JHM 3.0 ECU Tune Review - Komseh

B6 A4
#1

The first part of this review will be about my experience with the 3.0 ECU tune from JHM. The second part of this review will be about my experience with JHM.

Brief description and history of my car:
2005 Black Ultrasport
6spd MT (01X)
BGN Motor
mods:
034 track density motor & trans mounts
apikol blue rear diff mount
aFe air filter (31-10118 - Pro Dry S)
JHM extra short throw shifter

I bought this car in June '09 from a dealer in Alabama. The car had been sold back to Audi of America for a “loss of power” by the previous owner. Audi’s documented solution to the problem was throttle body replacement. Because of this issue I got a really good deal on a nearly mint car. Unfortunately the “loss of power” was not fixed until the coil packs were replaced under recall in 2010 so I experienced that excitement a few times. Nothing like going full throttle in second gear through a turn and then having the car jolt to a near halt. Enough story time and on to the review!

Right now I’m on day 6 of having the JHM ECU tune and I feel like it just keeps getting better. It’s important to note that I get 93 octane gas in my part of the country and I have a manual transmission so I’m not losing power to a torque converter.
Throttle response has been improved in several ways
First gear @ low RPMs - Throttle response has been smoothed out - car used to be really jerky in this condition
Low RPMS in general - The car is more tame when given light throttle input
It may be my imagination, but I feel like rev matching for downshifts is a lot easier and smoother now.

Power and torque improvement
3000+ RPMs mid-full throttle - I haven’t put the car on a dyno yet, and I won’t until I’ve done a few more things to increase output, but as Zingo’s woman put it, the car has balls now. The torque output of this motor has always felt nice, but now it has more power and torque available and I can’t seem to get enough of it.
In most cases I can’t seem to stop myself from scratching the itch that tells me to keep the car in the power band, always shifting at 4-5k rpms. I should start buying gas in bulk so I don’t go broke.

Real performance
Just as a test, I wanted to pit my car against my friend’s S2000. We did a 60-80mph run with both cars in their optimal power bands. Just so everyone knows, the S2000 AP2 curb weight is around 2800 lbs w/ 237 bhp and our cars are in the 3500-3600 lbs range. The S2000 had about 3/4ths of a car length on me by the time we hit 80mph. That’s pretty damn good considering the difference in weight of these cars! I expect to give better competition by the time I install the IM spacers, catless DPs, and mod the airbox. I will post a video at that point.

Launch Assist
I’m not a drag racer so I won’t use this feature very often, but I had the opportunity to test the launch assist out. Any launch I’ve done in the past has been at about 2500-3000 rpms and I slip the clutch for smooth acceleration. JHMs launch assist is serious! The car jolted forward with a force that I’ve never felt out of this car. I should have had my head planted against the back of my seat, but I didn’t and the car smacked the f*** out of me. As a disclaimer, make sure you get specific instructions from JHM on how to perform this, and don’t do it if you have any mechanical issues in your driveline because this will break stuff if it is not in proper condition.

In conclusion, I just have to say that I love my car 100% more now. I was seriously on the verge of selling this car and getting an e46 m3 or 1M before JHM announced their entry into the 3.0 market. I’m extremely glad they decided to do this for us and can’t wait to put more JHM stuff on my car, including whatever forced induction option they present.

#2

Review of my experience with JHM
I didn’t want to mention this stuff in or before the ECU review because I felt it would clutter and/or take away from what it needed to be.

The process of getting the JHM ECU tune into my car hasn’t been the smoothest, not to say that it’s any fault of JHM. It seems that I have terrible luck with this car. Back in the middle of August I was ready to ship my ECU off to JHM since I would be traveling for work and wouldn’t have needed my car. Unfortunately some jerkhole decided to run me off the road on my way home one night. The car didn’t receive too much damage, but was down for nearly a month.

JHM finally received my ECU on September 19th. JHM quickly found out that my ECU was some kind of remanufactured ECU. If you read earlier in the first post about the car being sold back to AoA, this makes perfect sense. I think the previous owner was very pissed off about the “loss of power” issue and some Audi technicians decided to start guessing as to how to fix the problem. I think they ended up replacing the ECU(and god knows what else) because of this.

The problem with the remanufactured ECU, as JHM explained it to me, is that the code is structured completely differently compared to a stock ECU. Think of it like a library that uses their own classification system instead of the standard dewey decimal system. JHM and I realized that the modifications that needed to be performed to the code would take significant more time than other ECU’s. We were nearing 5 business days of them having my ECU at this point, so they decided to give me a few options so I could get my car running. I chose to have them send me a new ECU for an AVK motor to see if it would work.

Tuesday Sept. 27th the new ECU arrives at my door and I run out and get everything hooked up. I was itching to go slam some gears and I started the car… Wait… why is it idling so rough and why won’t it rev above 1500 rpms? I cut the car off, called JHM and they informed me I should clear all ECU codes and perform a throttle body adaptation. Unfortunately after clearing the codes my ECU kept generating 4 DTC’s and the throttle body adaptation process kept generating errors.

I was pretty sad at this point that things were not going my way. We decided to proceed with modifying my remanufactured ECU. JHM estimated the time of completion to be a week from Sept. 27th, so I just accepted that I was not meant to have my car for another week and moped over to my 02’ f150 to ship JHM’s ECU back.

On Wednesday afternoon Sept. 28th I get a surprise call from the JHM tuner. I was expecting him to tell me my ECU had exploded or something. Instead he went on to explain the problems more in depth, that he would be working on it that night until it was done, and expected to be able to ship it out to me on Thursday. I was so f’ing relieved that something was going right.

The JHM tuner delivered on his promise and I received my ECU on Friday… Been slamming gears like an idiot ever since :slight_smile:

I think the main point that I wanted to convey in the second part of this wall of text is that JHM is seriously committed to this community. In my experience, it appears that their first priority is delivering a solid product. At one point I was worried that JHM might need to charge me extra for all the time they spent working on my ECU, and when I asked them about it they simply said that it wouldn’t be necessary.

JHM spent a lot of hours getting things ironed out in my ECU so that I could have the same tune as everyone else. They weren’t necessarily benefiting from the extra time spent with my remanufactured ECU either since it is so unique compared to OEM ECU’s. Obviously I knew what I was signing up for as an early adopter of their ECU tune and they did learn some new things from working with my ECU. We helped each other out, which is how things are supposed to work within a community.

I haven’t worked with too many tuning companies, but I would hope that they are all as dedicated to performance and professionalism as JHM.

#3

Reserved for pictures of my car when they’re ready.

#4

Thats great stuff Komseh

I know exactly what you mean, when you feel like you car is out to get you and not letting you drive her.

It looks like we both have issues with our ECU’s, Keaton told me this morning that the coding on mine is different to North American ECU’s but they are working on a file for me.

But their dedication and level of support is absolutely amazing, best company to work with

Glad to hear you have your car back ;D

#5

man you have no idea… another jerkhole ran into me in september 2009 and my car was down for THE BETTER PART OF A YEAR. that was the fault of PROGRESSIVE INSURANCE and BRIAN HARRIS AUDI. Seriously fu** both of those companies so hard. I laugh at progressive insurance because they spent like 80% of the value of my car after all the labor parts and car rental time. Assholes should have totaled it, but then I probably wouldn’t be here making this post of that happened. It must be… destiny.

You are a dedicated man to do all this from AU. You are the one with the blown motor too, right?

Just scratched an itch that’s been itching for a while now:
JHM Racing Pedals by SRP for B6/B7 A4 & S4 (all)(qty: 1) + JHM “Solid” Linkage Upgrade for B6/B7 A4, 2004 and up(qty: 1) + JHM 4:1 Center Diff Upgrade (Manual Trans Only)(qty: 1) + JHM “next level” Black T-shirt(qty: 1)

I was going to wait till the downpipes are out, but I figure if I give JHM some more money maybe they can finish the downpipes faster. :slight_smile: Can’t wait!

#6

Yeah thats me, very dedicated I still love my car even though it is broken and harbours nothing but bad thoughts about me lol…hopefully not too long now and I wont have to be the one remembered as with the blown motor ;D

When I got my first job I have always wanted a B6 3.0 with a supercharger, when I found out that there was nothing I was dissapointed. But now…I believe I can live that dream…

Funny I also had an order along with my tunes, except it included shirts, stickers, S4 brake pads and intake spacers

#7

Hi, S4 owner here. Just wanted to say great review and great to see support for the 3.0. Im excited for the mods coming for your car. Interesting to see the JHM pedigree sneaking over to the 3.0. I’d love to see an s/c for the 3.0!

#8

Agreed. Its great to see this myth of N/A cars being un tuneable being broken. Even better when there is a site that lets people get excited about it

#9

Im on the same boat. I think its working.

Great post man. Its cool to see your car is back up and running. I think after all the crap you went though now you paid your dues for the new excitement that is ahead

#10

I forgot to mention one thing, added it to the first post…

I’ve noticed that rev matching for downshifts is a lot smoother and easier now. I don’t know what changes they made to the way the throttle acts, but there are some really nice benefits.

now only if the throttle pedal wasn’t so much lower than the brake pedal…(makes heel-toe action difficult)