My tuning stuff

[UKSteveo]

Hi Charlie,

1st off I'd better explain that I'm in the UK, driving a UK spec 2006 Exige S. Anyway I've just decatted my car using a 3inch 2bular system (decat pipe and back box). Currently I'm impressed by the quicker spool up of the Supercharger (it comes in much harder and quicker now ) but from what I've read elsewhere my car will now be running a little bit lean up the top of the rev range and ultimately not making as much power as it could with a remap. So I was wondering if you'd be interested in reflashing the Ecu to help the car's fueling ? I've read from your earlier posts that it's possible (with the right hardware at my end) for you to access the Ecu over the internet to make the necessary changes.

If you fancy giving this a go then let me know. I'm very happy for you to put this through your chosen UK distributor (not sure who?) and if it all works out well I'd also happily go and get the car dyno'd and post the results so that everyone in the UK can pester the life out of you for the same setup on their cars!

If it's not something you fancy then I'm left with only 2 other options: MOTEC which I know well from other tuned cars is great but very expensive ($3.5k) or KOMOTEC which is a little more involved and requires me to use their exhaust and sundries.

Anyway, get back as I'm very keen to see what a basic reflash and decat can do for this engine.

Cheers,

Steve

[charliex]

heya,

yes you can tune over the internet, however for power tuning you need to listen for detonation, the remote is useful only for diagnostics/triming idles etc.

we're trying to make some off the shelf kits for people not easily visited, i do have a tune for the S that levels the fuel off a bit.

failing that i'm talking about going home for a bit and doing some tuning while i'm out there.

[raygr]

I'm in the same boat as UKSteveo, except mine is a 2007 US Exige S. How will your off the shelf kit work? I'm mainly interested in A/F management since I put headers on.

[charliex]

off the shelf would be for stock cars or cars with stuff we've already tuned for, there are actually not that many variations with owners willing to do a reflash in the first place.

off the shelf, sign form, pay sector, send ecu to me, i send it back.

[UKSteveo]

Get back to the UK then!
No seriously, I reckon I could persuade at least a few Exige S owners here to all get our motors remapped at the same time, any good to you ?

PM me and let me know when and where in the UK you plan to be and I'll provisionally get some numbers together of who's relatively local and who'd be up for some ECU work.

If you do come home for a bit then let me know what obvious mechanical works you'd recommend and I'll get Plans motorsport to do the work in advance.

CHeers,

Steveo

[charliex]

ok i'll probably be out with scuffers though

[UKSteveo]

'scuse the ignorance but who's scuffers ?...I havent been on this forum long enough to know my ar5e from my elbow.
BTW - where abouts in the UK you from ?...a northern monkey or a southern fella ? it might make a difference if as to whether I get the chance to take you out for a few sherbets and generally out on the pi55 ...lol

[charliex]

simon scuffham,

i'm a scot, transplanted to fking northern munkey, born in ayrshire, scotland (beith), moved to chorley lancashire (parents live there still), then to runcorn, cheshire for a bit, and finally osset (near wakefield), yorkshire before moving over the pond.

[LotusUSA]

Charlie! You're the man.

[Ade]

Originally Posted by UKSteveo

Get back to the UK then!
No seriously, I reckon I could persuade at least a few Exige S owners here to all get our motors remapped at the same time, any good to you ?

PM me and let me know when and where in the UK you plan to be and I'll provisionally get some numbers together of who's relatively local and who'd be up for some ECU work.

If you do come home for a bit then let me know what obvious mechanical works you'd recommend and I'll get Plans motorsport to do the work in advance.

CHeers,

Steveo

You can count me in if you come to the UK, just tell me where and when, hopefully I might have got the smaller charger pulley by then and bigger injectors if required.

Adrian

[lancer360]

Charlie,

I have a question for you regarding the new reflash from S111. It says it is good for an 8 hp gain, yet Larini claims that just installing the sport cat is good for a 7 hp gain. Is the intake, exhaust, and de-cat only good for 1 hp more than the sport cat or is Larini not telling us that they did the testing with an intake and exhaust? How much more power will the headers be worth, either the existing FF or the new Larini's? I assume you have tuned a car with a FF header, de-cat, exhaust, and intake. I was hoping that this combo was going to get a little more power, or are the Lotus parts really that good to begin with?

Also, do you have a recommendation on an intake?

Thanks!

[25psi_Elise_Killer]

You should put this on your OBDII port next time u go to the dealer in case an overzealous service tech decides to update you to Lotus's latest flash

[ChrisH]

Originally Posted by charliex

heya,

yes you can tune over the internet, however for power tuning you need to listen for detonation, the remote is useful only for diagnostics/triming idles etc.

we're trying to make some off the shelf kits for people not easily visited, i do have a tune for the S that levels the fuel off a bit.

failing that i'm talking about going home for a bit and doing some tuning while i'm out there.

Have you considered setting up a Lotus tuning server so a local (to the car) tuner can use your software over the internet with a charge for each car? They buy an access code for a particular VIN, which allows the use of your tuning server for some period of time for that car. That way, local power tuning can be done, but your software doesn't get stolen. Is this even practical? Maybe only a key part of the software has to be on the server, and the rest can be a fat client.

(Or, has this idea already been discussed and I just missed it?)

[charliex]

Not really, i've put so much time into this already, i'm hesistant to spend a lot more time on it, mostly people just whine about the costs associated with it already. since they really have no idea just how much it does cost to do it in the first place.

the truth is, i mainly do it for the fun and challenge, once it becomes a bitch fest, i kinda lose interest in it since it just becomes a chore. its unfortunate and is one of the reasons there are so few aftermarket options for the lotus, i knew what i was getting into since i'd gone through it with other models, i love the marque and want to help as much as i can, but the constant niggling over costs really begins to drag it down. then i just end up doing it with the guys who are really into the cars.

its like when i see people complaining about sectors pricing on CF and the gut wings etc, if they'd actually gone to the trouble of doing the same thing, they'd soon learn that its just not a lot of profit and its a labour of love, that guy who recently posted about waiting to do CF work because he saw how much sector was charging, then spent a lot of his money on time on the project only to have it fail because of supply chain , in my mind has only gone to show that in fact its not as easy to do as initially thought, and perhaps its not quite as easy to recreate what they're doing for cheaper, but he never really seemed to admit that.

of course since sector resell my stuff, i'm bound to feel that way ! but as a small business owner i have some insight into bringing a product to market too,.

we're expanding into the european and asian markets which might help, those areas tend to be better about willingness to pay for service ( ie software engineering ) than the USA market, people here tend to have the notion if its software, it doesn't cost anything to copy and flash, so therefore it should be cheap or free. Hopefully the interest from that side of the world will allow me to keep it going and it'll prop up the USA market somewhat.

in the meantime its still mom and pop and frank, sector111 and i will continue to fund it because we like doing it and are optimists, or at the least we'll have our own cars tuned up!

vin numbers are rarely programmed into the ecu and easily changed, the protocols are easily sniffed, and the market is rife with copycat tuners, plus i made a promise to the guys at lotus that i wouldn't release it into the wild.

Plus theres the whole sue happy thing here, someone blows their engine up because they tuned incorrectly, and i get a lawsuit, and no amount of disclaimer will help (anyone who has been involved in such a lawsuit knows this) or they go on the forums and tell half a story.

It sucks because nothing would make me happier than a program out there to allow people to tune their cars up safely, but just too much litigation, i do believe the whole make mantra, if you can't open it , you don't own it.

i already did the client server thing, you don't really even need to do that, you can use remote desktop and do it, and run the software from my client to theirs easily enough. (but you do need a $1,500 adapter to do it)

anyway some recent stuff that went on behind the scenes elsewhere has brought me down about the whole affair, so i'm sure this comes off a lot more bitter sounding than actually intended, those that want to work with me and tune their cars, try the stuff out etc will find me as willing as usual, i've often given people a try at a temporary tune just to see how it feels, if you see me at the track or elsewhere, feel free to ask for a demo run.

[kverges]

Charlie,

I am not sure who is bitching. I will gladly pay 4 figures for the ability to tune locally, but simply cannot mail order tune - how much time would it have taken to mail order tune Frank's car? You got a tune for a GT28RS-turbocharged car with Aquamist H2O injection and while you are at it I'd like to play with different injection nozzles and fuel octane and boost levels? I am going to guess not, for example the MAF is in a larger diameter tube and it has 630 cc injectors. So unless this car is tuned by hand, it stays piggyback or standalone. And I'd happily sign NDA of your choice, etc, etc, to protect your IP.

[charliex]

i guess you miss a lot of the threads

Once again (for about the 4th time now !), i offer more than mail ordering tuning, i will gladly visit your location, or you can visit mine or socal for a custom tune.

[kverges]

I know you will visit - what happens when I want to put in 104 octane on track? Or the seasonal fuel changes since we are in an EPA non-attainment zone? A fixed tune is not a long term solution for me is all I am saying, and as I understand it when you are gone the tune is fixed, right?

PS I gladly pay to fly you out for training, but being stuck with the same old tune is just no fun - eventually I want low compression pistons and more boost and have the donor engine sitting on a stand

[Lotus F1]

Originally Posted by kverges

I know you will visit - what happens when I want to put in 104 octane on track? Or the seasonal fuel changes since we are in an EPA non-attainment zone? A fixed tune is not a long term solution for me is all I am saying, and as I understand it when you are gone the tune is fixed, right?

PS I gladly pay to fly you out for training, but being stuck with the same old tune is just no fun - eventually I want low compression pistons and more boost and have the donor engine sitting on a stand

Are you using the Hydra now?

[charliex]

Originally Posted by kverges

I know you will visit - what happens when I want to put in 104 octane on track? Or the seasonal fuel changes since we are in an EPA non-attainment zone? A fixed tune is not a long term solution for me is all I am saying, and as I understand it when you are gone the tune is fixed, right?

PS I gladly pay to fly you out for training, but being stuck with the same old tune is just no fun - eventually I want low compression pistons and more boost and have the donor engine sitting on a stand

ok well if you know i'lll visit quit saying its mail order only ! what you're asking for is a copy of the tuning software, so its more accurate to say that i won't give out the software for you to use at will, vs mail order, this causes confusion for everyone else.

currently you can tune for two maps, so i will visit you, or you visit me, you or your tuner will tell me what fuel/spark you want in each of the maps, and i will put them in your ecu and leave, when you wish to swap maps, flick a switch.

[kverges]

Correct, I want tuning software to use at will. Got TTS for pre-OBDII GM vehicles; LT1 Edit, LS1 edit, Hydra, Link, emanage piggyback software, probably going to learn the XEDE piggyback stuff, and even use the Roe Racign VEC proprietary piggyback (I am guessing splitsecond) for Dodge Viper. Never gave anything to anyone, but respect your concerns. I do not have a "tuner." I am my "tuner" and enjoy the flexibility of doing things that way. I assume tuning spark in the Lotus ECU is a bit trickier for turbo, as there is no positive pressure MAP signal, right? For the S/C apps I have tuned, you know what manifold pressure will be at WOT and rpm, but the same is not necessarily true of turbo. You can basically estimate the spark retard you need at WOT with rpm and a given S/C pulley, but with variable wastegate control it is probably not so easy, and the temptation to have different boost is out there. So I'd need map for 93, 104 octanes and at least two boost levels, and that is only until I decide to make another change to the car.

Basically I have a decent idea how to tune, willingness to accept consequences of mistakes and desire to DIY. I had hoped your S/W would cater to that, so I am a bit disappointed, but it is your stuff and I am on the lunatic fringe, customer-wise and not exactly a great loss.