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I bought my Elise early this year, and it has been an absolute joy. It drives like nothing else on the road, but I've always felt it needed just a little bit more power. Not necessarily on the top end, but throughout the meat of the powerband. The kick of the high cam coming on sounds and feels cool, but the wait up until that point does not.
There are two ways to fix this: a tune ($) or a supercharger ($$$$$). Since I'm currently not in a position to drop $8k+ on a toy, I had to make the 'sensible' choice, and go for the tune. Hopefully this will also help keep me from going the FI route in the future...
On to the tune. It's amazing, that's all there is to it. The 2nd cam kicks in earlier, which allows you to stay in the sweet spot while shifting. It's not as pronounced as before, but still there. At 6000RPM, the 25hp bump is very noticeable, and the power just builds. The idle speed is a little bit higher, so now it doesn't want to stall when coasting to a stop in neutral anymore, which was a nice surprise. Even the exhaust sounds better, with more pops and gurgles.
If anyone else decides to go this route, please make sure to tune the car in a safe place. My laptop didn't want to play nice with the car's ECU, which caused the firmware to abort halfway through the reflash, rendering the car temporarily undrivable. This isn't an issue since the ECU is easily recoverable, but the car had to sit a day until I could grab another laptop to finish the reflash. After that, it was a 10 minute process to complete.
All in all, BOE has another happy customer
Edit: Here's their shop car with the tune, only mods are exhaust and decat
Is this tune custom mapped for mods? In other words, will this tune take advantage of my less restrictive exhaust and air filter? Or does it simply lower the cam switchover point?
I just have the stage 2 exhaust and no intake snorkel, so it's basically stock as far as power mods. The tune bumped the car into just-right territory, imho. The numbers aren't huge obviously, but you can definitely feel the improvement.
That's pretty nice increase across the board. Interesting to see how much you could get out of this with a proper header/exhaust system and intake. Maybe another 15whp?
We've literally changed a few thousand variables in the tune from factory. This is much different than what's offered by Lotus sport and others where the only change is essentially a lower cam change....
I can tweak the tune for popular bolt on mods. I haven't done anything with cams on the NA cars, so couldn't make changes for that without actually being there in person.
Maybe we need to put together a coast to coast custom tuning tour for those one-off builds :crazyeyes
We just haven't built the software to decrypt the later routine for OBD2 programming on the 08+ cars (black dash). It's next on the list. Most with 08+ cars that have been jones'ing for a good tune have heard me say this for a year... but seriously, it is next on the list!
since you are online and not replying I assume the message didn't go thru, anyone that knows the answer please let me know
Hi Phill,
Just a couple questions regarding the Torque200 tune:
1. How reliable is it compare to factory setting?
2. Do you recommend it for a car that is mostly driven on streets?
3. what's the new fuel consumption after the tune?
there are not a lot of people with this tune yet in the Bay Area that's why I can't experience this first hand. But i am really interested in this tune and i think it'll be the fix to my dead idle issue.
since you are online and not replying I assume the message didn't go thru, anyone that knows the answer please let me know
Saw it, just wasn't on the line long enough to get the PMs....
Hi Phill,
Just a couple questions regarding the Torque200 tune:
1. How reliable is it compare to factory setting?
Reliability is not impacted at all. It's still "just" an NA configuration.
2. Do you recommend it for a car that is mostly driven on streets?
Yes
3. what's the new fuel consumption after the tune?
Odd question, but OK Cruising fuel consumption is not impacted since the EMS forces 14.7 AFR during light load. Open loop (heavier load) AFRs are changed but I don't think you'll see a significant change in economy, better or worse. Most folks with a tune do see an increase in consumption, but it's due to the change in driving style until the "new" wears off...
there are not a lot of people with this tune yet in the Bay Area that's why I can't experience this first hand. But i am really interested in this tune and i think it'll be the fix to my dead idle issue.
Idle has been changed significantly. I typically raise the idle slightly just in case a lighter flywheel is ever installed. Also change the idle down parameters. That's the rate in which the idle drops to the base idle once the car stops rolling. (rolling idle and still idle are differnt).
The tune will not impact the readiness monitors, codes, or exhaust emissions for those who have to deal with a sniffer. However, I DO change the cal ID, so that will not match the CARB approved cal ID. I've yet to have someone not get through their emissions testing due to a Cal ID change, as the testing stations seem to really only care about readiness, codes, and sniffer test.
So the answer is you'll likely be fine in emissions testing based on the feedback I've received. Be advised that the tune is not CARB certified. If an inspector really wanted to jack with you, they could fail you on the Cal ID change even though the car runs perfectly "clean" and is code free... Just to save the question, I will not, under any circumstances, use the OEM's cal IDs on my tunes in an effort to trick the inspectors. It's just not worth it, so please don't ask.
I'm interested in responses to Terry's questions. I just may consider this myself as well. Even on the low end of the powerband you're still picking up an extra 5-7hp.
This may be a dumb question.....I want to legally Autocross my car, but would love this for the street. The only way I can think of is to have an extra ECU, and swap them before and after an Autocross event. Original ECU for Autocrossing, a tuned one for other. We cannot have any rogue tunes in the ECU, even if they are switchable or defeated.
Can ECU's simply be replaced like this this? Just Plug and Play? Or are there repercussions that I am not aware of. What does a used ECU go for now days?
The VIN is stored in the ECU, which won't keep the car from running but could cause a CEL or emissions test station issue... but Phil programs the VINs in his tunes, and if you're just using the used ECU for AutoX it wouldn't matter anyway.
I'd keep your stock ECU and have Phil tune the used one, that way both ECUs have your VIN programmed into them.
Running Nationally, so ...yeah. Swapping wouldn't bee too bad, really. Bir3d has it right...tune the spare, and keep the original one completely factory. Thanks for the help!!
There’s not really a VIN sentinel in the 05-07 firmware. Most of the 05s have garbled VINs from the factory and especially so if they’ve had dealer flash updates. The 06-07 cars typically have generic VINs (ending in 30000) if they’ve been updated at the dealer. We fix that with our tunes so the real VIN is correct and in the ECU. The only MIL you might get after flashing is a one time 0606, which a flash sentinel MIL and is easily cleared with the flash software that comes with the tune.
The dash is the only system the ECU talks to and it doesn’t care about the VIN, etc.
I don’t see a problem with swapping ECUs or just flashing in an OE power tune. One caveat is that the cal ID will still not be a Lotus Cal ID if you flash in the OE power tune. Once you upload our software keys into the ECU, the cal ID and keys will remain in that ECU until the day you go to a Lotus dealer to have it returned back to 100% stock….
Thanks for the responses Phil. I'll just wait till next year then
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