Hey guys, I always like to first state that I have done my research here and am leaning towards the FlashPro... However, when it comes to tuning and technology, I am not nearly as in "tune" as I'd like to be... I grew up building GM 350/383's and tuning my car with screws on a Edelbrock Carb... so...

I currently have an MY 04 with K&N FIPK, Buddy Club Pro Spec Dual, TP, and will be installing either a PLM Header or the First Racing F1 Header that I have sitting in my garage... I plan to also get the Hondata IM gasket. (I just don't see the fan switch and lower temp thermostat being necessary for aggressive street driving)

Suspension/Tires/overall looks and handling will be my only other future mods.

So my question is this... What EMS would get me the best bang for my buck? I do not want to make this a huge uphill battle with keeping my daily driver on the road. And I certainly can't afford to be tuning it and fixing things every other week. I need reliability.

Goal; Lower Vtec, adjust A/F ratios, end result putting down around +20 WHP better than stock. Then maybe I'll do Gears!

Any help would be appreciated! I truly think FlashPro would be best... But have no experience in this field so...

 

You can't get Flashpro, it only works on 06+ MY.

Gears will give better results than a tune.

Emanage Ultimate is the best bang for your buck IF you can find a tuner that knows how to use it in your area. You can find them used with harness for $500.

EMS is $800-1000 and you might not really see enough of a benefit over EMU to justify 2x the cost.

 

Lol @ doing your research and still leaning towards a product that won't work for your car...

ems or kpro, buy them used and you can recoup your money when you get rid of it. If all you want to do is lower vtec and adjust a/f, then look at a vafc.

Gears will give you more of a performance increase, though, FYI.

 

I agree that your research really didn't pay off for crap. However, it is a total FAIL to say that gears improve performance. Gears CHANGE performance! They don't IMPROVE it!

If you are a drag strip guy, get gears, but if you are a road course guy, stick with stock gears.

 

can't a positive change in performance (based on him wanting to accelerate faster) be characterized as an increase in performance?

 

Sure, but lower gears don't always cause better accelleration. If you're talking about drag racing from a stop, then lower gears will increase performance, but if you're talking about accelleration from somewhat random starting speeds, then lower gears won't always give increased performance. For example, if 2 S2000s that are totally identical except 1 has 4.77s were to do a rolling start drag race from 20 MPH to 90, the stock geared S2000 would dominate like a MOFO.

 

These should be your goals.

To extract every reliable ft lb of torque across the whole WOT RPM range. To achieve a good, responsive part throttle tune. To achieve, the best gas mileage possible.

You can't do that with any carb that I know of, especially all 3 at once. EFI FTW

Also don't go chasing numbers unless you have a baseline to compare it to.

 

Ok, so the research that I did 6 months ago on EMS obviously did not stick too well... Because I just guessed at going with the FlashPro... Haha, I should have just said I didn't do any research and let you guys yell at me

I think maybe it was Kpro I chose? Don't remember but if I recall, the Kpro seemed to be more mainstream as far as finding a tuner for it... Again, guessing a little here.

With the mods I have... What would be the main difference/advantage to going Kpro or Emanage over a VAFC?

And I have considered gears... When shifting at redline, I fall out of Vtec for a second or two... If 4.44's would keep me in Vtec, the car would be funner to drive for sure.

My main concern is; After reading tons of stories on here... It seems like the mid-range gain of around 20whp is just sitting there waiting to be tapped... I can't bare to know that for $500-600 I could lower Vtec, lean out the a/f ratio a bit, and increase my redline to 8500...

Gears costing over $2000 I figured I'd tune first.

Again, any and all help is appreciated. I can only afford to do this once, and do it right...

So

 

Changing the final drive gears will not change anything with regards to dropping out of VTEC between shifts. That would require changing the gearing for 1st and / or 2nd inside the transmission. Changing the final drive gears is just like changing tire sizes. Basically, it only changes the relationship between the prop shaft and the ground.

The biggest advantage of the K-Pro is that it is OBDII compliant, which will be very beneficial to anyone in Texas when it comes time to get a state inspection. If you don't mind swapping the stock ECU back in for inspections each year, then you can save some cash by going with the AEM EMS.

 

I assume you say this because you have first hand experience?

I will agree that below 20mph is where the gears shine but I disagree that the 4.10 geared s2000 will pull away after 20mph.

To the OP if your looking to make the car as fun to drive as possible. DO GEARS.