COBB said No for now. Others need to bug them.

[DaJackson]

Seoulful Racing (SFR) and BTR (Blood Type Racing, Inc) are two that I know of.

I wouldn’t call either of them big names.

They could be biggest names in KDM but neither are big like APR.

 

[Ritz]

Lap3 said their ecu tune will come on a spare ECU and will be about the same price as the pro tuner, so I’d guess $1300-$1500. No ETA. But yeah, wish we had more options.

With all due respect to Lap3 (they've been very nice to correspond with by email), I honestly don't understand their "we haven't encrypted it yet" mantra. It's not rocket science to encrypt and digitally sign the ECU firmware. I have zero data, but I suspect there is more to this story than meets the eye. I'd be happy to spend the money on a custom tune if there was some credible story around the ingredients and the software to achieve the end goal. I'd even go with a piggy back solution that had aftermarket turbos as part of the mix. The 3.3T platform has been out in the market for a couple of years now. I find it curious that the market hasn't scratched the itch. We're clearly missing some key bit of information.

Best,

 

[DaBears4Lyfe]

With all due respect to Lap3 (they've been very nice to correspond with by email), I honestly don't understand their "we haven't encrypted it yet" mantra. It's not rocket science to encrypt and digitally sign the ECU firmware. I have zero data, but I suspect there is more to this story than meets the eye. I'd be happy to spend the money on a custom tune if there was some credible story around the ingredients and the software to achieve the end goal. I'd even go with a piggy back solution that had aftermarket turbos as part of the mix. The 3.3T platform has been out in the market for a couple of years now. I find it curious that the market hasn't scratched the itch. We're clearly missing some key bit of information.

Best,

Tork is almost done with stage 2 and we all see what it can do with Tonkas car. I'm sure they can work a custom map for you. Hit up @Sales@Tork or @TorkMe

 

[Never thought]

With all due respect to Lap3 (they've been very nice to correspond with by email), I honestly don't understand their "we haven't encrypted it yet" mantra. It's not rocket science to encrypt and digitally sign the ECU firmware. I have zero data, but I suspect there is more to this story than meets the eye. I'd be happy to spend the money on a custom tune if there was some credible story around the ingredients and the software to achieve the end goal. I'd even go with a piggy back solution that had aftermarket turbos as part of the mix. The 3.3T platform has been out in the market for a couple of years now. I find it curious that the market hasn't scratched the itch. We're clearly missing some key bit of information.

Best,

I don’t disagree. They also indicated they keep changing the tune.

 

[RLam]

In4 a true flash tune. I’m not down with the piggy back business.

 

[Doel]

The issue is that there are virtually no Stinger sales. Few companies are going to invest resources tuning a sport sedan that isn't selling.

News - Sales Data - Sales Data - Kia Motors America Newsroom

The question is why. Audi isn't having any trouble moving A7/S7/RS7 vehicles even though they look like the Stinger and have similar features. Kia is either going to have to significantly cut the price, significantly increase "content", or offer a more competitive drive train....or some combination of those items. For what it's worth, the G70 isn't really flying off the lots either. Sales are in the hundreds. Kia/Hyundai needs to address the "why" and the market will show up with options if there are enough units out there to make it worth their while.

Best,

US Sales
2018, A7/S7 sales 3852
2018, Stinger sales 16806
January 2019, A7/S7 sales 620
January 2019, Stinger sales 939

I couldn't find a figure on the RS7, but I would guess a thousand or less were sold in the US in all of 2018.

 

[Doel]

I don't think our market is big enough for them. There's a pretty small amount of Stinger owners in the U.S. An even smaller number of those are interested in modding their vehicles. A still smaller amount are willing to change plugs to reliably mod their factory tune.

I agree, it's too small right now. Keep in mind that there are several cars that use this driveline, Stinger, K900, G70, G80, and G90. Three years from now you're going to see 10x as many 3.3TTs driving around. This is also when you're going to see a flood of cars hitting the used market due to leases ending and that's when a lot of serious tuners will start looking at picking up these cars. Typically serious tuners don't buy brand new cars, too much mark up on a new vehicle, especially when you don't care about a warranty.

I know this doesn't help us now, but I have a feeling the aftermarket for us is going to explode a few years from now. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see APR or Cobb jump on at that time.

 

[Ritz]

US Sales
2018, A7/S7 sales 3852
2018, Stinger sales 16806
January 2019, A7/S7 sales 620
January 2019, Stinger sales 939

I couldn't find a figure on the RS7, but I would guess a thousand or less were sold in the US in all of 2018.

Where are you getting that number for stinger sales? The link I provided (from Kia itself) shows 1,021 Stingers sold for the entire year in 2018. I included the RS7 in the list above since it's just a variant of the A7 platform.

Best,

 

[Kamauxx]

US Sales
2018, A7/S7 sales 3852
2018, Stinger sales 16806
January 2019, A7/S7 sales 620
January 2019, Stinger sales 939

I couldn't find a figure on the RS7, but I would guess a thousand or less were sold in the US in all of 2018.

Now factor in the other 8 years of A7 sales. Then add A5, A6, A8, Q5, and Q7 to your total.

 

[Doel]

Where are you getting that number for stinger sales? The link I provided (from Kia itself) shows 1,021 Stingers sold for the entire year in 2018. I included the RS7 in the list above since it's just a variant of the A7 platform.

Best,

1,021 Stingers were sold in January 2018, not the entire year....

 

[Kamauxx]

Where are you getting that number for stinger sales? The link I provided (from Kia itself) shows 1,021 Stingers sold for the entire year in 2018. I included the RS7 in the list above since it's just a variant of the A7 platform.

Best,

That's for January alone.

 

[Doel]

Now factor in the other 8 years of A7 sales. Then add A5, A6, and A8 to your total.

Not sure what those models has to do with it? If you want to add in sales totals from those models, you'll have to start adding in sedan sales from the entire Hyundai motor group.

 

[Never thought]

Where are you getting that number for stinger sales? The link I provided (from Kia itself) shows 1,021 Stingers sold for the entire year in 2018. I included the RS7 in the list above since it's just a variant of the A7 platform.

Best,

You must have been looking at just the December sales. Kia was averaging 1-2k Stinger sales a month.

 

[Kamauxx]

Not sure what those models has to do with it? If you want to add in sales totals from those models, you'll have to start adding in sedan sales from the entire Hyundai motor group.

They all share the same engine.

Add in the G80 sport and G70 and it still doesn't come close to all of the cars in Audi's lineup that share the 3.0 platform.

You're talking about 100s of thousands of potential customers versus under 50 thousand max.

 

[Ritz]

1,021 Stingers were sold in January 2018, not the entire year....

Ah...my bad.

 

[Doel]

They all share the same engine.

Add in the G80 sport and G70 and it still doesn't come close to all of the cars in Audi's lineup that share the 3.0 platform.

not understanding how sharing the same drivetrain makes a difference here when comparing sales figures? I was responding to someone who was comparing A7/S7/RS7 sales figures directly to Stinger sales figures. Cobb doesn't tune the 3.0, or any Audi for that matter anyway.

 

[Ritz]

not understanding how sharing the same drivetrain makes a difference here when comparing sales figures? I was responding to someone who was comparing A7/S7/RS7 sales figures directly to Stinger sales figures. Cobb doesn't tune the 3.0, or any Audi for that matter anyway.

It makes a huge difference. You can spread the development cost across a much larger number of sales. I suspect Cobb doesn't compete in the Audi space because APR and GIAC already dominate with a few smaller players also in the space. If I wanted to tune an Audi, I'd look to the incumbents with solid history instead of Cobb. For the platforms that Cobb services, I'd look to them first.

Best,

 

[Kamauxx]

not understanding how sharing the same drivetrain makes a difference here when comparing sales figures? I was responding to someone who was comparing A7/S7/RS7 sales figures directly to Stinger sales figures.

The sales figure comparison was being made to illustrate why someone might be more willing to develop a tune for an Audi (or that's how I understood it). Spending the money to develop a tune that can be applied to half a million vehicles makes much more sense than devoting resources to one that can only be used for 50k cars.

Cobb doesn't tune the 3.0, or any Audi for that matter anyway.

Replace "Cobb" with whoever does tune Audis and the answer remains the same. What platforms does Cobb tune? And how do their production numbers compare to the <50K cars running Lamba II TGDIs?

 

[brancky3]

Replace "Cobb" with whoever does tune Audis and the answer remains the same. What platforms does Cobb tune? And how do their production numbers compare to the <50K cars running Lamba II TGDIs?

Subarus mainly. GTRs too

 

[Kamauxx]

Subarus mainly. GTRs too

And just a wild guess, Subaru probably sells more Cobb tunable platform sharing vehicles in a quarter than Kiaundai's 3.3t will do in a year. And they've been doing it for more than a decade? (I don't know anything about Subaru)

If I were running Cobb I wouldn't bother with the 3.3t either.

In other tuning news, Tork says they've successfully cloned a spare ECU. They should be updating their website with more information in a week or so. So there's that...