, right out of the box. A dyno tune just cleaned things up a bit. 15k miles so far, no knock and never even a hiccup.

For me the problem isn't unlocking the ECU, it's adapting the Subaru wiring to the 914, stripping everything out without making any mistakes or screwing up the harness. It's my limited mental capacity. The harness was a decider for me, and Outfront would supply it. If you don't like the Stinger you could upgrade to or Motec or Link units, with the option of getting those harness.

EcuTeK or cobb is what I would go with with tuning do a stag 2 to get it running/ base tune and just run car under spring pressure till you get a protune to get it dialed in for the intake and different exhaust that the 914 with have.


Check out the Vi-Pec ECU think they have a plug and play ecu.

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2365146


Also it would be nice is someone had write ups for the 914 to Suby engine swaps the main problem is the wiring is colour coded differently between a lot of the years and JDM vs USD and also between some WRX VS STi's