I'm just about to pick up my 03 WRX to replace my R32 GTR. The tuner I use swears by the F-CON Pro ECU, and I was looking at having it fitted to the Scoob once I'd sorted the basic mods.

It's £1800 for the ECU and map alone, but I noticed that Scoobymania have some good packages available using GEMS.

I'm assuming that there's not much to choose between the two ECUs? Although the F-CON is 32-bit, and I'm not sure if the GEMS is?

Does anyone know if that's the case? At the end of the day, they seem pretty similar in functionality so perhaps the Scoobymania deal is the better of the two? Unless my tuner will match their price with the F-CON

Cheers,

Iain

 

OEM ECUs more basic than the one in the car you are buying have more than doubled the stock power of the car. Search a bit on Ecutek if you haven't already.

 

I've had a look at the Ecutek - surely it's not as good as a GEMS or F-CON PRO?

I stand to be corrected though....

 

Not as good in what way? If you are running a remotely standard car, or even quite a modified one, then for many people it is by far the best choice unless they want to tinker themselves. The factory ECU (especially later ECUs) is not at all shamed in terms of processing power, resolution, manners, knock control, emissions, starting, idle, cruise, boost control, outright power, limp home/redundancy/contingencies/engine safety, compensation for engine wear/atmospheric/usage conditions, integration with other electronics and systems on the car, fault diagnosis, datalogging (although no internal memory on the Subaru OEM ECUs that is accessible to date). It does lose out on end user adjustability, and one of its big strengths - using a MAF sensor instead of speed density, is also a weakness if your intake packaging is compromised. It is fashionable to believe in standalones, often you are unplugging a potentially far more capable unit. My car on a relatively primitive MY00 OEM ECU reached c. 450 BHP and 400 lbft on a 2.5 swap with 740cc instead of 440cc injectors, I only changed for live adjustability when I went to a GT30R with 4" inlet plus a Power FC was easier to convert to speed density than the OEM ECU.

 

Great, thanks for that. Just what I wanted to know. I hadn't realised that the stock ECU was so capable in comparison to an aftermarket one.

Still a lot to learn about Scoobies...