Hi everyone! I've currently got an Adaptronic on my FD. I'm running a fairly basic setup - stock boost, parallel BNR stage 3s, Sake Bomb Direct fire kit with FFE Trigger and upgraded fuel system. I've had issues with my adpatronic and one even burned out on me. support was not bad, but it seems tuning is limited to just Shawn. I'm in Minnesota, but what does the Rotary tuning community look like for Haltech? How is the support? Who are the great tuners currently? I was think of going to an Elite 1500 kit for my FD this month and selling off the Adaptronic. I don't want to make the switch though unless there is a benefit, which from my reading there may well be. Thanks.

 

I would highly recommend making this change, it will be entirely worth it. Honestly, you aren't really going too need much support from the ECU manufacturer as the hardware and software are very well defined and function together flawlessly. There are tons of threads on here and a number of forum members who have haltech tuning experience to help you get setup and sorted with the change, a basemap suited for your car, setup and startup and ultimately tuning yourself if you are willing to learn.

Any competent rotary tuner with knowledge of tuning a turbo rotary on a modern VE based ECU should be able to tune the haltech ECU regardless of what their specific preference may be. That being said if you aren't trying to tune the car yourself outside of basemap and startup, the best haltech rotary tuners out there would include Nelson Siverio (Tuned by Nelson), Chris Luwdwig of LMS EFI, or Elliot White of Turblown (I'm assuming Elliott is still tuning cars, while he may be an adaptronic dealer he's definitely capable of remote tuning the haltech as well and I know he's offered remote tuning before). You don't necessarily have to rely on a "pro" shop or tuner to get a great tune though, there are a ton of hobby-tuners out there with a ton of rotary tuning knowledge and experience.

I'd be willing to do it remotely however my turn around time through log/tune iterations isn't the greatest as I don't have a ton of spare time these days. That being said, it sounds like you've got a pretty simple setup that wouldn't take too much work so long as the car was mechanically and electrically sound when we started. Either way, I'd highly recommend the change from adaptronic to the haltech elite, was one of the best things that I've done across the 6 years and 25k in mods I've sunk into my car.

-Skeese

 

Yeah, if turbo source / Turblown also tune Haltech as well, that just opens up even more options. as of right now they are the only option for the Adaptronic. I've got a 1st gen Adaptronic PnP kit for the FD. I'm not really certain how good or bad it is, as I have no other experience. I'm certainly willing to learn to do it myself and there area number of dynos nearby that I could always rent out by the hour once I am confident enough. Thanks for the great response Skeese.

 

I ran one of the Adaptronic PnP units on my FD for a few years on Wari and overall it was a decent experience for the most part from a tuning perspective. With time though it started doing weird things like dropping logs mid pull and recording big blank chunks of data which didn't leave me with any real faith in it so I swapped. Since then, I've personally known of 5 different select ECUs owned by friends that have fried themselves and had to be shipped back to the manufacturer in Australia for repair where the owner of the ECU had to pay a repair fee and international shipping. To me its not just the hassle of having to deal with that, but the repercussions of it taking a **** while the car is under load, these things are sensitive to engine failure and who knows what signals it would send out to the injectors/ignition during active failure. I just wouldn't mess with it.

You don't necessarily need a dyno to write a successful tune, or for someone to work you a remove one. Until you are making huge amounts of power that require extremely precise tuning and data monitoring or where the car is uncontrollably fast on the street, then you can get by with street tuning through logging and map iteration while out of the car. I tuned my 6266 stock port on the street to the point it literally ran like an OEM-tuned vehicle. The haltech has very in-depth engine protection features that can be set up to cut power to the engine should any of the sensors trend towards a dangerous condition, which is a huge benefit when it comes to both street tuning and remote tuning...well really any tuning.

Skeese

 

No hate from me here on Adaptronic but I switched from a Adaptronic S6 PnP M2000 to a Haltech Elite 1500 and I'm very happy with my choice.
Just my 2 cents.
Steve