ECU/tuning info
05-12-2010, 09:30 PM
#1
Honda-Tech Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Rockford, Illinois
Posts: 22
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
ECU/tuning info
Okay, so I have seen hundreds upon thousands of google posts regarding self tuning cars and how to do so, each is just piece by piece of BS, not that they're not correct, but they only give part of an explanation.
WHEN IS TUNING YOUR ECU NECESSARY
So you decided to get an eBay DC motorsports headers and a 3.5 inch catback exaust, thats fine and dandy, the now irratatingly loud ecaust you have is great, you feel like a badass, were all oh so proud, but really, tuning your ECU, not neccisary not so ever, im sure it may add 1 more horsepower to your motor, but really guy? your better than that, you can get something a little better than a couple bolt ons, then come back to this forum.
If your hangin low and just slapped on or are considering putting down some forced induction, yeah this is where you want to be, tuning your car is absolutely what you need to do, your compressing timing, air fuel ratio, basically your computer is going to go ballistic and not know what to think of itsself, much like a 15 year old girl who just figured out she was now a **** because shes been been penetrated more than a prostitute... without getting paid for their lack of services. Wow my ADHD is horrible, anyways, dont worry kids with turbos, your life wont be way too difficult, just read on.
IF YOU ARE A DO IT YOURSELF...ER THEN SCROLL DOWN, THIS PARAGRAPH IS POINTLESS TO YOU!
Alright all you lazy people, when it comes to tuning your ECU there are plenty of companies out there that do this for you, given you tell them the specifications of your motor and what parts you are putting onto them, just google ECU tune and im sure you can find plenty of options, you are already not self tuning, therefore im not about to get links for you because well, you need to do some kind of work here guy, also if you don't have a good tuner around you (for example i have AMS right down the road, if you don't know who AMS are, please pull your bottom lip as far out as you can, and digest your own face) then you will need to mail your ECU to the company you want to tune it, this can take weeks depending on how efficient or how busy they are.
YOUR ECU
what is an ECU? Please inform me that question does not need to be answered, but anyways its your car's brain, it knows your altitude, temperature outside, octane of gas, so forth so on, basically it knows everything, even regarding you and that fat chick in the back seat. This is always calculating and reading whats happening, except how you fit that girl in the back of a friggn honda considering her weight, jesus guy! The reasons these are usually upgraded are to change rev limits on the car, manage fuel cup and tamper with radiator fan speeds.
Open interface upgrades are more along the lines of a standalone ECU or one of those piggyback controllers, which alter maps and how your car functions.
Sweet things about this are that you can play around with whats there, and how its tuned more often.
Unfortunately you also have to spend god knows how much time data logging, those obnoxious hours spent on the dyno, and if your car is under warranty, yeah basically any well minded technician will call it out immediately, and well... thats your pocket now kid.
Closed interface upgrades on the other hand are more along the lines of a reflash or chip swap, not really the most interchangeable way to go, you wont be able to tune it on the fly per say.
There are benefits of this, which are that you dont have to guess around and BS, nor do you have to go to the dyno! also it looks and plays around just as if its bone stock, if your car is under warranty or scheduled for matinance, go with this.
Of cource there must be a downfall as well, its ridiculously time consuming to retune and try out new hardware with your motor. If you want to leave your car stock or do everything at once and just let it be, by all means by my guest and go with this so you wont have to mess with it.
YOUR OBD
First off let me tell you what this junk is, im going to refer to OBD's quite a bit, what is an OBD? are you serious? its an On Board Diagnostic computer, and tells you whatever problems your car has.
If you drive a honda from 92-96, you have an OBDi, lucky you (no sarcasm implied) for these are a more coveted platform, they allow you to swap chips, you can tap the connector and verify air/fuel readings and figure out which connector you messed up, what oxygen sensor blew, so forth.
Good thing about these are that they are much less expensive, and you cant detect a missing catalytic converter if you are an enthusiast that could give two ***** about the environment and just want less exhaust restriction, when an OBDii will pop up a check engine light for these.
Things that suck about it are that they are not even close to the level of standardization you can get from an OBDii, almost every flippin version of this needs its own adapter to be interfaced, and your computer doesn't trigger a check engine light until well.. its way too late and your car just broke down and you look like a dick in front of whoever your trying to impress.
Now if you have a car older than 96, you are more than likely in a scenario in which i occurred which is a pain, you have an OBDii, which can keep tabs on fuel pressure from inside the fuel tank, which basically means you can check the status of your evaporative system WOOT! Now the awesome United States regulators made it so you cant disable OBDii systems on your car, I know, awesome, but who the hell knows what you have there? I say go for it.
Things that PWN on this system is that you can electronically reprogram your ECU, no constant chip swapping neccisary today for you!
But your still out of luck, with the OBDii your check engine light wont go anywhere without you fixing the problem, swapping the part, whatever is necessary at the time, you've got to handle or your going to deal with that annoying yellow light blaring in your face.
My personal suggestion before going onto the next step is grabbing yourself Digimoto which is an OBDii scanner. (why the hell am i suggesting that) I am not salesman of the year nor do i care to be, you will benefit from this because they feature similar to factory reader tools, it does have a data logger that will read for its self and a built in accelerometer, makes your data logging sessions much more convenient.
UBERDATA IS YOUR FRIEND
This is a tuning software designed by someone that i find rather comical seeing as once you download it... well you would understand their version of "copyright" is just too good to be true. ANYWAYS, this software as mentioned previously is your friend, it allows you to datalog, you can diagnose from low/high fuel intake, as well as low/high ignition, boost, rev limits, and even DIGITAL DASH! Maps are kind of a hassle to create on your own, it is easier to modify a premade map which are available from multiple websites, i will add a few different links below, but more are available, googleing this will only bring up well... about 666,666 google results for forum questions, in which you are learning right now (not exact amount of pages, but from looking at it you shall feel like your looking at the spawn of satan.
Uberdata 1.7 Download (Maps avalible on the left side)
http://www.b94cast.com/uberdata/
A Good Map Sharing Site
http://www.xenocron.com/bins/index.p...ctory=Uberdata
There are more options of mapping programs, but because i use UserData, i dont know a damn thing about the other ones quite frankly, if you happen to, then just PM me the info about it and basically im going to copy and paste it, so make it fun.
WHEN IS TUNING YOUR ECU NECESSARY
So you decided to get an eBay DC motorsports headers and a 3.5 inch catback exaust, thats fine and dandy, the now irratatingly loud ecaust you have is great, you feel like a badass, were all oh so proud, but really, tuning your ECU, not neccisary not so ever, im sure it may add 1 more horsepower to your motor, but really guy? your better than that, you can get something a little better than a couple bolt ons, then come back to this forum.
If your hangin low and just slapped on or are considering putting down some forced induction, yeah this is where you want to be, tuning your car is absolutely what you need to do, your compressing timing, air fuel ratio, basically your computer is going to go ballistic and not know what to think of itsself, much like a 15 year old girl who just figured out she was now a **** because shes been been penetrated more than a prostitute... without getting paid for their lack of services. Wow my ADHD is horrible, anyways, dont worry kids with turbos, your life wont be way too difficult, just read on.
IF YOU ARE A DO IT YOURSELF...ER THEN SCROLL DOWN, THIS PARAGRAPH IS POINTLESS TO YOU!
Alright all you lazy people, when it comes to tuning your ECU there are plenty of companies out there that do this for you, given you tell them the specifications of your motor and what parts you are putting onto them, just google ECU tune and im sure you can find plenty of options, you are already not self tuning, therefore im not about to get links for you because well, you need to do some kind of work here guy, also if you don't have a good tuner around you (for example i have AMS right down the road, if you don't know who AMS are, please pull your bottom lip as far out as you can, and digest your own face) then you will need to mail your ECU to the company you want to tune it, this can take weeks depending on how efficient or how busy they are.
YOUR ECU
what is an ECU? Please inform me that question does not need to be answered, but anyways its your car's brain, it knows your altitude, temperature outside, octane of gas, so forth so on, basically it knows everything, even regarding you and that fat chick in the back seat. This is always calculating and reading whats happening, except how you fit that girl in the back of a friggn honda considering her weight, jesus guy! The reasons these are usually upgraded are to change rev limits on the car, manage fuel cup and tamper with radiator fan speeds.
Open interface upgrades are more along the lines of a standalone ECU or one of those piggyback controllers, which alter maps and how your car functions.
Sweet things about this are that you can play around with whats there, and how its tuned more often.
Unfortunately you also have to spend god knows how much time data logging, those obnoxious hours spent on the dyno, and if your car is under warranty, yeah basically any well minded technician will call it out immediately, and well... thats your pocket now kid.
Closed interface upgrades on the other hand are more along the lines of a reflash or chip swap, not really the most interchangeable way to go, you wont be able to tune it on the fly per say.
There are benefits of this, which are that you dont have to guess around and BS, nor do you have to go to the dyno! also it looks and plays around just as if its bone stock, if your car is under warranty or scheduled for matinance, go with this.
Of cource there must be a downfall as well, its ridiculously time consuming to retune and try out new hardware with your motor. If you want to leave your car stock or do everything at once and just let it be, by all means by my guest and go with this so you wont have to mess with it.
YOUR OBD
First off let me tell you what this junk is, im going to refer to OBD's quite a bit, what is an OBD? are you serious? its an On Board Diagnostic computer, and tells you whatever problems your car has.
If you drive a honda from 92-96, you have an OBDi, lucky you (no sarcasm implied) for these are a more coveted platform, they allow you to swap chips, you can tap the connector and verify air/fuel readings and figure out which connector you messed up, what oxygen sensor blew, so forth.
Good thing about these are that they are much less expensive, and you cant detect a missing catalytic converter if you are an enthusiast that could give two ***** about the environment and just want less exhaust restriction, when an OBDii will pop up a check engine light for these.
Things that suck about it are that they are not even close to the level of standardization you can get from an OBDii, almost every flippin version of this needs its own adapter to be interfaced, and your computer doesn't trigger a check engine light until well.. its way too late and your car just broke down and you look like a dick in front of whoever your trying to impress.
Now if you have a car older than 96, you are more than likely in a scenario in which i occurred which is a pain, you have an OBDii, which can keep tabs on fuel pressure from inside the fuel tank, which basically means you can check the status of your evaporative system WOOT! Now the awesome United States regulators made it so you cant disable OBDii systems on your car, I know, awesome, but who the hell knows what you have there? I say go for it.
Things that PWN on this system is that you can electronically reprogram your ECU, no constant chip swapping neccisary today for you!
But your still out of luck, with the OBDii your check engine light wont go anywhere without you fixing the problem, swapping the part, whatever is necessary at the time, you've got to handle or your going to deal with that annoying yellow light blaring in your face.
My personal suggestion before going onto the next step is grabbing yourself Digimoto which is an OBDii scanner. (why the hell am i suggesting that) I am not salesman of the year nor do i care to be, you will benefit from this because they feature similar to factory reader tools, it does have a data logger that will read for its self and a built in accelerometer, makes your data logging sessions much more convenient.
UBERDATA IS YOUR FRIEND
This is a tuning software designed by someone that i find rather comical seeing as once you download it... well you would understand their version of "copyright" is just too good to be true. ANYWAYS, this software as mentioned previously is your friend, it allows you to datalog, you can diagnose from low/high fuel intake, as well as low/high ignition, boost, rev limits, and even DIGITAL DASH! Maps are kind of a hassle to create on your own, it is easier to modify a premade map which are available from multiple websites, i will add a few different links below, but more are available, googleing this will only bring up well... about 666,666 google results for forum questions, in which you are learning right now (not exact amount of pages, but from looking at it you shall feel like your looking at the spawn of satan.
Uberdata 1.7 Download (Maps avalible on the left side)
http://www.b94cast.com/uberdata/
A Good Map Sharing Site
http://www.xenocron.com/bins/index.p...ctory=Uberdata
There are more options of mapping programs, but because i use UserData, i dont know a damn thing about the other ones quite frankly, if you happen to, then just PM me the info about it and basically im going to copy and paste it, so make it fun.
05-14-2010, 08:12 PM
#4
Honda-Tech Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Rockford, Illinois
Posts: 22
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Re: ECU/tuning info
haha, yeah im easily irritated with things, sorry guys. wireing/programing are things i despise thank christ my roomates are geek squad/mechanics haha, im a programer, but i hate my job more than anything.
05-14-2010, 09:36 PM
#6
Honda-Tech Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Rockford, Illinois
Posts: 22
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Re: ECU/tuning info
tight. im ashamed to say i just had to post this thread
https://honda-tech.com/forums/honda-civic-del-sol-1992-2000-1/throttle-body-into-how-install-2776701/
ive been asked so much recently about throttle body spacers and throttle bodys and what they do, what size they are, how they work, how to install them, so on so forth. so i answered all the questions in one post and gave DIY instructions. fml.
https://honda-tech.com/forums/honda-civic-del-sol-1992-2000-1/throttle-body-into-how-install-2776701/
ive been asked so much recently about throttle body spacers and throttle bodys and what they do, what size they are, how they work, how to install them, so on so forth. so i answered all the questions in one post and gave DIY instructions. fml.
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
EF_b- Series
Honda CRX / EF Civic (1988 - 1991)
6
07-05-2007 12:22 AM
