Practical Diesel Tuning: 1. Download Stock ROM File
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1. Download Stock ROM File
03.28
| 00:00 | - Our first job is always to download the stock ROM file out of the ECU. |
| 00:03 | This doesn't sound particularly involved and it isn't however there's an important reason that this should be your first step. |
| 00:09 | In some situations we may be faced with an unusual car or an ECU or ROM that isn't supported by the manufacturer of our reflashing package. |
| 00:16 | If you're using a commercial package then this should be a rare case however particularly in the open source community, the car is manufactured and delivered to some markets that are not supported with definition files. |
| 00:25 | This would make tuning them impossible unless we can find or create a definition file. |
| 00:30 | Even if we have a definition file available, I'd still recommend actually looking through the maps and making sure that the maps appear sensible and you have access to the maps that you need. |
| 00:40 | I've struck situations where definitions were incomplete, severely limiting what maps I had access to and in turn hampering my ability to actually tune the vehicle correctly. |
| 00:48 | At the same time, you may also find inaccurate definitions that appear on the face to include all the maps you need however once you open some of the maps, you may find that the address for the access or the actual table data is incorrect or all over the place. |
| 01:01 | This becomes obvious because the numbers in the axis of the table will be random numbers and appear nonsensical. |
| 01:07 | It's also not uncommon with very new vehicles to find that even commercial reflashing packages can't support them. |
| 01:12 | This is a fluid situation and these manufacturers will work quickly to support these models. |
| 01:17 | But you can find yourself caught out in the cold occasionally so it's good to check. |
| 01:21 | The reason we want to do this as our first step is to ensure that we don't waste time loading the car up in the dyno, only to find that we can't tune it. |
| 01:28 | This has happened to me on more than on occasion so it's a very real possibility. |
| 01:32 | When downloading the factory ROM it's important to follow the precautions we've already discussed as well as any particular advice the software manufacturer's recommended. |
| 01:40 | At a minimum you want to make sure your laptop is well charged and the battery voltage in the vehicle is satisfactory. |
| 01:46 | Connecting a battery charger is a sensible consideration for any vehicle where the read process takes a long time or accessories such as cooling fans or water pumps are driven while the read is taking place. |
| 01:56 | Once we've downloaded the stock ROM file, it's important to save it in a safe place on your harddrive so that you can always revert to the stock file at a later stage if desired. |
| 02:06 | I'd even suggest you email it to yourself so you have a copy outside of your harddrive. |
| 02:11 | The way to decide how to name your files is up to you however it's worth adopting a standardised way of naming your files so you can always find what you want at a later point. |
| 02:20 | This becomes much more important when you start trying to find a particular ROM file in a section of several hundred. |
| 02:26 | I personally use the registration number of the vehicle followed by the make and model so I can quickly reference what I'm looking for. |
| 02:32 | I'll then add an identifier that tells me what the particular tune was. |
| 02:36 | For example, every stock file I download would have an identifier stock at the end to tell me this is an original factory tune. |
| 02:43 | After I've completed a tune to suit the vehicle, I would change this identifier to tuned. |
| 02:48 | A little tip here, is to actually save these files from the car twice, immediately after you've downloaded. |
| 02:53 | The reason for this is that most reflash software will have the option to save or save as. |
| 02:58 | If we use the save option, it will overwrite our existing file and in this case we can end up losing our stock tune. |
| 03:04 | This is only going to be an issue if you want to revert to stock for some reason but this happens on occasion and it's always nice to have the option to do so. |
| 03:11 | So what I'll do is straight away save the stock file with a stock identifier and then again with the tuned identifier. |
| 03:18 | This ensures I always have a copy of the stock ROM file and from then on I use the save function, I'll be overwriting my new tuned file. |
