Vcds Tuning

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Francoise Witsell

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Aug 3, 2024, 2:16:25 PM8/3/24

to timasnaca

I believe VAG-COM was originally developed for German cars, but work with Subarus. Not sure of the exact issues people are having and if they are driver/OS/PC related or not. Cost is aroung $30 on eBay.

Tactrix is the "original" tuning tool. Company supports the open source community. No known issues and updates come out every so often. Cost is around $65 for V1 and $170 for V2. V1 might not be available anymore, I am not sure. Purchase directly from Tactrix.

You need to download ECU Flash, Learning View and ROMRAIDER. Install these and the driver for your cable. Then connect to your OBDII port with one end of the cable and the other in a USB port on your laptop. Open ECU Flash and you can now read and write maps to your car (also have to connect two green plugs together located beneath the passenger glove box at the floor, at the edge of the carpet-only for ECU Flash). Open ROMRAIDER and you can now log. Open Learning view to get a snapshot of stored knock correction, read and clear codes. You can only use 1 program at a time.

I have not confirmed any difference in logging rates either way, but will check because I just bought an AP v2 (crossed to the dark side due to the big software update!) and would like to be at ease about selling the 2.0 cable. 2.0 works super easy! but if you are resourceful and methodical, vag com works too.

Oh, vag com is a little spotty with connecting to LV IIRC. you have to mess with it for several seconds to get it to recognize the ECU. So add that to the LV read delay, and you are out maybe 10 seconds on a really really laggy day.

I had a issue with my E-bay Vag com, during a 3rd gear pull, it would loose data Points, like it was being saturated with too much info. The Vag=com works on my N/A Soobies with Free SSM. I have Ver. 2 Tacrix, no issues at all, it's seamless, abit a bit expensive. What isn't for these cars?

There are a TON of posts, both here and over at the romraider forums, regarding which one to buy. Some work, some don't. I had a cheap one I bought off Amazon that turned out to have a different chipset than what was needed. Could never get full functionality, despite many, many hours of trying. Bought a Tactrix 2.0 - works perfectly.

To test your cable simply plug it into obd, the obd side of cord lights up on most but doesn't indicate anything other than it is connected to obd, then plug it into the computer while it is on and fully booted, if windows does not show the usb icon in systray or make a windows sound basically no reaction the cable is bad.