Running a bluespark box atm but happened to stumble across these guys with decent claims for their ultimate box.

Anyone heard/had any experience with these?

 

http://www.racechip.com/chiptuning/skoda/fabia/fabia-2/1-4-tsi-rs-132kw/index.php

looks like a plug n play for the OBD port.... would be nice if that worked.... buy one and let me know

Loool...ever the shark..let the whole community know please..

Not an obd. It's a sensor plugin like the bluespark and tmc.

Just with some bolder claims on performance.

I am intrigued though.....

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Have a look at what they say might be achieved with a Audi A1 1.4 TFSI 185 ps Minimum (136kw),  superdooper.

(just like some other Tuning Box Suppliers were publishing about 3 years back.)

Seeing as a Standard Mk2 Fabia vRS 1.4 TSI CTHE 180ps minimum (132kw) can make as much hp / Nm as the Audi,

you would be getting a flyer,  or maybe not.

 

Please ask them about the Engine Warranty they say they can offer.

Interesting claims, not huge difference between racechip 2 and ultimate, at least not on paper. Cost roughly the same for an APR stage 1 at Ecotune, think the APR stage 1 takes power to 215 or so and torque to 320nm, I think. Not convinced just yet that the difference is worth the extra cost and invalidation of warranty on a £4k engine, think a good CTHE engine running consistently on Momentum 99 Ron will be making close to 195 standard.

 

That said the key to any successful performance enhancement lies in the supporting modifications to key components, rather than just a remap or in this case with a box. On a standard engine it might be stretching the tolerances of an already highly tuned engine just a shade too far to claim it can be done entirely safely. I know TMG have a twincharger knocking out huge numbers in Greece but that is on what is effectively a specialist build rather than standard components remaining in place.

 

I won't be the guinea pig for this one I'm afraid but will be viewing with interest to see the outcome.

I had already looked at this and decided that tuning boxes wernt for me! As they can run with high AFR's. So decided with a remap am so glad I did. It's been running as sweet as a nut and pulls like a steam train. Even just starting it up in the morn , it just starts quicker and sounds sweet! The switchable maps is just a bonus!

So If I put RaceChip Pro2 or Ultimate on an otherwise stock car i will see 222/230Hp respectively? Seems legit... I say that the people that published those numbers have absolutely not a clue about these engines and I doubt even the posted dynos were done on anything close to a real car, let alone a Fabia vRS.

 

RaceChip or Bluebox or whatever brand I would not put a tuning box on any car of significant value to me, or at least I would not leave it there for prolonged time. The whole idea of how boxes are working defies the very benefits of having a modern ECU that can monitor and control hundreds of operational parameters. As VrsGeo said, a simple logging of AFR, ignition timing etc. reveals how wrong it is to get power out of an engine in that way. The fact that cars run them fine (so far) says nothing about long-term protection. Any reputable tuner will claim that his remap is safe (and that will be mostly true) as they know it is in control of the most critical parameters. A box though will probably just rely on the fact that the engine was built with a decent safety factor in it to withstand some serious mis-treatment. It's funny people decide to put a box instead of a proper remap "for the engine's sake". If one thing, the box is a much more probable failure cause than any half-decent map out there.

Edited 18 November, 201510 yr by newbie69

Totally agree newbie69

I had already looked at this and decided that tuning boxes wernt for me! As they can run with high AFR's. So decided with a remap am so glad I did. It's been running as sweet as a nut and pulls like a steam train. Even just starting it up in the morn , it just starts quicker and sounds sweet! The switchable maps is just a bonus!

 

 

So If I put RaceChip Pro2 or Ultimate on an otherwise stock car i will see 222/230Hp respectively? Seems legit... I say that the people that published those numbers have absolutely not a clue about these engines and I doubt even the posted dynos were done on anything close to a real car, let alone a Fabia vRS.

 

RaceChip or Bluebox or whatever brand I would not put a tuning box on any car of significant value to me, or at least I would not leave it there for prolonged time. The whole idea of how boxes are working defies the very benefits of having a modern ECU that can monitor and control hundreds of operational parameters. As VrsGeo said, a simple logging of AFR, ignition timing etc. reveals how wrong it is to get power out of an engine in that way. The fact that cars run them fine (so far) says nothing about long-term protection. Any reputable tuner will claim that his remap is safe (and that will be mostly true) as they know it is in control of the most critical parameters. A box though will probably just rely on the fact that the engine was built with a decent safety factor in it to withstand some serious mis-treatment. It's funny people decide to put a box instead of a proper remap "for the engine's sake". If one thing, the box is a much more probable failure cause than any half-decent map out there.

 

As a user & fan of tuning boxes, I feel the need to spring to their defence.  I have run (at different times) both a Bluespark box & A TMC box, for almost 2 years now with absolutely no apparent affect of engine harm. I am not an engineer but I have been around cars an awful long time - 55 years or more & I do recognise when an engine is running 'sweet'. I would have thought by now any deleterious effects would have manifest themselves?

All I know is that with the tuning box (either make), the engine runs & sounds sweeter & certainly performs much better.

As I understand it increased engine performance whether by remap or tuning box can only be achieved by 'interfering' with the engine parameters of increased turbo boost, air to fuel ratio, ignition timing and valve timing, so surely whether by remap or tuning box you are taking the engine outside of its design parameters, & thereby increasing its likelihood of failure?

Has their been any documented cases of engine failure attributed to a tuning box? Either on this forum or elsewhere? I bet there are MORE cases of documented failure caused by a too aggressive remap than by the modest interference of parameters by a tuning box.

I would have thought by now that if tuning boxes were a systemic cause of engine failure the manufacturers of such would have been driven out of business - bad news soon gets around.

And Vrsgeorge I have TEN levels of adjustment to play with, but I am quite happy with TMC box set at number 5.

Until such a time that evidence becomes apparent that tuning boxes are causing harm I shall continue to run one, & continue to enjoy its benefits- if the event it does blow my engine, - so what? I understand the risks & I am prepared to live with them.

Sorry for rambling on but I couldn't allow the vicious attack on tuning boxes with coming to their defence. 

Edited 20 November, 201510 yr by vRSforever

The Tuning Boxes, Blue Spark and TMC work fine with 1.4 TMC Twinchargers and so do remaps with a sound engine 

and good Fluids, Filters and Spark Plugs.

 

(Other than the REVO Remap that could take a perfectly good CAVE engine and have it running totally cr4p.)

Maybe they have sorted that out now, but then they never seemed to see any issues with the MAP they offered,

and maybe the engines were the issue, but in my experience of trying their early Stage 1, it was rubbish.)

 

Anyway, what they published as information on the engines applies really if it is a Tuning Box or a Remap you are using 

on a CAVE, or even a CTHE.

'Be sure all is well with your engine before going on to up its Performance.;

http://revotechnik.com/support/technical/14tsi-twincharger-engine-issues

 

As a user & fan of tuning boxes, I feel the need to spring to their defence.  I have run (at different times) both a Bluespark box & A TMC box, for almost 2 years now with absolutely no apparent affect of engine harm. I am not an engineer but I have been around cars an awful long time - 55 years or more & I do recognise when an engine is running 'sweet'. I would have thought by now any deleterious effects would have manifest themselves?

All I know is that with the tuning box (either make), the engine runs & sounds sweeter & certainly performs much better.

As I understand it increased engine performance whether by remap or tuning box can only be achieved by 'interfering' with the engine parameters of increased turbo boost, air to fuel ratio, ignition timing and valve timing, so surely whether by remap or tuning box you are taking the engine outside of its design parameters, & thereby increasing its likelihood of failure?

Has their been any documented cases of engine failure attributed to a tuning box? Either on this forum or elsewhere? I bet there are MORE cases of documented failure caused by a too aggressive remap than by the modest interference of parameters by a tuning box.

I would have thought by now that if tuning boxes were a systemic cause of engine failure the manufacturers of such would have been driven out of business - bad news soon gets around.

And Vrsgeorge I have TEN levels of adjustment to play with, but I am quite happy with TMC box set at number 5.

Until such a time that evidence becomes apparent that tuning boxes are causing harm I shall continue to run one, & continue to enjoy its benefits- if the event it does blow my engine, - so what? I understand the risks & I am prepared to live with them.

Sorry for rambling on but I couldn't allow the vicious attack on tuning boxes with coming to their defence. 

 

I understand your point of view, but it is quite a simplification of what is actually going on especially in a modern engine like ours. It is a bit more complex than "Turn it on / Did it break? / No / Fine then". I will try to give you an example:

 

Does your car drink oil?

Has your air inlet manifold failed?

Has any of your plugs broken and the tip destroying the cylinder?

Has your water pump failed?

Has your N75 or N249 valve gone kaput?

 

I take it the answer to all of the above questions is no. Yet, these are just some of the failures that people do have experienced with their twinchargers, some more often than others. Point here is: We'd like to think so, but real-life experience has proven that no car is the same as another one (of the same brand and model). Everything can break at any time if the quality control can not guarantee 100% reliability (and it never can do that) or if a design fault is present. If we can agree to that, then the whole remap vs box debate becomes more clear in the sense that you would like as much control on how you request extra work from an engine and as little possibility that something does break. A tuning box has no extra feedback on what actually happens. It instead tricks the ECU into thinking it doesn't work as hard when in fact it is. For example, a knock sensor will pick up noise in the chamber and drop ignition timing considerably if say the fuel is bad or the car misfires for any reason in order to protect the engine. A remap can affect how sensitive the knock sensor is in picking noise, anything from deafening it completely (bad) or making it more sensitive if you're too worried that the engine is stressed and allowing it to prevent unpleasant situations. This is only an example. If you noticed, I wrote possibility in bold. And that means it just may happen that you do 200K happy miles with a tuning box and no issues whatsoever, I don't argue with that. But personally, on these specific engines that are not exactly bullet-proof, I would like as much confidence as I can get. Doing track-days with an AFR of 1,0 at 6K is more than asking for trouble I'd think.

 

Then there's of-course the power delivery and the curves we've seen from dynos on "boxed" cars are not exactly the best but I won't get into that. People often don't care about curves and simply look at values. And ultimately for the price difference I just don't see it reasonable to go for a box if I have to sacrifice the above. Saving 200-300 euros when the potential risk could be at the range of 4K euros doesn't make sense to me. But that might be just me.

Edited 20 November, 201510 yr by newbie69

TMC have a massive reputation with fiat users, including the Abarth communities (190bhp 1.4 turbo units that DON'T use oil! lol) and I follow , as we have an Abarth (mapped by an unknown, was like that when we bought it) , and there are many thousands of people using them with no issues at all, in fact I dont think I can recall any failures due to tuning boxed in the fiat communities....

 

I ran TMC on my CAVE vRS for tens of thousands of miles (remember the vid on the airfield of it beating the mongrel to 90 mph? lol) without any  issues.

 

I would hapily use a digital tuning box again. I would also hapily use a remap! lol..

 

edit: after reading newbies post.... you are probably right, you have much finer control with a remap, your logic and reasoning are sound, but I haven't seen any evidence a tuning box is more likley to cause issues (and yes the curve is never as good as a remap ) my attraction to them is the ability to simply remove them (I know... you can get switchable maps)

 

lets put it this way..... we all know we should be using 98 min RON fuel (our best up here is 97) BUT I seriously doubt some ignorant person somewhere who bought the car for looks, knows nothing about it and runs it permanently on 95, boots it from cold (like I do lol) and doesn't let it cool gently,  and changes oil at 18k ,

is doing it any harm at all ... as you say, these engines differ, and have issues.... i reccon if you have a bad one , you have a bad one, if you have a good one you have a good one! you probably take more risk when you buy thecar than when deciding to map it or use a box

Edited 20 November, 201510 yr by sharkrider

TMC have a massive reputation with fiat users, including the Abarth communities (190bhp 1.4 turbo units that DON'T use oil! lol) and I follow , as we have an Abarth (mapped by an unknown, was like that when we bought it) , and there are many thousands of people using them with no issues at all, in fact I dont think I can recall any failures due to tuning boxed in the fiat communities....

 

I ran TMC on my CAVE vRS for tens of thousands of miles (remember the vid on the airfield of it beating the mongrel to 90 mph? lol) without any  issues.

 

I would hapily use a digital tuning box again. I would also hapily use a remap! lol..

 

edit: after reading newbies post.... you are probably right, you have much finer control with a remap, your logic and reasoning are sound, but I haven't seen any evidence a tuning box is more likley to cause issues (and yes the curve is never as good as a remap ) my attraction to them is the ability to simply remove them (I know... you can get switchable maps)

 

lets put it this way..... we all know we should be using 98 min RON fuel (our best up here is 97) BUT I seriously doubt some ignorant person somewhere who bought the car for looks, knows nothing about it and runs it permanently on 95, boots it from cold (like I do lol) and doesn't let it cool gently,  and changes oil at 18k ,

is doing it any harm at all

 

Damn it, my post should have been after yours 

pmsl I kNow! I have just edited my with a response for your post! !! lol..

pmsl I kNow! I have just edited my with a response for your post! !! lol..

 

 

STOP---EDITING---!

 

PS. 

Edited 20 November, 201510 yr by newbie69

I hate forum "crossover" :P

 

 

 

I understand your point of view, but it is quite a simplification of what is actually going on especially in a modern engine like ours. It is a bit more complex than "Turn it on / Did it break? / No / Fine then". I will try to give you an example:

 

Does your car drink oil?

Has your air inlet manifold failed?

Has any of your plugs broken and the tip destroying the cylinder?

Has your water pump failed?

Has your N75 or N249 valve gone kaput?

 

I take it the answer to all of the above questions is no. Yet, these are just some of the failures that people do have experienced with their twinchargers, some more often than others. Point here is: We'd like to think so, but real-life experience has proven that no car is the same as another one (of the same brand and model). Everything can break at any time if the quality control can not guarantee 100% reliability (and it never can do that) or if a design fault is present. If we can agree to that, then the whole remap vs box debate becomes more clear in the sense that you would like as much control on how you request extra work from an engine and as little possibility that something does break. A tuning box has no extra feedback on what actually happens. It instead tricks the ECU into thinking it doesn't work as hard when in fact it is. For example, a knock sensor will pick up noise in the chamber and drop ignition timing considerably if say the fuel is bad or the car misfires for any reason in order to protect the engine. A remap can affect how sensitive the knock sensor is in picking noise, anything from deafening it completely (bad) or making it more sensitive if you're too worried that the engine is stressed and allowing it to prevent unpleasant situations. This is only an example. If you noticed, I wrote possibility in bold. And that means it just may happen that you do 200K happy miles with a tuning box and no issues whatsoever, I don't argue with that. But personally, on these specific engines that are not exactly bullet-proof, I would like as much confidence as I can get. Doing track-days with an AFR of 1,0 at 6K is more than asking for trouble I'd think.

 

Then there's of-course the power delivery and the curves we've seen from dynos on "boxed" cars are not exactly the best but I won't get into that. People often don't care about curves and simply look at values. And ultimately for the price difference I just don't see it reasonable to go for a box if I have to sacrifice the above. Saving 200-300 euros when the potential risk could be at the range of 4K euros doesn't make sense to me. But that might be just me.

 

 

I hear what you say & a lot of it makes sense, but hey! you pays your money & make your choice. In an ideal world I would have gone for a remap. Truth is not one of the specialist companies approached could remap without hacking the ECU - one thing I wasn't prepared to consider because of warranty issues. Neither could any of the said companies provide documentary proof of their claimed increase in performance!

Instead I took Bluespark up on their offer to spend a day with them at their HQ in Durham. They fitted the box & tinkered with the settings to provide me with optimum performance, & then offered me a 28 day period of 'return to standard' if I wasn't happy. I was & still am..

I always run on minimum 97 Ron (Tesco Momentum when in the UK), 98 RON when in Spain. As mentioned previously, I am familiar with 'knocking', or 'pinking' as we used to call it, & I have never noticed in the vRS either with or without the tuning box.

Incidentally I did have engine misfire at one point, enough to cause the car to go into limp mode. Skoda Assist diagnosed it as low fuel rail pressure, & the Skoda dealer couldn't find any fault at all!!!

Edd at Bluespark suggested I regap the plugs to 0.6mm & the problem was completely solved. I have since changed the plugs to the Denso ones recommended by George, also gapped at 0.,6mm. Car runs as sweet as a nut.

Here in Spain far away from the highly regulated UK motorway speed cameras, you can travel at speed knowing you are not being clocked. I recently travelled on the motorway from San Javier to Murcia & unbelievably never saw another car going in my direction. Sustained speeds of 120+mph over a 20 mile stretch, no problem whatsoever with a maximum oil temp of 105 degrees C.

I hear what you say & a lot of it makes sense, but hey! you pays your money & make your choice. In an ideal world I would have gone for a remap. Truth is not one of the specialist companies approached could remap without hacking the ECU - one thing I wasn't prepared to consider because of warranty issues. Neither could any of the said companies provide documentary proof of their claimed increase in performance!

Instead I took Bluespark up on their offer to spend a day with them at their HQ in Durham. They fitted the box & tinkered with the settings to provide me with optimum performance, & then offered me a 28 day period of 'return to standard' if I wasn't happy. I was & still am..

I always run on minimum 97 Ron (Tesco Momentum when in the UK), 98 RON when in Spain. As mentioned previously, I am familiar with 'knocking', or 'pinking' as we used to call it, & I have never noticed in the vRS either with or without the tuning box.

Incidentally I did have engine misfire at one point, enough to cause the car to go into limp mode. Skoda Assist diagnosed it as low fuel rail pressure, & the Skoda dealer couldn't find any fault at all!!!

Edd at Bluespark suggested I regap the plugs to 0.6mm & the problem was completely solved. I have since changed the plugs to the Denso ones recommended by George, also gapped at 0.,6mm. Car runs as sweet as a nut.

Here in Spain far away from the highly regulated UK motorway speed cameras, you can travel at speed knowing you are not being clocked. I recently travelled on the motorway from San Javier to Murcia & unbelievably never saw another car going in my direction. Sustained speeds of 120+mph over a 20 mile stretch, no problem whatsoever with a maximum oil temp of 105 degrees C.

 

 

Not finding a tuner to provide you with enough confidence for your engine is enough of a reason not to go for a remap. And as I said, car can be running fine. But If I didn't log EGT, AFR, timing advance, knocking for myself I would not be sure of any remap or box I put on.

 

Just one thing though, did you say you have not noticed any knocking? You don't mean by physically hearing it from the driver's seat do you? If it ever came to the point of being audible from outside it would be really too late for the engine. The knock sensors are ultra sensitive to catch extremely low sounds, you don't get to hear anything from the outside. When mine used to misfire under load due to bad fuel, and it did quite badly because the map is much more demanding in terms of fuel quality now, the only proof of it was through the VCDS diagnostic (and the flashing dash!). No noise was heard from outside.

Edited 20 November, 201510 yr by newbie69

Some of us are old enough that before Knocking or Knock sensors we were aware of Pinking.

 

vRSforever happens to have a CTHE that has quite a turn of speed as standard, surprisingly so, and a DSG that behaves a bit different from some others (but maybe behave differently as to how the regular driver uses them.)

& the Dyno Sheet with the Tuning Box fitted looks pretty good, i would like a go in his car with it fitted. (Next year maybe, please!.)

Some of us are old enough that before Knocking or Knock sensors we were aware of Pinking.

 

vRSforever happens to have a CTHE that has quite a turn of speed as standard, surprisingly so, and a DSG that behaves a bit different from some others (but maybe behave differently as to how the regular driver uses them.)

& the Dyno Sheet with the Tuning Box fitted looks pretty good, i would like a go in his car with it fitted. (Next year maybe, please!.)

 

No arguing on the experience from older cars. But 20-30 years ago all you needed to keep your car healthy yourself, was a good set of tools and some basic mechanical understanding. Nothing close to today's situation and the way modern ECU's work.

You still need some understanding because you can neither trust the Trained Technicians, or some of the Companies offering 

services to improve your vehicles performance.

 

You have landed lucky with who you have used, and others have done with Tuning Box and Remap Providers.

 

There are at least 2 International Tuning Companies offering Remaps that have Communications Issues with actual factual information 

and giving advice on what is available.

 

Odd from APR & REVO on what they said was available when they said it was.

But that seems to be all cleared up now and they can in 2015 Remap 2013 on Skoda Fabia vRS Twinchargers.

 

We just need to hear from someone that has had it done.

Very odd that never yet has someone that has come on the forum.

You still need some understanding because you can neither trust the Trained Technicians, or some of the Companies offering 

services to improve your vehicles performance.

 

You have landed lucky with who you have used, and others have done with Tuning Box and Remap Providers.

 

There are at least 2 International Tuning Companies offering Remaps that have Communications Issues with actual factual information 

and giving advice on what is available.

 

Odd from APR & REVO on what they said was available when they said it was.

But that seems to be all cleared up now and they can in 2015 Remap 2013 on Skoda Fabia vRS Twinchargers.

 

We just need to hear from someone that has had it done.

Very odd that never yet has someone that has come on the forum.

 

+1

 

That's why I said I would log those values regardless of a remap or a box. It might still not be enough but much better than just relying on somebody else's guarantee and may catch something before it actually happens. This was actually the case with some early maps. It was the users that contacted the tuner and said WTH is going on? Why the car is running so lean? etc.

Edited 20 November, 201510 yr by newbie69

Newbie. I understand what knocking is & the implications it may have. What I don't understand is why when running a tuning box, the knock sensor wouldn't continue to do its job of retarding the ignition until the hazard has diminished? Surely if knocking occurs, because of, say a lean mixture, then the sensor would still do its job, regardless of whether it's a remap or a tuning box which is causing the problem?

The other thing that occurs to me is that most (perhaps not all) of these so called expert remapping companies do not have the facilities, resources or even the knowledge to monitor the long term effects of their remap under laboratory conditions. I would guess it would take several hundred hours of running the engine under extreme conditions to detect any adverse conditions that may result, and perhaps only  then with a detailed engine strip down. No,  more likely these remaps are obtained by someone tinkering around with the downloaded instruction set from the ECU, on their laptop, & then maybe trying it out for a few hours on a donor vehicle. 

The simple law of economics precludes tuning companies throwing mega bucks at limited production run engines, so I contend remaps are in the same uncharted waters as tuning boxes. IN OTHER WORDS 'SUCK IT AND SEE'

Newbie. I understand what knocking is & the implications it may have. What I don't understand is why when running a tuning box, the knock sensor wouldn't continue to do its job of retarding the ignition until the hazard has diminished? Surely if knocking occurs, because of, say a lean mixture, then the sensor would still do its job, regardless of whether it's a remap or a tuning box which is causing the problem?

The other thing that occurs to me is that most (perhaps not all) of these so called expert remapping companies do not have the facilities, resources or even the knowledge to monitor the long term effects of their remap under laboratory conditions. I would guess it would take several hundred hours of running the engine under extreme conditions to detect any adverse conditions that may result, and perhaps only  then with a detailed engine strip down. No,  more likely these remaps are obtained by someone tinkering around with the downloaded instruction set from the ECU, on their laptop, & then maybe trying it out for a few hours on a donor vehicle. 

The simple law of economics precludes tuning companies throwing mega bucks at limited production run engines, so I contend remaps are in the same uncharted waters as tuning boxes. IN OTHER WORDS 'SUCK IT AND SEE'

 

The knock sensors will still be working, I mentioned them as just one of the factors that you can't control with a box as you can with a map. Why would you care? Well with a box you can't change how sensitive they are. So yes they will still work (they have to work) but programmed for stock conditions and not the extra 15-20-25% or whatever you're making out of the box. So is a knocking when running 210+ bhp the same as the one on stock power? Is it worse and do additional measures need to be taken (for example safe mode?). The ECU doesn't know that as it assumes it still is on stock operation. When your priority is for example a safe map you can increase their "hearing" ability to prevent excessive knocking earlier than usual. And from what I've seen it is not something that is that rare. A combination of medium fuel during an acceleration in 5th gear on an uphill with 2+ people inside on a tuned (by map or box) twincharger might not always end up as you'd expect it to.

 

The lambda goal is another very important parameter (if not the most important). At least to my understanding, the tuner will almost always make the mixture richer on higher rpm for engine protection and in general will adapt the value to whatever sees best for the different conditions. I think it's even stated in the 1.4 TSI manual that the engine (as stock) is set to run at lambda 1,0 under all circumstances which in theory is good for fuel economy but bad for tuned applications at higher rpm. How do you feel when you know the ECU is trying to meet the 1,0 value while at the same time forcing the engine to make 20% more power? There are also other safety measures that the tuner will apply through a remap like a significant cut-off at a newly defined max speed etc.

 

To sum this up, I am not a tuner. I don't have the intention of talking anyone out of tuning boxes and into remaps for say profit. I merely express my view on the matter after my investigation into these engines' tuning, discussions with tuners themselves and data logging analysis in tuning groups, combined with my engineering knowledge. I think the tuning boxes were great when much more "stupid" and primitive ECUs controlled how the engines would work. It is really incredible when you realize how complex is the operation of a modern ECU and what algorithms it does use to make decisions. You can't just make it think 3 input parameters are different than reality and leave maybe another 300 set as stock with absolutely no control on. The info, although somewhat scavenged, is out there for whoever wants to look for it. At the end, cars with boxes have run fine and it's you who pays your money as you said.

 

 

PS. There is indeed tuners that own a car like the one they are selling remaps for. Might even have 3 of those cars. Cars they've tuned, run on the dyno, studied the graph and logs, re-tune, re-dyno, evaluate on the road and on dragster races. They even have different maps for the same car depending on whether it's used as a track-day cars or a drag racer. When you are doing proper monitoring of how the engine operates you might not need to go down the "dumb" way of running it for 1000000 miles just to see if it breaks. With all the modern technology you shouldn't need to do that anyway. I say this because I've seen it, not out of some intention to merely disagree with what you think.

Edited 20 November, 201510 yr by newbie69