Im sure this has been asked before. I did a search and came up with nothing so sorry for being redundant.

Why does the ECU upgrade cost so much? Its just software correct? The injector map was written on another car so there's not even any dyno time involved to ensure that the specific map in question is correct for your car.....considering your own individual modifications.

Ive had many injector and timing maps written for motorcycles, both turbo charged and naturally aspirated. These maps were done with my bike on the dyno and an air fuel sniffer in the tailpipe. Ive spent hours on map writing for bikes and have never been charged such high prices for it.

Many times we trade maps with other bike owners that have the same bike with similar mods done to it. We e-mail them back and forth to each other.

I was just wondering where the justification for the cost came in. Seems kinda high to me for a bunch of 1's and 0's that can fit on a floppy.

 

You are not the only one to wonder. You'll likely hear the cost is such because of research and development of the software and the likes.
I think it's crap,

 

I would guess that the true reason is that the performance market is fairly new for the MINI and there are not many competitors that offer their products at better pricing.

The price will be what the market will tolerate.

I cant bring myself to pay that much for an injector map. It would be against my religon.

 

Agreed.
I have yet to hear rave reviews for ANY ECU upgrade. If the response was similar to the pulley and the cost close, then I might reconsider .

 

ECU upgrade costs are high due to the small number of people that will purchase the upgrade and the amount of time it takes to develop the upgrade to get the most performance out of it.

Things are getting better. Lost cost upgrades don't yield much power.
Powerchip and other ECU upgrades are getting better but more work needs to be done. Prices have gone down in the last 6 months and I would expect it to get better.

Sometime in the future we can have our ECU software finely tuned for each of our hardware upgrades rather than getting a more generic upgrade.

Sorry that the prices are still high but the MINI is not a high volume sales leader so the upgrade market is also limited.

 

I did my ECU with UNICHIP ,works good.

car with UNICHIP can be tuned on a dyno, so don't matter what performance part you have .with UNICHIP you can tune it for your car.

yes it dose cost ,powerchip is lote cheeper and they do have a good program but if you have exhust or other things on your mini ,you need to fine tune it.
and if you want to add more latter ,you always can re tune the car. but with UNICHIP
you need a dyno to fine tune the car. if you are in LA ,send me e-mail , i work in performance shop and we got dyno. :smile:

 

minihune said: "Powerchip and other ECU upgrades are getting better but more work needs to be done. ...Sometime in the future we can have our ECU software finely tuned for each of our hardware upgrades rather than getting a more generic upgrade."

Care to elaborate?

EVOtech's software is adjusted according to your MINI's hardware config (I'd guess Powerchips is similar, coming from Randy-development-world). I understand adding hardware may necessitate a re-flash of an updated program.

So, the question remains: What "work" needs to be done?

 

>>minihune said: "Powerchip and other ECU upgrades are getting better but more work needs to be done. ...Sometime in the future we can have our ECU software finely tuned for each of our hardware upgrades rather than getting a more generic upgrade."
>>
>>Care to elaborate?
If you consider the gains that Powerchip has made in the last 3 months and they and others are working on the "stumble" problem as well, then it might be that the next step would be to allow for different files to be used for different hardware set ups. They'd have to adjust the software to take "full" advantage of various hardware present unless there is a way for the ECU to read what is there merely by reseting itself after initially loading of the software. None of this is guaranteed to happen. Much work needs to be performed. Hence our high prices.

>>
>>EVOtech's software is adjusted according to your MINI's hardware config (I'd guess Powerchips is similar, coming from Randy-development-world). I understand adding hardware may necessitate a re-flash of an updated program.
>>
>>So, the question remains: What "work" needs to be done?
As progress is made Randy has already mentioned that ECU upgrades can have re-flashing to later versions and hopefully that will help because buyers have already made an investment and deserve to have some benefit as time goes on and more is learned.

I'm just saying that ECU upgrades are expensive and have more potential since our MINIs are quite dependent on this drive by wire technology. It would be great to spend less and have more sophisticated software. Only time will tell.

 

I think he's referring to EXACT tuning. Instead of currently - intake, exhaust, pulley, how about an ECU that is tuned to the ALta intake and the QUICKSILVER exhaust versus the BMP intake and the MAGNAFLOW exhaust. See? Each intake and especially exhaust will have a different power curve. Especially exhausts - they're all tuned differently. Some create more power with no mods while others make more power with lots of mods. Some have more backpressure and provide more torque while others have less backpressure and display their gains in terms of high RPM horsepower.

 

If the price is lower more people can afford it so they'd be dealing in higher volume. Cost is too high now, but I'll do it anyway. I too own motorcycles and know about tunnig them. I've aslo installed Ferracci chips and others in the past with good and bad results. I'm going to take a little phili trip and go visit Eric at Helix. I havn't decided if I'm changing the factory exhaust for an aftermarket but I do have the 15% pulley and an alta intake. Ecu and light wheels next.
Hey Punisher, nice looking mini. My mini is blk/wht, wht mirrors and stripes. Same wheels as you. Love my mini.

 

>>Why does the ECU upgrade cost so much? Its just software correct? The injector map was written on another car so there's not even any dyno time involved to ensure that the specific map in question is correct for your car.....considering your own individual modifications.
>>


Punsher:

Having spent huge chunks of time over the last few weeks, doing my part in the development of the GIAC chip, I think that I can answer to that question.

To produce a proper, original, ECU chip for a car is extremely complicated and time consuming. There are 4 basic phases to developing software, all of which are time consuming. First, you have to develop a reader: a software tool that can suck the information out of the cars ECU, decript it, and save it. GIAC has developed a tool which, unlike all other chips available, reads the whole file, not just a little fragment of the file containing some of the fuel and timing curves. Second, you have to develop a writer/interphase. That's software and hardware. The software allows the laptop computer to write to the ECU, through the interphase, a cable that connects the laptop to the car (like the ROSS-TECH interphase). Third, you have to do datalogging and dynamomter runs to analyze the stock software, and finally you have to tune the software.

We have been tuning the software virtually, meaning that GIAC sends us ECU file by email, we install it in the car, do multiple dyno runs, datalogging multiple engine parameters including, Intake temps, exhaust temps, coolant temps, long and short term fuel trim (fuel/air mixture), timing advance, coolant temps, and many more. We graph these paramters, and send them along with the dyno results back to GIAC. They analyze the data and send new files. This process goes back and forth, honing in on the perfect balance of performance, engine safety, and drivability. When one parameter is changed, others are effected, kind of like a golf swing: bend your elbow, the ball goes one way, move your feet, it goes another way.

We have done more than 120 dyno runs on 12 different files so far, and that's only a chip for a MCS with pulley, exhaust and intake. Other mods will require other chips. I figure we are about half way there--althogh being my first time through this process, It's hard to guess.

Long story short folks, it is a huge time investment, and it doesn't yet pay the shop rent or salaries. I guess it's kind of a risk, but I think a risk well taken: In my previous experience with Porsche, AUDI, and VW, GIAC is the macdaddy. Based upon what I have seen on the dyno, their MINI chip will not dissapoint.

-Eric

 

Eric,

When you are doing that test and development work on the dyno, are you doing stuff like part-throttle acceleration runs, deceleration, steady state driving, throttle blipping, etc? In other words, the aspects of driving that aren't full-throttle drag races?

I ask because most ECU "problems" on the MINI happen at low speeds, and/or at part throttle. (yoyo, stumble) Also, overlean conditions (high EGT) often seem to manifest at part-throttle. Seems like you'd need to simulate real world driving in order to develop real world performance.

-Dave

 

Dave:

Drivability and part-throttle issues are adressed in road testing as opposed to the dyno. We are able to datalog on the road as well so we can look at the O2 sensors for normal driving conditions to be sure that the fuel airs aren't running lean and creating heat. Because GIAC re-writes the whole code, things such as part-throttle acceleration and decel will be addressed, as well as throttle response. One of the limiting factors on the engine blipping for the MCS is the tremendously heavy flywheel (25#).

When I talk to Garrett today, I'll address some of the specific issues you brought up and see what he says. It's clear that solving those drivability problems is no easy task: all the engineers at Siemens and BMW have had a couple of years to work on this with limited success. I'll keep you posted. -Eric

 

Eris is talking poop

Keep up the good work Eric. i am waiting. I might have to do exhuast soon. I need to make my car look more like a regular Cooper "Hint Hint".

 

>>If the price is lower more people can afford it so they'd be dealing in higher volume. Cost is too high now, but I'll do it anyway. I too own motorcycles and know about tunnig them. I've aslo installed Ferracci chips and others in the past with good and bad results. I'm going to take a little phili trip and go visit Eric at Helix. I havn't decided if I'm changing the factory exhaust for an aftermarket but I do have the 15% pulley and an alta intake. Ecu and light wheels next.
>>Hey Punisher, nice looking mini. My mini is blk/wht, wht mirrors and stripes. Same wheels as you. Love my mini.
>>
>>

It's the old, you can sell more if you sell for less and if you sell for less you can sell more. If they were $30.00 everyone would have one and if you sold 1,000,000 then you would make money. What if you only sold 100?

That being said, I have NO idea how much work it takes to make or how much money was put into it.

Earl

 

walmart sold 2.5 billion today. maybe we can get the auto dept excited about ecu.

 

The problem lies not with having it be sold at a Walmart which makes it convenient but that with so few MINIs sold in the US each year-estimate 35,000 and with only a fraction of those owners willing to risk voiding the warranty with an ECU upgrade then the true market is only a few thousand ECU upgrades if that many. Therefore the price is necessarily high since the volume of sales so low. No one ECU upgrade company is going to dominate all of the business. Most of the ECU upgrades are pretty close in performance, although some are easier to install. As far as prices go I think you will be seeing a range of about $300+ to $600. Later on a bit lower.

 

So Then....


When does this GIAC chipo com out? and What will be the price?

rev limiter, dyno, hp gain? bring it on eric.

 

It would be my guess that the MINI's ECU is a little more complicated than a motorcycles.

Not that I am bashing motorcycles, (I have 2) but with the drive by wire, the "learning" the DSC et al. it seems like there is a lot more going on than just changing the fuel curves.

From what I understand, powerchips and Evotech are more like what you are used to with motorcycles. I say this because of how quickly they came out. Since they are the first ones out, they can be the most expensive because people will pay. (No matter what the HP gains, just to have a new ECU that's "better&quot

With more ECU's coming out, the price will eventually go down. If Eric releases his chip for $500 and it gets better gains than Evotech and Powerchips, it will force them to lower their price. (To at least $500 or few people will buy them... despite recomendations by certain vendors)

I think one of the biggest problems in this and other aftermarket items is the "claimed" HP that some things get. I think that "fine tuning" your dyno for your parts is a deseptive practice used by many. I'll trust a vendor who talks me out of buying something from him because the gains aren't there. I've found that with Eric and I'm anxiously awaiting the GIAC chip.