Tunners or copy paste files ?

Hi guys im new here and i just recently start my efi tuning course and I have a question here in my country I know a few guys calling themselves tunners they use this brand of tunning tools “ K-tag, Kess and Dimsport” but it seems like a copy paste tunning files of those pages who sell prepaid tuning files im new im rookie but im sure that is not tunning or maybe it is… thanks for all

hi Ricardo i agree with you but if it makes them money and they can sleep at night knowing they could have done better I guess that is their decision

i prefer to tune every car as if i had never seen it before and use the understanding of the software and the type of car to build the best map i can for the budget of the customer

Rgards Ross

Hi,

It totally depends on how they market themselves. Someone installing for another calibration brand, lets say Superchips as a well known global brand is, for that particular job just a product fitter. He has fit a product that improved the vehicles performance, he did nothing at all to actually improve the performance bar fit someone else's product. If hes decent he may at least test that the AFR levels are good and there is no excessive knock. But most dont.

The customer however will see him as a tuner as his car went in with X power and came out with more.

A lot is probably down to interpretation and misunderstanding by the customer as opposed to false promotion by the garage.

The tools alone are irrelevant though. I see many people complain about tool useage and you have mentioned them yourself.

Genius, Kess, CMD, Swiftec, COBB, VCM Editor, I use genuine fully licensed versions of them all and have done for 25years. I use them daily. These tools are no different to a 13mm spanner and a dyno, they are just my tools. The calibration itself is the issue... that is the "Tuning" and the quality ranges from almost OE standard to outright dangerous to carry passengers. Which I guess is where your post comes in...

Sadly, there there are thousands of companies in the UK and I am sure the world, that just buy in £15 files from others and stick them in ECU's and call themselves tuners. This is a very hit and miss affair and I spend a good proportion of my working life making a living fixing these vehicles when they have been ruined by a file with all the limits flatlined, all the fault codes removed and the turbo left to its own devices. Some of them are deathtraps with DPF and PPF routines disabled but the hardware still in place so they are clogging to hell, the exhaust is glowing and all the warnings and protection routines are deleted.... Grim.

The OE ECU is so far advanced compared to the average aftermarket unit that most "Tuners" should not be anywhere near one.

For this reason, the industry could do with some regulation to be fair, and I would very much welcome it.

The problem is I cant see any way it can be regulated other than some OE held exam where calibrators were tested to have actual calibration knowledge and skills. Maybe a certification process where you would sit in with an examiner with a standard Ford Raptor firmware and do a stage 1 tune explaining all the way why you are changing the tables and what the expected effect will be back at the engine during a duress test. That should take about 234 table changes to make a good stage 1 and I could explain precisely why i have changed each table, why i have changed it the way I have and what i will expect the outcome to be with additional fuel requirements and thermal limits. The safety limits will also need to be reprofiled to pass. NOT disabled.

Perhaps if you pass you could display a certificate to say you are competent with Bosch MED17?

Bah... pipedreams, but you could sign me up right away!! Id volunteer to go first. :)

Failing that, we need to go back in time to a place where no skills meant dead engines...

In the 80s and early 90s we still needed to know how to adjust timing and cams, how to jet carbs and change fuel pumps, indeed how to build and engine and port a head. You couldn't make a living as a tuner without those skills. The good old days when you actually needed the fundamentals in place eh?

Nowadays a car can be made faster by a bricklayer with no engine knowledge at all flashing in a £15 file he bought on eBay with the file verification flag disabled so it will go in any similar ECU without problem.

The industry really is in a bloody mess.... :(

Full disclosure; I come from a standalone tuning background and have only in the past year been diving in to Bosch ME/torque demand reflashing, so if I'm incorrect it's from a lack of observation and ignorance, not judgement, so here goes:

I'd venture to say that there are three different facets of the industry being discussed, OE reflashers/tweakers, ECU mappers/tuners, and lastly EFI architects though I will admit with tools going in the trajectory they're going the lines are getting pretty blurred.

Most of the time the OE tunes/flashes that I've seen and strategies discussed are generally 'hacks' that remind me of pre-standalone piggy backs that are now just applied in software. This is both good, and bad, and is also just my opinion.

Then you've got 'mappers' who (we hope) are very good at their job of taking a well running vehicle that has been designed and built, and can take a blank box of some ECU (whatever one blows your hair back) make and map it start to finish focusing on drivability (again, we hope) and power on a dyno.

Lastly there are the architects who can look at a component list/dream the customer has and design a comprehensive control scheme for everything they want, regardless of potential manufacturer. There are a whole lot of parts to this such as hardware architecting (turbo sizing, engine setup, etc) as well as chassis electrical control (PDMs etc), the potential for OE integration, and finally the actual mapping of the vehicle. In my perfect world this is what we/they would all strive to be.

Where the standard definition of 'tuner' would lay I suppose really depends on the individual. I've got my own, you may have yours, I like to vote with my wallet as well as my suggestions on who to work with to potential clients.

-Dave

thanks all you guys for your comments,