TSP Stage 1 Tune for the 2017+ Civic Si (Cobra Race Support Included!)

[Eryan36]

Ah, ok, that makes sense. I wasn’t reading correctly, didn’t understand the boost switching. So, compared to the Hondata, KTuner gives you 3 switchable maps with two boost levels via the sport button. That’s pretty neat.

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[charleswrivers]

Ah, ok, that makes sense. I wasn’t reading correctly, didn’t understand the boost switching. So, compared to the Hondata, KTuner gives you 3 switchable maps with two boost levels via the sport button. That’s pretty neat.

They give you several more maps that that even when you include the basemaps. If you buy from TSP, they'll include the TSP state 1 which will include the set of 3 maps all as port of 1 file that are selectable via the OTF map switching without your Ktuner device installed. You gain the 'remember the last map I had selected via OTF' feature with the Ktuner device remaining installed, hence why I asked for them to swap maps to make the hot one the default map.

You'd still get all the basemaps Ktuner ships as part of their device, they're milder than the TSP Stage 1 map... but they're also unlocked, allowing you to do some safe customization (reduce turbo lag, reduce rev hang, change partial throttle boost, change throttle sensitivity, etc.)... or go out the deep end with making your own changes to boost tables, timing, fuel...etc. They will let you make whatever modification you want, just like you were a professional tuner, even if your ignorance would ultimately damage your car. That is not to say it is easy to mess up something... just possible if you decide to start changing numbers in tables.
The TSP Stage 1 is locked, allowing you to change nothing that would cause ill effects to your car. If you haven't already, I'd go to Ktuner's site... you can look at the product page for the device to see the basemaps they ship with. They also have a online help page you can read if you want more information on what all the enables and things that are user adjustable will do. It's where I started before I ever got the hotter, but locked down TSP tune. I do miss fooling around with maps, because I'm no professional but know enough to get myself in trouble with the info I know... but very little practical experience. It was a lot of fun though.

 

[ck42]

So reading MANY pages in this thread, pretty much all of the KTuner/TSP based discussion is based on Si usage.
Any operational/performance differences if used on a Sport model?

 

[5inn]

So reading MANY pages in this thread, pretty much all of the KTuner/TSP based discussion is based on Si usage.
Any operational/performance differences if used on a Sport model?

Pretty sure you can’t use the TSP Stage 1 on anything but an Si, so makes sense.

 

[ParkwayDrive13]

So reading MANY pages in this thread, pretty much all of the KTuner/TSP based discussion is based on Si usage.
Any operational/performance differences if used on a Sport model?

At this moment, TSP Stage 1 is only available for the Si.

 

[charleswrivers]

I just flashed my car back to factory for the first time since I originally started doing basmaps over a year ago to take it in to get the A/C looked at under warranty.

The car on the stock tune is *miserable* to drive. Slow. Laggy. Unresponsive. (Comparatively)

The sad thing is... it was a little better than my 9th gen Si when I originally bought it which means that car would be an absolute dog if I jumped into one out of a 10th gen Si with a tune.

Really... I never realized how much the lag being gotten rid of and allowing boost to build on partial throttle alone made the car better just driving the car day-to-day without thrashing it.

All of that being said... I will say the stock tune is fairly smooth and linear (boring) before it falls flat on it's face as you approach redline.

 

[davemarco]

I just flashed my car back to factory for the first time since I originally started doing basmaps over a year ago to take it in to get the A/C looked at under warranty.

The car on the stock tune is *miserable* to drive. Slow. Laggy. Unresponsive. (Comparatively)

The sad thing is... it was a little better than my 9th gen Si when I originally bought it which means that car would be an absolute dog if I jumped into one out of a 10th gen Si with a tune.

Really... I never realized how much the lag being gotten rid of and allowing boost to build on partial throttle alone made the car better just driving the car day-to-day without thrashing it.

All of that being said... I will say the stock tune is fairly smooth and linear (boring) before it falls flat on it's face as you approach redline.

I had the same experience when I flashed back to stock from TSP Stage 1 for a full month prior to trading in for the R. It was almost unbearable, with the sluggish part throttle response and that awful rev hang. It did the trick though - I wanted to appreciate the stock for stock difference between the two cars, and boy did I ever. It does make me wonder though - if KTuner turned the SI into a whole different beast, I wonder if it would do the same to the R?

Must... resist... the modding bug...

 

[charleswrivers]

I had the same experience when I flashed back to stock from TSP Stage 1 for a full month prior to trading in for the R. It was almost unbearable, with the sluggish part throttle response and that awful rev hang. It did the trick though - I wanted to appreciate the stock for stock difference between the two cars, and boy did I ever. It does make me wonder though - if KTuner turned the SI like a whole different beast, I wonder if it would do the same to the R?

Must... resist... the modding bug...

I don't know. I think there's a bigger difference when making a slow car less-slow vs than making a fast car faster. Still... I'm sure there's plenty of room for improvement.

The biggest thing that got me was that lag and partial throttle boost building thing. It'd readily come to atmospheric pressure on the manifold but simply wouldn't build boost unless I gave it a lot of throttle. It made it necessary to give the car a ton of throttle to get it to scoot. The throttle aggressiveness probably played a part too... as I'm sure you're at WOT long before you've got the petal to the floor on the basemaps with it enabled and I'm sure this as well.

One things for sure... the car on the stock tune, to me, doesn't feel even a little quick anymore. It feels very, very subdued and not very special at all. I don't even think TSP Stage 1 is even entering the realm of fast. We're talking about a 6-second flat 0-60... low 14-sec 1/4 mile car at best. It's just that it's so eager to go with all it's got compared to stock. Stock isn't rewarding at all to try and push it hard. It just seems to begrudgingly give you what little it has.

 

[joshhjackson2112]

I don't know. I think there's a bigger difference when making a slow car less-slow vs than making a fast car faster. Still... I'm sure there's plenty of room for improvement.

The biggest thing that got me was that lag and partial throttle boost building thing. It'd readily come to atmospheric pressure on the manifold but simply wouldn't build boost unless I gave it a lot of throttle. It made it necessary to give the car a ton of throttle to get it to scoot. The throttle aggressiveness probably played a part too... as I'm sure you're at WOT long before you've got the petal to the floor on the basemaps with it enabled and I'm sure this as well.

One things for sure... the car on the stock tune, to me, doesn't feel even a little quick anymore. It feels very, very subdued and not very special at all. I don't even think TSP Stage 1 is even entering the realm of fast. We're talking about a 6-second flat 0-60... low 14-sec 1/4 mile car at best. It's just that it's so eager to go with all it's got compared to stock. Stock isn't rewarding at all to try and push it hard. It just seems to begrudgingly give you what little it has.

Yeah.... having the TSP Stage 1 tune, I have no idea why anyone would want to drive the SI without it. i am not sure if I will have a reason to flash back to stock but if I do, it will be interesting to feel stock power again.
Did you have to unlock your ecu when you flashed back to stock for dealer work? Can I simply use tunerview on the head unit to flash to stock then just take out the ktuner device and drop if off at the dealer?

 

[davemarco]

Yeah.... having the TSP Stage 1 tune, I have no idea why anyone would want to drive the SI without it. i am not sure if I will have a reason to flash back to stock but if I do, it will be interesting to feel stock power again.
Did you have to unlock your ecu when you flashed back to stock for dealer work? Can I simply use tunerview on the head unit to flash to stock then just take out the ktuner device and drop if off at the dealer?

You can flash back to stock using Tunerview Lite and remove the KTuner for service.

 

[davemarco]

I don't know. I think there's a bigger difference when making a slow car less-slow vs than making a fast car faster. Still... I'm sure there's plenty of room for improvement.

The biggest thing that got me was that lag and partial throttle boost building thing. It'd readily come to atmospheric pressure on the manifold but simply wouldn't build boost unless I gave it a lot of throttle. It made it necessary to give the car a ton of throttle to get it to scoot. The throttle aggressiveness probably played a part too... as I'm sure you're at WOT long before you've got the petal to the floor on the basemaps with it enabled and I'm sure this as well.

One things for sure... the car on the stock tune, to me, doesn't feel even a little quick anymore. It feels very, very subdued and not very special at all. I don't even think TSP Stage 1 is even entering the realm of fast. We're talking about a 6-second flat 0-60... low 14-sec 1/4 mile car at best. It's just that it's so eager to go with all it's got compared to stock. Stock isn't rewarding at all to try and push it hard. It just seems to begrudgingly give you what little it has.

I would agree - I think that the stock tune was kept artificially lethargic in order to trick you into feeling like the car pulls harder as you enter the upper part of the rev range. Once you unlock the true low end power with KTuner, it becomes apparent that the power peaks rather early and then dies off. Despite that though, tunes like the TSP stage 1 made it feel like the car was flying when you stepped down. There's definitely a major level of fun to be had there.

 

[Design]

I don't know. I think there's a bigger difference when making a slow car less-slow vs than making a fast car faster. Still... I'm sure there's plenty of room for improvement.

The biggest thing that got me was that lag and partial throttle boost building thing. It'd readily come to atmospheric pressure on the manifold but simply wouldn't build boost unless I gave it a lot of throttle. It made it necessary to give the car a ton of throttle to get it to scoot. The throttle aggressiveness probably played a part too... as I'm sure you're at WOT long before you've got the petal to the floor on the basemaps with it enabled and I'm sure this as well.

One things for sure... the car on the stock tune, to me, doesn't feel even a little quick anymore. It feels very, very subdued and not very special at all. I don't even think TSP Stage 1 is even entering the realm of fast. We're talking about a 6-second flat 0-60... low 14-sec 1/4 mile car at best. It's just that it's so eager to go with all it's got compared to stock. Stock isn't rewarding at all to try and push it hard. It just seems to begrudgingly give you what little it has.

Part of that is for MPGs. Honda really keeps the boost conservative at partial throttle. Even a little tip-in under boost will absolutely destroy fuel economy.

 

[charleswrivers]

Part of that is for MPGs. Honda really keeps the boost conservative at partial throttle. Even a little tip-in under boost will absolutely destroy fuel economy.

Makes good sense. At ~75-80 mph... the car is sitting right at 0 psi/inHG. It takes quite a bit more throttle to get more than just a pound or two of positive pressure in the manifold. Good for minimal pumping losses I suppose.. but man, you've got to really dig in to get the turbo to spool on the factory tune. I bought it back in November of '17, bought my V2 on Black Friday and had it tuned right at the turn of '17 to '18 after the car was broke in. It's just been so long since I drove the car untuned... and even then, it was for such a short period of time.. I was pretty shocked how different the car was.

Back when I went away from the basemaps to TSP Stage 1, I wouldn't consider the 23# basemap to TSP stage 1 an enormous difference... but it's certainly an incremental step up and the top end is there, where it is sorely lacking on the basemap. TSP stage 1 to stock tune though? It's shockingly different now... going back. The engine reacts so different to throttle input, it hardly feels like the same powertrain.

 

[charleswrivers]

Yeah.... having the TSP Stage 1 tune, I have no idea why anyone would want to drive the SI without it. i am not sure if I will have a reason to flash back to stock but if I do, it will be interesting to feel stock power again.
Did you have to unlock your ecu when you flashed back to stock for dealer work? Can I simply use tunerview on the head unit to flash to stock then just take out the ktuner device and drop if off at the dealer?

I did unlock based on another thread where Ktuner recommended an unlock, so in the event the service department had a ECU update, the update file would replace the factory tune that's saved in the Ktuner device.

As to the other question, I have a V2 and don't have Honda hack or any app I use... with everything I do being through the unit so I can't really say. I don't ever have my tuner in my OBD2 port. I have the 24.5# map in as map 1 so the hot map runs by default on startup.

 

[Eyell4716]

I wish they would come up a tune for the non si too.. @Two Step Performance

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