Integrated Engineering IE Stage 1 91oct ECU & TCU Tune Review - 2016 S3 8V
My name is Michael and I own a 2016 Audi S3 8V. Today I wanted to post a little review of a product pairing that I feel the community seriously NEEDS to look into... Integrated Engineering's 91oct Stage 1 ECU and TCU tunes! Let's start off with explaining the reason for me using 91octane versus 93octane. I live in Colorado, and that's the best we have, end of explanation
. I've owned my vehicle for a few months now and have enjoyed it a ton since day one. Everything from the daily comfort, to power, to handling on both the street and the track has been great... But I knew it could get better from here. If I had to complain about one thing from the factory, it was whenever I found myself driving around in "D" I felt the car would rush to 6th gear as fast as possible, and it often forced me into using "M" mode damn near all the time so I could choose exactly when I wanted my upshifts and downshifts to take place. Yes, that's a first world problem lol but hey, we all get lazy sometimes and just want to let the DSG do the work, right?
Now, I'm not a new comer to Integrated Engineering. I've utilized their tuning, and in most cases hardware too, on my 2013 VW Mk6 Golf R (Stage 2+PRO), my 2017 Mk7 GTi (beta testing Stage 2), my mother's 2016 Audi Q3 (Stage 1), and more recently my father's 2016 Audi S3 (Stage 1 just like my own S3)... So I knew exactly what I was getting into here. IE is a name you can absolutely trust, and it's a name you KNOW you'll be getting your dollar's worth when it comes to performance, reliability, and overall fun. I was extremely excited to get to test out their S3 software! Now on to the fun part...
So the way this all starts is you place your order with IE to have a OBD Dongle shipped out to you, and they add "credits" to your account for use on their server to purchase the tune file at the time of the flash process. All of their tunes are stored on their server. So once your cable shows up, to start, you hop inside of your car with a laptop in your driveway or garage. That's right, you don't need to drive to a shop to have your car flashed! You plug in the OBD Dongle, download the IE Wizard Flash Software, connect in to your car (with key in ON position), register your VIN to the cable, select the tune you want to flash, purchase it with the credits on your account, and hit the FLASH button! Now you wait roughly 30 minutes for the flash to upload to your ECU, and in my case the TCU only took about 5 minutes. You'll hear lots of error chimes and see lots of fault codes pop up on the dash, IT'S TOTALLY NORMAL FOR IT TO DO THIS. Once the flash is 100% uploaded, the IE Wizard screen will display a message confirming it is complete. Turn your car to the OFF position, open your door (to turn everything completely off), then shut your door, and restart your vehicle. I found that if I didn't do the whole open and close door thing before restarting the car, it would give me a CEL that'd end up going away the next time I started the car up. Again, this is completely normal, so don't panic if it happens to you.
It took me all of 5 seconds to realize how much better my S3 drove with their ECU and TCU combo! Just pulling away from my house, I noticed how much smoother the DSG was shifting and how much more efficient the modified shift points were. From a stop, the car engages 1st gear much quicker than it did on the stock TCU tune, which feels SO much smoother and more natural. Also, no more rushing to 6th gear in "D" mode! The car happily drives around town now at 2k~ rpms instead of sub 1500rpms like stock. Also you'll notice with the IE TCU tune, the shift speeds are incredibly fast. If you think in stock form your DSG shifts quickly, just wait until you see it with IE's TCU tune! IE also activates two really cool little features on the MFD display. One being in "D" and "S" modes, you now have the gear number indicator active, so you'll know what gear you're in at all times. Second, in "M" mode there will be a green up arrow for suggestive upshift points. Now I could go on for days about how much of a difference the TCU alone made to the car, but I'm too excited to talk about the ECU portion of this review, so let's get to it
. At first WOT in 3rd gear, I couldn't help but yell, "HOLY $H!T!!!" 
"THIS CAR RIPS NOW!!!". Seriously, the IE Stage 1 91octane tune produces 359hp & 377tq... and tonssssss of evil grins! I have driven a APR Stage 2 S3, and my IE Stage 1 car actually feels faster! It all happens very smoothly too. At no point do I feel any kinds of weird twitchiness, delays, stutters, or power loss in the rev band like other tunes I've driven. You mash the pedal from 3k rpms to 7k rpms and the power just keeps on comin'! If you aren't satisfied with your current stage 1 or stage 2 tune, I would highly suggest you give Integrated Engineering a shout and give it a shot! Let them know I sent you 
I can't even begin to express how happy I am with this IE Stage 1 ECU and TCU combo... I'm very excited to be trying out the Stage 2 setup in a few weeks! Stage 2 is rated at 399hp and 426tq!
If any of the Audizine members on here are located in Colorado, feel free to hit me up if you want to go for a spin! I'd love to show everyone what this is like! I plan on attending at least 6-8 open lapping days in 2019 as well, so there will be TONS of hard on track testing of IE's software and their hardware. I'll be sure to report back to you all! But so far, it's incredibly, and I couldn't be any happier of a customer!
Feel free to keep a eye out for in-car videos of my testing via my YouTube channel, ElevatedSpeed:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTG...UV4p_P40EdyelA
IMG_1017 by Michael Pastore, on Flickr
IMG_1015 by Michael Pastore, on FlickrI would like to thank everyone who took the time to read my review here and, as always, if you have ANY questions at all, please hit me up and let's chat!
If you're interested in IE's products, follow this link to their website! http://www.performancebyie.com/?ref=fa6f
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Originally Posted by normcaldwell
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