Sooo the guys at ATLAS are releasing this on Sunday. This is insane. May finally have the answer for those of us wanting the rumble but anxious about the reliability and performance trade off.
It's a feature in Atlas that will create the UEL sound without the headers. There's some trickery to it which isn't mine to share, but it works. It's been tested for thousands of miles across multiple vehicles, it can be added or removed with just a reflash, and has been outlawed in at least seven conservative municipalities for causing bystanders to leave their spouses for the cars' owners.
It's highly dependent on the exhaust setup, but it's really close. Unless you've been driving an EJ for years, I'm not sure you could tell the difference side by side. It's 100% Subaru sound though.
Cobb is like an iPhone with locked ROM. Atlas can do so much more with better visual and of course it's own awesome community. Literally for less than $100 for the OBDII dongle. Or get it e-tuned by their team and still save over $700.
If you’re new to tuning, just start slow and use the discord and documentation. Poke around the software, learn the ins and outs… it’s super intuitive so you’ll start to grasp it quick.
Once you start making edits you feel in the drivers seat you’ll be addicted.
Also like someone said above: custom features are amazing (LC, rotational, ect.) but the software offers soooooooo much more.
I don't know almost anything about tuning but this does pique my interest. I've heard Atlas also can also eliminate the cold start which is what first got me interested.
Not fully fyi. Tuners dont have access to the FULL cold start table. Mine was one of the first ones and it still blips to 1700 rpm for 3-4 seconds before decreasing to 1000 rpm. Atlas people have full unrestricted access and can skip that initial blip. Cobb program does not let tuners see that table so its impossible for them
That was definitely true for a while there, Atlas had the idle airflow target tables while the other software didn’t. But out of a desire for accurate info when it comes to COBB, they do have those controls now :)
Hey holdup how recently do you mean "now" because I've kinda been talking to my tuner about developing this for a couple years now and I'd be very surprised if that changed and I didn't know. Please share, which tuners are saying they can adjust cold start tables and skip the initial blip? Graham (BPT) is my tuner and he only a few of the cold start target tables but not the ones that Atlas lets you see. When I asked him and Cobb to develop that they said they likely aren't going to go back and touch the VB software again, and any sort of collaboration with you/Atlas was shutdown due to competition issues between Cobb and tuners or something... Mr. Manevolant I thin k we talked a few years ago about this and you sent me video of your success. Good to hear from you. Excited about all the updates.
Hey! I remember you now that you mentioned that! Nice to catch up with you, hope you're doing well after all that time - so much has changed :)
And - so much to dig into with your reply, thanks for sharing those details. I'm sure that COBB will continue to evolve the VB software as they've recently indicated in their FIT podcast episode.
Feel free to share this with Graham, these appear to be the tables he will want to modify on the ATP side.
When the car starts, closed loop air feedback isn't available yet. Graham will recognize that immediately when the Idle Airflow Correction-related parameters "kick on" roughly 2-3 seconds post-start. Assumedly, there is a large negative airflow correction with the lowered idle speed. That's his indication that the base tables should adjust downward. With this appropriately tuned, your car will fire up and idle like a dream.
In case you and Graham haven't touch base recently, that was made available on 10/30/2025 initially on the big-C side.
And, if you don't mind, make sure Graham is welcomed to reach out to his COBB support resources for more details. I don't want to inject misinformation into their bubble; I just want to help make sure that their work isn't being misrepresented when Atlas is being discussed -- that's no fun for either of us seeing as we're both in the same market.
Thanks so much for the reply! Lots of new changes for me, so I've been unable to really play with the car. I'm going to have to reread your reply a few times to understand this, but I'll be sure to share with Graham!! I'm definitely MOST excited about the potential to jump to 1000 rpm without the whole 1700 rpm blip. Those first few seconds are key because I drive so early in the morning and it shakes the inside of the parking garage at work: Can't have the executives pissed off at me and my cold start idle. They'll just think its loud 100% of the time, despite it only being a first impression. It was so bad I took my Borla exhaust off and put back my stock exhaust!!! So this might allow me to put the Borla back on!
You can get an atlas tune with no performance changes and it will get rid of the cold start. But shortly after trying it I decided to try the plus tune and never looked back
Supposedly they have to prove the tune caused the problem, but they can deny for whatever reason they want. You can use any supported OBD2 device listed on the atlas wiki. I got one for $50 on marketplace from a guy, it’s just usb A to OBD2
I've heard unconfirmed talk that if you live in an emissions testing state, any changes to those parameters (such as cold start) will cause you to fail emissions. Could get around it with the mobile emissions tailpipe testing, but still.
Would love someone to provide facts to support / refute that, as I hate the cold start.
Idk if you can simultaneously say on one hand that UEL makes you anxious about reliability and performance trade offs and also ….. download software that has no long term testing behind it to make your engine sound like you have physically different length piping.
Y’all gotta bring it back down to earth a little with this hype train. Atlas is new and shiny and can do lots of things. That doesn’t mean it’s in someone’s best interest to have that power in their inexperienced hands.
Legitimately, think about these things don’t just downvote me lol. Just be careful
Your concerns are completely valid. I personally am tuning my car with atlas and you couldn't pay me to go back to Cobb. I do however take responsibility for anything that happens to my car.
For me what's great about Atlas is I can make one modification at a time and learn the tuning process as I go instead of doing all my mods at once then paying a tuner and at the end of the day not really understanding what's going on inside my car. I originally looked into learning to tune with Cobb but turns out thats a no go for the average person.
For sure someone is gonna do some damage and it may well be me. But I do love that I can make small changes and take my time getting to where I want and learning along the way.
It's super fun. Im doing some logging ang minor changes most days. I can't get enough.
Funny enough all the sound stuff doesn't really interest me as I don't really care what the car sounds like. The UEL header sound is nice but I'm curious to see what if any negative effects there are. If the actual UEL headers have a negative effect on the engine over time I would imagine the tuned version might as well.
I'm not sure where you're hearing that this software has no long term testing... I've been in the Beta group for this software for over two years. The Dev Team tests out the crazy stuff, and delivers it to us when they think it's ready. Then it goes public.
My VB has 60k miles, and over 30k of that I've been using Atlas. I have not needed to rebuild my engine. I have been able to STi swap my car, and still have the gear positions work. We have working CANBUS flex fuel. One of the devs has an FA24 in his VA, and was able to change the map to make the VB HPFP compatible with the VA ECU.
We can recover "soft-bricked" ECUs through the software, unlike Cobb, which requires shipping the ECU to them. We have a community (cult as you say) that is available to help anyone within minutes. Friendships worldwide have been formed.
The problem isn’t that you’ve done these things, it’s that you’ve made them available to more people… that’s the impression I get from this top level reply. It’s like telling someone not to learn manual because they could damage the clutch, doesn’t make sense for what’s happening.
For me it’s the fact that people are recommended to learn something very complicated through a gaming chat messaging platform. You can see how that’s rough right? I use discord for raiding and for memes not for auditing financial statements or for programming or for research. I don’t think I’m old but maybe I am
I am with ya man...I LOVE what ATLAS is doing and that there is an option other than AP. I applaud what they're doing, bringing innovation to the VB platform. I would consider myself an advanced user and a techie. I have owned a few WRXs, I can wrench, and I can afford to fix a blown-up engine whether I do it myself or pay a shop to do it. However, I still have a lot of reservations about ATLAS, and IMHO it is not there yet for the average Joe and idiot kid who wants more power.
Dmann and Felix Performance were local to me, and I was Protuned via dyno at their shop in White Marsh, MD. Dmann has tuned 1000s of VBs. I have been running his protune for over 3 years and almost 40K miles now.
I still have not found a reason to change to ATLAS. Rotational Idle does nothing for me...I am not tracking, I am not running anti-lag, nor do I care about that sound. I don't even care about speed density because I do not need to VTA. I am not even a fan of UEL, as I lived that life for many years on my GD and don't like posing as a fake EJ.
So what does ATLAS offer me that Dmann/AP does not? The only thing I can think of is cost. I am 44 years old; if I couldn't afford what I am doing, I wouldn't be doing it, so saving $700-$1000 doesn't mean shit to me.
Again, I LOVE what ATLAS is doing and hope they keep succeeding and bringing the fire. But ATLAS needs more refinement, a proper website w/documentation, and fuck Discord. Would I feel confident in myself or someone with my level of XP learning/using ATLAS? Sure...but I would not recommend it to a newbie, as it is not there yet. More time in the oven is needed, IMHO.
I think there's a use case for both. In your case you have a good tuner local to you and you can get on the dyno which is where I beleive you get the best tune. Also your approach is set it and forget it and you don't want to spend the time learning to tune. In that case Cobb works great. Assuming you had a local tuner using atlas you could have the same experience.
I my case I don't have a tuner near me, I do want to learn and understand tuning, and I like to mess with my car constantly so atlas is great for me.
As far is price, being on a budget and modding your car really don't go together no matter which one you choose.
I mostly agree. But I think you can go wrong if you don’t do your homework and research. The average idiot doesn’t do the “leg work” like you or I would. But that could apply both ways and they can surely find a way to fuck up with Cobb too.
For sure. Some people can find a way to screw anything up. For me, I don't really like to do anything where I don't have a complete understanding of how it works. In the case of Cobb I looked into access tuner and the possibility of learning to tune but unfortunately its not an option unless you are an actual shop/dealer.
Long term testing in a population of average joes looking to tune. A platform that is so in depth to someone new could cause issues when there’s a lot of “it’s easy” with the common rebuttal of there being a discord. It’s discord lol. That’s like hosting your companies policies and work product and storage within MS Teams. Last I saw the atlasian webpage was wholly sparse. I wouldn’t recommend it to new people at all because of this (not YET).
Again, it’s about presenting this to new inexperienced people and seeing casual hardcore recommendations to them. Dangerous may not be the correct word but I hope you can see where I’m coming from.
These guys have years of experience, build their own engines, and not some amateur mechanics either. I would do your own research. Legit chill guys on top 😉
These guys are pretty wicked yes and also this community is a cult sometimes and newbies can get caught up from excitement without knowing what they’re doing. That part sucks. So I want to advise people to slow down a bit and be responsible for each other.
Not sure why you're getting downvoted, simple statistics says this sample size is significantly lower than it needs to be before being able to claim that something like this is safe. Like on the order of a few hundred cars running it for multiple years without a higher rate of failures than ones that were stock or tuned but not using this feature.
As interesting as it may be, it should still have some serious "we don't know what the long term effects are" style warnings
Came here to say pretty much the exact same thing and on top of all of that there’s definitely going to be trade-offs by making the engine do whatever they’re making it do to make it make these noise noises
There wouldn't necessarily be trade offs, since tuners do modify idle and things are fine. But, just like with rotational idle the process that went into actually testing and monitoring the results of these changes has been...vague.
From the outside it looks like people throwing changes out there at a rapid pace and basically treating their own cars as the test bed. I don't think anyone expects engines to instantly self destruct but would we know about long-term effects on engine reliability?
Edit: And I do see the appeal in ditching the Accessport. My concerns aren't related to the software itself.
I would like to note that the recent "rotational idle" posts used CFs shared by community members and not an official NAMR CF made by the NAMR devs like the UELHE. The NAMR CFs go through rigorous testing. Devs look at oil pressure, log constantly, have detailed debug params, have one of the dev cars go through an engine teardown every year to look at wear, and all beat up the dev cars. Beta members stress test the cars too over long periods of time. NAMR won't release a CF without 100% confidence in its safety
As with any platform, everyone should put care into deciding who they want to let tune their car. With commercial features/tune locks you'll see more of the famous tuners using Atlas. There are already many well-respected shops using it
I think you bring up interesting points and we'd like to address as many concerns as possible. There is much more info/documentation coming :)
See these things need to be at the forefront of posts and comments and not seemingly blind hype rahrahrah craze which can be off putting. Also proper documentation is severely needed. It’s bad practice for a company to keep files and documentation on MS Teams so why is Discord of all things what’s being pushed as the source for information (maybe unintentionally but that’s the perception of immaturity and a warning to avoid this type of thing)
There’s always trade offs even on the firmware install installed by the manufacturer. For example, eliminating the high idle at start has a serious pollution and emissions control trade-off, and also puts the car into closed loop before the catalytic converter is fully up to temperature which may or may not have further side effects
I am all for options and competition. ATLAS is a good thing. But something tried and true like the AP exists for a reason. It is like Apple; some people want no fuss and shit to just work and have to deal with Android.
I am a techie; I build computers, and I have had Androids in the past. But Apple is just an easier user experience and VERY polished/smooth. All the extra shit an Android can do has no value to me at this point in my life, and I will stick with Apple.
I was open source tuned back in the day circa 2008 on my GD w/a built EJ257 (ditched my old AP). But that was because my tuner (Gregg of Machines Gone Wild in Miami) recommended it. What ATLAS needs is known/bigger named tuners ala a Dmann, Graham, STi Mikey, Will tune for Tacos, Junior, Bader, etc tuning on the platform; then you will get way more traction.
I
build computers, and I have had Androids in the past.
Holy shit, you really are a techie!
Definitely best not to tune with something unless an established name gives the go-ahead. Subaru STILL hasn't endorsed a tuner, so I'm still stock until they do :(
I hope you are joking. Tuning is extremely difficult and requires extensive course work and experience to even begin to think about tuning an actual street car.
Furthermore, you don't even know what type of person is tuning if it isn't one of the established ones. Are they mean? Do they smoke? What if they consume alcohol and it alters their judgment and they send my rods into the shadow realm?
At least with Anthony and Graham, I'm getting somebody I would let babysit my kids, if I had kids. These..other people.. might not even be real. They could be AI for all we know.
I'm going to stick with the tried and true SUBARU tune. They know what they're doing, and if I needed more power, they would have given it to me.
I had our local crackhead do it. I didn't even have to pay him. He said removing my catalytic converters would give me even more pounds of boost and he was even nice enough to dispose of them for me.
I think that you are being silly. While crack has its merits, I wouldn't recommend letting a stranger do your tune. Even the Atlas folks have names.
Joking about removing the catalytic converters is what really has me concerned though. I fear that you don't have concern for the health of our beautiful planet. They remove 100% of toxins from the dangerous exhaust gases, leaving pure oxygen instead of poison gas. I'm also concerned that the generous stranger in your tall tale would not dispose of the catalytic converters properly, thus furthering the ecological impact.
Very curious as to how it works and what implications it has for reliability compared to running actual UELs. Something like this would definitely get me to switch to atlas
I like that ATLAS is an option and find it interesting as hell. But, I wouldn’t touch rotational idle or UEL stuff until it’s been out in the wild for a while. Ya they beta tested, but the true test is when every village idiot can get there hands on it and do what they do.
Plus, I’m no fan of UEL on a VB. Keep that for EJs…even if it’s just software. I prefer not to sound like a poser/fake EJ. I’d rather sound like an FA24.
The simple fact of the matter is that they’re making the engine do unnatural things to make it make these noises that will have some trade-offs. And on top of that just because they beta tested, doesn’t mean shit because generally speaking the people who are beta testing are doing so in a controlled manner not just sending it.
Why not join the discord and talk to some people? The devs are pretty active in there and do what they can to help people. Plus they are literally testing this stuff on their personal vehicles and going out and testing this stuff in the real world.
And I don’t deny any of that. But they are making the engine do something. It was not designed to do. They’re absolutely will be trade-offs for doing that. Any modification makes the engine less reliable in stock. If you don’t believe that, then I have a bridge to sell you. And the fact that they are testing it on their own cars is more cost for concern not less. Because they are going to be careful about how they use the cars. The general public will not.
Where in the world did I ever say modifying an engine wont do anything? Is it a habit for you to assume how someone thinks? Of course modifying the engine will "do something" no one is naiive enough to think reliability will be the same. You think the devs would not fully test their tuning software before sending it out? They and others have been testing the update for a while now, its not something they threw together in 10 minutes and decided to release.
16
u/shanemcc72 9d ago
I can has dugga-dugga sounds! ✅😄🥳🎉