Review of 034 Motorsports ECU/TCU Stage 1 E85 Tune + Customer Service Experience
New member here, but I thought I would share my opinion on the 034 motorsport ECU and TCU tuning products for my 2018 TTRS. New to the Audi scene but have been loving it so far.
I am a SoCal member and lurker of the forums showing a heavy favor for Unitronic for tuning/hardware. While I do plan on trying their hardware, I ended up going with 034's tune because they were "local" and the price/performance ratio was enticing.
From the start I had great interactions with Justin C. for questions on parts and ordering. I recommend anyone interested reach out to him. I ended up getting their Stage 1 ECU and TCU to run a 91 octane file on my barebones '18 TTRS (other than an 034 intake that came from the car's previous owner). Candidly, the software interface is not anything special, but it is simple and easy to interact with. It has the interactivity of a nice google form (which can be good for ease of use but obviously is not a power user software--though that is to be assumed as these are OTS tunes).
Flashing was relatively quick and the hardware tuning box + cord is of nice quality with its own carrying case to keep in the car.
Throttle response and driving dynamics were instantly improved. Much more linear power band out of the whole rev range and the shifts are quick/cleaner. Not to mention, the ability to rev out in neutral or park makes the child in me way too excited (sorry for being the guy revving in a parking garage
)Of course, this was not without its difficulties.
My initial at home flash failed without clear reasons as to why. However, a second attempt solved the issue and flashed the 91 file no problem.
My second overall flashing attempt was going to their Stage 1 E85 file (which is not something offered from other tuners at a stage 1 level from my understanding). And yes I am aware this is a lot of power to run on stock internals, however, it is a nice tune to have until I ultimately go Stage 2. After setting aside time to flash the car, I grabbed my local E85 and set up my garage with a 15A battery charger and got to work. Unfortunately, it failed. No reasons as to why. Attempted again no luck. Flashed to stock and reattempted still no luck. Clearly this was frustrating when spending $XXXX on a tune. Plus my car was technically "inoperable" due to the E85 in my tank -- no sporty driving without the e85 flash/draining my tank.
I reached out to 034 via email as their phones are off due to covid/overflow (which is frustrating in its own right but I digress). I was assisted by Eric L. within 24 hours and we were in constant email contact over a 72 hour period in which his team worked out the issue and reuploaded a new Stage 1 E85 file to their servers for me to flash. While it would have been nice if it worked from the start, 034 Motorsports support team worked quickly to solve my problem. And on that metric they deserve an A. All that matters is that a company backs their product when things go wrong and not when they go right.
Now I am running E85 stage 1 and wow. It is a fun time! Definitely a lot of power and you can tell the stock internals are flexing their muscle to maintain but happy to have it as an option.
TL;DR Justin and Eric and also Alex R. (another contact point) have provided me with endless support and made sure all products were delivered as promised and operating at a high quality. If anyone has any questions feel free to DM for more specifics.
Best,
Cojo
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Originally Posted by robotvoice
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