ECM change - possibly

ECM change - possibly

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Discussion

3Dee

Original Poster:

3,206 posts

220 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
quotequote all
With the issues I had during the final stages of build/prep for IVA etc in mind, I did wonder about the cost and practicability of swapping out my GM ECM to a Motec system, especially as there appears to be far more Motec tuning experts out there in the UK than GM.

Anyone got an opinion?

DHGTR

1,196 posts

242 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
quotequote all
Hi Keith

Think i mentioned it before but there is a great tuner in Redditch.

http://www.protuner.co.uk

Tuned my LS2 on GM ECU usingEFI Live

No issues whatsoever after the tune and great to hear the car up on the rollers at full scream, something we don't have the pleasure of very often.

Dave

3Dee

Original Poster:

3,206 posts

220 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
quotequote all
DHGTR said:
Hi Keith

Think i mentioned it before but there is a great tuner in Redditch.

http://www.protuner.co.uk

Tuned my LS2 on GM ECU usingEFI Live

No issues whatsoever after the tune and great to hear the car up on the rollers at full scream, something we don't have the pleasure of very often.

Dave
Thanks Dave - I will ring them - anyone in particular?

DHGTR

1,196 posts

242 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
quotequote all
Hi Keith

Greg the man in charge and tuner , Simon the man with spanners
Greg has engineering qualifications from uni and everything hahaha.

Only a small outfit, tend to work from midday till VERY late!!!

Nice guys, wrap up warm if you go down there :-)

Dave


craig7l

1,135 posts

265 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
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Don't dismis GEMS X25 as its got everything as motec but somewhat more cost effective...and if your not DBW there are other options...

Vixpy1

42,620 posts

263 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
quotequote all
DHGTR said:
Hi Keith

Greg the man in charge and tuner , Simon the man with spanners
Greg has engineering qualifications from uni and everything hahaha.

Only a small outfit, tend to work from midday till VERY late!!!

Nice guys, wrap up warm if you go down there :-)

Dave
Greg is a great guy, highly recommended.

356Speedster

2,293 posts

230 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
quotequote all
Vixpy1 said:
DHGTR said:
Hi Keith

Greg the man in charge and tuner , Simon the man with spanners
Greg has engineering qualifications from uni and everything hahaha.

Only a small outfit, tend to work from midday till VERY late!!!

Nice guys, wrap up warm if you go down there :-)

Dave
Greg is a great guy, highly recommended.
+2! They're just down the road from me and Simon did my initial geo setup. Had a few chats with Greg, he does seem to know his stuff. They have a rolling road, so the mapping is live.

deadscoob

2,263 posts

259 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
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Can you map the GM ecus live?

DHGTR

1,196 posts

242 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
quotequote all
not sure if its live or you make changes then have to stop and start the ecu to affect the changes. Lots of rebooting so expect he made changes live but they didn't write until the reboot.
Not entirely sure Craig.


3Dee

Original Poster:

3,206 posts

220 months

Friday 24th January 2014
quotequote all
Naah, unlike Motec and others, GM require the map to be downloaded, tweeked, then uploaded to the ECM before trying the new map adjustments.
HP Tuners and EFI Live can monitor and record loads of things during running, but actual changes to the map require a stop so are not real-time - certainly not for HP tuners, don't thinks so for EFI. It's a GM thing!

356Speedster

2,293 posts

230 months

Friday 24th January 2014
quotequote all
3Dee said:
Naah, unlike Motec and others, GM require the map to be downloaded, tweeked, then uploaded to the ECM before trying the new map adjustments.
HP Tuners and EFI Live can monitor and record loads of things during running, but actual changes to the map require a stop so are not real-time - certainly not for HP tuners, don't thinks so for EFI. It's a GM thing!
Greg uses EFI Live.... whether as Dave noted above the tuner can influence certain parameters on the fly, but then can only write the changes to the ECU, I'm not sure? I'm trying to remember what was being tweaked when my car was tuned on Brunters, but the grey matter is failing me frown Either way, I believe Greg's done a lot of work with GM ECUs and would be a very good local guy to connect with, before you go down the road of swapping out the management system.

Vixpy1

42,620 posts

263 months

Friday 24th January 2014
quotequote all
356Speedster said:
3Dee said:
Naah, unlike Motec and others, GM require the map to be downloaded, tweeked, then uploaded to the ECM before trying the new map adjustments.
HP Tuners and EFI Live can monitor and record loads of things during running, but actual changes to the map require a stop so are not real-time - certainly not for HP tuners, don't thinks so for EFI. It's a GM thing!
Greg uses EFI Live.... whether as Dave noted above the tuner can influence certain parameters on the fly, but then can only write the changes to the ECU, I'm not sure? I'm trying to remember what was being tweaked when my car was tuned on Brunters, but the grey matter is failing me frown Either way, I believe Greg's done a lot of work with GM ECUs and would be a very good local guy to connect with, before you go down the road of swapping out the management system.
You can trim global fuel and ignition on the fly

Happy Jim

964 posts

238 months

Friday 24th January 2014
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deadscoob said:
Can you map the GM ecus live?
As Vixpy says, there are a couple of things you can adjust live, but you still have to capture those tweaks and do a reflash to make them permanent, otherwise it's log/record/adjust & re-flash.

Jim

MarkWebb

983 posts

216 months

Sunday 26th January 2014
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EZ EFI by FAST.
Never spent any time /money on dyno/setup. Runs like a clock.Did a power run on a dyno for fun after a couple of hundred miles of running and was pleasantly surprised with the result in terms of power and AF control.

3Dee

Original Poster:

3,206 posts

220 months

Wednesday 9th April 2014
quotequote all
Update... Mixed feelings.

Well after deciding to give the E38 one more go, and several months of waiting, I took my car up to Redditch for tuning.

I had given a very detailed account of the tuning history, challenges and issues to the tuner when I originally booked in feb, and he seemed confident that he could sort it.

I arrived to find another car on the dyno and it was almost an hr of hanging around before it became my turn.

It was fun getting the Ultima backed up onto on the rollers given the small workshop, and drift-cars lying around, but we made it.

Plugs came out to be checked as well as compression test for all cyls which were good.

Then everything got hooked up and I was informed that they would download the current HPT map to EFI Live to convert as a starting point.

A snag was hit immediately.... the map operating system would not be recognised by EFI. It appears that the previous tuner had uploaded a modified version and since EFI in NZ could not be contacted for support there was no solution for the day.

The tuner was not confident using HPI, and so the session was concluded with a 15 minute dyno session to see what we had.

At this point I dived for cover as I hate seeing my pride-and-joy having its nuts revved off!

The result was surprising.... too rich for much of the curve, too lean at the end, and some knocking (which I could not hear).
but... 560bhp at around 6.2k revs. Not too shabby for something with a poor tune. We quickly backed off the timing to minimise the pinking problem for the time being.

I was told that the only ultimate option was to replace the complete operating system with an EFI one and to start retuning from scratch, but that may take several days...

Then the crunch came as I was obliged to hand over some not inconsiderably dosh, but I didn't quibble... he could not book me this month.. earliest date in june! JUNE?

And so... more dosh parted with, and no successful conclusion.... very disappointing!

To be fair to the tuner, he was friendly, appeared knowledgeable, and relatively careful, but OH-Boy! What I found disconcerting was that he spent rather more of his time multi-tasking by answering his mobile, talking & texting than I felt comfortable with! ...but hey! I am old-fashioned... presumably this is the norm for a small business these days!

And so, what do I think?
Well, it was reasonably clear that this tuner seemed to know his stuff (if he could just stay off the damn mobile for a bit) , but obviously my particular scenario threw him a little... I suspect he could do a good job given the time and resource availability. BUT since he seems to be so popular with the drift boys, his diary is booked for months.

...and I am therefore in a bit of a dilemma, since I had intended to get the most out of my ownership these coming months, a track day is booked in May and I am off to France in July.

Do I wait and hope (not a good track record so far) that this is concluded properly in June, or do I look for a replacement ECM system (motec or summat else) where expertise/ tuning capability is hopefully more available????

... I am aware that many have had good outcomes with GM ECMs, but it seems the minute you get a non-standard problem in the UK, your options are very few, and resources are scant at best.


Edited by 3Dee on Wednesday 9th April 10:34

UltimaCH

3,155 posts

188 months

Wednesday 9th April 2014
quotequote all
Looks like multitasking is becoming something we have to live with but it ia a real pain. I would imagine that someone doing a complex task (?) such as tuning, considering the worth of the stuff he is working on, would have the courage or decency to turn off or put his phone on mute during the time he is working. Reserving certain time periods to answer the phone, texting and telling people this way of doing things is not too difficult I would imagine.
Guess I'm really an old git now....

DHGTR

1,196 posts

242 months

Wednesday 9th April 2014
quotequote all
Hi Keith, the calls drop right off after 5pm and i was there till 1 am. Very happy with my result.

June is 6 weeks away, will you get a new ecu and software bought, fitted and setup by then? Plus you have the extra expense of the new gear.
Greg will do it, my original 'custom' map apparently was one of the worst he had ever seen and so he started afresh, it was a long day but worth it.

dave

3Dee

Original Poster:

3,206 posts

220 months

Wednesday 9th April 2014
quotequote all
I am inclined to agree with you Dave. The transition to another ECM type is fraught with potentially massive cost with stuff to change like the FBW throttle to mention only one I believe, and the possibility of a whole bag of new problems maybe, knowing my luck.

Pity I have to change to EFI though, as I have a full HPTuners setup on my laptop etc, but given the lack of 'experts' round here, I don't have a lot of choice!

.. I had a moment of madness and explored the possibility of trying myself, but since this thing is based on Speed density where the complication is magnifies, I took a look at some tutorials and fell about laughing! You need a degree in rocket-science as well as experience in detailed calc conversion mechanisms it seems, so I am ooot!

And so the wait begins... until 11th June, which seems years...

Underlying all this is also the concern I have as to the health of my E38, because, as reported a while back, I have never managed to get the Knock-sensors to work or even report to the ECU. I have changed both of them with known good ones, check the continuity of the wiring from KS plug to ECU plug, which all seem fine to me, yet still the E38 does not register knock even with the sensitivity wound up. And there is knock - I can make it pink under heavy load, so I can only conclude the E38 is not right. No error messages... If only I can make this do what would be expected.
Had thought about getting another known good one to compare, but where from in the UK? I thought they would be relatively easy to get hold of, but I am having trouble there. Seems the US is the only place, which is a bit surprising considering the proliferation of UK GM v8s in the UK?


DHGTR

1,196 posts

242 months

Wednesday 9th April 2014
quotequote all
Have you tried hanging around the monaro hsv forum. Nice guys. I was able to pick up bits and pieces from them, although mine is ls2 and more relevant to monaro butyou never know if somebody may have an e38 hanging around.

F.C.

3,896 posts

207 months

Wednesday 9th April 2014
quotequote all
I used Motec on a drag bike project, they are good but you have to pay to unlock features as you go, in the end it starts to grate having to shell out another £2-300 quid to enable a feature.
Stick to a well a known package that doesn't need software codes to paid for after initial purchase.
OMEX, GEMS, DTA, Haltech etc.