ECU tuning the 2003 forester N/A (5sp ej25)

[skep]

So it seems the 03-04 ecu cannot be reflashed but i was wondering if anyone on here had tried a piggyback system and if it worked well enough to justify doing it?? I am looking into delta 1000-1500 cams with a pnp, intake and full engine back exhaust and possible one day high comp setup. i have read of conflicting reports that the ecu should handle everything except of course the high cr setup. Just after a couple of thoughts n weather it is neccasary to tune it after the head work! cheers.

 

[duncanm]

have a look at eculabs before you give up. Can handle JECS ECU's.

But its an NA - is it worth the bother?

 

[taza]

Ive been down this road...
If you can do the work yourself its fairly cheap and worthwhile. Go for the 1000 cams like me, exhaust and a tune.
I also have a 11.2:1 compression and run stock computer. While it handles it fine i have to run 98 fuel.
You will gain zero benefits from an intake unleas anorkel which will only free up the engine at high revs... will loose power down low. The air has to travel long way and can loose throttle respon
se unleas doing hwy speeds.
I contacted ECU labs in france which can do some models of the Hitachi ecu found 02-05 NA foresters and Gen 3 outbacks.
I had planned to swap to an 04 Foz ecu tuned by ecu labs down the track to take better advantage of my setup.
However with the high ignition timing from the 2.0l computer my forester dyno'ed at 205nm at all 4 wheels below 3000rpm and onwards till 5000rpm where it dropped off. To put that roughly at the crank add 25%. So 251nm ish... stock my 2.0l had 184nm on paper. Your ej25 on paper has 220nm at the crank.

 

[NachaLuva]

Isn't ThrottleHappy from OzFoz.com able to reflash NA SGs & maybe even SFs?

 

[skep]

haha i currently own a 99 rex and foz gt back in the day and cant handle the power difference at times with the NA so i want to meet in the middle with some mods but dont want to loose the Nm down low either. yes i will be doing most of the myself. thats a fair increase on your setup tazz, is that with 2.2 heads? cool ill peep that site nachaluva. thanks for the input boys.

 

[taza]

Nope my Forester has a rebuilt ej251 from 2003 outback. runnning on the 2.0l computer. Will quite easily beat a stock Forester GT, manual or auto in any kind of race.
Abput 25% increase is torque and power over the standard ej251 NA...
The forester GT is gutless in comparison unless it has a few decent mods (I've owned two GT's).

 

[skep]

struth... haha nice yeah they run 7 psi on a 9:0 CR for memory. ok nice one, i ran mine at 11 psi and it went nice but hit boost cut or something to many time (go figure) (12psi boost cut) found a problem in my dueler a/t 215/65r16 when trying to reverse on an incline and hit the bank, kept sliding foward....prob never engaged the lsd......