Does Merlin still exist?

Tophler

Leaving Skid Marks
Location
NSW
First Name
Alex
Drive
1999 VR4 FL Legnum w recaro and momo
Hey guys

Getting my car tuned soon, I've heard some good things about merlin but he seems to have disappeared off the radar before I bought my car. Is he still around? Can anyone tell me the difference between merlins tune and a TME tune?
 

naughtika

OzVR4 Stalker
Location
Brisbane, QLD
First Name
Christian
Drive
'96 Galant VR4, '17 MB A180, '25 Macan GTS
we strongly suggest that you go with TME_Steve since he's a lot more thorough with the VR4's

also, he's a sponsor here which helps the site :)
 

Dice

1 AYC Bar
Lifetime Member
Location
Gold Coast QLD
First Name
DiceR
Drive
Galant VR-4 2xT25bb
Nissan Cube
Merlin is a very good tuner but from what i gather he doesn't concentrate on 8g VR4's, Steve (TME) will have more experience in that field.
edit: beaten by Christian
 

Tophler

Leaving Skid Marks
Location
NSW
First Name
Alex
Drive
1999 VR4 FL Legnum w recaro and momo
Thanks. Will look into it
 

fieldy107

1 AYC Bar
Location
NSW
First Name
Chris
Drive
Galant VR4
Merlin was working with professional racing teams last I heard from him. He was the one who started tuning VR4's in Australia but Steve has taken it a lot further.
 

trotty

3 AYC Bars
Location
nsw
First Name
Daniel Trotman
Drive
2000 vr4 Legnum 5 sp man
2006 Suzuki Swift Sport 5 sp man
I can vouch for Steve. Very thorough and gets the results. I get an easy 60-100 km per tank more since the tune. And making 50% more power. Win win.
 

king_panther

Gettin' tanked
Location
New South Wales
First Name
Brad
Drive
2012 VW Caddy 1.6TDI 7-Speed DSG. Still crappy DSG.....
Curious with all the talk & knowledge of TME_Steve on here why you would think of Merlin?
 

Dice

1 AYC Bar
Lifetime Member
Location
Gold Coast QLD
First Name
DiceR
Drive
Galant VR-4 2xT25bb
Nissan Cube
Last month I met Jeff Denmeade (the rally driver) at Winton raceway. (With his co-driver wife Catherine they won the American Pike Peak rally in their Evo8.)

Jeff also owns a Legnum (he absolutely loves it and raved on about it). He was saying that Merlin tunes his race cars but he got him to tune his Legnum too. So as mentioned earlier, Merlin can do it and was probably the first person in Australia to tune VR4's which helped this community. At the moment though Steve has been flying around Australia tuning them and keeping up with the new ROM mods.

In a long way of answering Brad's question above, I think Merlin is well known enough that people may ask about him. There is also a tuning guide in our OZVR4 guides section.
 

Tophler

Leaving Skid Marks
Location
NSW
First Name
Alex
Drive
1999 VR4 FL Legnum w recaro and momo
Reason I ask about merlin is because my mechanic recommends him. He's had a chat and merlin has said hed be happy to do it cheap and he knows vr4's inside out
 
G

Guest

Unregistered
If you can get a Merlin tune cheap, go for it! I have heard a lot of good things and he obviously knows his VR4's :)
 

Tophler

Leaving Skid Marks
Location
NSW
First Name
Alex
Drive
1999 VR4 FL Legnum w recaro and momo
I understand everyones support for TME_Steve as he is a supporter of the forums and I don't have a bad word to say about him but there are other tuners out there who have reasonable experience dealing with VR4s too. I'll try merlin and see how it goes. If the car still isn't where I want it I'll have a chat to our buddy TME_Steve
 

Gt_Galant

EC5A
Location
New South Wales
First Name
Fred
Drive
Galant
I actually had my car tuned by Merlin years ago, the car ran pretty good didn't have any complaints besides i wanted more power, car was a auto and had 176kw. Then added a few more mod's on but sold it and never got tuned so it would have had more power and was considering to get Steve to do it before it got sold.

Both are good Merlin & Steve, both know what they are doing but i was only now leaning towards Steve because his a supporter here and always helps with members here.

But who ever you go with will do a good job.

Good Luck.
 

dwarfmarine

1 AYC Bar
Location
Windsor, NSW
First Name
Cameron
Drive
Previous: Black PFL Legnum
Current: TD5 Land Rover Disco
Reason I ask about merlin is because my mechanic recommends him. He's had a chat and merlin has said hed be happy to do it cheap and he knows vr4's inside out

Meek recommend Merlin,
but back when i first got my Legnum even Meek said he can be pretty hard to get hold of...


Steve tuned my car and when i went back to Meek and told them Steve had done the tune, even they said the numbers were impressive..
Plus, as far as i know, merlin still hadn't unlocked the secret to 7201 tuning when i had mine tuned..
 

fieldy107

1 AYC Bar
Location
NSW
First Name
Chris
Drive
Galant VR4
Nothing wrong with a Merlin tune, but as far as we know he stopped R&D on VR4 tuning a few years ago (this may be wrong but he hasn't posted or updated us on what he can do for quite a while). Steve started where Merlin left off and has unlocked more features in our ECU, such as launch control, anti lag, pops and crackles, dual maps. When we all got Merlin tunes in QLD a few years back, Merlin wasn't even tuning boost using ECU, we all used boost controllers.
Of course this might have all changed and Merlin might be able to do some of these things I mentioned Steve can do, but since he has not been on here and updated us on what he has been up to, who knows where Merlin is up to with tuning VR4s.
 

Dice

1 AYC Bar
Lifetime Member
Location
Gold Coast QLD
First Name
DiceR
Drive
Galant VR-4 2xT25bb
Nissan Cube
Also worth mentioning Kenneth who did the hard yards getting those extra features for us that Steve is now able to provide.
 

king_panther

Gettin' tanked
Location
New South Wales
First Name
Brad
Drive
2012 VW Caddy 1.6TDI 7-Speed DSG. Still crappy DSG.....
Also worth mentioning Kenneth who did the hard yards getting those extra features for us that Steve is now able to provide.

I think this is very important we not leave Kenneth out of this, plus also BCX's mods.

Merlin has done the odd post in the past few years, but he was there at the start of all this. Still remember the first car he flashed at MEEK, only to realise it had already been flashed back in Japan lol. At least I think it was the first car... I'm getting old & forgetful.
 
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