Guys please don't start offering tunning services to friends/members until you fully understand engine therory and the dynamic effects of each change you'll be making to the pcm.

You can seriosly damage peoples cars and are exposing your self to serious legal problems if you do so.

It's cool your trying to learn and ultimately want to help but don't do it at someone elses expense.

 

Mods: sticky this please.

d

 

Its funny you mention this, this is something I had really given alot of thought.. A tool like this is like opening pandoras box.. At this point your never getting it back into the box..

I agree with what your saying.. You will see a ton of "Tooners" start to crop up now.. Some will be good at what they do, some will be terrible, some will use ripped off maps from other tuners.. I doubt this will be a huge problem, but I sincerely hope that the people using this tool use their best judgement and not wreak havoc.

I also saw a post about someone doing rev limit or standing rev limit flashes.. I don't really have a problem with him doing it, since a flash that just alters those settings isn't going to do much harm in itself.. What scares me is if it goes beyond that. I also have a problem with anyone charging for something that should be free.. In reality, an experienced tuners time and effort are something you can charge for.. But someone inexperienced trying to make "tuner cash".. Well, thats kinda like doing an S-AFC tune on the street for someone with no knowledge of the car.. It just rubs me the wrong way.

Not only should this be stickied, but people should post the names of "Tooners" who are charging to tune cars but don't have a reputation or any experience, this way "let the buyer beware"

 

I agree with this statement whole heartetly (sp) I plan on learning everything on my car before I do anything to anyone elses. (and that would only be for friends who wanted me to) The only real thing I want to be able to do is scale injectors, rev limits, etc. The simple stuff.

When I get more time I plan on using the dyno close to me (~1 hour away). To truly learn what I am doing. That is the reason I purchased an xede as well, a good starting point.

Al, shiv, and all of them are completely safe from me. I dont have the money nor the will to deal with a mistake and blowing someone elses car up.

 

I'm Glad I'm not the only one who has given this thought.

 

The honest truth is, Even though I do know what I'm doing, I would still be reluctant to tune someone elses car for pay.. How could I in good conscience indemnify myself from damages if something goes wrong..

I'm comfortable tuning, I offer advice, I can install or help any type of part or problem, and whatnot.. But this is a hobby to me, and I dont know that I'd want to go into the reflash business anyway..

I give the folks who do reflashing alot of credit, they sacrifice alot of their free time to make trips to tune, and whatnot, though its good business sense to do that, I was a very successful business owner at one time, had several business ventures and roles in startup and seasoned businesses.. I also know what its like to work so much that you forget how to have fun, or work to the point that what you no longer enjoy what it is you work so hard to do.. And I also learned to put priority on my personal and family life, because in the end, thats what you have. After having a breakdown and shedding all those high-stress things in my life, I'm a much happier person after I discovered that you "Work to live, not Live to work"

Now back on topic..

It disturbs me that there will be a few "Tooners" who go out there and just perform shoddy street tunes, or worse, build maps based on nothing more than a guess and don't test it thoroughly, and to make it worse, they don't have the time or experience, or even understand most of the concepts of WHY tuning works the way it does..

There is way more to tuning a car than making numbers on a dyno, Way more to understanding an engine than guessing at timing and fuel ratios, way more than just turning up the boost..

Most good tuners spend a majority of their time working on a cars drivability under variable loads, not just slap a bunch of numbers together to make a dyno sheet look good.. I'd be suspect of anyone who just does that.. Don't get me wrong, razor sharp tunes have their place, but most of us drive our cars every day, and what good is it if the daily drive and majority of the load sites (which aren't at WOT all the time) don't feel all that great..
Good tuners like to work with a safety net, you build your good base tune, something safe enough to use as a stock high-det map.. You put that in the low octane map, then you do your high-octane tune.. This way you have a safety margin, you'd be surprised how many tunes I've seen that remove that safety margin to make the tune stay consistent, well, honestly, if it doesnt stay consistent, then the ECU is telling you something!

We'll see how this pans out..

I do think this is good for the overall enthusiast scene.. It puts the tools in the hands of the people who want to use them on their cars, which takes away much of the dependency that people seem to feel (especially if they know what their doing and prefer to do it themselves)

But it also offers something (in most cases) that could not be done before, and that is, allow a person with a tuner reflash, to examine the work that has been done to their car, it should allow them to see if the work that has been done is quality, or just a mess of numbers..

I do suspect there may be some piracy of proprietary maps, And after doing some research I don't think any of the maps are truely intellectual property since there is nothing proprietary about them that an experienced tuner couldn't figure out for themselves, and there is no custom code rewritten into the ROMs.. (The exception being ECUTEK)

I do think that out of respect for the tuners that nobody share the tuners hard work with anyone who might use it or distribute it.. Its also important to keep in mind that the website itself can be sued and it can get ugly no matter what.

Its like anything else, respect the hard work of these guys, give them the credit their due, since its not that easy to tune a car the right way.. But at least now we can weed out the really poor examples..

 

This is the Only part i disagree with, I know we will all have our opinion. I just feel that the tune on a map is no diffrent than an architects design of home, or the formula for the flovoring in Mountain Dew.

I would like to protect Al's business as much as Works, Buschur, or AMS.

Don't get me wrong i would love to have seen the Works Brain Flash that was posted And deleted by the mods, however I would never have offered it as my own work. Chances are is I would have saved it under some stupid name and forgotten about it.

Off Topic.........

I would love to have a sticky at the top of the forum with a huge database of flashes giving mods, AFR’s, Dyno Numbers, and Track Times.

Maybe we will still be able to do it just as long as we omit the name of the person who tuned it.

Jack, taking your idea one step further about “tooners” I have an idea how it might be able to be done.

We could setup a thread with an open poll where “tonners” submit there name and members can vote for them when they use there services, and they could post feedback about the tune. Like a trader rating but for tunning.

 

Thats a great idea..

And I agree to disagree on that opinion above.. In my opinion, there is no information contained in the tune that is in any way proprietary since any good tuner would come up with the same information on their own. That doesnt mean distributing the maps is fair or moral, nor would I condone it or even allow it.. HOWEVER, It doesn't demonstrate enough proprietary information to be deemed Intellectual property..

Tuners should make practice of embedding a hex signature in an unused portion of the rom to protect their work anyway.. The tunes may actually fall under a Copyright, than intellectual property, but that would still protect them since in its unmodified form, it is a direct copy of their efforts.

I wanted to edit this to offer a suggestion to tuners..

In addition to embedding a Signature if possible, to perform a checksum on your maps and keep them with the information for each person you tune, you can then do a checksum on maps that turn up and you can definitively determine if their one of your own maps and persue the person accordingly..

 

offtopic:

Which is why the formula for Coke is _not_ copyrighted or patented. This is a very clear example of the difference between a "work" and a trade secret.

d

 

I agree with Malibujack's stand in terms of IP, no ones tune is that fantastic or unique, any qualified tuner can come up with similar or even better results... With that said, I don't believe in copying someone's map and calling it your own or selling it for that matter, but to try and claim rights on it seems like a futile attempt and is simply unproductive.

I've been tuning efi systems for a number of years... since 98' and undoubtably my maps have been shared and used as basemaps for other peoples setups... In fact... With this header I manufacture for a Honda K series application, I give them a free Hondata Kpro file that has an incredible amount of dyno time matched to that header... Inevitably people will attain that file without having ever bought my product, but rather than cry about it... I simply move on and develop new things. It's simply something you cannot control.

Additional, I believe when someone pays for a tune either custom or reflashed, they have the right to modify what they've paid for if that is their inclination... You shouldn't be married to your tuner by default. There are various softwares that I use which can have the file encrypted after I'm done tuning essentially locking out the owner of their own car, but I never lock them out because I simply think that isn't right and infringes on the owner.

Bottom line is if what your doing can be learned simply by someone looking at your tables, then you must not be doing anything special. The way this stuff is setup now... Someone who wants to learn will learn, it can't be stopped.

In terms of what it takes to be a tuner (not just tuning your own car, but as a job), it isn't something that can be learned 2nd hand, going to efi101 or even efi advanced does not make you a tuner.

It comes from experience, as every car is definately not ideal, on some cars that I've tuned I do more troubleshooting from botched installs/wiring/lack of maintanance than actual tuning, and that requires a strong mechanical background.

Tuning is in many ways similar to a physical sport, as it requires your mind and body to learn and be comfortable in a stressful environment inorder to make sound judgements despite distractions. I remember the first time I operated a dyno on my own, I was extremely nervous as the consequences for making a mistake are very costly. Removal of this feeling is essential to becoming a good tuner.

I think anyone who tunes a lot will eventually see's that it isn't the glamourous job that people make it out to be. It is a mentally stressful job and the environment of exhaust fumes is toxic to your health. If you don't truly love it and are drawn to it naturally by non financial means... this really isn't the job for you, IMHO.

These are all things which cannot be learned by downloading someones map, and taking a look into it.

 

That's a really good point, hopefull the mods will take this thread into account when they make their decision.

 

Actually I think the site admins and mods are completely right in not allowing posting of "Proprietary maps" Its unfair to the tuner at any level, like I said, at the least its morally wrong, at the most, its a legal issue, if someone gets their hands on a map and blows up their engine, they could claim to have been flashed by a tuner (mail in flash) this is why they should take steps in performing checksums and signing their data uniquely to every car they flash if its actually possible. I also think its common courtesy to not share a tuners map.. For as much as I'd like to examine their work, I would never use it on my car or anyone elses, EVER.. No offense to any tuners out there, but I only trust my own work as I'm sure any sane tuner would feel the same way..

ECUTek is a different ballgame altogether, they did produce new code, with additional functionality (although after seeing what the stock ECU rom offers, I don't know how much additional they really did offer) but in their case, there is some coding done, and therefore they do have some right to intellectual property.

 

While I do belive that the tunes that the "pros" have sold people should not be passed on to others--for all of the reasons that have already been brought up--I am wondering about the whole issue of "proprietary maps".

Here is the analogy. If we have a spreadsheet like program like Excel/Microsoft that contains routines or functions done by a given coder or company (ECU software/Mitsu).
Another person comes along and changes the values in the spreadsheet (pros like Shiv, Al, etc.) but does not change the basic functionality or routines.

Is changing values in a spreadsheet or the maps in this analogy truly proprietary?

Besides, have the pro tuners obtained permission from the software owner (Mitsu) to alter the values or for arguments sake the routines? For that matter Mitsu may only be licensing the ROMware from someone, who knows...

It seems to me that this is a VERY grey area legally. I am not lawyer nor do I pretend to have all of the answers here. However, if it were me and I had to go to court to try to defend changing values in another's software I would be worried that my case would be very weak.

If however, I would alter and/or add routines (not the values contiained in the routines) themselves AND I had permission from the software creator (Mitsu) then I would feel that have a legal leg to stand on.

Again, I am not professing to have any answers nor do I condone giving away the files but I have a hard time feeling that changing values constitutes anything that the law would see as "proprietary". I feel that this issue is more about protecting the work of the pros (many of whom are sponsors of this board) than a real legal issue (EcuTek being the exception because they have fundamentally altered the code in the ROM).


Also I in no way diminish the "art" of tuning as there is more than one way of tuning...

 

As soon as I get my cable, I'll be offering my fellow car club reflashes for basic things like stationary rev limit and standard rev limit, but I won't be tuning their ecu's more than that. I'm not nearly comfortable enough to do it.

And I sure as hell won't charge for it.

 

Keeping Proprietary maps are great, but honestly, I don't think there are any rights associated with techtom or ecutek or other flashes as far as copyrighting the maps that they produce. There are fees associated with flashing with Ecutek (like a franchise fee) but it says nothing about people who purchase them sharing information about the product that they purchased.

Nobody signed a confidentiality contract before they got flashed, so it's a fair to say, it's an open market if someone wants to share the maps.

Maybe not at this forum, because it's driven by advertising and sponsorships, but maybe at other forums it maybe possible.

It's like getting game cheats and sharing them.

Mine as well, all the flash tuners, share maps on their website and make it a pay site, because a lot of people are going to learn about tuning and learn it quick.

the monopoly is gone now. If you could learn how to tune techtom, you could very much learn about tuning the aem ems, since they share a lot of similarities.

that's my thought on it.

We already got 6 maps out, tuned by pros, modified, and stock 8 and 9.

and honestly some of the modified maps, from what I heard, did not look good at all.