I have a TL AWD and wanted a few more ponies and thought about swapping the ECU for a VR-X AWD item. Any ideas/thoughts/advice greatly appreciated

Cheers

Best bang for buck ECU wise is to get a flash tune from Steve Knight Racing in adelaide.

yeah only problem i have with that is i live in Bunbury. Might have to go to RPW in Perth. Does anyone in WA have any recommendations?

In the TL-TW models, all the power gains between the base and VR-X models was through the free flowing rear muffler. It was only in the mid-TJ series and earlier that the base models had different tunes to the sports models.

Sweet cheers for that looks like i need to hunt down a muffler

Yes, the SKR tune is only for going to 95/98 RON fuel and also to make it a tad leaner.

yeah only problem i have with that is i live in Bunbury. Might have to go to RPW in Perth. Does anyone in WA have any recommendations?

Please dont do that, your car will never be the same agian lol

Best bang for buck before you even look at the ECU is either a 380 motor OR at least 380 cams with HM headers, this will open up the AWD just for starters. Unless you love a lot of drone dont touch the AWD exhaust, perhaps a sports / vrx muffler

I have the VRX and Sports ones here for the FWD which you can cut the pipe off your existing muffler and fit this set up to.

Please dont do that, your car will never be the same agian lol

Best bang for buck before you even look at the ECU is either a 380 motor OR at least 380 cams with HM headers, this will open up the AWD just for starters. Unless you love a lot of drone dont touch the AWD exhaust, perhaps a sports / vrx muffler

I have the VRX and Sports ones here for the FWD which you can cut the pipe off your existing muffler and fit this set up to.

Like Mal said, fit a set of HM Headers and you'll notice a lot more bottom end pickup. Mine already had the sports muffler and it droned alot until I had the headers fitted. Now it also produces a nice burble sound under load.

If you want a tune find someone local. Screw driving to skr, what a waste of petrol.

If you want a tune find someone local. Screw driving to skr, what a waste of petrol.

OR send the ECU over to SKR for a 98 RON tune, while not as good as a Dyno tune, unless the tuner is very familiar with the tune I would say that the SKR one would be just as good as a one off tune from someone not really interested or experienced in Magna's

Remember that the tune is SFA in the gain, this is an AWD remember not a FWD

If you want to see what a 380 motor with SKR tune in a AWD magna is like, make sure you come to the next WA event/meet :)

VRX/sports rear muffler, HM headers and SKR mailed ECU would be a good basic setup - there's no point changing the muffler without a tune as well.

there's no point changing the muffler without a tune as well.

Why..?

Well unless all you want is the exhaust noise. The stock ECU tune won't take advantage of a different flowing exhaust, if anything you'll lose back pressure and bottom end torque, which is bad for an auto. Sports/VRX magna has a different tune and the higher flowing muffler to get the extra like 8KW and couple of NM.

Sports/VRX magna has a different tune and the higher flowing muffler to get the extra like 8KW and couple of NM.
Like I said in my previous post, the earlier TJs had a different tune between base (150kw) and sports (163kw). However, by the end of the TJ II (and subsequently TL/TW) the tune was the same between base (155kw) and sports (163kw) - the exhaust was the only differentiating factor.

It should be the same for the OP. As far as I'm aware, the tune between FWD and AWD is the same, so what I said above still applies - just with the slightly less power of the AWD.

Well unless all you want is the exhaust noise. The stock ECU tune won't take advantage of a different flowing exhaust, if anything you'll lose back pressure and bottom end torque, which is bad for an auto. Sports/VRX magna has a different tune and the higher flowing muffler to get the extra like 8KW and couple of NM.

Rubbish. Simply swapping mufflers to a straight-through item will release extra power without touching the ECU. The freer flowing muffler allows the engine to breathe better

Like I said in my previous post, the earlier TJs had a different tune between base (150kw) and sports (163kw). However, by the end of the TJ II (and subsequently TL/TW) the tune was the same between base (155kw) and sports (163kw) - the exhaust was the only differentiating factor.
All of the 3.5s, except the Ralliarts, had the same fuel & ignition maps at least from the TH onward - I've looked at the maps in the ROMs.

I wouldn't say people who aren't experienced in magna ecus would do any less of a job tuning then SKR, which is proven numerous times, some cars gain 0kw, some gain 10... If you go to a tuner who in general knows what they are doing and can readthe ecu you will be fine.