Some people who take the time can learn to tune their own cars. Not everyone is cut out for it. I tend to think those strong in math and science will be more successful than others.
Still others buy a cable and quickly start posting very newbie questions about how to "tune" their car. Stuff that if they actually demonstrated they were willing to spend time learning they could have easily found on their own. Sometimes when I see some questions that should be pretty simple asked by people trying to just jump into it I'll warn them with the sort of response you are talking about. If you can't figure out some of the easy stuff, you're probably not going to be successful. I'm not trying to be rude about it, but I think too many people jump in without realistic expectations about the time they will need to invest in just reading what is already out there and available.
Tuning your own car can be dangerous. You have to take responsibility for it yourself. Especially since no one is getting compensated to help you out and no one wants to be responsible for you blowing up your car.
I guess the point is, if you expect to be successful tuning your own car you need to show a lot of initiative and do a lot of research. If you have to ask about the basics and have to rely on an internet forum to answer every tuning question you're not going to be ready to tune your own car for another 3-4 years. I don't mean to discourage you, but you need to realize you need to spend a lot of time reading and researching car tuning in general. You need to be realistic about what it takes to tune a car. It is not something you learn to do over a weekend or two.
Here's a good start:
http://www.scoobypedia.co.uk/
http://freon.shackspace.com/car/ecu%20a ... books.html
You should buy all three books and read through them until you understand 90% of what is in them. This will take you a few weeks.
http://www.romraider.com/
Lots of great FAQs and countless threads in their forum that dig into tuning. My serious suggestion is to spend 2 months reading this forum and search a lot for things you want to know. Read entire long threads on different subjects.
The question about Ecutek stuff is moot. Ecutek has been locking out the ability to read ECUs that have been flashed by Ecutek software for over a year. So, just don't worry about it. Don't try to mix Ecutek, Cobb, and Openecu tools. Pick one and stick with it. It's not worth worrying about this. Just forget the Cobb and Ecutek stuff if you chose to use Openecu.
As for loading someone else's map from a car with similar mods, even minor mods can drastically screw up a tune. For instance, different boost control solenoids, or even just the restrictor pills or hose you use. It could be a different shape wastegate map. Different compensations. A different intake can throw things way off as well. Just one model year difference in the car may also mean different cylinder heads, requiring different tuning.
