Whats the best availible at the moment? any link and prices?

Thanks

 

To remap what? Your going to have to elaborate a LOT to be honest...

 

Looking at general wide range. what sort of things would need to be taken into acount then fella?

 

Sorry Bretters but that last question suggests to me that you aint ready to be mapping cars

 

about 100k to cover most models

 

the easyest way if you gotta ask this question, is to pay to be one of MSD's dealers!

 

That doesnt allow you to actually map cars though does it?

 

yep your right LOL

 

Just to clarify in case all the pisstake replies havent helped the OP out yet:


There is no cheap setup that Im aware of that will remap ALL cars.

So please list the cars you wish to map, and we may be able to give you options for some or all of them.

For example Evo's can be done pretty easily on a cable, cossies really you need an emulator and its still not pleasant, and some cars like a 205gti you essentially cant do at all with any equipment.

 

First of all you need to decide what cars your going to be doing. If you have a garage and want to remap normal run of the mill "Bread and butter cars" as I call them, then you will need to look at a couple of different systems that allow you to read, modify, checksum and flash the finished product into the ECU via the OBD port. There is no one system that does all cars but three on the market will give you access to the majority of ECU communication protocols. A decent OBD scaner is a necessity as only an idiot will remap a car that may be faulty to start with. You must check them carefully first, its part of the job.

If you want to do performance cars then I would advise that you get some more specific tuning knowledge and tooling to suit such as Wideband fuel monitor and detcans as a starting point. We also often use EGT and various thermocouples too, depending on the tune in question.

An emulator only works on some systems with most modern ones being impossible to emulate, but older ones with the right equip are as easy, or easier, than most standalone systems. Please beware of people offering live maps on most modern ECU's as its impossible.

Be aware that most systems will cost you for every tune you do, prices vary for calibration decoding but expect to pay between £30 and £100 per car fro some of the bigger companies. This can be avoided once you understand the systems well enough to code in hex or 2d, but I'm presuming that right now you don't.

Once the file is done you need to buy a checksum module for your system that will allow you to checks the file back to what the ECU needs to see for it to be satisfied the file is standard and allow the car to actually run. these are ECU type dependent and expect to pay anything from £100 to £1000 depending on ECU type and its technological standing in the industry.

I cant really give you any more info until I know what you need to do as if you just want to sell other peoples remaps like my installers do then that is a totally different ballgame and much easier so the info I have just given you is allready pointless, so please clarify.

 

to reverse engineer the checksum must be a bloody nightmare

 

Only if you dont understand the processor machine code.

Unfortunately, programmers earn more than mappers..LOL

 

Are the algorythms not one way then simon?

 

You must examine the routine that does the check against the stored checksum.

Obviously, you need to know the following...

1) Where the stored checksum(s) is/are stored.
2) Where the routine(s) are that calculate them to compare against.

People who provide mapping equipment would have reverse engineered the program itself to find these.
Some dont bother and just make sure the memory map sum adds up to teh original total binary checksum before any modifications to the map data are done.
However, the ecu makers are getting more clever using Recursive CRC type sums and hash alogorithms to hide the data.

No system is secure but it is getting harder to do in both complexity and time.

 

Thats what I would imagine, that they will eventually make it difficult enough that it become prohibitive to cracking or working around it for people unless they know they are going to sell a LOT of the checksums to the fellas like Stu doing the basic mapping bits and pieces.

Certainly not a DIY'able thing I would imagine

 

Stu, what OBD scanner would you recommend to find/clear fault codes on most cars?

 

VAGcom certainly works well on my audi, so probably a good bet for your skoda fletch?

 

Yeah, was thinking of that Chip, but would want something All-In-One if possible so I can fault code other people's cars or my future cars

 

Its cheaper to just buy the pikey version for each car I believe, half a dozen of them at 100 quid a pop (or far less in some cases) is for nothing really, I dont think there is ANY generic fault code reader that is cheap enough to rival that.

 

@ Pikey version...

What sort of ones are good tho Chip? Easy to read/use? I don't mind spending the cash on something worth while, but don't want something that will crash and corrupt the car its plugged into.

 

VAGcom is good.

As is evoscan


Each car you are interested for, just join a forum for that car and see what people use.

 

Cheers Chip, will nosey round. Im buying VagCom at some point anyway

 

 

u581 off ebay are good all round scanners and cheap. can you afford to run a modern car without one?

 

i just bought a decscan,,, seems good and fast compared to snap on solus, and also programs ecu's,keys etc on most cars,,, they recon its dealer level for european cars,
also got a carman scan, and the ids which is dealer ford/jag/landrover/mazda.

if i was going for one to do most stuff it would be the decsan!!

 

ForeignRS, thanks mate. Watching it on EBAY and will do some research

Andrew, where could I buy them? and how technical are they to use? I have knowledge, but it is limited

 

Where did the OP go?

 

it went over his head


he then went to bed