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Practical Reflash Tuning

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Discussion and questions related to the course Practical Reflash Tuning

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Having spent most of my life tuning as a career it still to this day perplexes me how definitions are acquired or reverse engineered. I have found that most of the "tuners" in this field are more of a computer engineer than a engine calibrator. This being, by far the profitable tuning there is I just can't seem to understand where all of this begins to even make sense to start at.

I have owned WINOLS for years and no clue what do with it 95% of the time. The other 5% are when a friend has sent me definitions for a few vehicles I primarily do standalones on and needed to support customers not ready for that route. I have contemplated purchasing 12k pieces of hardware but fear that it will be very similar to my current software experience. Without definitions of tables, it is all completely useless.

I am here to brush up on engine assembly and never would I believe that I would take a tuning class but I would be willing to pay several times more than the typical cost charged for classes that actually help solve this secret society of tuning.

Can you help us narrow down what platform you are most interested in? WinOLS is mostly for German cars isn't it? Each OEM is a little different but the principles are similar. And you can also cluster them together a little bit. Remember that a lot of the same people work in companies that are geographically close and have a similar supplier base. L

Big 3 American OEMs are all pretty similar. I mean the terminology might vary, and some of the algorithms vary a bit too, but it's not that. Remember that they are all headquartered in the same metropolitan area and people move among the companies all the time.

Japanese OEMs are often pretty similar. They have a few big suppliers as well, such as Denso and Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric, that often write part of the code.

European OEMs are often pretty similar, especially since they often get their controls from big suppliers like Bosch or Continental (formerly Siemens).

Standalones are pretty similar within a broad category (the pulsewidth based ones are similar, the VE based ones are similar). The newest Haltech isn't drastically different from the newest AEM.

For example, Subaru and Mazda's basic way of calculating target A/F ratio is similar (basically a few main speed and load look up tables). But they are WAY different from a modern American OEM, and way different from the European OEMs (typically German).

let me say this from personal experience: I could give you an ECU definition with every single map, table, and recordable parameter in the ECU, and some kind of description of what it is, and you still wouldn't automatically know what to do with it. I could also give you Matlab block diagrams of how absolutely every thing in the ECU is calculated, but it wouldn't be obvious where to start and what to adjust to do what you want to do.

Being able to see the big picture is the black art. And that's where HPA and this forum help come together.

Check out The Car Hackers Handbook". It glosses over a lot of the specifics but gives you a good idea on how to start the process.

It is available for free on open garages

http://opengarages.org/handbook/

At this point we have no aim to provide courses or training around Winols for the reasons you've just mentioned - It is beyond the scope and ability of the majority of engine tuners. While I understand there is a demand for knowledge on this platform for those interested in European cars in particular, it would be very hard for us to provide sufficient training and resources to do justice to it.

We usually reply within 12hrs (often sooner)

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