Hi everyone, I'm newish to the vw and the tuning game.. But I just picked up a 2000 1.8t jetta and put a 3inch downpipe with test pipe and was looking into tuning it. I saw that most tunes are running upward of $500 and this I got the car for 1200. So I was wondering what would all be involved with tuning it myself.  Don't know if you have to burn a chip or can i reflash my own? how does this work.  I have a couple buddies with vag com cables and i saw while i was briefly looking into this earlier today that there's software for writing fuel maps on this site.  I know the dangers of tuning and also know most of the basics but have never actually done it.  I figured what better time to do it than on a winter beater i picked up for cheap.  So I'm basically looking for everything I need to get to do this, I'm not asking for tuning advice or anything just what I need to get started. Thanks, Jake

ok after i posted this i figured id troll around on the forum while i waitted for a response. learned a lot in a hour. going to buy a used ecu soon and test my hand at reading the flash on a bench and possibly editing the map, ill probably be back with questions but none like these. sorry for posing this before reading in the forum a little bit. 

Yes a Ross tech cable will work but make sure it's the right vcds cable. Depending on your car they made different cables.