Special thanks to English Racing for letting me try out their new ACD Tune.

I can happily say that this is so far the most effective ACD tune I’ve used, and I’ve tried many. My tune was the 3 mode tune, not their newer 6 map tune. For me, the evo spends about 4-6 months a year with the battery on a trickle sitting in the garage, so I don’t know that I would need more maps. For anyone driving their car year round, probably a 6 map version with the factory Snow would be the way to go.

My maps were Tarmac:Autox, Gravel:Track, Snow:Street. I tested these while autoxing my car, though I haven’t autoxed my Evo regularly for a while (been driving the Mini). I could go through the play by play, but I’d rather list my general experience. My setup is: Ohlins 8k/10k, some bushings, stock sway bars, and Cusco 1.5 Type RS that’s very aggressive. Corner balanced and mild alignment specs. Power is around 300-320hp, and I’m on street tires (Dunlop Z1SS).

I believe the Snow:Street map is something similar to stock Tarmac, just for normal driving around town. Each level up in setting has an immediate and significant change in turn-in and throttle lift tuck. I’m actually surprised how much difference it makes. It definitely blows away the other ACD tunes I’ve had, all of which had this odd binding/restrictive feeling on turn-in – the opposite of what I was looking for. Those tunes probably just had too much lock up overall.

The ER tune basically does exactly what I was hoping for it to do. Corner entry IMO was the biggest weakness of the car, at least with my setup, and this tune makes a huge difference. It will still plow if you try to enter a tight corner without braking, but that’s just physics. I actually fishtailed in Tarmac:Autox trying to go through a slalom one time, which is enough oversteer for me lol.

In general, the car understeers less, enters corners better, and performs better in sweepers. On throttle, I can’t say that I noticed much difference. The Cusco is already aggressive enough to 180 if I keep the throttle down. I believe ER has different ACD settings depending on your car’s set up and I believe they scaled that down for me.

The only issue I’ve had come up is that the 3lights will turn on every once in a while when I’m sitting idling, which go away if I restart the car. No impact on driving or while I’m moving, and hasn’t been a factor for me.

IMO ER’s tune best accomplishes the original goal of what I was looking for when I started exploring ACD tuning. Basically I was looking for something with my 9 that matched the super-awc of the Evo X; I posited that a good ACD tune + an aggressive rear differential would match it – and I believe this combination has reached that goal for me. I recommend ER’s tune to anyone who’s interested in trying an ACD tune.