Quote :

"I am extremely adept at shifting, plus I have a shift light on the tach so I know on my part I was on point."

Yeah. They have OEM shift lights with warning chimes that sound a bit like the overrev chime on the Rx-8. You can adjust the shift light rpm. It's a cool feature.

Quote :

"supposed to be a 400whp turbo that spools @ 3000rpm"

I'm sure they're good turbos, but I have a healthy skepticism of turbos with a lot of internet hype.

Quote :

"I'm still toying with the idea of self tuning mine. i know 2 off the shelf cobb tunes that broke piston ringlands."

Having dissected both the '05 STi and '05 LGT Cobb off the shelf maps, I can tell you that there's nothing particularly aggressive about them. The fuel targets are a little leaner than stock (they look a lot like the factory STi fuel targets), but stock is plenty rich. On the LGT tunes Cobb "flattens" the timing curve--there's more mid range timing at peak load, and a little less up top. The intake cam advance map changes significantly.

The STi off-the-shelf maps basically changes nothing substantive except the boost. There are only minor tweaks to fuel, timing, and intake cam advance. The STi has a more aggressive tune from the factory compared to the WRX and LGT so Cobb actually changed very little. The LGT Cobb maps have bigger changes versus stock but only because the LGT has a more conservative factory tune

A lot of the people who have problems use an off-the-shelf map with an aftermarket intake, which is a mistake. Without a rescaling the MAF calibration table you can potentially run lean, especially on the 05+ LGT and later WRX engines because they use a different airbox and MAF housing design.

The Cobb hardware alone justifies the expense versus just using an Openport cable in my opinion. The realtime laptop tuning and map switching make DIY tuning much easier. The Cobb display can be mounted permanently and will serve as a peak-hold boost gauge or whatever other data you want to see right from the ECU. I've had plenty of success with the Cobb off-the-shelf maps as a starting point. I just scaled some 740cc injectors on an '05 STi last week by modifying a Cobb map and using some of Cobb's injector guidelines.

[Edited on October 22, 2010 at 2:39 AM. Reason : .]

10/22/2010 2:35:42 AM

2005 STi stock target lambda table (didn't have it set to display in AFR):



2005 LGT stock and Cobb stage 2 target lambda tables



the ignition tables are complicated and I don't want to clutter up the thread too much

10/22/2010 2:44:11 AM

Awesome thank you I'm on my phone now but I'll pm you my email address for the timing tables. I've tuned fuel before but never had control of cam timing an spark. I know how adjustments should change the performance but there are always weird nuances like resanace frequencies that alter what "should" happen

10/22/2010 7:26:48 AM