Hack Your Car 838
gurps_npc writes "The New York Times has this story about hacking your car's chip. You can get significant horse power and torque boosts (+18 horsepower and +70 foot pounds of torque in the given example), as well as improve (or decrease) fuel efficency. The car companies do not like (surprise surprise) people personalizing their vehicle's programming and warn of burning out your engine with bad code, and voiding your warranty."
I dont think I would hack my car (Score:4, Insightful)
But on the other hand, if I make a mistake with a car I could hurt or kill myself.
I think I will just leave them alone and keep hacking my Xbox and Tivo, I cant die if I screw up my Tivo.
Life without Tivo? ARRRGH! (Score:4, Funny)
I'd die pretty quickly without my Tivo!
Get one (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I dont think I would hack my car (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure you can. Have you seen the unshielded power supply?
Tivo hacking safety! (Score:5, Funny)
Careless troubleshooting of a Tivo can not only can fry you from high voltages at relatively high currents but can irradiate you as well. When you remove the metal cover of the Tivo oven you expose yourself to dangerous - potentially lethal - electrical connections. You may also be exposed to potentially harmful levels of television emissions if you run the Tivo with the cover off and there is damage or misalignment to the waveguide to the Tivo chamber.
Just kidding. I got that text from a warning in a guide to microwave repair [drexel.edu].
Re:Tivo hacking safety! (Score:4, Informative)
Good thing I don't pay your electric bill... Remember, power (watts)=voltage*current(amps). So, if you've got 5kv*even 1 A, you've got 5000 watts of power.
As an aside - I work at a radio station. Our main transmitter has a forward power output of 4.2 kW. And we're a big station (translates to 7.2 kW TPO and 40 kW ERP). If your Tivo was consuming 5 kW of power, you'd need close to 2-3 tons of air conditioning, just to cool your living room.
Tivos are solid-state devices (plus the hard drive, but still) - high voltage, low current. If it were high current, think of all those traces on the PC board that would burn up.
Incidentally, television picture tubes, as mentioned by others, are at very high voltages... but very low current. We're talking milliamps here. Again, our backup transmitter is a tube transmitter - 7.2 kV plate voltage, but only 384 mA plate current.
-T
Re:Actually... (Score:3, Interesting)
But if you were going to hack your car... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:But if you were going to hack your car... (Score:5, Interesting)
You simply make an adjustment on the computer and then upload the new engine map (map of fuel mixture, timing, etc.) to the ECU. His RX-7 pushes close to 500 HP at the rear wheels (an exceptoinal number, even more so when you consider that most manufacturer's horespower claims are at the crank shaft, before any powerloss due to drivetrain) and can still get 22MPG cruising on the freeway. City driving is much worse, but that's beside the point. But he basically can adjust the fuel mixture on the fly for better or worse gas mileage, and for drivability. It's really fascinating stuff if you're at all interested in modifying cars.
It's just machinery - learn! (Score:5, Interesting)
You really can hack real stuff! Get your hands dirty, try things out, don't just spend all your time in front of a screen. Go to Burning Man, meet babes, do woodwork and risky art projects, try gardening, cook with ingredients you've never used before, make beer, spend time in the real world!
There are things you shouldn't do to cars unless you know what you're doing, and maybe that means taking an evening class in auto mechanics at some nearby high school. Brakes, for instance, are things that you should be really really sure about before doing anything other than looking at them or refilling fluids, and steering's kind of that way. If a car won't stop, that's bad, but if it won't go anywhere, that's not good, but at most it's usually just money and hassle. So don't be afraid of working on the engine. Of course, that was better advice back when I was in college, when cars had real parts like carbs and distributors instead of just computer controls, and the cars I could afford mostly needed to have their real parts tinkered with a lot to keep them happy. I never got really deeply into it, because I wasn't that good at it (:-), but it's still worth playing with a bit, just to know what's going on.
Re:Don't touch your brakes? Disagree! (Score:4, Interesting)
However, with the idea that brakes are the "safety" part of the car, people feel they should only trust the highest trained mechanic to the job. Please, it's only slightly harder to do than changing your oil.
Rich
Re:I dont think I would hack my car (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I dont think I would hack my car (Score:5, Interesting)
Like the guy that patched my tire...except, several hours later, they couldn't find the patch, after I had to return because the tire was flat again. Or the guy that 'fixed' my completely disconnected exhaust system (the bolts loosened and fell out): as soon as I fired it up, I could hear an exhaust leak. The manager couldn't believe the mechanic missed it.
And don't get me started on the crooks...
--RJ
Re:I dont think I would hack my car (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I dont think I would hack my car (Score:5, Interesting)
Most car stuff is pretty simple because there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. You can also trivially check the connections you've made to see if they are good before you crawl out of the spot you're in. Some things have to be tightened/loosened in stages and in a specific order, so provided you're following the proper instructions for the job, if you do it at all, and you do it properly, you can't leave something out.
Now let's say you're upgrading your brakes. In order to do this you're going to have to change (at least some of) your fluid, because it's going to have to come out of the system, because you're going to have to bleed it. So you change your calipers (one at a time so all the fluid doesn't fall out of the system immediately, which is inconveniently messy) and you install everything. Before you put a wheel back on, you check your connections; it's an obvious thing to do. Two bolts typically hold the caliper on, and there's one fitting where the brake line connects. (Drum brakes are much more complicated, I'm talking disc here.) But before you even put the wheels back on you're going to be bleeding the system, and any leaks will be apparent at this time because you're going to have to visit each wheel to accomplish this. In fact typically brake bleeding involves two people; one at the wheel to open and close the bleeder valve, and another in the car pumping the brake pedal appropriately. (There are tools which make this easier, the best of them is the speed bleeder. Most of the pumps and stuff don't work.) So just by the nature of the job you're going to see if there's something wrong. Most automotive work is like this.
Hacking your ECU usually primarily involves altering rev limits, and a "fuel map" which is a two dimensional matrix of throttle position to RPMs. This is where you can get into trouble, because you can make the mixture too lean which will cause pre-detonation or "knock" which can damage your engine (pistons, valves, rods, crank can all be damaged by early detonation.) But today's fuel injected cars are often fairly idiot proof in that unless you completely change their code and don't just change some values in a lookup table, they have assorted failsafes which they use to alter the behavior of the car even after the fuel map is consulted. For instance you can stop detonation by retarding the timing (beyond a certain point) and if your engine has a knock sensor (most things made in the nineties and later do) the car will automatically retard timing when it detects knock. It will also make the mixture leaner or richer based on feedback from the O2 sensor for the purposes of emissions, but this is also good for power, because the more efficient you run, the more power you will get for a given amount of fuel delivery. There is certainly more to it than this, but it's a broad overview. Altering rev limits is pretty risky too, because if your engine is not balanced well enough to make more RPMs than the limiter, you will destroy parts of your engine, like bearings, by revving it up that high. It's definitely not a good idea for older motors which haven't had a rebuild in some time.
Cars are moderately complicated, especially these days, but anyone smart enough to work on computers successfully is smart enough to work on cars, too. It mostly requires the inclination.
Re:I dont think I would hack my car (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I dont think I would hack my car (Score:4, Interesting)
Wow, you sound like someone that's inherently frightened of their car. Do you really think a single miss-tightened nut could put you in traction? If that were true, there'd be a lot of mechanics guilty of manslaughter. (Read there's a _lot_ of monkey-wrench "mechanics" out there).
There's little danger of endangering your life unless you really screw up the wrong thing. (Like you mess up a tie rod which attatches your wheels to the steering mechanism). Cars aren't airplanes. If you do something wrong fixing them the car might leave you stranded, but you're not going to die.
For the most part the danger of working on your own car is breaking something, just like working on your computer.
What shocks me most is you got modded up so high. Geeks should be ashamed of themselves for being so techo-phobic about non-computer technology. It's just as cool, and probbably a lot more practical to know a bit about fixing your car. I'm not talking about replacing a transmission, but any idiot can do a brake job.
Re:I dont think I would hack my car (Score:5, Informative)
BTW, If you're chaning the fan or something, unplug the PSU from the wall, turn on the computer, THEN take the PSU out. That should discharge the caps. Also, when working with high voltage, keep one hand behind your back. If you can only touch things with one hand, current can't go through your heart. So you may get burned, but at least you can write a nice
This is no new thing (Score:5, Interesting)
If you peruse eBay, you'll see people selling replacement chips for around $400 that are supposed to add this many horsepower.
But if you think you're going to get another 70ft/lbs of torque in a Honda Civic by just doing that, think again.
As well, changing these values can be dangerous. I have a friend who quite messed up his Buick Riviera (he added fuel injection) by messing with the values. There was a huge table of values to fill out, and each had to be precicely tuned to achieve the right mix of performance and mileage. This is no easy task.
Re:This is no new thing (Score:5, Funny)
Everyone knows that the only way to get 70 ft-lbs more torque from a civic is to cover it in Type-R stickers and put a big wing on the back.
For a good laugh at the riceboy industry, surf on over to www.ricecop.com [ricecop.com].
Re:This is no new thing (Score:5, Funny)
Enough silliness, back to the scheduled program.
Re:This is no new thing (Score:5, Interesting)
If you peruse eBay, you'll see people selling replacement chips for around $400 that are supposed to add this many horsepower.
And unless you buy a matched kit with cam, inlet, exhaust, etc, you're just gambling that it will work better than your existing setup. If you're paying $400 for a chip, you'd be better off buying [link-electro.co.nz] (or building [megasquirt.info]) a programmable computer instead. Then spend some dyno time and get it set up right.
chips and cars (Score:4, Funny)
My car would run better if it had a fucking dorito installed in it. Stupid mitsubishi.
Quality Control of hacked code? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see a hacked code being anywhere near as reliable. Even if it makes the changes you want, your car might end up stalling as often as windows crashes.
Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
Re:Quality Control of hacked code? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Quality Control of hacked code? (Score:5, Informative)
My Car Chip (Score:5, Funny)
Google link. (Score:5, Informative)
Hooray, I get to be a whore today!
But if it wasn't for the smoke... (Score:5, Insightful)
"But if it wasn't for the smoke, I'd be happy with it," is I think the exact reason why car makers are underclocking the potential power of cars. This could be an enviromental problem waiting to happen if this catches on.
Re:But if it wasn't for the smoke... (Score:3, Interesting)
Tree huggers... (Score:3, Interesting)
And you know what? Their numbers are so small, and the cars aren't THAT far off(proper power requires engines be in good shape!) that this is a non-issue. What's an issue is the millions of trucks, trains and ships burning high-sulfur diesel fuel...or the clowns who drive around with their cars belching blue smoke. Then there are the SUVs which of course are nearly exempt from emissions testing! Don't get me sta
let's see them sup up... (Score:5, Funny)
On second thought, I'd like to see them burn it out
This is not the best idea (Score:5, Informative)
Answer:
First up: I didn't say that drop-in Electronic Control Unit (ECU) upgrades for otherwise stock vehicles were outright fraud, though some companies in that market have certainly been snake oil merchants. I just said that a drop in chip isn't likely to be good value compared with various actual mechanical upgrades. Powerchip, like various other chip vendors, will charge you several hundred Australian bucks for a new chip.
Now that I've said that, dig this.
A while after I put my piece on ECU chips up on the Web, one Wayne Besanko of Powerchip contacted me.
He did not offer any independent evidence to support Powerchip's claims. Nor did he point out anything I'd said that was wrong.
Instead, he offered me money, plane tickets and accommodation if I'd travel to Powerchip's HQ and write a "white paper" on Powerchip's products.
He didn't say "here's a bucket of cash, if you write what we say", but our correspondence led me to the firm belief that, um, only one viewpoint on their products would be acceptable, were I to take up the offer.
So there's that.
And, again, as I write this, I remain unaware of any proper independent testing that indicates that these pricey drop-in ECU chips are good value, compared with a variety of actual mechanical modifications.
Sure, you can get a bit more juice from a stock engine by goosing up the ECU programming; drop-in chips from reputable companies like Powerchip don't generally do nothing. I wouldn't be surprised if there were quite a few cars, particularly turbo diesels, that have sub-optimal stock ECU programming, leaning further towards the "green" end of the scale and away from the "performance" end than their owners would choose, given the option.
The particular oddities of individual engines (in high performance cars, at least) may also benefit significantly from custom-tuned ECU maps, even if you aren't going for new cams, an after-market turbo, blah blah blah.
But drop-in chips aren't tuned for individual engines. They're one-size-fits-all. If you want a chip that fits your car's engine in particular, you have to go to a speed shop that'll test your engine and blow an EPROM to suit.
In the vast majority of cars, I think it's quite sensible to say that if you aren't making significant mechanical modifications to your engine, then the money you'd spend on a "hot chip" would be better put towards those modifications (or, you know, spent on the rent or something, but we're not talking about sensible life choices here). I think that even something as simple as a less restrictive air filter is likely to give you more horsepower per dollar than a hot chip.
Even Powerchip themselves admit (or, at least, did admit at the time I corresponded with Wayne; I haven't groveled through their specs lately) that a 15% power and torque gain from a plain chip swap is unusually high. Figures closer to, or below, 10% are common. Some people would question even that - but even if you get a whole
Actually, that article is very wrong (Score:5, Informative)
The truth is that turbocharged cars can benefit greatly from aftermarket ECUs, or "chipped" stock ECUs. There are lots of options out there, and gains of 80HP just from a chip are not unheard.
I have verified these claims myself using my own car and the local 4WD dyno. In the case of my car, the tuner claimed a 57 crank HP improvement, and an extra 93ftlbs (also measured at the crank). What I found is that these numbers are, in fact, conservative. I have the dyno plots on my computer and would be more than happy to post them if any critics or skeptics want to be shot down.
I would never (Score:5, Funny)
Never.
And the impact on the environment? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the one hand, these high performance mods probably turn the car into serious emitter of nasty gases.
On the other hand, the added stress probably shortens the lifespan of the engine and gets the car off the road that much sooner.
yep (Score:5, Informative)
A car engine is a complex, finely tuned piece of equipment where every variable is carefully thought through - and tested the hell out of over several years by their engineers.
You can't expect to go modifying things willy-nilly and expect only gains without losses in other areas - particularly environmental and reliability. This is especially true where you're modifying things like engine tables.
i can understand (Score:5, Interesting)
basically, any technology which has the power to kill me, and is used in primarly public places that I roam in.
can anybody else suggest other technologies that are used in everyday life, owned by most people, and used often in public places that have the power to kill me if they happen to 'go wrong'?
Re:i can understand (Score:5, Interesting)
There are lots of self-loaders out there who think that adding more powder makes them shoot better. Or they modify their weapons because they read somewhere on the Internet that it would shave off a microsecond or two from the firing rate or lessen the trigger pull. Funny thing is that the people who have used the most bizarre rifles tend to shoot the worst.
Airplanes you say?
I live about 100 yards from a small airfield in South Florida. I was driving to work one morning and noticed a bunch of fire trucks and police a few doors away. Heard on the news later that day that an experimental plane had crashed into a house. I've seen a couple of these accidents so far (well, not the actual crash, but the after effects).
Home wiring...
I've visited lots of friends' houses that have really bad wiring jobs. I've seen lots of outlets that would fail inspection. At my last house the previous occupants had been running a small business from their converted garage. They had installed extra outlets to run the electrical equipment (heater, various electrical motors, etc..). Everything was connected to an extension cord with a bunch of daisy-chained power strips *behind the wall*.
... and this is news??? (Score:3, Redundant)
Also... on a vehicle from the factory with no aftermarket parts don't expect drastic gains, unless your vehicle is equiped with forced induction and the ECU has the ability to control the wastegate. IE. You're not going to get 50hp by 'hacking' your hondas ECU. More likely you'll get 5-10hp... even then it's usually a trade off of having to use higher octane fuel.
I had my cars ECU reflashed to take advantage of higher octane fuel (increased timing) and recieved 13 rwhp and 15 rwlb/ft.
It works at first... then.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The device blocks the upstream communciations frequencies so your box can't call home, but allow the broadcast frequencies to pass through so you still get watchable signals. However, after a few months, the party's over. The cable company sends down a signal cutting off your service, and tells you you'll have to let the digital box call home before you can watch anything again. Guess what, the box has been keeping count all along. So you pay full price for everything you thought was free, and you're out the money you spent on a worthless device...
If somebody's selling an unathorized upgrade without being willing to stand behind their product, you better watch out. Something's not right with the deal.
hard drive (Score:4, Funny)
Partly to combat hackers, many carmakers are using encrypted chips in new models or, like Toyota, have done away with removable memory chips altogether. That has the e-mechanics shifting strategies, either by downloading new software directly into the computer's hard drive or attaching separate electronic devices that piggyback on the factory-installed control module and override it. Some of these devices alter the "rev limiter" that prevents engine speed from zooming beyond the red line or remove the speed governor that limits top-end performance.
Re:hard drive (Score:4, Funny)
Uh...wait...that's not right...
--RJ
Hacking Bluetooth enabled cars (Score:5, Interesting)
New EPROMs are silly (Score:5, Interesting)
Dan from DansData has written on it in a much better fashion than I ever could though...
His main "hotchip" article [dansdata.com]
Scroll down to the EPROM stuff, he addresses his experiences with "Powerchip" [dansdata.com]
*Sigh* now the NYT is going to cause a bunch of people to waste money. People that don't know enough about cars are going to get preyed on by companies like "powerchip". Just like people in electronics stores that don't know enough about computers.
Keep in mind the car in question (Score:5, Interesting)
As many others have pointed out, chipping a car is nothing new. However, many people have unrealistic expectations about reprogramming their ECU. In the article, they mostly mentioned turbocharged vehicles like the Jetta TDI or 944 Turbo. The BMW owner mentioned was unsatisfied with the change because naturally aspirated (NA) cars don't benefit well from remapped ECUs.
Modifying a car's ECU mainly just adjusts air/fuel mixture, but on a turbo car it can also increase boost pressure. This is where the main hp gains can be found, but is also where you'll likely blow your engine. A NA car will need more modifications than just a chip to get anymore than a nominal power increase. Intake, headers, and exhaust are all necessary to increase airflow to take advantage of a performance chip. Even then you can generally only expect to make another 10hp at the very top end of your hp curve, and you might even lose torque at lower rpms (torque gets you up to speed, hp keeps you there).
Re:Keep in mind the car in question (Score:3, Informative)
I call bullshit! (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, duh...
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
It's worse when you find CODE errors (Score:3, Interesting)
When you have to fix a manufacturer's coding mistake, it's a pretty sad situation. For the privileged few, it's a very nice and interesting hobby.
The problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Just because a fishtank valve can give a Supra another 100hp, does not mean the rest of the equation is up to the task.
That said, i've seen some VERY impressive software upgrades in deisel pickups. I only wonder if the radiator is up to cooling the uprated potential heat generated and if the transmission is capabile of living under the added stress.
(in the interests of fair reporting, this comes from a guy who built a 475 hp/500 ft-lb Corvette...and upgraded teh brakes at the same time...only to be stuck with a tranny bill when said motor had it's way with it.)
HP gains are real... (Score:5, Informative)
Chip/PCM programmers operate by simply modifying the same tables as the manufacturer modifies when they want more HP for marketing purposes. It should be no surprise that the manufacturers are dead set against this.
As for emissions, the new engines and computer systems monitor all aspects of the emissions system. Many states simply plug into the OBD-II computer for later-model vehicles and check to make sure no "fault" codes are set -- that's the extent of "emissions testing." To make an assertion that any modification to the PCM will cause emissions to increase is simply showing one's ignorance as to how today's vehicles operate.
BTW, the OBD-II interface and protocol is an open protocol, available at cost from the SAE. There's nothing "secret" about how these PCMs operate. Of course, I wouldn't consider
Summary (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow! I can overclock my car! (Score:3, Funny)
Automotive engineering involves compromises (Score:4, Insightful)
Many compromises are made in designing the control systems, and a mod chip just selects a different set of compromises. Some of these are:
Of these, manufacturing cost (and emissions, if you're environmentally inconsiderate) are they only compromises for which your criteria are likely to be different from those of the manufacturer, and hence the ones where aftermarket modifications might help. I don't see why the particular firmware in the chip would affect manufacturing cost, so it boils down to the other issues.Ignition timing. Advanced ignition timing may result in higher performance, but also may cause pre-ignition (knock) which will damage your engine unless you use premium fuel.
Fuel economy.
Driveability - throttle lag, stumbling, rough idle, run-on, are all issues of concern.
Emissions. High combustion temperatures send NOx emissions through the roof.
Maintenance intervals.
Longevity.
Manufacturing cost.
Way back attempts (Score:3, Funny)
About thirty seconds later I noticed flames shooting from the engine. Crap. Thinking it was something with the carburetor, I tried to fix and re-install the stock unit using a carburetor rebuild kit. It seemed simple enough -- replace a few springs, a float, clean some parts. I got everything back together and bolted the rebuilt carburetor into place. Cranked the engine. Sputter. Cough. Then my whole engine caught on fire as gasoline was leaking everywhere. The flames died pretty quickly but it scorched a bunch of parts. So I had to put the Holley back in place. I did, but noticed that the gasket was torn. Hell, I thought, if I tighten the bolts up enough there's no way any gas could leak from the seal...
Was I ever wrong.
What other stupid things have I done?
I once forget to re-attach the lawn mower blade before testing the engine I'd just rebuilt. The funniest thing happened. Apparently the mass of the lawnmower blade is enough to slow down the RPMs of the engine. If the blade is removed the lawnmover spins very, very, VERY quickly. And just as quickly wrecks the engine. Lots of little coat-hanger like wire just flies out. And there's no way to get them back inside. I was trying to tweak the damned thing to spin a little faster...
ECU? What ECU? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why bother with electronics, when you can do something that's time tested and proven -- mechanics. For every advantage electronics give you, there's an associated disadvantage -- Biggest disadvantage? More things can go wrong at any given moment in time, and the older the electronics, the more prone it is to failure and the harder it is to come by replacement parts.
This simple maxim is just as true for stock cars as it is for modded cars. Case in point: My 1983 Nissan 280ZX is fuel injected, so it has an ECU. It has a stalling problem, yet all of the mechanics are fine. The problem is electrical -- most likely related to the ECU, but I'm not going to go pay someone $400 to find it, and then charge me a buttload more to fix it.
With my van, since everything is mechanical, it's easy to find the problem... symptoms are fewer when a problem occurs... There's not too much guesswork in diagnosing it.
Want to upgrade? Easy as pie. New cam, intake, exhaust system and a good quality carb. My choice? Edelbrock. Everything's designed to match, so the guesswork's been taken care of.
Top that with an ECU upgrade that you'll pay just as much for as I did for the entire mechanical upgrade, and I'll guarantee you I have a buttload more HP per dollar spent.
And I also guarantee I'll win in any tug of war against your Honda Civic.... Replacement bumpers anyone?
-Phyre
Upgrading Chips != More Cheap Horsepower. (Score:5, Informative)
For those of you who are surprised, let me tell you have people have been tweaking chips for a good number of years. You can get aftermarket chips for pretty much any sports (and not so sports) car. However, the biggest gains are achieved only when you combine an upgraded chip with a number of performance parts such as headers, exhausts, turboes and superchargers. If you do not understand how cars work and have not done any performance tuning, you might be better off by going back to hacking your Linux box.
First of all, there are no cheap power gains. Just replacing a chip will not turn your grocery-getter into a Porsche. Secondly, if you do get enough extra ponies, you will have to upgrade your suspension and brakes; otherwise, I will see you in a telephone pole around the corner. Finally, not every engine can hanle a lot of horsepower, that is, even if you do upgrade everything but leave the block in a stock condition, you will have a greater chance of blowing it.
Normally, you would install any performance parts that you have and then tune the chip so it is optimized for your configuration. Is the chip worth the money by itself? Unless your car has forced induction it is; otherwise, it is a waste. Normally, you have to do a combination of things in order to get a significant increase in power. For example, Stage 1 upgrades include getting a new ECU and increasing pressure in your turbos, Stage 2 would require an additional part, usually an exhaust. Stage 3 may require changing your turbos or getting some upgrades for them; by the time you get to this point, you will notice the impact on your wallet. This varies from car to car, my knowledge is based on what I know about Nissan 300ZX and Subaru WRX.
If you do not have turbos or a blower, there is nothing much your chip can do, but void the warranty.
Also, when you get the stats, make sure that you understand them correctly. Ten extra horses to the flywheel are not equal to the ten extra horses to the wheels. If you are still nutty about all this, take a look what you can do to Subaru WRX, Audi (turboed models) and Corvettes. The latter do not have forced induction but are proven to be very nice when it comes to updated ECUs along with some performance parts. P.S.: Yeah, if you feel like replying back to me and telling that your Honda does wonders with upgraded chips and how it can beat anything on the road. Do not bother, please. I have been there and done that.
OpenSource ECU code - a real need. (Score:5, Informative)
The 2002 MINI Cooper S (a **GREAT** car BTW) was delivered with Engine management (ECU) software V1.3.0. It worked fine.
The 2003 MINI Cooper S was delivered with ECU software V1.3.2. We believe the changes were to accomodate the Diesel version of the MINI that was due to appear in Europe - but there may have been other changes too.
v1.3.2 worked well - EXCEPT when the high ambient temperatures of a Texas summer combined with 'Reformulated Gasoline' (not sold in all US States - and not seen in Europe). With that combination of conditions, the car would roll forwards 10 feet and stall if you accellerated moderatly hard from a standing start. This came to be known as 'the stumbles'. When it strikes, it can actually be quite dangerous because you could in all likelyhood be stalled out right in front of an oncoming vehicle.
Both ECU electronics and engine mechanics are IDENTICAL between the 2002 and 2003 models - so this had to be a software bug.
It took a LONG time to figure out why some cars were stumbling. The owners' clubs first noticed that only 2003 cars did it - then we discovered this was only happening in the summer - and only in Texas and (IIRC) Florida - but then we heard that it wasn't happening in New Mexico. So we initially ruled out the 'high temperature' theory. However, New Mexico doesn't have reformulated gas.
So when we realised that reformulated Gas is sold in Texas and Florida - but not in New Mexico, we thought that might be the issue...but then we found that it didn't happen in New York (reformulated gas - but no high temperatures).
The whole thing was also confused by the fact that the MINI's ECU has adaptive software. When we had a few days of cool temperatures, the problem DIDN'T go away - and you had to run three tankfuls of non-reformulated gas through the car before the ECU would un-learn the stumble.
It's a tribute to the 'community' spirit of MINI owners (and lots of long threads on several mailing lists) that we ever figured out WTF was happening to our cars at all.
It took six months to pursuade BMW/MINI that there was truly a problem (by which time temperatures had dropped and we couldn't reproduce the problem) - and another 6 months for them to fix it and get a software upgrade out.
Meanwhile, the 2002 MINI's were still running V1.3.0 just fine in all temperatures and all gasoline types - and 2003 MINI's were stumbling all over the place.
Owners of 2003 machines were begging the dealerships to downgrade their cars back to the 2002 code - but dealerships were either unable or unwilling to do that - we're still not quite sure why - but it's likely that the security system in the MINI's ECU somehow prevents that.
This is a CLASSIC case where we'd have *killed* to have an OpenSource solution so we could fix the problem ourselves...either by simply reprogramming our 2003 cars with 2002 software (kindly donated by a 2002 owner)...or by doing a 'diff' and figuring out what was actually wrong.
Even without the source code, it would have been possible to do a binary dump from one car to another - but for the fact that these ECU's are protected by a barrage of 'challenge/response' tests (the details of which are a closely guarded secret). If your laptop fails to provide the correct response to the challenge, the car literally shuts down all software functions for THREE HOURS!! This effectively foils any effort to do a trial-and-error test to reverse-engineer the challenge/response system.
So - whilst it MIGHT be dangerous to allow people to randomly hack their cars, there are also dangers in preventing them from doing so.
Re:OpenSource ECU code - a real need. (Score:4, Informative)
I did slightly 'abbreviate' the full details for the sake of brevity - in fact, early '03 model year cars from late 2002 or manufactured in Jan/Feb of 2003 were still using the older software and are stumble-free. Also, before the stumble was discovered, many dealerships upgraded cars with the older software to the 1.3.2 and 1.3.3 versions and these guys started to suffer when they'd been working OK beforehand. One reason for doing that was a minor cold-starting problem in non-supercharged MINI Coopers - and also to fix some shift-pattern problem in the CVT MINI Coopers.
So, you DO see '02 cars *with* the stumble problem and there are also '03 cars that don't suffer from it at all (mine is an '03 model built in October 2002 - and I don't have the stumble because I didn't do the upgrade).
The 'warble' you describe has also been well documented - it's more often called the 'yo-yo'. The jury is still out on whether it is fixed by the 1.3.6 software - some people claim it's fixed, others claim it's a little less noticable - other people say it's not there at all. It's a subtle problem though - some people don't notice the problem at all even though other people can clearly feel it in the exact same vehicle.
Overall, there doesn't seem to be any reason NOT to upgrade to 1.3.6 - nobody has yet said it made matters worse.
REAL hacking takes more than replacing a chip (Score:5, Informative)
MegaSquirt Electronic Fuel Injection Computer [bgsoflex.com]
Electronic fuel injection 11 [sourceforge.net]
PowerPC fuel injection [antelecom.net]
This is 'useful' in certain circumstances (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, a company in Florida apparently imports the Opel chips and will put them in the engine in the Saturn - although I've not read a report on effects.
To be honest, I wouldn't do it for several reasons, not least that the bank owns the car; it's still under warranty; its torque and gearing means it smokes most similar cars off the line anyway; and I'm not sure I'd want my family in a modded car!
And beings as it costs $400 for that, plus whatever tweakery is extra, I'd rather drop the money into a bitchin' sound system.
Yeah, amazing news this is (Score:3, Informative)
This is because the pressure produced with the turbo is often controlled by a the computer, and altering the settings will raise the amount of air and fuel and thus the horsepower. Since modern turbos usually have fairly large air pumping capacity, the gains are quite large. A great example is the SRT4- the first 2 (warrantied!) factory upgrade stages are just a comptuer and injector swap which raises the boost. They massively overbuilt the drivetrain anticipating that people would engage in such acts.
This usually produces big gains in power, but can cause problems in two cases:
1) The turbo is very small compared to the engine and the turbo has to be overspun to produce a gain in power. This has been a big problem for the v6 twin turbo audi S4 and the 1.8T powered VW/Audi cars. They use extremely undersized turbos (to reduce lag) but this makes them very frail at high boost levels. This is why audi is going to a non-turbo V8 for the next version of the S4. Warranty claims are very hard to deny if the factory chip is swapped back in and the only damage is a pair of failed turbos. Its obvious what happened, but impossible to prove, especially when so many people are reporting these "random failures."
2) The engine internals or drivetrain are too frail. This tends to be far less common (since these parts are usually overengineered), but it does happen, especially on AWD turbo cars with decent sized turbos, like the AWD DSMs from the mid-early 90s (eclipse/laser/etc). These accidents tend to be very expensive, so the dealerships are usually a bit more careful about springing for warranty work. Often the damning evidence is the massively upgraded clutch which sent the power to the transmission, or the poorly tuned engine which melted a piston top or a valve.
On a car that isnt a factory turbo, all you can do is advance timing and adjust fuel delivery. Timing advance usually yields a little power but fuel delivery only yields power if the stock configuration is extremely rich (like on the Sentra Spec-V) or if the engine's volumetric efficiency is changed (cams/turbo/supercharger/etc added).
This second use is usually what a computer change is used for on a n/a car.
Computerized cars (Score:4, Funny)
- Drive away in your own Plywood Fury, with two barrel carbonmaker and brand new gladiator...
Used to be EPROMS (Score:3, Interesting)
of the masters had a sticker with the model of a car (newest Fords and Audis I vaguely recall).
Well when I did finally mention it, that's what they were... souped-up firmware replacements for the boy racers. Glad to see this art is still alive.
Warranty? How about emission laws and safety.... (Score:5, Informative)
A finer point is the consideration of incomplete combustion. There is an inverse relationship between performance and fuel efficiency. Where does all that extra fuel go to eak out that last bit of horsepower? It exits the combustion chamber in the form of partially combusted hydrocarbons (HC's) and CO. It takes too long to burn fuel completely to CO2 and H20 in a high performance envelope, so it is wasted and accounted as the cost of performance. Normally the HC's and CO exit the exhaust into the air in a off-street high performance vehicle. In a street production vehicle there is a catalytic converter between the exhaust manifold and the air. It is designed to clean up any residual uncombusted byproducts, normally a small % and runs around 1000-1500 degrees in temp, but it has heat shielding/insulation to protect the vehicle. If you changed the exhaust, through tweaking for performance, to release a higher percentage of HC's and CO, the catalytic converter will convert it to CO2 and H20. The problem is that there is much more combustion to complete and the cat's temp will rise drastically. Then your car catches on fire.
You might think this is a rare event, but it happens occasionally when engines are poorly tuned or leaking oil fumes in the exhaust and aren't checked out for emissions. Part of an emissions test involves analyzing exhaust gases prior to entering the cat. Converters are so efficient at finishing combustion that they can mask oil burning and overly rich mixtures.
I have seen several cars burn up this way. The funniest/most ironic happened to a police car. The police department was pulling strings with the emissions department and getting rubber stamped emissions stickers for their cruiser fleet without actually running the tests. One hot summer day a cruiser melted by the side of the road and started a moderate grass fire. It was determined through mechanic logs that the car had been using much more oil recently, but nothing was done to figure out why - just kept adding oil. All that oil was burning in the cat and eventually the heat shielding burned through and the car ignited.
Just like overclocking, you gotta do something about the excess heat. The tweakers might want to remove the cat (a violation of federal law) or keep a fire extinguisher in the car and the fire department on speed dial.
I used to turn wrenches for a living before going to med school.
The limitations of ECU modification (Score:4, Informative)
In most modern normally aspirated vehicles ECU modifications do very little (we are talking 10% max) to performance unless the volumetric efficiency of the car is altered first by improving breathing (air filter, intake manifold, throttle body, inlet cam etc), improved exhaust (extractors, free flowing exhaust) or increasing the engine's ability to rev (blueprinting, valve train etc etc). Once these things have been done it is often vital that ECU mods are done to ensure that air/fuel mixtures remain with safe range (not too lean for petrol engines and not to rich for diesels).
On the flip side we have the behaviour of the stock ECU on many of the more sophisticated modern vehicles: particularly those that have low emissions status. Often traditional mods will not improve performance at all or only for a little while. For example, before the Subaru Impreza WRX was released in the US, a typical first modification was turbo or cat back exhaust. This had the effect of improving flow and also increased boost because the boost control was open loop (no feedback). The new GDB Impreza WRX is no where near as easy to modify. The ECU has closed loop control and will also retard timing to bring power down to stock levels. Another vehicle that does something similar are the LS1 V8 equipped Holden Commodores that we have here in Australia (the four door equivalent of the new Pontiac GTO). These use some form of torque modelling such that any modification will give a short performance boost but within days the ECU will bring torque back to stock levels.
In short, ECU modification is generally something that is done at the same time as other, more physical modifications.
NY Times REALLY needs more informed writers. (Score:5, Informative)
I suppose this could make sense with a turbo engine (more gas AND more air), but more gas by itself will just cause horrible emissions and, if anything, a low operating temp. A rich mixture does not fully burn, and indeed ends up cooling the engine some. A lean mixture will burn up an engine. A rich mixture will just smell bad and piss off the EPA.
(Perhaps inevitably, the hacker culture has also produced automotive pirates who buy legitimate chips from makers then copy the programming onto blank chips, selling the results at sharp discounts.)
Need I say anything? "Hacker culture" != "Pirate". Grr.
Partly to combat hackers, many carmakers are using encrypted chips in new models or, like Toyota, have done away with removable memory chips altogether. That has the e-mechanics shifting strategies, either by downloading new software directly into the computer's hard drive...
Hard Drive? In my car? From the factory? Think not.
I modded my car very easily (Score:4, Funny)
Two tanks ? (Score:5, Funny)
Cool. So my next car will have these 2 tanks, be overclocked, play mp3's / have a GPS system [carplayer.com], and look cool [silicon.wack.us]. Now all I need is a Mr. Fusion unit [ketzer.com]. But it's still 2004 and I hadn't invented it yet.
One thing to avoid... (Score:4, Informative)
Its basically a resistor you are buying, and you are expected to solder it into your ECU, tricking the car into thinking its running in cold start mode the whole time.. so more fuel is injected into the engine hence making it a little more powerful.
But obviously you don't want to be doing it.. if you are going to get your car chipped do it at a garage who run your car on a rolling road and work out a custom map for you. $500 or so for a rechip would be nothing compared to the damage that one of those $5 resistors would do over time.
KIT (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:5, Informative)
And when your engine wears out sooner, it's not hard to argue that the changes you made to the computer caused it, if those changes pushed the engine harder than normal.
That act is mostly applied to replacement parts, not performance tweaks, especially potentially damaging ones.
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:5, Informative)
Engine go boom now. Kind of like having a loose heatsink on an Athlon. The only way to get 100 more hp from just software is if you have a turbo engine with an electronic wastegate. You could tell the computer to crank up the boost without beefing up other parts of the engine, but that's a recipe for a french fried engine.
Accelerated mechanical wear. Kind of like electromigration on an overclocked CPU. Metal fatigue and mechanical wear are gradual processes, and drivetrain parts are designed with a lot of headroom so it won't break right away when you up the power. However, even with a stock engine, parts can wear out very fast if you drive foot to the floor all the time. One big problem is CV joints on a powerful front drive car. Take it easy in first gear where the torque multiplication is the greatest, and your car will thank you.
Or, this can IMPROVE your car (Score:5, Insightful)
You pulled that "100 hp" out of the air: nowhere in the article is such a claim made.
However, significant gains can be made in some areas without running afoul of your first failure mode. If you are willing to commit to always using high-octane fuel, for example, then you can safely derive significant benefit by changing the ignition advance settings in the ROM maps.
Other useful features can be added to your ECU as well. Consider the products from TechnoMotive [tmo.com]. You can add security so that the engine will only start if you tap a secret code on the gas pedal. You can make instrumentation display many different data -- helping you prevent the types of failures you mention. You can even have bugs from the manufacturer fixed:
ObDisclaimer: not associated with TMO in any way, but have heard great things from their customers.
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:5, Informative)
So you can get more horses if you sacrifice efficiency. Note also, the Dodge viper and the Dodge RAM shared versions of the same V12 engine. One tuned for high horses, other tuned for high torque.
You will not be wearing out your car with the modifications these controllers allow. You are just adjusting variables that the OEMs already have there.
If they allows this off the line, the govt would probably force them to figure it into their average fuel economy. There are no "underclocked" cars.
The only thing OEMs don't want is you diagnosing your car, or any repair shops fixing them. The dealerships push the OEMs hard on that aspect.
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:5, Interesting)
Mitsubishi is famous for this as is Toyota (well, Toyota was. Haven't made anything good for a long time now).
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:4, Funny)
- Annoying other law abiding moorists
- Breaking the law
- Killing pedestrians
- Impressing young boys
Have I missed something?Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:5, Funny)
Normal passenger vehicles in the rest of the world are plenty fast if their engines produce 200hp. Sadly, Americans don't know about the rest of the world and think motorsport equals monster trucks, drag racing and something called an 'oval'.
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:4, Insightful)
We Americans might have some other reasons to have and do what we do that the EU and Asian Types don't think about. While I am not personally a fan of the extremely big cars, you might just take note that we don't live in Europe or Asia.
When my wife who is from the Philippines was processing her papers to come here, I told her to get some training in driving a car. She said, "No I will just walk to the store and where I want to go." I countered, it is 8 km from my house to the nearest substantial store, you need to learn to drive. I do not live in the West USA, I live in a fairly populated area of the East in Madison County Alabama.
We Americans are likely to have to use our vehicles to haul furniture, and large items that EU types and East Asians are likely to have delivery services for. We are also likely to live where travel in the order of 150 km on a daily trip is not uncommon. (Yes I do know the Miles to Km conversions) I am also 1.88 m tall. I do not fit well in one of those little tin can cars that the world thinks I should use. I do own a large Nissan Quest Minivan. It is much more pleasant than my Honda Civic which is my other car. The economy in gasoline usage is about 22mpg city and 30 mpg Highway on the Nissan and about 32 mpg Honda Civic and about 40 mpg highway. My work is about to have to make me take a Transcontinental Trip. At my Size and carrying some luggage etc I need a larger vehicle.
I don't here too much about EU types having to travel say 3,000 km in 3 day with a wife 2 kids and luggage on board. I also don't hear about you buying plywood and lumber for building onto your property very often.
There is another point that the EU types and the East Asians miss when they start dumping on NASCAR and Monster Trucks and Drag Racing etc. (I am not a racing fan) Very nearly every innovation in efficiency or safety in Automotive Transportation has arisin from such types as the NASCAR Racers. It is their "Tweeking" that has brought about the new technology. These are the Tech Scientists on the Cutting Edge who brought about the prosperity of modern society. Resenting them is just plain IGNORANT.
EU Types also live in a world with streets built for horse and donkey tech. Their major cities do have some modern streets but London, Paris and many others are mostly narrow streets incapacitated for modern transport. The USA on the other hand was generally built to handle this. The comparison of our world and your world is simply not to understand that they are as alien as seperate planets. The reason we have brought the world cars, aircraft, farm tractors, and a lot more is because we don't think like the EU types. We don't live like you do and this is not to say that you are wrong for your world. It simply is to say that you are wrong about our world.
Our weather is quite different from yours. The comments about Airconditioning is a good example. I live in Alabama. Our weather finds that in the Spring, Summer and Fall I am subject to having the temperature in my car reach 80 Deg C in the mid day. Opening the windows finds the exterior temperature reaching between 35 and 40 Deg C. The Relative Humidity is often 95% or higher. This just doesn't happen even in southern Europe. You may get as hot but for the most part your Heat Index is much less. Also at your Humidity conditions a wet cloth cools you adequately. Here it just gets you sticky and hotter. In the winter I am subject to having my windows fog up not from temperature but from Humidity conditions and Air Conditioning is a Safety tool then! These conditions are not solved by opening windows.
Our conditions are vastly different here on so many issues that you simply don't know what is going on. While I know persons who love NASCAR and it is most definitely a very popular sport in Alabama (Number 1 or 2) it is hardly the "Obsession" that you think.
Being from Alabama I think you simply don't have a clue as to what is going on either. This isn't some Hick sport of the ignorant t
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:5, Funny)
DISCLAIMER!!! The above statement is unfortunately not based on the posters personal experience.
'Performance Ride' (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing had four benches, and he took 10 people at a times for rides.
On Interstate 91.
Going as high as 60 miles per hour to the delight of bewildered motorists. Never mind the then 55 MPH limit...
And all this in TOTAL SILENCE. Not a sound, but some whiffs of steam...
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:5, Informative)
You're okay to get your oil change at Jiffy Lube or your repair part from another maker who tries to duplicate the specs. But, that so isn't what's going on here...
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want more power get a different car in the first place. The cars mentioned are not exactly cheap. You could get a second hand car designed to go at those speeds for the same price.
I find the problem with driving a performance car is the fact that you still have to drive on the exact same roads. Oh and the git who is driving twenty feet away from my tailpipe does not understand that if I slam the brakes on my car will stop in less than 4 seconds at 70mph. So he will have run right into the back of me before he reacts to my brake lights.
Just how fast do you need to go down an on-ramp in the first place?
Tweaking the engine does not affect the performance of you brakes or the handling of the car. If you remove the speed limiter you can go above 155mph, but your tires won't be rated for that speed. If you are lucky you will just wear them out fast, if you are unlucky you will get tread separation. There is a reason why tires for supercars cost $2000+ each.
I would like to know how to hack the telephone system so I can use a standard motorola phone. Jaguar want $2500 to upgrade the phone the car came with to a GSM version. Not happening, but I did like having the phone controls integrated into the car controls.
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, the brakes don't get any better, but if you are capable to handle driving your car at 155 mph, odds are you can handle it at whatever speeds above
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:4, Interesting)
If you want more power, you buy a cheap car and then aftermarket parts. You pay the insurance for a cheap little 4 banger, but get the performance of a big block v-8. I have a Nissan Sentra SE-R SpecV (yeah that's annoying to say I wish they just called it a SpecV.) It was a bit over $21,000 fully loaded (around $17,000 base.) If I spend $7,000 on performance parts the car will be able to drag against dodge vipers that cost around $60,000 (I think a dodge viper has a 12 second 1/4 mile time, I know some SpecV's with under $10,000 of work that run 11 second 1/4 miles)
Just how fast do you need to go down an on-ramp in the first place?
Faster than the cars already on the highway? I live in Arizona so that's about 75mph, and that's just the speed limit, most of these people do 80-90. And besides don't forget after the on-ramp is the wide open road. Then there's the legal use of performance parts, drag strips, local tracks, auto-x events, tons of stuff you can participate in where just an extra 20hp might make a huge difference (yeah I know in auto-x and most track events handeling is better than horsepower but the horsepower helps a lot.)
Tweaking the engine does not affect the performance of you brakes or the handling of the car. If you remove the speed limiter you can go above 155mph, but your tires won't be rated for that speed. If you are lucky you will just wear them out fast, if you are unlucky you will get tread separation. There is a reason why tires for supercars cost $2000+ each.
No, tweaking the engine doesn't affect your brake or handeling performance. But people don't tweak the engine for that, they tweak the brakes and suspension for that. If you're car can go 155mph your tires are probably Z rated, mine are and they came on a Nissan Sentra, it can't go up to 155 (131 was my top speed through the Salt Flats in utah) and it's an economy car. Sure I did get performance packages but still, the people who will buy these chips will probably have the tires to handle the speeds.
I would like to know how to hack the telephone system so I can use a standard motorola phone. Jaguar want $2500 to upgrade the phone the car came with to a GSM version. Not happening, but I did like having the phone controls integrated into the car controls.
You're probably going to have to do that on your own. I don't think any company will waste the time figuring out how to do that since most of the people who buy that car won't have the problem and there isn't a huge demand on figuring that problem out. Sure if you're lucky someone will do it and they'll post directions online but I'm sure it'd be very difficult.
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:3, Interesting)
But it can remove artificial limits.
Here are my current car's specs:
280hp
254ft/lbs torque
All Wheel Drive
FB: 16" 2-pot Ventilated Discs (ABS)
RB: 15" Ventilated Discs (ABS)
Tires: 215/45 ZR-17 (ZR=Sustained 240+km/hr)
Nothing has been changed on the car to improve these specs.
Said manufacturer also chose to limit the top speed to 180km/hr as agreed among all Japanese makers for domestically sold cars. The car does 16
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Magnusson Moss Warranty Act (Score:3, Interesting)
Car manufacturers can be such bullies sometimes. Luckily, there are things such as the Magnusson Moss Warranty Act to help protect consumers.
Does that cover accidental disabling of your anti-lock breaking system and airbags?
Re:Overclocking... (Score:5, Insightful)
No different than overclocking and many people have been very successful doing this...
Because we all know an internal combustion engine, with hundreds of moving parts, metals with critical temperature points, etc, is exactly like a CPU.
Re:Overclocking... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry to be so unclear, but the analogy still stands. It's not everyone that is only specialized in one particular field and doesn't have a clue about anything else...
Re:Overclocking... (Score:3, Insightful)
--RJ
Re:Why why why (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a question of responsibility. If you do tests in a controlled environment and with crash dummies, there is very little chance of hurting someone versus if you openly encourage every Joe Blow to mod his car...
Re:Why why why (Score:5, Insightful)
Hackers aren't engineers. Get that through your head. The auto company learns NOTHING it didn't already know when people reprogram engine computers.
Hacking cars does not make you a better customer, it just makes you a hacker. They have your money either way, but from their point of view they are likely to get dinged with warranty repair costs they don't deserve when somebody hacks. And the truth of the matter is, they're right.
Same as overclocking. You think it doesn't cost Intel and AMD money? I guarantee you it does. People break their CPUs overclocking and abuse warranties to get them replaced all the time.
Re:Why why why (Score:3, Interesting)
Hackers aren't engineers. That's why the hackers work WITH engineers to do a proper job. I reverse engineered the Subaru WRX computer as part of my job and I wouldn't even think of trying to change major values myself. That's left up to a trained professional who develops the maps using a chasis dynomometer and software that I've written.
Re:Why why why (Score:3, Insightful)
I would think the Microsoft analogy is flawed, simply because if something goes wrong with the console, you just lose your $200 (or whatever) piece of hardware.
On the other hand, you mess up with your car and do something stupid, people would have accidents. They could get hurt. And they could die.
And no guesses as to what would happen then - these companies would get sued to kingdom come by some opportunitistic f**ks.
And guess what? There will be a thriving blackmarket industry that
Re:Why why why (Score:3, Insightful)
"You *told*
Re:Chip (Score:4, Insightful)
The worst of scum are the people who run mod chips in their car for several years, put the original back in, then trade the car in at a dealership.
If you do this, you are really screwing someone. Sleep well now, for karma will visit later.
Re:Running windows code (Score:4, Funny)
Watch out for the Broken windSheild Of Death.