Quite the contrary. Having TBE with no engine managment is going to damage your car! The whole point of EM is getting your ECU up to speed with the installation of after market parts to maximize the performance of those parts you have put on. Your car's ECU is setup from the factory to run a certain way in it's stock form, manipulating your ECU with CEL fixes so you can run a catless down pipe, let alone a bigger turbo and what not will have to require ENGINE MANAGEMENT! Without cats on your car we all know it is going to run rich to compensate for the extra fuel being dumped into the cylinders and that's not a good thing. If you ever want to modify your car with more power mods you will have to get EM and there is no way around that. Engine management is a posistive thing that helps your car run more effiecently(you will get better gas mileage too!), not damage it. It assists the ECU in adapting to different conditions where normally the ECU would be otherwise ineffective. I hope that clarifies some things.

 

How did the trans problem come out?