Who does the ecu tuning for manufacturers??

The OEMs themselves and suppliers (ecu suppliers and other high tier suppliers). The process is typically refer to with a more sophisticated name (e.g. 'calibration').

Because of marketing and ignorance.

I'd assume mostly no, but thats a guess since my experience is limited to OEM and tier 1.


As alwaysv there are exceptions to the common trend and everything is a trade-off.

 

I can tell you all the programming that we do comes directly from the factory, I cannot think of a time that the factory has Referred us to a third-party

And… They are extremely guarded with the process
Documentation, documentation, documentation…

S

 

Tuning really isn't that hard to tune for a specifc goal. Yet Tuning or calibration is really impossible because we don't have the resources or specification to tune or calibrate. The OEM have all kinds of rules to follow legal targets and tune compromises over so many different user situations. A hobbist or aftermarket tuner will tune for something specific. In club racing tuners will tune for max horsepower and torque but try not to blow the motors up. Some times risks will need to be taken. for example racing at Autoclub speedway on the banking I needed to up the RPM limit 300rpm to stay in 4th gear because the next turn into the infield was coming up too soon. It would cost me time to upshift to 5th for a few seconds then back to 4th and then a 3rd gear entry. That segment was faster if I could stay in 4th then a 3rd gear entry. Most aftermarket tuning isn't very good because little is to be gained by some guy putting your car on a dyno and tuning for another few horsepower you will never benefit from on the street. Electronic hot rodding is just as good or bad as changing to stiffer valve springs or camshafts and OEM's are right to deny warantee coverage for cars so hotrodded. There is a lot of risk there and very little reward.

 

There are a couple of companies in the Detroit area doing much of it for the big three and they contract out their services to others. Ferrari has in fact used them. I am sure there are similar in Japan and Germany. The car industry use a lot of outside contractors for some specific jobs and that is one of them. Jack Roush is a huge contractor for various jobs.

I have had a little to do with and a lot of contact with the people who do this inside the auto manufacturing industry. Where do you think they came from? A lot of them are old school hotrodders who turned it into a career. Its true many went to school and have related engineering degrees but so do others outside of that realm. While its true most good engineering and "Tuning" comes from the inside, not all of it does. And before we spend too much time worshiping at the alter of auto manufacturers look at how many complete screw ups they have made. They are just a bunch of guys and a few girls just like us.

 

I met a young guy with an impressive collection of cars at Corso Pilota who IIRC was (part?) owner of a software firm that did ECU programming. I thought he said they were NJ based.

 

Usually dyno tuning is most helpful if you are planning on making adjustments to big things like ignition timing, fuel mapping, etc. If you don't have the latitude to modify those, then dyno tuning isn't going to help you all that much typically.

As to your last question there, your ECU in the car is constantly fine tuning things based on actual road use. That's part of its job. When you start driving on the road, using a specific octane fuel, driving at a specific air temp and elevation, the ECU will start to fine to its tables based on what it sees during real world road use. This is why cars have things like knock sensors, O2 sensors, temp sensors, etc.

Here's a link to a PDF version of the Toyota Computer Control System manual. This manual details how most Toyota ECU's function:

https://www.autonerdz.com/yabbfiles/Attachments/TCCS__TOYOTA_COMPUTER_CONTROLLED_SYSTEM_.pdf

Read that manual a few times and you'll begin to gain some understanding of what's required to operate an engine via computer control.

With after market ECU's, such as Haltech, MoTec, Link and the like, they are simply providing you the tools to program your own custom ECU. Search YouTube for something like "How to program your Haltech ECU" and you can find plenty of videos which show the process.

Tuners (for example, someone such as @360trev ) are basically going in and making changes to what the factory has originally done. In many cases the factory waters down the true potential of the car for any number of reasons - for example: to meet EPA regulations, increase fuel mileage goals and also in some cases to help reduce the likelihood that customers will kill themselves behind the wheel. For example, by limiting power and/or by moving the power up a ways in the RPM range, this helps drivers maintain control as the power slowly builds and reduces the risks of breaking the back tires free.

So often times, what tuners are doing is tweaking or reversing some of the "de-tune" that comes on the car out of the factory or making adjustments to base fuel mapping to favor making better power instead of obtaining slightly more gas mileage.

But to answer your questions:

1. Dyno is most useful for making adjustments to ignition timing and fuel mapping to see where and how power is made.
2. The ECU itself is largely responsible for making adjustments on the road given whatever real world conditions you encounters.

Ray

 

What do you mean by "road load"?

Dynos are perfectly capable of simulating dynamic loads, temperatures, airflows etc.

In fact that is their main advantage: you can define your set of test parameters and conditions and you can run your test scenario in a finely controlled manner with a high degree of repeatability.

Your dyno enables you to run laps in Melbourne and in Monza back-to-back within seconds, without your engine leaving the comfort of your test field (think additional measurement equipment, think streamlined logistics).

 

It's a lot easier to make adjustments on a dyno while staring at a laptop than trying to drive and do the same thing.

Sure you can data log and go back/make adjustments but to get the majority of it straightened out on a dyno is a huge time saver.

Then you calibrate WOT and transients, sometimes across different fuels.

Not a lot of places you're going to make repeated runs with repeatable traction at 100+mph before you get arrested.

Once I get as much done on the dyno as I can, of course you continue on the road to collect data and refine it.

Even if you have access to a race track where that's not an issue it's still helpful to be able to watch air fuel ratio, timing, knock sensors, fuel pressure/etc and lifting off the throttle if needed without also having to concentrate on driving the car and not crashing it.

 

There are all different types. Inertia, eddy current, inertia with brakes. What kind of load do you want to simulate?

On the street you have different engine acceleration rates (rpm/sec much higher in lower gears) so even on an inertia dyno you can achieve pretty much whatever acceleration rate you're trying to achieve if you're in the correct gear.

 

Tons of manufacturers. I use a dynojet which is common. They make both eddy current and inertia (can be used in both manners). Mustang dyno is eddy current and common.

Not sure what is commonly found in your area but most are a great tool if used correctly.

 

The same is true for the engineers that do testing for the OEMs to validate ECU tuning. Most manufacturers use the Denver area as a specific testing ground for high altitude testing of ECU calibration. There are specific test routes that are well known. They have to run them precisely to get good data.

On rare occasions in-house engineers will be out here running the testing, but more often it is contracted to a few local testing labs. The in-house engineers are often enthusiasts and will spend some time chatting (within reason as these are pre-production vehicles and they need to respect that) but the guys from the labs seem to be either completely humorless or just see it as a "job". Zero chit-chat!

 

Its just not possible out on the road to have all the needed monitoring equipment. Also exact duplication of conditions is required to properly asses changes.