EcuTEK Experiences

[L200Shogun]

Crispmods (non EcuteK) gets positive reviews on Facebook)

Crispmods victoria Christian Patrold Cheers. They come up well, done a fair few new 2.5s now too. Worked through all the torque ranges now, they drive sweet. (i have the phone number from his post)

[revolutiontriton]

Hey guys,
been lurking around the ruts for a while but this is my first post (don't grill me too hard!!)
So I've got a MY14 MN that i picked up in oct with 24k on the clock, apart from a chip-it catch can its stock as a rock, with a few few dings from some early testing

Anyway I've just put a deposit down for a Ecutek tune with Brett @ MRT sydney They had a $500 cash back offer that ended in two days from my phone call... so you know what that means! Had to get it... hahaha

im a little confused at this point though:
have read quite a few reviews, think i know what I'm talking about but, I've been told by MRT that in this day and age adding an exhaust be it 2.5, 2.75, 3, for the 1k it costs you after the tune you won't miss the possible 3-5kw and 10nm or so? i can see what they mean but i still find this bemusing that a tuning house would suggest you don't put an exhaust on, (or suggest that its not needed i should say) i love the agricultural sound of the triton and would do it just to have that enhanced!

upon asking about the tune i was told that after having done so many the tune map is basically one size fits all and is the best combination of power, torque, and reliability??? what ever happened to every car is different? and furthermore i was told that a dyno tune would not be necessary also!! so what exactly am i paying for and why will it take a whole day? i know they have a great rep and have been doing tri's since 2010 but I'm just so confused atm

it looks as though most of you who have recently tuned have torque/power figures on paper and have been on the dyno? am i missing out on something here?

either way i will be going ahead with the tune as i have read too many good reviews to not go ahead with it but i have to say so far my customer service experience has been disappointing somewhat.

going off their website I'm expecting that ill receive 15-25kw and 55%nm and assuming my tri is putting out 121kw and 350nm (i know these are not correct as the stealer states) id be looking at 140ish kw, which i doubt ill get and 500+nm which i think is possible.

still..... KEEN AF to get this thing tuned and keep saving for more mods!!
any feedback would be great, sorry for the long novel-guess I'm just a wee bit excited for the tune

[L200Shogun]

I think there are some Tuners who flash in generic tunes and print off a dyno graph and the customer is happy. (seen it on other makes)

If you wanted a specific tune then MRT may have not been your best choice.

Lots of different places flash in generic tunes, some tweak them.

You have to decide if $700 to $1000 for more noise and a few kw is what you want.

Light, strong or cheap pick any two.
Same applies with tunes "best combination of power, torque, and reliability" you may be able to tune for more power but reliability suffers.

Really there is a finite amount of power available the turbo runs out of "puff"

"my customer service experience has been disappointing somewhat" I have read that elsewhere too

[mudslinger]

Was in sydney and was going to get mrt tune but much to exactly the same points you raised i was a bit put of by the whole CS experience.

Aftr doing a bit of towingand touring i thought it was time to power up the triton

Just had ecutek tune done in brisbane at ultimate diesel tuning. Its a 2014 MN and it gets 129 kw and 530Nm (@back wheels not engine). Seems to be blowing a lot more black smoke than usual down low under 2k but drives so much bettr the performance from prior to now is chalk and cheese. Glad i got it done, the guys at ultimate diesel said if i was concerned about the smoke they could put it back on dyno and tweak it a bit.

Considering as part of the ecutek tune they recalibrate your throttle and basically switch off the egr system i personallythought it was a good deal saving $500 otherwise i would have had to buy aftermarket plug and play equipmentto do the same thing.

[c-dale]

I had mine done by Mercury Motorsports in Brisbane.

As far as the exhaust goes they recommended a 3" system but advised that it would give little to no additional power but would improve the power delivery.

They dyno each car individually. Which was lucky as mine had an issue with the wastegate and was seriously down on boost, would have been difficult to pick up if it wasnt dyno'ed.

[revolutiontriton]

Yeah the EGR closed basically unless at idle is a big pro for me also. Plus other things.

The're some pretty good figures, can only hope i will achieve similar! and i guess more fuel means more smoke. sure they may be able to do something but i suppose its like anything car related theres always a loss for a gain in some respect.
Have you got a catch can? i had mine on for 1day and could already see the build up beginning. All that oil ends up in the turbo and in the exhaust, the day i fit mine there was noticeably less smoke, could be worth a try.

I would certainly spend the money on the exhaust- we all know a properly matched system is not just for full noise, its just a bonus, and its obviously not going to hurt.

L200shogun, Im thinking your probably right about the generic tune- ill definitely be pushing this point come install day. As this will be the first car I've tuned i don't need to get too technical with it but i still need it to do what i want it too and do it well for me to be happy!
As far as i can see there are way more pros to Ecutek than many others which is good enough for me at this point.

one thing that not many people seem to talk about are driveline components? over the years have the mitsy's proven to be tough enough to withstand these kinds of torque upgrades without major hassles? i don't seem to come across many people complaining about this aspect of it all.

[revolutiontriton]

I had mine done by Mercury Motorsports in Brisbane.

As far as the exhaust goes they recommended a 3" system but advised that it would give little to no additional power but would improve the power delivery.

They dyno each car individually. Which was lucky as mine had an issue with the wastegate and was seriously down on boost, would have been difficult to pick up if it wasnt dyno'ed.

3?? wow! seems big for a little 2.5

Thats what i would have thought, but i dunno- was very noisy and busy at the shop, may have just rang at a bad time.

[c-dale]

Mines an ML mate, 3.2

[revolutiontriton]

Ah, I see!

[dougie123]

Hey revolutiontriton, dont get me wrong MRT did a lot of ground work in getting all the base lines with the ECUTEK with a lot of cars including the Triton but there are better tuning houses out there. I can give two personal first hand experiences but I'll wont for now. PM me if you really need to know.

Have a look at ecutek website to see all the dealers, there are a few in Sydney. Ring a few and see

As for the larger exhaust, I did a dyno run with just the exhaust before the tune, few Kw and few more Newtons BUT the larger exhaust will handle the heat build up the tune will give and also for towing. And the turbo does sound pretty cool through it.

Get a K&N filter before you dyno it. Think Autopro have them for about $80. Have a search on here.

And the smoke, my first tune it blew a fair bit but when I got it retune after the cooling recall I got it wound back just a little and no more smoke apart from if I stand on it from a standing start.

[revolutiontriton]

Hey dougie123.

I have figured from research that they have put in a lot of ground work as you say, with in house cars etc. mate I'd love to hear your experience-good or bad. Shoot me a pm if you have the time. In my excitement I put down a non refundable deposit to lock it in at a price so I will be going with them to begin with and see how it goes.

I'm under the impression that they now do a generic tune and don't dyno results before or after, weather that has anything to with their 'cash back offer' or not I'm not sure.
I'll be looking to get an exhaust (prob no bigger than 2.75) and snorkel in the not too distant future so will retune after that and possibly at a different location depending on service, I would assume that any Ecutek dealer can work on any car regardless or where it was first tuned.

I'm still yet to hear any real bad feedback on said business but time will tell for me.
The car is stock and this will be my first real mod to it but I'm taking a quality not quantity approach to this build so hopefully I haven't got off to a bad start hahaha.

[revolutiontriton]

Also.... Would you mind me asking what the dyno cost? As I'd like to get a read out on mine also, even if it is at extra cost it would seem silly not too. What's the point in doing a mod if you have no data to back it up off

[mudslinger]

Would like to know... very happy with tune but has been blowing black smoke under 2000rpm. Is this normal as i would think that its not burning the fuel efficiently. The bloke that tuned it recons that they need to feed it more fuel to get the turbo up and working quicker. Dont fully understand it but in simple terms i understand black smoke means unburnt fuel therefore how can unburnt fuel add more power? Am i missing something.
I Like the power but not the smoke.. cars only done 30k.. is it at all possible to have the power without the smoke.

[revolutiontriton]

Would like to know... very happy with tune but has been blowing black smoke under 2000rpm. Is this normal as i would think that its not burning the fuel efficiently. The bloke that tuned it recons that they need to feed it more fuel to get the turbo up and working quicker. Dont fully understand it but in simple terms i understand black smoke means unburnt fuel therefore how can unburnt fuel add more power? Am i missing something.
I Like the power but not the smoke.. cars only done 30k.. is it at all possible to have the power without the smoke.

What is your 'tune' and where from? I'm guessing Ecutek xa kit?
Most reports I have read say black soot up to 2000-2200rpm I'm not too concerned by this myself- I'm yet to experience it though.
Is it unburnt fuel, or is it just a higher concentration of burnt diesel?? Could be the latter if the cars working harder to produce torque from 0-2k rpm?? I'm not sure..

[OffRoadDave]

Dont fully understand it but in simple terms i understand black smoke means unburnt fuel therefore how can unburnt fuel add more power? Am i missing something.

It's not really a matter of burnt or unburnt fuel, the turbo runs on exhaust pressure, the only way to increase exhaust pressure sooner which in turn increases intake pressure sooner. is to throw more fuel in at lower revs than what the factory tune does.

Yes it will be sooty before boost pressure picks up and gets the air/fuel ratio back in check, but I suspect if you were to get it to the point where it no longer soots when off boost, you would be back to the way it drives with the factory tune, which when off boost is crap as you know.

[mudslinger]

Tune was ecutek by ultimate diesel in brisbane which i believe is now the diesel tuning side of mecury motorsport.

Tuner said pretty much along the lines of what yr suggesting off road Dave. Although hes happy to tweak it again bur my worry is that like you say ill then be back driving a bag of crap.

Therfore as its driven by the very nature of the beast i assume all tunes (chip and others etc), if expecting the same performance will suffer the same black smoke issues.

The car is now fun to drive and just keeps pulling, previously it felt like it had asthma.. so from what i gather if i am to keep the performance im getting i have to live with the smoke..

[Longranger1]

The MN only runs about a 16.5 to 1 static compression ratio (doughy off boost) so it will smoke a bit off boost until the boost pressure catches up with the fueling. If the fueling is too excessive down low under low boost they really pour out the black smoke (there is a limit to fueling where more becomes less performance-wise off boost). I have had the same tune by Ecutek for the last 5 nearly 6 years. Still running sweet as a nut.

[snakesoup]

how's your economy longy ?? damn I'd love to do mine too but the missus would cut my balls off if I spent 1.5k " to make the car go faster"

[revolutiontriton]

Good to hear some good feedback for Ecutek, been smashed by my latest bas so will be a little while before I get my install paid in full and ready to go. can anyone tell me for certain that any Ecutek on seller can tune any car, they don't do something silly like lock the ecu to a specific shop or anything? And it's basically hacking into the system isn't it? Does everyone have the same range of access for tuning?

Snake soup-most places 'claim' to give better fuel economy... It'll save you money in the long run

[mudslinger]

I was told any ecutek dealer can tune vehicle after you've paid for initially tune. Ultimate diesel will reload tune or tweak original tune again forfree for life of vehicle for the original purchaser provided no additional performance have been done since the original install. If so then you need to pay for dyno time.

[BILLC]

Hi All

Just a quick question, can you still run the EGR block "Tony's mod" when you have a Ecutek tune?

[borngeek]

Yes

[c-dale]

Although you may not need to. Part of the tune I recieved closed the egr, which rendered tonys mod redundent

[BILLC]

I am not sure if they have completely blocked the EGR or adjust it down to open at idle only.
Either way i will prefer it to be closed.
Other then that i think its one of the best mods to the triton so far.

[snowman]

Although you may not need to. Part of the tune I recieved closed the egr, which rendered tonys mod redundent

you have to specifically ask for it. (MRT at least). otherwise they will run it at low throttle - which is typically when it runs anyway

closing it will cost you some economy but not a lot. not worth the cost of carbon in the intake anyway.