bigsigh

iTrader: (4)

IMO, people who are choosing the self mapping route as the cheap option, (ie. Mapper is £550+, but a cable is £90) will have problems

People who pick up the cable because they want to learn something new , and gain a better understanding of what is happening with the car will do fine.

brendy76

iTrader: (6)

Yup, over on the romraider forums there are plenty of people who come on looking a "base" rom but are really looking for a single fix, this will never work as no two cars are the same unless they are bone standard and living in the same neighbourhood using the same fuel...and even then two owners may want different things from their cars performance.

Deej

iTrader: (3)

I'm just getting into DIY mapping and there's two main reasons why:

1) To gain a new skill and a better understanding of how the engine works
2) So I can adjust the map as soon as I've fitted parts rather than waiting for a pro

There is clearly a risk involved, but that risk is mostly determined by how much time you invest in learning and carefully adjusting the map. For someone with limited experience with software/programming/data processing etc I imagine the learning curve would be pretty steep, but if you're keen enough you'll get there.

I would say that if you're careful you will probably be fine, but you have to accept the possibility of destroying your engine. I'm just playing around with a standard WRX engine, and whilst wrecking it would be annoying, I can deal with it if it happens. If on the other hand I'd just spent four grand on a forged build I think I'd be getting a pro involved.

Deej

iTrader: (3)

Also I'd be interested to know the background of people into DIY mapping? I imagine a lot will have technical/software based jobs.

I design electronic control systems and do a certain amount of embedded programming at work, and I found that gave me a massive head start. Without that I think I'd have been a bit overwhelmed by the process.

boosted

I have been mapping turbo cars for myself and friends for over 12 years now.
It all started with 2 strokes, carbs, jets, pistons expansion chambers etc when I was 16. No dyno better than a moped that will either do 47mph with one mod or 52mph with something changed. Learnt a lot about fueling from those days.
Along came turbos cars and standalone ecu's and I've never looked back really, wideband shave dropped in price massively over the years, originally I was tuning with a homemade narrowband lambda gauge, wideband makes it soo much easier!
What you must understand is like anything you learn from your mistakes, if you haven't made any mistakes then you probably aren't pushing things hard enough or trying new things.
I've broken a few engines, you learn from it.
You must have a knowledge of how an engine works, how the efi system you are tuning works and many other skill sets including but not limited to; electronics, electrics, efi systems, tuning fuel and air for power/efficientcy and safety. Computers and a mechanical background helps too.
It's a massive leap to jump from never changed a spark plug to mapping your own.

Scott.T

iTrader: (2)

Systems Engineer supplying Black Box technology into RAF Typhoon.
So I get to see/deal with everything from initial concept/design through to Mechanical, Environmental and Nuclear Qualification and Safety of Flight clearance.
The engineering background and the inbred desire to know how 'anything' work helps.

I think the 'Systems' approach also helps as I am not down in the weeds of the software but do understand it's requirements.
Which is why I think some DIY'ers from a more ground level software background end up going too deep into the intricate ECU workings, when all you really need for mapping/re-calibration is to know where the maps are and their purpose.

boosted

A pair of bullocks helps too

MikeyPSF

Hello there. I'm Mike, one half of the company Tactrix. I stumbled upon this thread through a google search and wanted to add a couple of comments. Good discussion. Agreed that the two solutions are different and ours isn't for everyone.


We literally have tens of thousands of these units in use all over the world starting in 2005, almost 10 years ago. We've shipped them to just about every country you can imagine so it's definitely not accurate to say hardly anyone is having a go at it.


I really don't think there is a limit to what you can do with an opensource tune. Here is one of our customer's tuning sites where you can see his project WRX and his 10 second quarter mile timeslip. His facebook page is more up to date where you can see that the same car is currently in the 9 second range. Not bad for opensource!

http://www.camtuning.com/

Cameron is a great tuner and charges around $150 I believe for a tune which involves a few iterations where he'll review your log files after each change he makes. I plan on working with him for my next personal project car.

Bricking an ECU is pretty rare and can generally be totally avoided if you follow one rule: never turn the key 'OFF' if you run in to a problem such as the laptop battery running out because you forgot to charge it or the USB cable coming out of the OpenPort mid flash. When you start a session with our software, we send a software kernel to an unused area in the ECU. This kernel overseas the process and stays running even if there is an issue on the other side of the OBD2 connector. You only need to correct the issue (ie power up the laptop, reconnect the USB, etc) and you can restart the process. Our software even tracks where it left off so you don't even lose any time. It's only when you turn the car 'OFF' after a problem that you can run in to problems. Even then most ECUs are recoverable on the bench, or if you have an early Denso 16 bit ECU, those are most easily recovered by purchasing a used replacement since they aren't tied to an immobilizer. For instance I have a spare for my 2002 USDM WRX that I picked up for $50.

Regarding 'running lean for a few weeks', you shouldn't be tuning/heavily modifying your car if you can't monitor your air fuel ratio.


Agreed, if you're going to do your own tuning, a wideband is important. Any of the Innovate wideband products are very easy to log with the built in OpenPort 2.0 logging capability using the on-board micro SD card slot, but other brands of widebands can be used as well.


We pride ourselves on delivering support way above our two person size. If you have questions or problems, you can always contact us at support at tactrix dot com. We answer all types of questions but it's true we don't give tuning advice. As mentioned previously on this thread by a few people, RomRaider is a great resource for that as well as many other forums with tuning sections. You can also work with a tuner remotely (commonly called e-tuning) to get a base tune so you know what tables a professional would change on your car, and then you can continue to tweak as you make more mechanical changes down the road.


I think this hints at one of the most important points, and not one that has been mentioned so far in this discussion. You have the freedom to export your ROM, which may sound like a simple thing, but I'm contacted by people all the time who would like to tweak their EcuTek tune and I have to inform them that the EcuTek tune they've paid for isn't theirs to tweak. It's locked and not readable by other tuning systems. The only way to change systems is to have the EcuTek tune removed by an EcuTek tuner and start over. With an opensource tune, if you don't like the tuner you're working with, you can move on to another tuner or you can yourself make changes to the tune you paid for. It's yours to change as you'd like. Again, these two approaches are very different, and if like Siv, you have a tuner you're happy with and don't mind paying for it, that's a great way to go, but if you want to get in to the nitty gritty of your ECU or you want the freedom to change tuners without losing what you've already paid for, then an opensource approach using the Tactrix OpenPort and our free EcuFlash software might be a good fit for your project.

-Mike

boosted

For the price of a tactrix cable I've bought a complete megasquirt ecu, 20ish wires and away your go.
Live mapping is SO much quicker and easier that reading, modding and flashing roms.

MikeyPSF

You were able to purchase a megasquirt for $169? It's been a while since I priced those but it sounds like you got a great deal. Agreed that live mapping is quick, but have you ever used our product? Our software/firmware only updates blocks of the ROM image that have changed, so if you're only changing a single table, the time to flash is going to be really quick. Our software doesn't rewrite the whole ECU each time, only the difference, which can be done in seconds in some cases.

boosted

Over here in the UK a tactrix is about £180. I bought my MS last week for £166 delivered.
It's a familiarity thing with me, I use what I have used for the past 12 years, I know it works and I can work quickly and effectively with it.
I have not used your product, I would if someone locally was available to show me the ropes and give a quick (hour or so) overview. But I don't live close to anyone. I'm sure it's a great product if you are familiar with it, but I am not. Thanks

sivo

iTrader: (30)

Great post Mike and very informative, welcome to scoobynet

Can I just add when I bought my tactrix 2.0 about 18 months ago the process from the States was super smooth and it arrived at my door within a few days.

The product itself worked perfectly, reading and flashing the rom within a few seconds.
I hope you hang around Mike, I know you can't advise on mapping but your knowledge and product is invaluable to a lot of us here in the uk.

Siv

Scott.T

iTrader: (2)

Thanks for the input Mike.
I should be testing my 1.3 cable again (re : emails I sent to you a few weeks back) now that I've rolled back my Windows updates to the period/time I last used it (May/June 2014). So I will let you know how I get on.

I only map the odd mates car (and some of them are very odd !!!!) these days, with my arm twisted ALOT...... So it doesn't get used so much these days.
I also reverted back to an MY99 car from my Hawk STI 2007. But I would certainly use OpenSource on the MY99 if only it were available.

MikeyPSF

It makes sense. If you're familiar with something already and it's price competitive, then why not? As far as getting familiar with our product, I often point customers to this excellent tutorial put together by one of our customers:

hmmm....this forum doesn't seem to like me linking a youtube url but if you search for EcuFlash in youtube you'll see a 16 part series by someone with the username 'r3compile'

It's done on an Evo X but the concepts are similar to using our software on a Subaru. The version is slightly older but the only major difference is that now you need to select your vehicle before you get started so that certain options you could select previously (like 'exit programming mode' for Mitsubishis) are only shown when it's appropriate for the vehicle selected.


Thanks for the warm welcome! Yep, FedEx Priority mail is pretty amazing for the cost. We can get a package to a lot of places in the world (UK,Australia,Japan,Canada,etc.) for around $25 and it usually gets there in just a couple days. I'll try to check back periodically, but if you ever see something I should chime in on, feel free to send me a PM.


Hey Scott, I remember speaking to you. I need to check in with Colby to see if he has any updates for the 1.3. I use to have a 1999 myself which I'd had for a while before I started working with Colby about 4 years ago. After I started working here and I realized there was no hope that we'd be supporting the older ECUs with the Jecs processor I went hunting for my current WRX wagon.

Infected by sti

iTrader: (6)

Would you be able to offer a group buy on the cable by any chance

MikeyPSF

No harm in asking but we generally avoid having sales, group buys, coupon codes, and all that in favor of just keeping our price low compared to other tools on the market.

Tidgy

yeah thats the issue, my hawk started kicking up an EML after it was mapped, had the mapper foxed so he went back to ecutek and they hadn't come across it before either. They ended up adding some code into the software, if it were open source with no support then i would have been stuffed.

bludgod

iTrader: (3)

another happy opensource tuner here - been doing my own WRX for 2 years now along with about 25 other cars via e-tunes (USDM/AUDM and UK ones).

I think there isn't enough uptake on opensource tuning at the moment and would be happy to show anyone what I've learned so far as lord knows the wife is fed up hearing about it!

I would agree with what's been said so far though, the opensource software is good and the ECUtek product is good but the real value in a professional map is the professional person mapping the car. I've had a few guys send me "professional maps" that have consisted of just trying to get 20psi out of a TD04 from 1000rpm to 7000rpm (no adjustments to timing/boost control/knock sensitivity etc.) and I've seen maps that aren't too shabby.

Recently had a guy switch from an unichip piggyback to an opensource tune and gain 40hp For me it depends on what level of involvement you want to have in the process and how much you value your own time as well. Some people are happy to fork over cash for a professional to do all the work and I see nothing wrong with that. Some people want to know a little more or be a little more involved so I say ask away and learn the info is all out there and there are people who are happy to help you!

MikeyPSF

That isn't the situation at all. We don't provide tuning support (ie suggesting timing/fuel/etc changes) but if the reflashing process causes the check engine light to come on, we can address that. We work with customers all the time to resolve reflash issues. There isn't 'no support', we just don't give tuning advice. Right now we support from the bug-eye Subaru through the current year with our OpenPort 2.0 and there are no known issues. We're still working out the definition for the 2015 USDM WRX but otherwise you could reflash any modern Subaru with our hardware/software trouble free.


Glad to hear it's bee working well for you. Thanks for sharing your experience!

-Mike

Scott.T

iTrader: (2)

I think this is just a UK thing, as ECUTEK got off and running and became well established in the UK before Opensource was really talked about over here.

I've been using Opensource for 7 years now. Hence why I have an old 1.3 Cable and not a 2.0