I know an aftermarket ECU is prefered and i do plan on getting a Haltech 1500 in the near future but without having any reliable tuners out here Im skeptical to even bring my car in to get tuned period, since nobody has a dyno anyways. My question to the masses is can i install my Greddy SMIC without any major concerns if i drive the car normally with the current performance mods i have. Front pipe, catback, Auto Exe intake and a BOV. I guess Im just eager to install since I have the intercooler on hand and if not I will just have to hold off on anything else performance related until I get back to America

 

You are already pushing your luck with the mods you have.

Look into the PowerFC. Plug and play, reasonably priced, and with a few small tweaks you'll have a safety buffer until you can get it professionally tuned.

Dale

 

I wouldn't risk it. You already have a lot of mods and a bigger intercooler could push your engine over the edge.

It says that you're in Japan, which has several world renowned rotary tuning shops. You can't make it to one of them? The country isn't that big.

 

Removed the factory boost restrictor pills, install two quality manual boost controllers in their place. Keep the car at 10psi or less and enjoy adding whatever mods to the stock twins you desire. As long as you are on 10psi or less on stock twins the stock ecu is incredibly safe. Intercooler is only going to add reliability however there is very minimal cooling improvement with the Greddy SMIC unless it is actually ducted.

 

Incorrect, the SMIC is only going to lower intake temps and reduce the chance of detonation. Only thing that is of any concern on stock twins and stock ecu is boost creep with exhaust mods.

 

Thanks for the responses and sorry i was slow to get back to you all, we are on a 12 hour time difference. Unfortunately Im not on mainland where there are plenty of options Im on the small island of Okinawa. Currently I dont have any issues with boost creep but I would be more worried about running too lean with a new intercooler. The stock ECU already runs rich but is it rich enough to support the Greddy which is nearly twice the size of stock?

 

A new intercooler shouldn't cause lean issues. It helps keep the air charge cooler and the air temp sensor on the UIM monitors the temps and compensates for it. Generally when you tune an engine, you don't need more fueling until the air temps get way up there. You should be fine adding it, but definitely make sure you keep exhaust restriction in place and get some manual boost controllers as the stock ecu runs open loop boost control and won't compensate for mods if the exhaust gets too free'd up.

 

the JDM tuners would switch to a colder spark plug, it varies with the tuner, most use 10's, some 10.5's.
the stock ECU runs richer than what most of the JDM tuning shops would tune too. stock ECU is stupid rich to keep the cat temps down, the JDM tuners are just rich enough to keep detonation away.

actually if you can find one, the RE Amemyia type A is meant for a car with intake/IC/catback on stock turbos and with the converter. they remapped the whole thing, and it runs way better than the stock ECU, i bought mine for $50... (the Type B is without cat, and Type C is a custom tune, avoid the Type C, unless you wanted to reprogram it). Knightsports offers similar service, and if you buy a Knightposrts ecu you can send it to them with your mod list and they will map it and send it back

 

There’s sooooo many options regarding remote tuning that this isn’t even acceptable imo. One of the very first mods you should do is an aftermarket ECU, even on a stock engine. Stop buying, start saving.