Recently at the 2007 SEMA show I had the chance to sit down with Ben of ECUTEK America. He is the coordinator and head Trainer of all US operations. We spoke some of tuning principles, but what was really interesting when he found out I drove an Evo and used OpenECU software to tune it, he said this (this isn't an EXACT QUOTE, but it's surely close enough:
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B-"The reason you don't see features in the ECUTEK software such as 2-Step, NLTS, Anti-Lag etc. right now is because of the developement ECUTEK is currently doing for Prodrive. The head techs at corporate are all working on the new STi's CAN protocol system, so all developement on OBDII based ECU's has all but ceased. We aren't even developing anything for the Mitsubishi market anymore because there is no longer any money in it for us. OpenECU ruined that."

Me-"Yeah, ECUTEK is almost a bad word on the EvoM forums. That, and _______. Once OpenECU got big, people looked at the tunes and were shocked. The main reason the Evo guys, in my opinion, don't like ECUTEK is because you lock the maps, so we don't really have any control after you hand the car over."

B-"Right, well the big reason we lock the maps is for Prodrive. Prodrives tuning setup involves 20+ non-OE sensors and over 40 hours of manwork PER tuned vehicle. It is the most elaborate and effective setup I've seen any tuner run. They monitor everything in the car from individual cyclinder EGT's and AFR's to the RPM of the compressor wheel. They asked us to lock ALL ecu's under our software because all it takes is someone to then drive the car Prodrive took 40hours to tune over, copy the ecu, and sell it for $200. But Yeah I know ________ personally and he really is a nice guy. I've personally never heard anything bad about the tuning he does for us."
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It is really amazing to see the way this forum has changed the aftermarket (heh heh keep up the good work guys). He did mention, but without specifics, that ECUTEK may be providing something to assuage the concerns of a locked ECU soon, but wouldn't tell us because corporate hadn't approved it or something to that effect yet. He really is a cool guy though.

 

^ you have been able to flash/read/write Ecutek'd ecu's ever since MalibuJack released his ecu unlocker.

New old news?

Scorke

 

^Right.

However the point of my post was that ECUTEK intl. has stopped Mistubishi developement on a grand scale BECAUSE OF THIS FORUM.

And i could also care less about ECUTEK's assuage of locked ECU's anyway, my car will never have an ecutek tune.

 

Interesting!!! I've been considering AEM EMS when I upgrade to a AMS 30R. I'm running ECUTEK now with bolt-ons and cams. Guess this may help sway my decision. Plus only being able to use the same tuner because of locked maps sucks since I move around the country. The tuner I used is awesome, but currently 15 hr drive away. Thanks for the post!

 

Ecutek is BY FAR the worst product I ever bought for my evo. When I first got it I was stoked about the features they were working on for future release, Logging, delta dash etc... Those features never ended up happening and open ecu surpassed the capabilities as well as the user tuning aspect. It is a great product for the Suby crowd but the development for the EVO just seemed to halt right after the initial release.

 

You should of handed him a bucket to catch all the crap spilling out his mouth!

 

Understand that they promised features early on as their own invention, that were already part of the existing Evo rom. Nothing they offered were developments of their own

And it took a few open source guys to come up with the majority of the mods available a pretty short period of time after they figured out how the roms themselves work.

I do think its fair to say they couldn't offer anything in their product that isnt already able to be done with free software. So it takes the value of licensing and marrying someone to a tuner away.

The real problem I suspect would be similar to issues that most of us experience, and that is the large quantity of different roms, and no easy way to identify specific maps in unknown roms reliably. Generally its assumed that the values and tables occur in the same order in most roms, but its not always the same offset, nor is the order guaranteed, this is apparently something simpler to do in subaru ECUs..

They also realize that subaru ECU's don't have a recovery mode thats easily available, which bypasses their ability to lock an ECU, if someone figures out an easy way to do this with subaru products, I'd bet they would either put up a bigger fight, or move onto another platform.

Don't get me wrong, the tools they offer are good, the product they offer has value. Its just the business model of selling a license, then locking, is just something I feel strongly is morally wrong. Even more so that you cannot remove their product yourself, and you are theoretically locked into their tuner network unless that lock is removed.

 

Ecutek International are money hungry control freaks lacking integrity. The ripped us off about $2500 in licenses. They have a poor product, poor reflashing method where the whole image is written each time, it takes way too long, they get about $350-375USD for every Evoflash car programmed. If the tuner runs out of licenses on their cable, the reflash program will not even open and you cannot be flashed even if you own a license in the ECU.

I am exctatic to hear of their abandonment of the Mitsubishi platform as they asked what they needed to improve and ignored our direction. This is the result of their greed.

 

I <3 ECUFLASH.

Stepping into the Evo world and seeing things like ecu tek was a completely new phenominon to me. I'm well aware of paying for a tuning product. You buy say DSMlink and you get a product you can tune with. It isn't free. But, there is continual support. It slack jaw dumbfounds me anyone would willingly purchase a system that puts them in tuning slavery. I simply can't understand how anyone can fall for it. But, there's a sucker born every day.

I feel the same way about some of the people who have set themselves up on ecuflash. Not all of them. Just the ones that tune in an eccentric manner so that the tune cannot be easily manipulated by the user should they ever have to make adjustments to their own tune. (Or find the initiative to try and learn how to on their own) The common thread is they find this an "easier" way to tune. The truth is simply they are trying to cloud the situation to make the user dependant on more assistance in the future ensuring more money in the vendors pocket.

This is just as bad as ecutek, and IDFC what anyone says to defend it.

Wide eyed and completely oblivious customers may be the easiest to push out of their money. But, what service are you doing to the community that is supporting you? The precious little knowledge you share in atleast attempting to do things the right way, or shedding some light on a customers situation may inspire a path to understanding. One that usually turns your average part A part B buyer into an enthusiast. And we know enthusiasts are easier to deal with. They know what they want, what it does, and are as addicted as crack heads to buying parts and learning more about their cars.

I guess my point is simple. You shouldn't have to trap a customer if you are good at what you do. There will ALWAYS be a place for professional assistance with tuning. ALWAYS. Even if your precious little tricks get out to the public. Posted on every forum. Because those people inspire new ones that can't do it themselves into your office, email, and phone.

Customers are not a limited base. But more of a renewable resource. The more you put into the community, the more chance it has to thrive and support you.

 

I guess I'm not the only one who has been critical of the product, I just basically kept most of my opinions to myself.

I have posted before about locking and obfuscation, and some details on how to workt through it, and have gotten a bit of flak from a few tuners who had used that method. In the end, at least another tuner with a bit of knowhow can straighten it out if the owner himself can't work through it themselves.

 

I for one can't thank you enough for putting in the work on how to work arouund the ECU blocking. Without it I would still be suffering from a decision I made years ago. If ECUTEK had come through with their plans for further development I think it would have been pretty cool so too bad on that. But in lieu we have a cheaper better supported open source option, and thank goodness for it.

 

I can't take credit for figuring out how to unlock an ECU, all I did was make a tool that allowed anyone to do it using an available tool.