Practical Reflash Tuning: Step 1: Downloading Existing Calibration/ROM File
Watch This Course
$229 USD
-OR-
Or
8 easy payments of only $28.63 USD
Instant access. Easy checkout. No fees.
Step 1: Downloading Existing Calibration/ROM File
04.50
| 00:00 | The first step of our process is typically to download the stock ROM file out of the ECU and this gives us the benefit of being able to save that in a safe place, so we've always got a backup that we can come back to a stock file or what was in the ECU if we don't like the way our tuning's going or something goes wrong. |
| 00:17 | That's not unfortunately possible with the Flash Pro system, we can't actually read the file out of the ECU. |
| 00:25 | This does become a little bit problematic if you've already got a tuned file in the ECU because there is no way of reading that out, we can write over the top of it, so the ECU is still usable for our purposes of tuning, but we can't actually read what was in the ECU. |
| 00:40 | So, this on face value does look a little confusing because if we jump into the software here and we come to our online dropdown menu, we can see that we do in fact have this option for download, so you can see how this could be a little bit confusing. |
| 00:53 | The reality is though that it's not downloading from the ECU, instead the Flash Pro interface that goes into our diagnostic port can store two calibrations on it. |
| 01:03 | And I'm jumping a little round out of order here, so I'm going a little fast, don't worry, we'll come back and we'll basically go into detail on each of these elements, but I just wanted to show you, if we come to our Flash Pro calibrations here, we can see that we have our primary calibration storage which we've got our 91 octane tune in and we've also got our secondary calibration storage here. |
| 01:23 | This gives the benefit of being able to swap between maps without needing a laptop, they're all just, or both of them are just stored on that Flash Pro interface. |
| 01:31 | However, when we upload from the Flash Pro software, we are going to by default upload to the primary calibration slot and likewise if we use the download function here, or alternatively we use the download function in our online menu, that's going to be downloading whatever is stored in that primary calibration slot on the Flash Pro. |
| 01:51 | OK, so the other element with this is that we still can actually return the car to stock. |
| 01:58 | We see here at the moment, one of the things we do need to do with our Flash Pro is when we register it, it needs to be locked to the vehicle, so it basically locks it to the number of the vehicle. |
| 02:09 | We can see that's greyed out because we currently already have our Flash Pro locked to the vehicle, but if you're wanting to sell the vehicle and keep your Flash Pro, you can come down and unlock from the vehicle and then you can return the ECU to stock. |
| 02:21 | So, again this will just be a virtual read essentially from the cloud and a stock calibration will be then uploaded to the ECU. |
| 02:29 | Alright, so we can't download out of the ECU, what are our options? Well, if we come to our new calibration button here and click on that, we can choose the calibration that we want to start with. |
| 02:41 | And this is something obviously don't normally recommend doing, it needs to be treated with caution because quite often an unknown map or a base map or a stage one file or whatever you like to call it, is almost certainly going to have some kind of baked in errors that could end up wasting a bunch of time, having to chase your tail or even damage your engine. |
| 03:01 | So, I'm usually a fan of building up a base file ourselves from scratch. |
| 03:06 | However, given the complexity of this MED17 ECU, that is a massive task and also Hondata clearly have the runs on the board here, their base maps are well and truly proven, particularly for a basic car like this with no modifications, tune only, we can expect a good result. |
| 03:25 | So, let's have a look at what goes on here. |
| 03:27 | So, first of all we select our vehicle model and we can see that's obviously defaulted here to the FL5 type R Civic 2023 plus, that's the correct one. |
| 03:38 | But of course if we're running an FK2 or FK8, we could choose the appropriate model in here. |
| 03:45 | For our vehicle, we again go to our drop down menu and of course here we know that we are dealing with a 2023 FL5 US spec vehicle. |
| 03:53 | Then down below we now have all of the options available. |
| 03:57 | So, these are the files or tunes that are available, we've got our stock file here which is factory settings and we will be going backwards and forwards between the two of them as we go, two of them that we're going to look at here just to show how Hondata have approached the tuning process versus how Honda have done it. |
| 04:14 | In this case, given we've got no bolt ons, I will just be selecting the 91 octane calibration. |
| 04:19 | You can go a little bit spicier if you've got good quality fuel here with 93 octane but we're playing it safe here and we are running on 91 octane fuel. |
| 04:27 | OK, so that's our base file chosen. |
| 04:29 | We straight away get this modifications pop up window open. |
| 04:32 | I'm not going to dwell on this one at the moment, we're going to be explaining this once we get into this stage or step of configuring our base file, so we can just close that down for the moment. |
| 04:41 | So, at this stage we've got our base calibration loaded up and we can move onto the next step of our process. |
