Budget vs. Full tune. Which one do I get?

[felix]

Ok so I finally got the money and I'm wanting to pull the trigger on a trifecta tune but not really sure which one to get. I know all of you are probably thinking "duh, full tune you tard" well I have some reservations. First I heard with a full tune you can only use premium. I get that it makes more power gains but it's pricey. All I've done so far is an injen intake and gapped the spark plugs to .028. That's it. Honestly I don't plan on going crazy with an exhaust and clutch and piping and all that jazz. The tune will most likely be the end of my engine mods. I def wouldn't mind a bump in mpg that's for sure. But the budget tune will provide that I'm sure.
So which way do I go? Save some money and do budget tune since I won't really utilize all the adjusting and what not?
Or do I go full tune?

I will race any mini van on the streets....

 

[Swordsmith]

Dan is correct, the only reason to spring for the full tune is that it allows you to keep having them adjust the tune to fit your mods... and for this to be useful, much less necessary, you need to do some fairly strong modding, with minor stuff like a new intake (other than the ZZP with the tube out) or a modest change to exhaust, the budget tune will cover everything.

Further, if you are wrong, and down the road you get bit hard by the mod bug, you won't have wasted the money on the budget tune, just contact BNR again and have them upgrade you to full, you just pay the difference between the two.

 

[Insanika]

No issues with my budget tune. I'm quite happy. I keep thinking I'm going to upgrade, and then wonder why.. I have no real big mods planned for a while.

 

[felix]

No issues with my budget tune. I'm quite happy. I keep thinking I'm going to upgrade, and then wonder why.. I have no real big mods planned for a while.

How has your mpg been with it? What's your set up: mods done and what not?

I will race any mini van on the streets....

 

[Insanika]

I just have the DDMWorks intake as far as engine mods. I only really plan on adding catback exhaust for now as well, so I feel comfortable with those mods on my budget tune.

Another thing keeping me on the budget tune is the Smart Octane feature, where we aren't specifically setup to run one kind of fuel. It's hard for me to get any better gas than 89, and even then I can only get 87 at home. I like to use 91 when traveling. Smart Octane offers me the just a little less power than being tuned for a specific octane like if i were tuned for 87-89, but allows me to take advantage of a higher octane when I can get it. IIRC, if you are tuned specifically for say, 87, running 91 will give you no benefit over the 87 unless you have smart octane.

I get the best MPG when I'm using the 91, but overall my numbers are about average for an RS, and that's counting I romp on her quite a bit. My global calculated average is 32mpg and that includes about 20% farting around town. I can easily get 36-38 on pure highway tanks which is above average for the advertised 34hwy for the RS. I get a rock solid 34 at 78mph average. I have not noticed better mpg between the stock and performance modes.

 

[Crazzyboy]

Good question here Felix. I was actually about to post up the same thing. Pretty much answered my question though how easy is this flash for the dealer to detect? I've just heard bits about it voiding warrenty. Also when it comes time to smog it, it reads ok? As much as I enjoy working on my own vehicles, I got a killer warrenty I don't want to endanger

 

[sx sonic]

Good question here Felix. I was actually about to post up the same thing. Pretty much answered my question though how easy is this flash for the dealer to detect? I've just heard bits about it voiding warrenty. Also when it comes time to smog it, it reads ok? As much as I enjoy working on my own vehicles, I got a killer warrenty I don't want to endanger

If you have the 1.4t and flash with "transparency" the only way the dealer will be able to tell is
1. they drive it around on the performance tune and notice the extra power or
2. They pull the ECM and send it to GM to be scrutinized which is about as likely as getting struck by lightning.

Or you could spend ~20 mins to flash back to stock so they can't possibly know it's tuned.

The 1.8 does have the transparency mode and I'm not sure how hard it is to detect. They won't notice it for an oil change or suspension work, etc but it might be detected if they have to check the ECM for something. I'm really not sure.

 

[ranvette]

For every 2 octane points you add you can increase HP by about 10HP.So 89 octane vers 93 there is about 20 HP differance.This would be based on a tuned engine.You can make good TQ still on 89 octane but it will drop off faster than on 93