I came across Edward and XRT quite by accident when perusing the
Australian Liberty forums. Initially I didn't pay too much attention as he was "just another tuner" but I noticed that a lot of people were posting up crazy reviews about this guy who was able to achieve tuning amazing results without ever seeing or sitting in your car. This intrigued me as I didn't know you could tune-by-email.
As I explored further I discovered the wonders of RomRaider and open source tuning and wanted to know more. The idea of tuning my own car didn't enter my head until I saw a post from Edward asking if anyone would like to explore the idea of tuning a 2.5i. I looked around and found that no-one had answered his call, so I had no way of determining whether or not anyone else had done it and if there were any results to examine to decide if I wanted to do it myself.
Edward had, however, tuned a lot of 3.0 cars. Since they are NA I figured that they can't be too different to my 2.5i. I read several 3.0 reviews and they were all glowing. Some of the improvement figured reported were downright amazing.
Since I couldn't find any negative opinion about Edward other than the paranoid types who think that plugging a laptop into a car is a good way to turn it into an all-wheel-drive brick, I took the plunge and emailed Edward some questions, which he promptly answered right away. Yes, he'd never done a 2.5i before and was looking for a suitable candidate. What also surprised me was his price - it was very cheap and this also spurred me on to consider taking him on.
But I was still up in the air about tuning a 2.5i. It's only a 2.5i after all, so it can't possibly improve as much as you can improve a 3.0 or a GT, surely? Edward asked me to send him a copy of my car's stock ROM so he could examine it and compare it to a 3.0 to evaluate where gains could be made. I went and bought a Tactrix OpenPort 2.0 cable and got him a ROM. I figured even if he wasn't able to support it, I could have some fun monitoring the car with the cable.
The next day Edward gets back to me and says the 2.5i and 3.0 ROMs are different beasts, but they do share a number of similar tables and Edward found other areas in the 2.5i ROM that he thought could use some tweaking. In short, he would definitely be able to support it and some gains should be achievable. I had already figured if I can get the driveability of the car improved, especially from-standstill acceleration, then this would be a Good Thing (TM). I was still with the expectation that I couldn't expect much in the way of more power or torque from a 2.5i, though.
Well, I was proved wrong. Very wrong.
It only took 12 late evenings, 14 ROM revisions, four tanks of fuel, more than 1,600 kilometres of test driving, and a partridge in a pear tree to arrive at what I now enjoy today - a road weapon! Edward has increased my power from 101kw at the wheels stock to 111kw, and raised my torque from 175nm stock to 193nm! That's 10% on both sides! For a naturally aspirated car with no modifications, that is massive! On top of that, my throttle is now incredibly responsive responding to the lightest of touches. The car is so easy to drive, doesn't feel "heavy" anymore and feels like a car that wants to be driven now, instead of being sedate and boring. The difference is so massive, that it's like comparing chalk to cheese and I am absolutely shocked that Subaru would sell these cars in such a massively detuned state.
To those who believe that just because your car is low-capacity and non-turbo that you can't expect any performance improvements, I am telling you right now that you are wrong. Edward has the expertise to squeeze every last drop of performance out of your hardware, and while mods can help, my improvements have come without a single modification - I am 100% stock and I am absolutely loving the car now.
Edward spends the time to properly custom tune your car not only for best performance but to your driving style. You tell him what you want and he delivers. You don't have to be a car expert either - just tell him in plain english what you feel out of the car, how you'd like it to feel and Edward will translate that into the technical modifications required. Your car is FINE-TUNED to ensure it's clean and most of all, SAFE. Safe for your engine and a more responsive car will also make it safer for you as the driver to be able to immediately respond to situations on the road. You will gain more power and torque and the tune will actually be safer for engine longevity than even the factory tune is which in my case showed how easily it could ping under regular high load! FOr the greenies out there, Edward will also deliver a fuel saving too, so his tune will quickly pay for itself over the next couple of years of refilling.
If you only ever do one thing to your car in its lifetime, then make it an XRT tune. It's cheaper than wasting money on buying a full exhaust system for fat sound or bling wheels to look good. A tune gets you so much more out of your car. It's the best bang-for-your-dollar investment you can make.
It has been an honour being Edward's first 2.5i to tune and now every other 2.5i owner can reap the benefits as well. I would also encourage anyone with a 2.0R to come forward and let Edward bestow the XRT nectar to you - you won't regret it! Subaru NA cars are actually really good cars!
Edward is a tuning master. He is always available on email and IM (he never sleeps!), he encourages you to ask questions and he will ask them of you too. He is very open and approachable and this level of communication makes working with him an absolute pleasure. I just cannot recommend XRT highly enough to you if you want to extract extra performance out of your car for minimum outlay. Why are you still reading this? Email Edward NOW!
