Remap with Chris at EFI parts Runcorn review

[MilanoChris]

I've had Type R's for ages now, over 10 years, plus a few Evo's and an S2000. I've been up and down the country trying various 'highly recommended' tuners with mixed results and feelings. One Evo tuner put the car on the dyno for all of 40 minutes and as you'd guess, the map was pretty bad yet everyone enjoyed licking the tuners backside on the MLR and how dare anyone leave a bad review. The same can be said for many Honda tuners who I have tried, many who still to this day get mentioned on forums as the place to go.

I'm not going to name any names, but rather focus on my day with Chris tuning my FD2 as the point of this thread is to try and give a review from someone who has done the rounds so to speak.

Chris has a small unit in the east end of Runcorn which was fairly easy to get to from the motorway, well, it was for Apple Maps as it got me there. There was a chap with a Clio who was booked in before me and as I arrived, was just leaving. He took his car up the road and mentioned to Chris a few issues he had. That meant I had to wait around 30 minutes before he got around to mapping my car, but these things happen I guess. It was good to see that Chris took the time and effort to listen to the customer and then rectify the issue, which in the end turned out to be some worn spark plugs which he replaced FOC.

My car was strapped on the dyno and Chris wanted to do a base run to see where the car was at. This is where the day started to go a little wrong for me. I'd recently had a Mugen airbox, custom decat and Feel's exhaust fitted so I wasn't expecting the car to be running great, but it was knocking a lot even on part throttle so reigning in the power. Chris tried a base map with higher knock threshold, but the same applied. He then disabled the knock sensor and used cans to tune the car in case the knock sensor was giving dodgy readings. I sat around for a few hours as I heard him tuning part throttle, finding optimum VTEC etc.

After while he came up to me and said the car was behaving really odd. He'd spot a lean part in the RPM range, add fuel, run it again and it would be fine, then a few runs later it'd be rich or lean again. He couldn't work out why because inlet pressure, fuel, AFR, cam angle etc were all consistent. Basically every input he could see was not changing, yet the power would vary by 5bhp at peak and much more in the lower rev range. Because of this and some knock still, he couldn't extract much more power than standard because he wasn't comfortable advancing the ignition with the car seemingly behaving so randomly. We had a chat and suspect either the decat or exhaust are causing this because that's the only thing he can't monitor: back pressure. The decat is a cheap one that's been custom made and I've read (on here) of some exhausts on DC5's causing issues with power so part of me is tempted to order a Toda decat and Toda exhaust or RM01A and then go back to get it mapped again. Credit to Chris though, he walked me through every part, said he's tuned it on the safe side and then gave me significant discount because he didn't feel comfortable charging me for half a job. I'd wager a lot of other tuners would have said nothing and just handed the car back.

I'd thoroughly recommend Chris to anyone. He even tunes standalone ECUs for rally cars which can't be said for a lot of tuners with a laptop and KManager etc.

What I would say is I was there for a few hours and there is tea and coffee available, but there's no butty wagon or shop that I knew of nearby so I'd take some refreshments with you.

The car does feel nicer on the road, the best way of describing it is that it feels like the OEM map, with more urgency lower in the rev range and lower VTEC point (at 4600) with perfect part throttle.

 

[Midnight]

Yes can't recommend Chris enough either.

Part mapped ours and under VTEC a nice chunk of torque was found and like Chris has stated, part throttle seems much smoother. Car should be heading back up before Christmas to exctract every last bit of power from it.

Glad to hear your happy with the outcome Chris.

 

[MilanoChris]

One thing I forgot to mention, is that Chris said he would be happy for me to send in datalogs of the car on the road so he can take a look if necessary and provide an updated calibration for me to upload.

It's a pain as it's a 2.5 hour drive for me, but I don't think I'll bother trying any other tuner as Chris' friendliness, expertise and honesty have surpassed anyone I've previously used.

 

[Indi]

Great review Chris. I cant recommend Chris at EFI enough either, he did an amazing job mapping my JRSC setup which I had mapped by a well known tuner the year before but the difference between the two maps was a lot.

We also ran into a few issues on the day such as having to higher the ride height to get on the dyno and taking the car back off the dyno so he could disable the lambda sensors and plug his own sensor into the manifold to map the part throttle properly and by the time he finished mapping it was gone 9:30pm and there was still no sign of being rushed etc. Hats off to Chris for great customer service and great at what he does.

 

[FireDance]

Are you getting a custom manifold from Solid Fab made up? They seem the popular choice at present

 

[p1tse]

Good read and agree some tuners wouldn't have taken the time to walk through.

Interesting to read of suspect items, but I remember a thread here with a member having strange vtec issues or something along the lines, and it was the exhaust causing the issue. Sometimes mods are overlooked assuming bolt on makes an improvement. I remember adam (gok) didn't have much luck with his his chosen mods and mapping.

In an ideal world what's the best way to get cars mapped, on rollers or on road doing part and full throttle on each gear on a flat piece of road?

I would be interested to drive a car which is poorly mapped versus a good one versus an excellent one, versus oem; especially on a k20; that's so to build a better understanding of map behaviours.

I've driven cars pre and post maps, all have been improved on throttle response, power, smoothness on feel. Only one which I didn't like was a mates bmw 35d engine and felt laggy bottom of the rev range.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think someone bought your kpro and had it tweaked and didn't the member quote the mapper said it was a lazy map or on those lines?

I have no clue, but happy with the way my teg drives and response

Good luck with the mods.

 

[SamDC5]

I had an issue with mine on the dyno, I was the one with the 5Zigen catback which was strangling the car.

Because the exhaust was so restrictive, when VTEC activated the sudden rush of air would get stuck in the exhaust. Because these are mapped to protect the engine from leaning out and melting itself, the car would just dump a load of fuel in to counter the used air in the combustion chamber.

Sounds like a weird issue though, what exhaust manifold do you have on the car? Could also be a dodgy ECU?

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

 

[Crazylegs]

I'm speaking as an observer here more than anything as I've never had a mapped DC5 or KPRO before and obviously don't own a DC5 currently.

I've mentioned this a few months ago and I've been out in Dan Coyote's DC5 recentlty which was mapped by Chris.

It's hard to explain, firstly I was amazed at the pull. It's always been a quick car, I've been in it before on track as a passenger (twice) and it went well on both occasions but this recent map made it sound better, it pulled better and stronger and seemed to get up to speed effortlesly with less strain but more revs, VTEC when engaged also felt more powerful to me. Dan explained to me it's night and day to drive compared to what it was previously, many of the pops and bangs it had before have now gone which is a shame but apart from that he loves it.

I hope Dan can post on here and explain it better as it's his car not mine lol and I feel bad posting a review of a map for car that's not owned by me ha ha!!

 

[MilanoChris]

Are you getting a custom manifold from Solid Fab made up? They seem the popular choice at present

Doubt it to be honest. The FD2 manifold design is very, very good and not many after market designs beat it.

Interesting to read of suspect items, but I remember a thread here with a member having strange vtec issues or something along the lines, and it was the exhaust causing the issue. Sometimes mods are overlooked assuming bolt on makes an improvement. I remember adam (gok) didn't have much luck with his his chosen mods and mapping.

In an ideal world what's the best way to get cars mapped, on rollers or on road doing part and full throttle on each gear on a flat piece of road?

I would be interested to drive a car which is poorly mapped versus a good one versus an excellent one, versus oem; especially on a k20; that's so to build a better understanding of map behaviours.

I've driven cars pre and post maps, all have been improved on throttle response, power, smoothness on feel. Only one which I didn't like was a mates bmw 35d engine and felt laggy bottom of the rev range.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think someone bought your kpro and had it tweaked and didn't the member quote the mapper said it was a lazy map or on those lines?

I have no clue, but happy with the way my teg drives and response

Good luck with the mods.

Personally I'd say the dyno would be the best way to tune, followed by tweaking on the road. Problem is, different mappers have different opinions on this, Bill will say road only, Ben will say dyno only and Bob will say a mix of both. Who is right? And who are we as consumers to judge? The issue is that there is zero regulation in the tuning industry in this country. If at work we need a Cisco expert to come in, we don't go on Facebook or forums and look at reviews, we look at CVs & look for someone with the appropriate qualification for example.

No such thing exists in the tuning industry so anyone with a laptop and access to rollers or the road can call themselves a tuner, load on a base map to someones car, call it a remap and make money. Because most consumers don't really understand the difference between a good map and poor map, or blame a poor map on other factors, they leave a good review because VTEC is lower and peak BHP is higher. We are even in a situation on some forums (the MLR for example) where bad reviews are met with legal threats from the companies they are about or cleaning up by the moderators because it's the traders who pay high fees to keep forum running.

My KPpro on the DC5 was mapped to my mods then put on another car with similar mods. Chris looked at the map and called it lazy tuning. I asked him about this and he said some part throttle parameters were very stock like and said that was lazy. For me though, the car was perfect on the road. It was only at the very end when I had low rpm issues but the suspect for that was the shorter final drive and gearing being wrong in KPro. Again, I'm a consumer, I work in IT and pay people who know more about this stuff than me.

I had an issue with mine on the dyno, I was the one with the 5Zigen catback which was strangling the car.

Because the exhaust was so restrictive, when VTEC activated the sudden rush of air would get stuck in the exhaust. Because these are mapped to protect the engine from leaning out and melting itself, the car would just dump a load of fuel in to counter the used air in the combustion chamber.

Sounds like a weird issue though, what exhaust manifold do you have on the car? Could also be a dodgy ECU?

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

There are a number of things I need to look at. It's been suggested that the flexi may be on its way out, that the decat that's fitted is a poor fit or the exhaust is on its way out. I need to look into it but with Spa next week and other priorities, I'm happy in the knowledge that the car has been safely tuned considering the circumstances and is still quick.

 

[Crazylegs]

Sorry to open an older thread.

Mine's going in for a remap with Chris on the 10th, I'm not a fan of VTEC being engaged lower as it currently is.

When he's remapping the car, is there any way of returning the VTEC engagement point back to what it used to be at OEM or is this not possible?

Many thanks

Marc

 

[Reggie91]

I just had my car remapped by Chris yesterday. He moved my vtec point slightly higher to around 4,7krpm which means it won't be engaged when cruising on the motorway (stock FD).

This does mean i lost 4bhp though for a short part of the rev range

 

[Crazylegs]

I just had my car remapped by Chris yesterday. He moved my vtec point slightly higher to around 4,7krpm which means it won't be engaged when cruising on the motorway (stock FD).

This does mean i lost 4bhp though for a short part of the rev range

Cheers mate, so he can move it then no problem? How do you find the car to drive now? Appreciate it's only been a day since it was remapped.

 

[Reggie91]

Cheers mate, so he can move it then no problem? How do you find the car to drive now? Appreciate it's only been a day since it was remapped.

Well i had a 188mile drive home. The cars a lot smoother than it was before, but it didn't make the numbers i was expecting. Chris thinks its due to my exhaust, so might swap out for a Solid Fab 3inch system.

 

[Chewy]

I just had my car remapped by Chris yesterday. He moved my vtec point slightly higher to around 4,7krpm which means it won't be engaged when cruising on the motorway (stock FD).

This does mean i lost 4bhp though for a short part of the rev range

Cheers mate, so he can move it then no problem? How do you find the car to drive now? Appreciate it's only been a day since it was remapped.

Technically you can move the Vtec point to any point you'd like. Doesn't necessarily mean that if you move it to engage at 1000Rpm that the car will be any quicker or make more power.

The Vtec point is usually placed at the optimum point for making power after a mapping session (Hence by moving it away, you've had a lose of power) However to combat the engagement while cruising at motorway speeds most mappers would set it up so Vtec would not engage unless more than 50% throttle is used.

That's how mines been mapped anyway...You can cruise (Once up to speed) at 6/7/8/9K with less than 50% throttle input without Vtec being engaged.

 

[Mebz]

My vtec is set around 3500 as that's when vtec lobe made more power.

Chris did say this might get annoying and that he has mapped the lower lobe to around 4000 so if I want I can change it.

 

[Crazylegs]

Well i had a 188mile drive home. The cars a lot smoother than it was before, but it didn't make the numbers i was expecting. Chris thinks its due to my exhaust, so might swap out for a Solid Fab 3inch system.

I'd take that with mine tbh, not overly bothered about the numbers just keen to get it smoother.

Shame your figs aren't better but it seems a 3" system is the way forward. I love the noise of my Kakimoto at low and mid range but when booting it it sounds too farty but I guess it's a sacrifice for having a nice sound most of the the time. I think I will be in the same situation as you and it will be down on power a tad.

How long did he spend on yours?

Technically you can move the Vtec point to any point you'd like. Doesn't necessarily mean that if you move it to engage at 1000Rpm that the car will be any quicker or make more power.

The Vtec point is usually placed at the optimum point for making power after a mapping session (Hence by moving it away, you've had a lose of power) However to combat the engagement while cruising at motorway speeds most mappers would set it up so Vtec would not engage unless more than 50% throttle is used.

That's how mines been mapped anyway...You can cruise (Once up to speed) at 6/7/8/9K with less than 50% throttle input without Vtec being engaged.

Thanks for this mate, interesting to read how it all works.

Will see what Chris advises when it goes in for it's remap however I imagine he will leave the VTEC as it is if that is the case.

My vtec is set around 3500 as that's when vtec lobe made more power.

Chris did say this might get annoying and that he has mapped the lower lobe to around 4000 so if I want I can change it.

Blimey, that's pretty low! That would do my head in tbh.

 

[Mebz]

I'd take that with mine tbh, not overly bothered about the numbers just keen to get it smoother.

Shame your figs aren't better but it seems a 3" system is the way forward. I love the noise of my Kakimoto at low and mid range but when booting it it sounds too farty but I guess it's a sacrifice for having a nice sound most of the the time. I think I will be in the same situation as you and it will be down on power a tad.

How long did he spend on yours?


Thanks for this mate, interesting to read how it all works.

Will see what Chris advises when it goes in for it's remap however I imagine he will leave the VTEC as it is if that is the case.


Blimey, that's pretty low! That would do my head in tbh.

Vtec only engages on high load. When you are light footed it's fine. I might raise it a little but it was fine on track so I probably won't bother.