The Vec may have some advantage for certain purposes but he has no engine mods and a stock kit. He did not need the VEC. The split second unit ( timing control unit ) that came with the kit, and which is part of the price of the kit, was sufficient for his needs. This means he paid for something that he did not need now that he could have purchased later if he needed it. To my knowledge, you can hook a laptop up with the split second unit. I have seen Doug Levin do it more than once with excellent results. I also do not know how well the VEC works with a DC flashed unit. I'll defer to Dan Cragin to chime in on whether these two approaches are completely compatible. I know that Dan's flash for the stock kit works well. As long as we are on the subject, can someone jump in and specifically state the difference in internal components bewteen the VEC and the split second unit. You need not mention the card reader since that is self evident. In other words, what additional electronic components does the VEC have in it? I don't recall ever reading an explanation of the real difference.