OBDII Tuning

"Sir_Stig: and toxic masculinity ruins the party again." (sir-stig) 06/02/2015 at 12:02 • Filed to: Tuning, COBB Accessport

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I am ignorant about how tuners work, why do you need something like a COBB Accessport when most of us own smartphones and Bluetooth OBDII dongles exist? Is it because there is some special requirement? or is it basically because COBB and other tuners don’t want to forgo the money people spend on Accessport-like devices for the relatively small amount of money most people would expect to pay for an app?

crowmolly > Sir_Stig: and toxic masculinity ruins the party again. 06/02/2015 at 12:08

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Most of the Bluetooth OBDII stuff I’ve seen are code readers/sensor readers and don’t “tune” anything at all. They are read-only where the COBB device allows changing fuel maps and such.

Mattbob > crowmolly 06/02/2015 at 12:17

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^this. Many times it is either impossible to program via OBD2, or there is a whole different communication procedure than just standard code reading. I know at least on some ECU’s (not engine, but other systems in cars) you have to connect with a special tool with special security software in order to get into a mode where you can change anything.

Sir_Stig: and toxic masculinity ruins the party again. > crowmolly 06/02/2015 at 12:20

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Couldn’t that be fixed by a slightly better Bluetooth/Wifi dongle? I wouldn’t mind paying 50-100 for a dongle that enables tuning, and then running whatever software I want (Mountune, COBB, etc.)

Sir_Stig: and toxic masculinity ruins the party again. > Mattbob 06/02/2015 at 12:22

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But doesn’t the Accessport connect VIA OBDII? I don’t understand why a cheaper system couldn’t work.

Mattbob > Sir_Stig: and toxic masculinity ruins the party again. 06/02/2015 at 12:27

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getting the security codes and handshaking protocols in order to get into those modes is probably pretty expensive. I have a hard enough time getting them for ECUs I have to test, and I work for the company who makes said ECUs. I can’t imagine how much it would cost an outside company to get them. They are pretty well guarded because you could seriously fuck up a vehicle with the right access. All those scares about hacking into a prius? Those security features are what stands in the way a lot of times. (there is some generalizing at work here, but still)

Textured Soy Protein > Sir_Stig: and toxic masculinity ruins the party again. 06/02/2015 at 12:31

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OBDII is a diagnostics protocol. A scanner (whether bluetooth or not) is sending simple requests to the ECU and the ECU sends responses.

Reflashing the ECU is completely overwriting the stored programming in it for everything including fuel and spark maps, boost maps on a turbo motor, throttle calibration, and lots of other stuff. Think of it as flashing a new ROM onto a phone. Car manufacturers have reflashable ECUs so dealers can use specific more-complicated-than-scanner tools to flash new calibrations onto the ECU to fix driveability issues.

In theory you could probably make a phone app to accomplish the reflash, but then you’d have to worry about making sure that app works properly on a huge variety of different hardware. Imagine if Cobb put out an Accessport app for Android and then someone bricked their ECU because their specific phone had some random quirk that Cobb hadn’t accounted for. Sticking with a dedicated piece of hardware like the Accessport allows the tuner companies to focus on just making one thing work instead of thousands.

Mustafaluigi > Sir_Stig: and toxic masculinity ruins the party again. 06/02/2015 at 12:31

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http://www.tactrix.com/index.php?opti…

They do have this. But you need to either pay for a tune to load specifically with certain software or use other software and “Pro” tune it yourself. The Accessport is convienient because it does all of that plus any sort of logging or information display that you want. No need for a laptop or software or anything. You can still use the Accessport to load other maps. I’m pretty sure you can load Torqued Performance tunes for the Subaru’s with the AP.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > Sir_Stig: and toxic masculinity ruins the party again. 06/02/2015 at 15:00

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Theoretically you don’t need something like the Accessport. I’m sure given the time and knowledge you could build an app that would communicate through the OBDII port and allow you to reflash the ECU. Granted, to accomplish this you would need to have or develop the knowledge needed to crack any protections on the ECU. You would also need to decipher the various maps that the manufacturer stores in the ECU and develop improved parameters to place into those maps. It probably wouldn’t hurt if you did some dyno testing on those maps to make sure your tune isn’t going to blow up a customers engine.

The huge chunk of money you pay for a Accessport over a code reader isn’t the hardware costs, it is their knowledge behind the maps that they have developed for you to use.

Street Surgeon > Sir_Stig: and toxic masculinity ruins the party again. 06/02/2015 at 22:36

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The short answer is because they make money by selling them, the longer answer is using dedicated hardware ensures the end user has a streamlined and repeatable experience. That way they don’t have to troubleshoot Timmy’s jailbroken iphone or hacked up android.

Could that be done with a laptop, or phone? Absolutely.