Factory ECU mapping fail

[Herman Toothrot]

hairyben said:

Hear this regularly enough, but are there many citable cases of engine implosions put down to remaps?

Hundreds and hundreds, there are plenty of mappers who don't know their arse from their elbow. I've had an MR2 turbo engine fail shortly after a unichip fitting, at the time wasn't clued up myself (Am now after a motec training course) and with hind sight I should have run a mile. That was some years ago mind, but the place is still operating. More recently my roadster, normally aspirated, came back from a very big established tuning company and at motorway cruise and then accelerate it'd det'd so badly I could hear it in the driverseat at 90 mph, fortunately I know someone who is superb at his job so got him to tidy up their mess, should have insisted he did the work at the start.

Start researching the Internet and you'll find loads of people who have had engines fail shortly after remaps, they usually get fobbed of or alternatively silenced with a deal.

Edited by Herman Toothrot on Tuesday 14th May 23:18

[xreyuk]

Chicane-UK said:

Accelerated wear on components alone (look at virtually any Seat which has had an aggressive remap and see how long things like the clutch last) would mean that a number of parts of the car would have to be redesigned, putting the price up. Not to mention the increased emissions, fuel consumption, and quite often silly things that enthusiasts like but average motorists don't - like the ROARING boost noise you get sometimes get from a remapped turbo engine. And the ability to run the car even with the crappest 95RON fuel. Which an aggressive map isn't going to like much.

I know several folks who've had cars remapped - the results were very impressive but they suffered various mechanical maladies (clutch slip on a car with 31k on the clock, injectors obliterated, etc).

And this isn't a slating for remapping - my car is remapped But just that there are a number of glaringly obvious reasons why the cars aren't coming out of the factory dialled up to their maximum.

Edited by Chicane-UK on Tuesday 14th May 22:04

Being a SEAT owner, if you're going above Stage1, you might as well fit a new uprated clutch at the same time, because it will fail in the first few K after a remap.

[MitchT]

anarki said:

It's probably been discussed more than the current F1 tyre situation, however it still baffles me as to why car manufactures don't put out their cars with an ECU map that aftermarket kits provide.

I've always been baffled by the opposite... Why people pay good money for remaps/tuning to have the performance of their car 'enhanced' in ways that the original manufacturer would have surely done themselves if it wasn't going to cause the engine to be prematurely fecked.

[Ozzie Osmond]

MitchT said:

I've always been baffled by the opposite... Why people pay good money for remaps/tuning to have the performance of their car 'enhanced' in ways that the original manufacturer would have surely done themselves if it wasn't going to cause the engine to be prematurely fecked...

... or the clutch or automatic transmission destroyed by excessive torque.

[DJFish]

Another thing to consider is that a manufacturer like VAG will be using the same engine in many different models and trim levels of car, they can charge more for an Audi bling-tronic but use the same engine in a Skoda Blu-rinse just with different mapping.

[Ozzie Osmond]

DJFish said:

...an Audi bling-tronic .... a Skoda Blu-rinse.

I like your thinking!

[Disco_Biscuit]

I had Revo map on my Ibiza cupra tdi, 3 turbos later I had it switched off! Oh and it made 18bhp more with the map on, I learnt an expensive lesson, if you want more power buy a bigger engine.

[neiljohnson]

One good example is the mk2 focus Rs vs the rs500 the mountune kit was available for circa 2k to upgrade the stock car to rs500 spec, the rs500 is nearly £500 a year to tax due to being in the highest bracket but a mountuned car is half that.

[nonuts]

If there are any issues with your car, getting it remapped will magnify them. Thinks like the divertor valves and everything else related to the boost side of the car will fail quicker or will fail straight away if it was close to having an issue.

I doubt you'll regret having the car remapped but do it with your eyes open and don't go around claiming it's a genuine 265bhp.

[Scuffers]

there's a lot more to emissions testing than CO2 figures.

none of these chipped/remapped cars could pass Eu3 test from 10 years ago, let alone current EU6 regs.

[pad58]

I agree that if up rate an engine, then up rate everything else...or as one poster said get a better car.

[R26Andy]

Scuffers said:

there's a lot more to emissions testing than CO2 figures.

none of these chipped/remapped cars could pass Eu3 test from 10 years ago, let alone current EU6 regs.

Why wouldnt they? Most remaps are based around adjusting the boost pressure and maybe running a little more lean.

I would agree that chipped cars, which use a device to confuse ECU, this could be true.

[Scuffers]

R26Andy said:

Scuffers said:

there's a lot more to emissions testing than CO2 figures.

none of these chipped/remapped cars could pass Eu3 test from 10 years ago, let alone current EU6 regs.

Why wouldnt they? Most remaps are based around adjusting the boost pressure and maybe running a little more lean.

I would agree that chipped cars, which use a device to confuse ECU, this could be true.

err....

with respect, you need to read up on what the targets are tests are.... it's not about CO2 figures

for example, the last thing you want to do is open/close the throttle quickly, as this impacts on NOx levels, hence why so may people complain about the pedal response with DBW cars for example.

engine calibration for OEM's is a nightmare, they spend many thousands of hours on it, they don;t do this for fun.

[Captain Muppet]

hairyben said:

hyperblue said:

Aftermarket tuners have no warranty considerations

Hear this regularly enough, but are there many citable cases of engine implosions put down to remaps?

How many tuners run a fleet of vehicles for durability testing in order to have a statistically significant sample size for reliability analysis?

It's none isn't it?

Manufacturers will do a lifetime of abuse on tens of engines and then strip them down to check tolerances on everything. Tuners won't.

[mnkiboy]

Chicane-UK said:

Accelerated wear on components alone (look at virtually any Seat which has had an aggressive remap and see how long things like the clutch last) would mean that a number of parts of the car would have to be redesigned, putting the price up. Not to mention the increased emissions, fuel consumption, and quite often silly things that enthusiasts like but average motorists don't - like the ROARING boost noise you get sometimes get from a remapped turbo engine. And the ability to run the car even with the crappest 95RON fuel. Which an aggressive map isn't going to like much.

I know several folks who've had cars remapped - the results were very impressive but they suffered various mechanical maladies (clutch slip on a car with 31k on the clock, injectors obliterated, etc).

And this isn't a slating for remapping - my car is remapped But just that there are a number of glaringly obvious reasons why the cars aren't coming out of the factory dialled up to their maximum.

Edited by Chicane-UK on Tuesday 14th May 22:04

This. Had REVO stage 1 put on a Leon Cupra. Completely transformed the car, as you would expect with an increase from 240 to 300bhp. Within 5000 miles the car was suffering from a slipping clutch and had a few coil pack issues. Car had less than 40k miles on the clock.
Had the car put back to standard and the clutch was fine, although I sold it shortly after so don't know how long it lasted.

[CedricN]

I work with Engine development for a large truck manufacturer, its always amusing to read threads such as this Would be nice to stop working day after day with all the details and just crank the boost up People don't realise how tough and complex emission cycles are, and the hardware limits aren't just something you pull out of a hat, they are often set there for a very good reason. And the vehicle should of course work from -40 to +50 degC, different alltitudes, HWtolerances etc etc etc etc...How many tuners actually measure turbospeed for example(and know the HW limits)? Which is severely critical for turbo life, for example..


But sometimes there can be several engines with exactly the same hardware, like Volvos 140 and 170hp 5cyl engines, only difference is software.

[R26Andy]

Scuffers said:

err....

with respect, you need to read up on what the targets are tests are.... it's not about CO2 figures

for example, the last thing you want to do is open/close the throttle quickly, as this impacts on NOx levels, hence why so may people complain about the pedal response with DBW cars for example.

engine calibration for OEM's is a nightmare, they spend many thousands of hours on it, they don;t do this for fun.

I understand that there are other hazardous emmisions that need to be controlled, hence the MOT emmisions test. What wasnt explained in your first post was how the remap would cause them to fail - the throttle open/close example is the type of thing I was wanting to know.....where in a certain situation a remapped car may be outside the regs.

...but plenty of remapped cars pass the MOT emmisions test which I believe is effectively a Euro emmisions test?

[PedroB]

I have to admit, I had a Caterham 7 that I sent back to Caterham to have uprated throttle bodies, ecu remap, lightweight flywheel and a fast road cam fitted.

Afterwards it was unreliable, the starter motor jammed on the new flywheel the whole time, it overheated and was stupidly un-user friendly and the clutch failed. (expensive) Lesson learned.

[hyperblue]

Captain Muppet said:

hairyben said:

hyperblue said:

Aftermarket tuners have no warranty considerations

Hear this regularly enough, but are there many citable cases of engine implosions put down to remaps?

It's very hard for the customer to prove that the remap itself caused engine failure. Often a mechanical part will fail and it's not clear whether it would've failed or not without the remap.

[Scuffers]

R26Andy said:

Scuffers said:

err....

with respect, you need to read up on what the targets are tests are.... it's not about CO2 figures

for example, the last thing you want to do is open/close the throttle quickly, as this impacts on NOx levels, hence why so may people complain about the pedal response with DBW cars for example.

engine calibration for OEM's is a nightmare, they spend many thousands of hours on it, they don;t do this for fun.

I understand that there are other hazardous emmisions that need to be controlled, hence the MOT emmisions test. What wasnt explained in your first post was how the remap would cause them to fail - the throttle open/close example is the type of thing I was wanting to know.....where in a certain situation a remapped car may be outside the regs.

...but plenty of remapped cars pass the MOT emmisions test which I believe is effectively a Euro emmisions test?

Mot test is nothing like the EU homologation test.
Seriously, please do some research.