I have just removed my DTUK PD2 and have remapped my Fabia vrs ASZ with the 165bhp generic map from blacksmoke.co.uk. I bought a cheap ebay 1260 cable and flashed it using a netbook with xp installed. It was easy to flash the ecu and Andrew was very helpfull replying to any questions i had quickly. Now for a test, at first felt a similar power level to my tuning box but much more progressive and smooth. Took a bit of mixed driving but now it pulls very nicely, i reckon 160 odd bhp is spot on and no black smoke to boot!!. It takes 5 mins to flash back to standard ecu as you back this up before flashing the new map. Overall im very impressed for £60 including cable.

Edited 13 May, 201214 yr by RAPTURE

So these guys suggest you buy a counterfeit Galletto 1260 cable to do the remap - not impressed

I got a real Galletto cable from Ebay to flash my car, and it was still "cheap" - just depends on what cable it was I suppose. Doesn't say it was a counterfeit directly.

The genuine Galletto cable/software is around 300 Euros

Ive seen this and also spoke to the guy, seems to know his stuff. He offers a guarantee that if it messes up your ecu he will replace it.

Was very tempted myself and seen big topic about it on uk mkivs site. Lot of happy customers

I am tempted in this bit will the software work with my macbook

As a mapper, I could promise to replace your whole car if my map went wrong. It doesn't mean anything whatsoever, I'd just say you must have done it wrong, or bought the wrong cable, or your car had underlying issues that you hadn't told me about, or your computer was faulty. It's just not worth the risk in my opinion, if you're going to be cheap about it then just get a plug-in tuning box, if you want it doing properly then get a professional to do it for you.

Personally, for the sake of £200 quid I'd rather go to somewhere and have it done. The chance of damaging something and the costs involved with the parts your messing with are just too much of a risk for me. Each to their own though!

Thanks for the responces. Well it's alot smoother than my DTUK, seems to hold power longer and my tailgate stays clean. I think Andrew the guy at Blacksmoke has done his homework and is not offering too aggresive maps. It has advantages over a proffesional map as If the map gets wiped by a garage i can re-upload in mins or revert back to standard at will. He offers complete remapped ecu's for £150 aswell, two week trial and will map out the egr if you want ect. I know my car having driven for 20000 miles, it is happy with the 165 map and now im getting a true mpg figure. Its a pretty fail safe method, the only way i can see it going wrong is if you where sent and flashed the wrong map. The satisfaction of doing it yourself, priceless.

This the cable i have works like a charm : http://www.ebay.co.u...=item3cc588fa6a

Also the software is freely available on the web legally so paying 300 euros for a small cable is like buying something from a main dealer lol.

Edited 14 May, 201214 yr by RAPTURE

Theirs two sides to this.

1. Using cheap Chinese tools that offer no support and recovery option (for this tool) in the event of a bad flash.

2. The actual file "remap"

Two different discussions. Yes it's a cheap clone tool but the actual file could be really good. In which case you could buy a genuine powergate and use that to flash the file.

Bit of a strange way of doing things, essentially you could now take the file he sent you and pass it round to other people with clone tools with the same ecu revision..

We never send out un-encrypted files.

Kev

Interesting (correct me if I'm wrong) you download the file from the site. So how do you know it matches software/hardware wise?

Strange isn't the word, then again you could spend significantly less again and just buy a CD full of maps from eBay, set up a site and charge £60 a time to send an email, as you didn't invest in the dyno time to develop a map what do you care if someone re-sells or flashes a few other cars, you still made £60.

I should make it clear i'm not saying that's what's happened in this case but the one rule that all mappers who've either developed or legitimately purchased master maps stick to is they don't supply unencrypted maps to customers.

This used to be commonplace (I think it still is) with Peugeot 306 hdis through the various owners clubs. People would use the kwp/galletto to copy their standard map file and email to the mapper who would modify it and email it back to you.

I'd imagine it's a similar setup

[RealHustleMode] If it looks too good to be true, it usually is!! [/RealHustleMode]

On one side I can completely understand the logic of an inexpensive remap, after all its simply the case of changing some numbers on the software side, and if its a conservative remap then the numbers only change marginally.

On the down side though is, do I trust that person or company to work their magic? the consequences of a failure could be in the ££££'s. Am I dealing with a proper del boy at the other end? Does he know exactly what he/she is changing, why they're changing it and what are the implications if it was changed? Or did that person/company simply took the codes or whatever from somewhere and copied it on.

No offence to the companies (like shark, jabbasport etc) but if one really wanted to get the codes from the map im sure its achievable and they could replicate it and sell it on which will make small company maps just as good/safe etc.

£200-300 for a piece of mind vs ££££ of potential repairs is acceptable imo for an end user.

Cable wise, codes entered are digital. So long as the quality is there or there abouts it'll do the job. Much like 99p HDMI cables vs £99 HDMI cables. I personally would trust a 'counterfeit digital cable' so long as its made correctly.

No such thing as a digital cable, cables are generally made of copper, copper clad aluminium, aluminium or fibre (glass or plastic), the data transmitted on them can however be digital, analogue or a mixture of both. The last three 99p HDMI cables I purchased died, i'm calling faulty termination on them (that and Sky+HD is quite sensitive to voltage changes) but i'm past caring, they've been replaced with £1 HDMI cables that work... spend the extra penny!

Back to maps, some mappers purchase master maps from other well known EU tuners, the mapping for my last car was developed in Germany, it was only when it was discovered that under certain conditions the map would drop a car into safe mode that it became obvious how many independent 1 man and a laptop mappers had obtained the the same map one way or another. The point is genuinely developing and testing a map properly usually requires a fair bit of dyno/road time or paying someone else to do the leg work for you. The idea that someone who'd genuinely invested time/money into developing his own maps and testing them would give them away unencrypted is either highly altruistic or it makes no financial sense what so ever.

It's a bit like buying stuff from a bloke down the pub, it's 75% less than the going rate and seems like a bargain but you don't know where it comes from or if it's legit, you either take a punt and see what happens or you choose to go to the shop and buy it legit. In this case the bloke's also giving you as many more of the items you buy at no cost, now that's just not right! Anyway wherever the maps are from i'd be interested to see how they plot on a dyno

The guy at blacksmoke told me he pays royalties the tuning company he gets the maps from.

Cos i wandered how he cud make money when if you can download for any car then surely you can copy it on.

No such thing as a digital cable...

Trying to be a smart a$$ eh.. wiki will sort you out: http://en.wikipedia....i/Digital_cable

I was referring data input was digital as it was on the same paragraph, I put ' ' implying its a word one may use in layman's world but not be technically accurate. You've also forgot a vital part of making a data cable, the insulation which protects it from EMF/I and environmental conditions :sun:

JLneonhug interesting argument, slightly going off topic here but hey everyone else does so why not me? lol how come you havent replied to the gear ratios thread? :p

Hi all, I run the www.Blacksmoke.co.uk website.

For years I have remapped VAG diesel cars for friends and family. After watching a local Remap company remove my neighbours ECU with a crowbar I knew that I could offer a better service to the public.

Remapping cars via the OBD port is not hard but recovering a bricked ECU does require ability to which I have acquired (along with professional reliable equipment).

I don't create the maps themselves but before I tried various suppliers and some were appalling!!

I do pay a royalty for all the maps sold to the original remapping company who developed most of the maps on a rolling road.

I removed the mystery for DIY remapping by creating an easy to follow guide and my reviews speak for themselves.

To answer a few of your comments:

I make no claims to using counterfeit Galletto leads.

I never compare myself to a good quality rolling road tuning company.

I promise to repair or replace any bricked ECU, I've recovered 2 for customers and neither actually used my map or guide (Ebay CD and DIY without checksum).

The file can be used by other vehicles with the same ECU numbers, that’s why I support bricked ECUs for 7 days, after that support is there but it's not free.

If you look on the uk-mkiv forum you will see that I gave advice to one person who insisted on using an Ebay CD as he was a grown up and made his own mind up how he wanted to remap his own car.

For any forum snipers my username is always aham_uk. Please don't think the above is a sale pitch as it's not. I don't pay for advertising on any forums and most of my sales are based on word of mouth. You will normally find me helping others who genuinely need support.

Thats cleared that one up then I personally don't see an issue with this service. I have recommended BlackSmoke to a friend who has just got a mk4 golf TDI.

If you go somewhere and pay for a generic map all you are paying for is the rolling road session and someone to hook a laptop up to flash and replace the map with a different one.

BlackSmoke offer the generic map without the rolling road so of course it isnt expensive

JLneonhug interesting argument, slightly going off topic here but hey everyone else does so why not me? lol how come you havent replied to the gear ratios thread? :p

Ha! I thought the world wasn't ready for my sarcasm so I left quietly hoping no-one would notice :rofl:

Legend

Thanks for posting aham.

I find it funny how people are quick to say x is better than y because y are a big name company. That's why in my first post I said theirs two sides. Second side being the map itself.

I've seen a few remap files from big names and to see what your paying for is a little shocking. Hence why I now map it myself.