Considering a UTEC -- handful of questions
Thread Starter
Joined: Jul 2004
Posts: 4,606
Likes: 98
From: Northern Virginia
Considering a UTEC -- handful of questions
Just wondering whether a professional shop (like TurboTrix) could get better results out of a UTEC or a flash?
Would the UTEC be better able to tame the idle of larger cams than a flash?
The UTECs makes a lot of sense to me because I need to be able to get through an OBDII inspection and I like to datalog and tinker, but I'd feel better about the cost if I knew that it actually would make more power/torque.
Last question, could I use my LM-1 wideband with the UTEC?
Okay I lied, one more question -- There seem to be a lot of used UTECs in the Classified. Is there any advantage to getting one new? Do some of the older ones not incorporate features of newer models?
Thanks,
RichJ
Would the UTEC be better able to tame the idle of larger cams than a flash?
The UTECs makes a lot of sense to me because I need to be able to get through an OBDII inspection and I like to datalog and tinker, but I'd feel better about the cost if I knew that it actually would make more power/torque.
Last question, could I use my LM-1 wideband with the UTEC?
Okay I lied, one more question -- There seem to be a lot of used UTECs in the Classified. Is there any advantage to getting one new? Do some of the older ones not incorporate features of newer models?
Thanks,
RichJ
You are going to save a lot of money buying it used. The marlet is very weak for used UTECs I will not even say what I paid for mine. The big advantage to the UTEC over a flash is that you can adjust things as your mods change as opposed to getting multiple re-flashes.
I think the only thing you need to be concerned about with buying a used one is WHY are they selling.. I have spoken to several members who have gotten used UTEC's which ended up have some problem with them. So you need to somehow be certain that there's nothing wrong with it. However buying used is a great deal, and since the features are specifically software based, if its not up to date, it can be reflashed and updated very easily.
Its hard to buy electronics like this online because you can't see visible damage, however if you do a little searching on the forum, its possible you can find out about a particular member who is selling his UTEC and get some insight into the condition of the unit.
Like said above.. the advantage of the UTEC is once your comfortable with tuning, you can tune yourself (We won't discuss the advantages or disadvantages of tuning yourself since with reward comes risk.. so experience and understanding what your doing is important)
Yes, you can tune using ANY wideband setup, however you will not get the advantage of correlating your data with the wideband output. So you'd have to hook up the wideband to the sensor outputs like RPM, TPS, MAF or anything else they recommend in order to correlate or at least get useful data for analysis. The fact that the UTEC and TUNER work together makes data logging alot easier.
Given experience, a good shop should be able to get nearly identical results with a reflash, piggyback, or standalone.. The difference in standalone and the others are mostly attributable to the MAF sensor (I don't run a stock MAF on the UTEC and am getting results similar to the full standalone)
Idle and other stuff.. Ok, this one is a bit harder to explain, the factory ECU learns and compensates for this stuff, but with a piggyback system (or reflash) you need to "Help it along" by setting base fuel and timing trims to allow it to idle a little happier.. if you understand the tool your using, you can get good quality idle with anything. Admittedly this is the one place where having direct control over the ISC (Idle speed control) and Idle parameters can be advantageous. The UTEC will likely have these features in the future, but for the time being, you can work around it by setting your timing for idle manually, same thing with base fuel trims, and making BISS (base idle speed solenoid on the throttle body) adjustments
My personal experience is that the ECU takes several full run cycles to learn, and different conditions, and most people with poor idle aren't giving the ECU the opportunity to adjust after being reset. So its likely the issue isn't a huge problem regardless of the cams your running, its just a matter of making minor adjustments so cold start (open loop) idle is happy until the car warms up.
Trial and error.. I'd say a many of the people running a UTEC are also running larger injectors and 272 or bigger cams..
Its hard to buy electronics like this online because you can't see visible damage, however if you do a little searching on the forum, its possible you can find out about a particular member who is selling his UTEC and get some insight into the condition of the unit.
Like said above.. the advantage of the UTEC is once your comfortable with tuning, you can tune yourself (We won't discuss the advantages or disadvantages of tuning yourself since with reward comes risk.. so experience and understanding what your doing is important)
Yes, you can tune using ANY wideband setup, however you will not get the advantage of correlating your data with the wideband output. So you'd have to hook up the wideband to the sensor outputs like RPM, TPS, MAF or anything else they recommend in order to correlate or at least get useful data for analysis. The fact that the UTEC and TUNER work together makes data logging alot easier.
Given experience, a good shop should be able to get nearly identical results with a reflash, piggyback, or standalone.. The difference in standalone and the others are mostly attributable to the MAF sensor (I don't run a stock MAF on the UTEC and am getting results similar to the full standalone)
Idle and other stuff.. Ok, this one is a bit harder to explain, the factory ECU learns and compensates for this stuff, but with a piggyback system (or reflash) you need to "Help it along" by setting base fuel and timing trims to allow it to idle a little happier.. if you understand the tool your using, you can get good quality idle with anything. Admittedly this is the one place where having direct control over the ISC (Idle speed control) and Idle parameters can be advantageous. The UTEC will likely have these features in the future, but for the time being, you can work around it by setting your timing for idle manually, same thing with base fuel trims, and making BISS (base idle speed solenoid on the throttle body) adjustments
My personal experience is that the ECU takes several full run cycles to learn, and different conditions, and most people with poor idle aren't giving the ECU the opportunity to adjust after being reset. So its likely the issue isn't a huge problem regardless of the cams your running, its just a matter of making minor adjustments so cold start (open loop) idle is happy until the car warms up.
Trial and error.. I'd say a many of the people running a UTEC are also running larger injectors and 272 or bigger cams..
I'm sure any piggyback or standalone has their pro's and con's. The biggest is to find a competent tuner to help you along, thank god we have Jack. I have just started to feel a little comfortable to tune the fuel map, not sure on the timing yet but learning as I go. It seems to be a very good platform to start off with, even with the liited time I have had it.
Thread Starter
Joined: Jul 2004
Posts: 4,606
Likes: 98
From: Northern Virginia
If I already have a Dynoflash, will the UTEC allow me to fine tune that and make additional maps for race gas, water injection, etc.? I'm not clear on whether you need to start with a stock flash.
Thanks.
Thanks.
You don't have to start with a stock ECU flash, you can tune over a dynoflash.. But keep in mind that you would still be tuning from scratch, and if you had the flash tuned for upgraded injectors, it is recommended you reflash back to stock.
Here's the deal, when you use the UTEC, its generally taking over for the ECU, so your actually not using most of the reflash. so your tunes are done from scratch, but TurboXS spent alot of time analysing the stock ECU timing and fuel data, so the background maps embedded into the UTEC as a starting point are optimized for the stock ECU, if you have a reflash, it will have some differences in fueling at the transition point from the ECU to the UTEC (typically its closed loop to open loop, but its still affected by the maps and default trims that are programmed by the flash) so you may get jumps in fuel and timing that you'll have to optimize to make the car drive smoother.
the UTEC has two modes for fuel control, Open loop fueling, and MAF offset fuel control, generally OLF is the desired method of tuning. And timing is completely controlled by the UTEC.. If you want to tweak things with the existing map, you will basically end up only using the old style MAF offset and not using the timing maps, basically giving you the function of an expensive S-AFC.
The short answer is.. Yes, you can use the UTEC with the dynoflash, however you will tune from scratch, and you will not be starting with a clean slate so tuning will be different with a reflash than it would be with the stock ECU's flash. Yes, you can build brand new maps for any conditions you need, Race gas, Water injection, even "Low output for cruising" if you wanted to.. Again, you'll tune them all from scratch anyway.
The only reason its recommended that you start with a stock ECU instead of a flash is simply for troubleshooting. Should you have a problem it would be far easier to not have the reflash be a variable. I suspect most people who have had difficulty had to deal with working around a reflash first (especially if it was a tuned reflash for cams and bigger injectors where your baseline is altered)
Its not impossible to do.. just makes troubleshooting more difficult.
Here's the deal, when you use the UTEC, its generally taking over for the ECU, so your actually not using most of the reflash. so your tunes are done from scratch, but TurboXS spent alot of time analysing the stock ECU timing and fuel data, so the background maps embedded into the UTEC as a starting point are optimized for the stock ECU, if you have a reflash, it will have some differences in fueling at the transition point from the ECU to the UTEC (typically its closed loop to open loop, but its still affected by the maps and default trims that are programmed by the flash) so you may get jumps in fuel and timing that you'll have to optimize to make the car drive smoother.
the UTEC has two modes for fuel control, Open loop fueling, and MAF offset fuel control, generally OLF is the desired method of tuning. And timing is completely controlled by the UTEC.. If you want to tweak things with the existing map, you will basically end up only using the old style MAF offset and not using the timing maps, basically giving you the function of an expensive S-AFC.
The short answer is.. Yes, you can use the UTEC with the dynoflash, however you will tune from scratch, and you will not be starting with a clean slate so tuning will be different with a reflash than it would be with the stock ECU's flash. Yes, you can build brand new maps for any conditions you need, Race gas, Water injection, even "Low output for cruising" if you wanted to.. Again, you'll tune them all from scratch anyway.
The only reason its recommended that you start with a stock ECU instead of a flash is simply for troubleshooting. Should you have a problem it would be far easier to not have the reflash be a variable. I suspect most people who have had difficulty had to deal with working around a reflash first (especially if it was a tuned reflash for cams and bigger injectors where your baseline is altered)
Its not impossible to do.. just makes troubleshooting more difficult.
