combuSTIon wrote:
Questions:
How much am I looking at realistically to ante in (just the price of a Tactrix 2.0 cable? Any hidden gotchas?)
should be just the price of the tactrix plus all the lost evenings tinkering and logging

you can get the flash block adapters but it's as handy to make a set from some spare wire.
combuSTIon wrote:
I don't have a copy of my stock ECU tune as it was lost with the AP, I'm guessing I can just likely get someone else w/ an 04 STI and just change the VIN in the software (am I correct?)
You can pickup the stock rom here:
http://www.romraider.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=7591no need to change vin's it's not exposed in the rom so should be fit to flash and go assuming you have the correct file for your ECU.
combuSTIon wrote:
SMOG: What needs to be known for me in CA w/ the STAR testing? (this may be a PM to me answer, unsure?)
pass on this one, you can force pass in the rom settings for most I've looked out - download the stock rom and have a nosey.
combuSTIon wrote:
Anyways, thoughts? I'm tech friendly and math proficient so I'm not worried about the setup, and I can read and ask questions as good as anyone, but I am curious to know any quirks/pitfalls/whatever when going this route.
not much different from the AP - different software/method to it but your doing the same job read log tweak flash log repeat.
combuSTIon wrote:
I suppose bonus points if someone knows a way to unmarry the old V1, I don't see it swaying me from going the OpenECU route, but it would be nice to at least stock things back out for the interim (whatever though). =P
not sure about unmarrying it, but I dont think you've got an immobiliser in the ECU to deal with so might be as handy to pickup another ECU and plug it in?