Eurocharged ECU tuning - feedback request
 

I am thinking of doing an ECU tune on my 2010 Cayman. I've heard good things about Eurocharged in Toronto. Has anyone here done such tuning with Eurocharged and what is your opinion? Did you notice any horsepower gains? Was the car dynoed before and after?

I did this on my last car (C63 AMG), and it added a ton of power (~70hp). Got it done over the lunch break at Mosport, and the top speed at the end of the back straight went from ~225 to ~235. Definitely felt it. Car ran solid until the end, and Eurocharged has a great reputation in that community.

Haven't heard of many Porsche guys using them, but I'm considering it for a 996TT too.:cheers:

Squeezing 70hp out of a boosted car is relatively easy as opposed to a N/A engine. Porsche doesn't like to leave too much extra hp on the table for no reason. All these aftermarket tunes just remove some of the safety factor that the factory left in the tune and they use phrases like optimazation to make it sounds better.

EC has tuned my AMG and Ferrari with excellent results.

EC is highly recommended

can they tune NA cars or are they more about tuning FI'd cars?

I would love to get a tune that takes advantage of the 4.0 in displacement i have now...but LN and Jake said don't let anyone tune it.

It all depends on how long you want it to last.

Are you saying that ECU tuning will affect reliability?

Not much on the table with an N/A Cayman.

Unless it is modified, I wouldn't bother tuning it yet...

Unless you have also modified the engine, yes.

ECU tuning can affect reliability but no one can quantify by how much because there are a lot of variables involve such as the way you drive, the gas you use, the condition of your engine, the aggressiveness of the tune, etc. It could shorten engine life 5% or 50%, I don't think there is enough data to draw a definitive trend. All I will say is if you play then you better be prepared to pay.

full disclosure: I have Softronic ECU tune installed. I like it and can feel the difference in everyday driving.


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I know we discussed before but cant remember if Jake built the engine? Did you do other work other than the bore? I have the 4l and intake/exhaust upgrades and considering a tune

They have done both my BMWs and I'm bringing them another car in two weeks

Speak to Randy at Eurocharged. He knows his stuff and is a good guy:)

False. The better tunes (not off the shelf) are commensurate to your vehicles fitness and complimenting upgrades. If one is expects a turn key tune then I would agree that it may do more harm than good as it isn't tuned for your specific setting.
At your request, EC will do a before and after dyno run measuring your cars performance prior to the tune and after. If needed, tuners can modify your A/F ratio to pinpoint accuracy for max efficiency.

I built it. I have the OE PSE on it, that's it. I don't really plan on doing anything else to this car.

I heard back from Randy and hes saying all the things I want to hear. Including this little tidbit:

Er - tunes "commensurate to your vehicles fitness and complimenting upgrades" by definition INCLUDE other engine modifications (upgrades). Pre-canned tunes that are a dime a dozen are the ones that will somewhat shorten the engine life or sacrifice some margin for error (if you get a bad batch of gas for example). If you've modded the engine, then a proper custom tune for your particular motor and mods may be able to get some more power without adversely affecting the longevity.

My 996TT had a GIAC chip almost immediately and $hitloads of trackways at Mosport and other tracks, ran flawlessly. Only upgrade was to modify the exhaust for better flow.

Did he also read you the line right above the one that mentions the $50K engine warranty, which states "Coverage is for 2 years or 32,000 kilometers from the original in-service date", and futhermore inform you that if your car still has some factory warranty left, their tune would void the same?

Nothing against Randy - he's a very decent bloke I know from the BMW CCA, but if any of you think that there is such a thing as a free lunch (i.e free horsepower), I have an amazing deal on some excellent Ronco knives and some miraculous fitness pills!

X2, and a great driver.

Maximum efficiency leave no room for error.

That isn't true on all cars. A $200 tune for my BMW 335i increased the HP by 60-70 with only a minor impact. But BWM left a huge amount of power on the table with that engine and it is a twin turbo. My understanding is that porsche already completely optimized the performance of the 996 NA engine so a tune wouldn't gain much.

Yes, he did. Don't know where you got the impression I am looking for free horsepower though.

I think I'll hold off ECU tuning until after exhaust mods

What????? An upgrade is not necessarily a modification "by definition".
For example: Due to issues with some factory F430 exhaust manis I opted to upgrade the headers.

I'd tend to agree if boosted, but I'm talking NA.

The only difference is that $hit goes sideways a little sooner in a boosted car. Either way, you tune out the safety margin and the engine will pop when not everything is as the tune predicts/expects.

I had my 06 cayman tuned there a few years back. The throttle response was better and I did feel greater pull lower in the revs. I had exhaust + headers which responded well to the tune. Plan to tune my 997 as well.

I take all my cars to Eurocharged for everything. Great group of guys.

Sure it is. Actual data and facts are in extremely short supply here, and your argument that your personal experience supports your conclusion is also wrong. That's like saying "I was standing not too far away when the Chernobyl reactor exploded and four years later I was fine, so exposure to radiation doesn't cause any harm." Google "335i tune failure" and have a read.

If you upgrade the headers, you have changed a part of the engine to something other than the original design. Last time I checked, that was the very definition of a modification. And, if said headers provide better gas flow, then a custom tune may be able to get you more power by taking advantage of the better gas flow.

Here's a fact: all other things being equal, an engine producing more power is going to be under more stress and suffer extra wear and tear (strain). Whether any one particular engine or part thereof is already run within an inch of its life (and its longevity is measured in mere hours) or is under-stressed from the factory (and could last several decades) is besides the point. They will both experience increased wear and tear and thus failures as a result of being run harder. The only variable is by how much.

That isn't true and that analogy isn't comparable what so ever. My argument wasn't based on personal experience and I did a lot of research before tuning my car including dozens of posts from people who have run tuned engines for many years. The thread on MHD tuning on e90post.com is currently at 427 pages (and I've read them all). The MHD tuning software (alone) has been downloaded over 10,000 times. The number of N54 engines that have been tuned obviously isn't documented, but the number is high enough to support a large handful of different vendors (ie Dinan, JB4, MHD, Cobb are the biggest ones). I wouldn't be surprised if there were more than 50K n54 engines that were tuned substantially above stock levels. Obviously the volume of n54 engines sold is huge since BMW has been selling that engine in multiple cars for years.
The reports of engine failures are extremely low by car forum standards. The n54 engine has forged internals and has been run reliably well above 500hp. BMW and Dinan both offered full engine warranties on tuned cars.

So back to the original point. Does tuning the car increase wear and decrease the lifetime of the engine in general? Almost certainly. It would be idiotic to claim otherwise. Even if the additional stress didn't, tuning the engine probably also had an impact on the driver's behavior which could accelerate wear.

Is the increase and wear and engine lifetime always significant? Obviously debatable, but on some engines (like the n54) the answer is may be no.

I think we may be arguing over semantics here. On the tuned N54 engines, the turbos start to fail after 15K miles and so does the fuel pump. Are they not part of the engine? I never mentioned the block internals nor suggested that some parts of a given engine are unable to withstand more punishment than others. My point is only that a tune will increase wear and tear on an engine and thus decrease its lifespan. If a particular tune shortens the lifespan of some component by 50% and said component has, say, on average a 12 year lifespan, it means that the tuned ones will start failing after 6 years instead of 12. At that stage you may no longer own the car, but it doesn't make the tune "perfectly safe".

I admire your determination to have the last say. Again, I don't contest the fact that a tune will add some strain on a motor but consider some facts.
My previous e92 with a N54 motor was one of the best engines at stock level but extremely under-performing. This motor was built to offer more performance than they actually deliver. The same motor is used in various BMW platforms with more performance values. A car manufacture can't build a new motor for every facelift/model they release. But they can release new performance versions with models. What actually changes? In some cases better breathing (intake, exhaust) with a re-mapped ECU. Note: BMW honors Dinan's performance upgrades.
As for my F430, all potential effects were considered including (if any) increased EGT, A/F trim, shifting parameters, etc. All within acceptable tolerances. The reason I upgraded the headers was to eliminate the aforementioned header issue and address a flat spot in the RPM range. Picking up an additional 65whp in the process was a pleasant surprise. All better for the track! :)
Gone are the days where OTS tunes is the only choice. My advice is to spring for bespoke tunes that's tailored for your your specific tolerances. Besides, regular maintenance and the way you drive your car (tune or not!) is key to motor longevity.

It has nothing to do with me having the last word, nor am I disputing anything you wrote above - except now for the note about BMW honoring Dinan upgrades... BMW doesn't honor anything once the car has been tuned. The BMW warranty does get voided, and instead Dinan - or, rather, you - pick up, i.e. pay for the remainder of the factory warranty, which is why Dinan tunes and upgrades cost twice as much as anyone else's. We are 100% in agreement that certain components of a certain platform may be able to offer considerably more performance than they may be asked to provide in certain applications (the N54 engine in the 335i being a case in point), but again, the tuned engines are on average not going to last as long as engines running on the factory tune. And again, I agree with you 100% that a custom tune tailored to your particular vehicle and your mods is the way to go as it is the only way to get all of the performance benefits from the mods - however, that's not what the OP was asking about. He was asking about putting on a pre-canned tune from EC on his (presumably otherwise stock) 2010 Cayman, and got a bunch of EC fanboys who drank the Kool-Aid telling him about how much extra power he can have on his BMW N54 or AMG M156 motor by slapping on a pre-canned tune from EC without any mention of the consequences.

Stop making sense - its guys like you that put aftermarket snake oil salespeople out of work.

I always show people the amount of modifications that Porsche put into the X51 upgrade for N/A engines in 996's just to gain 48HP over stock and then let people review what the chip people do - *nothing* but plug it back in and *suggest* they can give you what the factory did for zero engine modifications. :banghead:

So if you have a turbo - fine - they raise the boost - but don't think you can get more than a few HP on your non boosted engines with a guy and his laptop...

X51 Power Kit
(from the tech bulletin describing installation)

"A parts set -"Carrera Powerkit"- is available to retrofit the standard engine with an increased performance of 254 kW (345 HP). The following parts in the engine are replaced, exchanged or modified to achieve this increased performance:
- new intake manifold with modified cross-section (material: sand cast aluminum );
- new intake pipe supports adapted to the form of the intake manifold;
- new exhaust manifolds with larger cross-section and optimized flow behavior;
- new cylinder heads with optimized, CNC-milled inlet ducts;
- new camshafts with larger valve stroke on the inlet side and modified inlet and outlet timing;
- inlet valve springs adapted to the enlarged valve stroke;
- modified partition box in the oil pan;
- modified maps for the DME control module.

The following steps are also taken on the vehicle:
- new underside panel in the transmission area;
- additional radiator in connection with modified front spoiler, except on the 911 Carrera 4S (996).

The higher-performance engine is also available as an option when ordering a new vehicles - 911 Carrera / 911 Carrera 4 /911 Carrera 4S /911 Targa - under Exclusive Option X51."

Yes/No it depends on how aggressive the tune is. ALL manufacturers are conservative and limit the engine output to ensure that the engine is reliable through the warranty period. They use limiter maps to control the output of the engines, most Tuners safely bump the limiters to easily get more performance without affecting the long term reliability, if you go past that then you can expect reliability issues.

I can tune VWs, the cars that are pre-'09 are actually quite easy to do and Porsche use the same systems, matter of fact Porsche use the older systems, ME7 "encryption" in the VW/Audi world is considered ancient and no Tuning Protection. The newer car may have the newer systems but most Owners want to keep their warranty safe and sound.

Where did you get this tune done? I'm considering the same.

For my 335i? I installed the tune myself on my n54 engine. MHD is the name of the company that provides the tune. It just required ordering the right cable, buying an Android app (for ~$200 or so), and then running the software on my mobile phone. Very cool and I'm very happy with the result.

Over Android,... cutting edge stuff.:rockon:


.... BUT be careful, while the majority of OBD flashes are successful there is a percentage of failed attempts resulting in bricked ECUs.



Bench recovering of a couple of these ECUs for a couple of big named Tuning companies is how I got noticed.