Finally found a chip!

[beach]

i understand what your saying. i'll say no more. but i still have my reservations. i dont think it is as clear as you have said.

as for whats wrong with them making a packet i dont mind that they do thats fine with me its a bussines. i have a habbit of valuing things as i think of the work gone into them.

i would feel better if the seriel code you recieve is an actual "product" like they could give a registered cd containing the map to you. and this can be presented to them or other tuners by a new car and driver to get that map

transfered in for say a £5 charge.

btw is there any reason someone with a laptop cant steal the tuned map from their own car and just sell it on?

[Tigz™]

lol its not that simple no.

Mate, listen if you disagree with a company making money on tuning your car, download a copy of this

http://www.mrturbo.co.za/MrTurbo1.68.exe

Spend a few months learning to use it.

Then import the ECUs in from South Africa

http://www.mrturbo.co.za/

Then you are able to build your own map from scratch, and save your self £400.

Bargain.

Although just to add.

Messing up the fuelling, and causing detonation will cost a lot more than £400 to put right!

Edited October 2, 2006 by Tigz

[Snoopy]

btw is there any reason someone with a laptop cant steal the tuned map from their own car and just sell it on?

It would be obvious to the original tuning company (who would just do the same to a car modified by their competitor and check if they're the same) and they could sue for fraud?

[beach]

i wonder if the tuning companies have bought a licence from say vw, if they are selling software which runs on vw own code....

certainly if you sell software to run on a sony playstation sony knows about it and will sue the ass of anyone trying to bypass them.

[Snoopy]

Sony's position is legally dubious, and they have an obvious motivation to prevent mod chips (they vastly reduce secondary income from sales of games).

VW do nothing but gain from remap companies. People know that they can get their 225bhp 1.8T up to 275bhp, and that increases sales of their cars compared to competitors. Any failures can be blamed on the tuning companies, so VW don't get the rap. Failures will generate VW more revenue in blown turbos and other maintenance. And so on.

VW would gain virtually nothing and potentially gather a lot of bad press if they pressed a case like that.

[beach]

yes i agree with the private support that vw and others would let their cars be tuned to be more impressive to owners/tuners etc.

thats why i dont understand or accept that ecu are glued internally for the reason to stop tuners. either that is a rare/one off example or there is another strange reason for it.

[Tigz™]

We've just been discussing this.

We dot understand the glue either.

[MattEB]

We've just been discussing this.

We dot understand the glue either.

I used to work for a tuning company a few years ago working on ECU's and can

tell you there are other ECU's out there that are 'glued' (potted) but not that

many of them.

One opinion we came to was that the ECU maybe subject to water ingress and is

potted to prevent this, another idea was that the ECU is indeed potted to prevent

tampering with the ECU. I however feel this is a decision taken by the ECU

manufacturers and not VW and is Lupo GTi specific because it runs a different

spec computer ie Simos and is to prevent water imgress.

Removing potting/glue can be done on the whole ECU and then once the location

of the memory device (chip) has been found you only need to remove that portion

of the glue to gain access to the chip.

Oh just thought Simos may not even have a seperate memory device it may be in

the processor

Hope this helps clarify the Loop GTi ECU situation a bit.

Before anyone asks I will not disclose which tuning company I worked for!

[Tigz™]

From: Bucks and Reading

[COUGH]Superchips[/COUGH]

[beach]

interesting stuff.

[superstardjmatt]

so then....is it possible to just remove the the glue and whack a new chip in? i dont understand how the whole thing's not accessible, what if VW need to get at it??

[beach]

could be warranty issues?

if VW intended it to be a deterrent they missed a more evil trick. if i was in charge it would be the opening of the ecu case, a warning buzzer then an internal speaker activates a lady voice intones "Detonation in 5...4....3....2...."

BANG!

[superstardjmatt]

haha i think "BANG" will happen wihtout having to open the ecu casing. Specially if i keep driving the way i do style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":blink:" border="0" alt="blink.gif" />

and i think it would definately be in a german accent that

DETONAZION IN FUNF SEKONDS SCHVINEHUNT

[MattEB]

so then....is it possible to just remove the the glue and whack a new chip in? i dont understand how the whole thing's not accessible, what if VW need to get at it??

Not looked inside my ECU yet! thinking about getting a serial port

reprogram done though. I will find out about the accessability of

the chip though and keep you all upto date.

[beach]

i have been in contact with my local tuners. they are offering to do me a replacement chip remap for the gti ecu. and not a seriel port tune. they say it will be specific and mapped to my car as presented to them with any modifications, although i dont have any. i told them of the glue stuff that could be in the ecu. they replied saying that new ecu tend to have a silicone gel protecting the insides but they dont consider it a problem normally.

hope this helps.

btw their estimate for a custom chip remap is a 6bhp gain and good mid range torque improvement. so quite concervative.

cost is £325 inc vat. they are the people that 1st did my rolling road when i got my gti, so they would do a before and after dyno run aswell.

i may decide to do this sometime but not right now.

Edited October 9, 2006 by beach

[MattEB]

btw their estimate for a custom chip remap is a 6bhp gain and good mid range torque improvement. so quite concervative.

cost is £325 inc vat.

Sounds like a tuning company that tell the truth with

power figures and don't just pluck figures from thin air!

Who are they?

[beach]

they are just a tuning compamy called richards brothers. they can supply and fit tuning parts and they have a good rolling road.

[Tigz™]

http://www.richardsbros.com/

[beach]

thats it.