Utec is nice but its pretty invloved to tune if you dont have a dyno and someone to do it for you. the ecutek i think is a better choice becasue amstro can tune it and they are very near me. My buddy is getting the ecutek here soon so i will let you know how it goes.

 

Utec is better because you can tune it yourself.

Lets just say I have turboback exhaust and EcuTek.
The next day I get intake. And to tune this intake I have to go back to Mastro and pay them again to tune it. But when u have Utec you can do it yourself.

Here is my order I put tuning products in
1 Utec
2 Ecutek
3 Accessport

 

UTEC if you want to tune your own. Highly recommend you know what you're doing before going down that road. EcuTek is more a of fire-and-forget approach, but only recommended if you're going to do all of your mods at once. I'm not that familiar with the Accessport, but they seem to be pretty popular on NASIOC. There is anotehr standalone unit coming available for the STi, but I can't remember the URL for the company producing it. Supposedly it offers comparable OEM ECU functionality with completely tuneable parameters. It's something relatively new.

 

My preference:
AEM put out there EMS not too long ago, not sure if the STi version is ready yet though. Cost a lil bit more, but its a complete standalone computer as compared to the piggyback UTEC. Honda owners have been tuning on them for years, so i'm sure there are alot of people that can tune them. You can do pretty much anything you can think of with that monster, its a gorgeous piece of programming, and there is no wiring nightmare since it still plugs right into your stock ECU.


You basically pay for what you get. The Cobb setup basically consists of you sending them your ecu and them flashing it with their generic program for your mods and mailing it back. Problem is that everyone's car is different, let alone has different brand mods, so there is alot of power left on the table. There also isn't a very wide variety of maps. For this reason its the cheapest alternative.
Ecutek is basically the cobb tune reflash done for your car specifically. For this reason its more expensive yet it comes with no user-tunability. I believe there is hardware you can buy that will give you that ability (deltadash) but then you are basically getting a reflash and using piggybacks to make changes anywayz.
This is why so many have just bought the piggyback in the first place, UTEC, and it has been so popular.

 

Utec is not just better as a given, but different situations, cars, and needs all vary. What the driver plans to do with the car, be race or daily driver will decide on just what set up the individual will need.

In pasts post's ive read, hes not going to go much farther with the car than turbo back and some on's. so purchasing a Utec is just a waste. a Ecutec at mastro when hes done modding would be just what hes looking for.

Utec does have some maps that you can get, but this is not for someone who does not know what there doing. I have had friends who use aem, and utec and you need to know what your doing or your going to get your self in to trouble.