I know nothing of this item does anybody? Has a very "to good to be true look about it " Page Title ecu site

 

sure looks a lot like a re-packaged "Shark" to me?! If so, I'd be VERY skeptical. See other threads on this product.

 

Hi all, I should reply here as we're an importer of the AmD One Click.

The One Click was developed by AmD and actually was on the scene prior to the release of the Shark. While they are both housed in similar commercially available cases, they are different animals. AmD has not seen inside a Shark, so it is tough to compare intricately...

BUT - taking for example reflashes of ECUs that we have done on the Subaru side of our business - even if a tool is the same, two tuners may do very different things within an ECU.

We can't speak to the Shark. The One Click:

Is sent to the customer, who downloads ECU information from their car and SENDS IT BACK to us. While this may seem inconvenient at first, it assures that the flash is appropriate for your specific car.

Given a list of mods and the information from your ECU, the One Click is loaded with an appropriate reflash

It is sent back to you; you upload it into the ECU and can switch back and forth as you like.

The One Click is upgradeable - if you change mods significantly, send it back to us and we will reflash it for the mods that you have done. We're not sure the Shark has that capability...

We truly don't like to sell pulley upgrades without the One Click - it appropriately adjusts the AFR so that you're not running too lean down low and horribly rich up high, among other things. A pulley and One Click will take you up to just around 200 hp; 85-90 % of the power increase is from the pulley, and 10% from the One Click - BUT, what the One Click gives is not only a bit of extra power, but better margin of safety, better tune, and MUCH improved driveability (earlier, smoother throttle response).

Not everything comes down to numbers. If you've been in a well tuned car, you know the value of a focus on driveability, and that is what the One Click helps to achieve. We'd rather drive a car that is refined and smooth, with just the right exhaust volume, than one that is a bit too noisy, rough on the delivery, and makes 5 ft/lbs more in torque at some obscure point on the power curve.

(The OneClick doesn't affect exhaust volume obviously - I'm speaking of the choice of cat back systems a driver picks, etc).

Regards,
Ken
Rally Performance / Cool New
http://www.coolnew.com

 

You raise some nice points , thank you for providing more info on the product ,Randy

 

RallyPerformance wroteAny wideband A/F charts to back up those claims?

 

Hi Andy,

I've noted a few of your posts on other threads Andy, and noted that your level of knowledge on engine management seems very solid. Especially with you, I'd rather discuss hard numbers than be general, but for now let me just generally qualify a few things that I said above:

The knowledge that I shared is from detailed conversations I've had with AmD's mapping specialist. We're pursuing AFR charts to share from AmD, among other things, and will make them available...

The Cooper S with our pulley kit on it does lean out slightly early in the powerband, but does go rich going up in the RPM axis. AmD has NOT taken the approach of going for 12.5/1 across the band - they are still leaving a cushion in higher RPMs, which we approve of for longevity.

Most of the engine failures that we/ve seen in the UK seem to be on cars equipped with a pulley but with no compensation in engine management. This has also contributed to our pushing customers with pulleys towards the One Click.

Regards,
Ken
Cool New / Rally Performance
http://www.rallyperformance.com

 

What do you mean by "engine failures"? What exactly failed? I haven't seen any posts from users either here or MINI2 claiming failures as a result of pulley installation. The only such claims I have seen are from RallyPerformance/AmD or Turner/Conforti, both of whom have a vested interest in selling software. In light of scare tactics like those, the least you can provide the community is scientific evidence, or even actual human testimonials to back up your claims.

 

Hi Andy,

Valid question. My stance on this is not out of an effort to sell more products, but because we tend to be a bit cautious when it comes to safety. Let me back up a minute to give you an idea of the way that Rally Performance does business. Some of these examples come from the Subaru side of the house, admittedly:

We try to give customers the most effective product for the dollar, rather than being a "Wal-mart", we sell what we like. - We were among the first to point out that only three of the five exhaust pieces after the manifold on the WRX were the most effective to replace. Other tuners were yelling "ya gotta have the turbo back" and we were saying "wait, you can save money but still get great results". We would have made more pushing turbobacks, but our customers thank us for showing them great horsepower that was also quiet...

We took a WRX with 3,000 invested into it, and ran on track with a 10,000 modded WRX making 100 more hp. We hung with him, and beat him on the dragstrip. Why? Because our power was better delivered, and the car was more driveable (August Sport Compact car). We also focused on the most sensible mods for the dollar. The other guys were a little cranky...

On safety: We began noticing with the WRX that, of those cars that were having engine problems (usually cyl #3), almost every one had a manual boost controller. Those with proper engine management did not have the failures (except as below). This came from several years of experience in the UK as well... We made the decision not to sell MBCs, and don't sell piggyback ECUs like Unichips either - they get the ECU to achieve what they want by tricking it, and the ECU is always fighting the Unichip. Call us purists... again laying profit on the table. We waited for better technology that we knew was on the way for a year before releasing our ECU upgrades.

We were also among the first to note the trend that some cars were coming back from high speed track runs with engine failures. Our hypothesis: Perhaps over a certain speed, the air wave on the front of the car was clearing the intercooler scoop. We began looking closer, and found that no cars with FMICs had the failures. We began recommending FMICs for track cars, or at least uprated hood scoops (1" taller). Sure enough, Prodrive confirmed through wind tunnel testing that at 125 mph, the air clears the top scoop of the 02/03 WRX. We knew it because by then we could ride in the car watching the det begin at higher speeds....

All these cautions start with a hunch, and move towards more quantifiable experience. Rally Performance has gained the reputation with other marques that 1.) if we sell it, its effective, and 2.) if we sell it, it won't hurt your car, period.

So, that's where we are with the one click and the pulley. I'll talk to the guys in the UK and see exactly what the forensics on the failures were, but we've seen enough for now to recommend the combination. If a customer really wants a pulley without a one click, then we will sell them one - but after noting our concern.

Regards,
Ken

 

Hey Ken, thanx for showing up here and introducing yourself and your company. While you are very informative it's all mostly subaru related. Could you show some of your mcs related dyno work or anything to substantiate your possition. You show us the goods, we'll buy.
Cheers!

 

and could you throw in some numbers/plots for the lowly mc while you're at it?

 

RallyPerformance wrote: I completely agree with you on this, lying to the ECU is just asking for trouble. Rewriting the performance maps while keeping the factory safeguards in place is the only way to go. It's very interesting to see what companies like Ecutek, UTEC, etc. have done in the WRX world.

RallyPerformance wrote: Thanks, I am looking forward to reading that data. I hope you see why I am skeptical about such claims when no evidence has been presented either here or on MINI2 to back them up. Wideband A/F plots would be very welcome demonstrating your points as well.

 

The company URL is "coolnew", how good can the product be?
Is the product actually BACKED by AMD, or does the company that is marketing this product (Cool New Ltd) just use an AMD chip and the AMD name to generate confidence in the product?
_________________
[img]/albums/album04/gov.jpg[/img]
Alta pulley, Stebro exhaust, Pipercross intake, progress rear anti-sway bar.
Visit Vince's MINI page

 

>>The company URL is "coolnew", how good can the product be?
>>Is the product actually BACKED by AMD, or does the company that is marketing this product (Cool New Ltd) just use an AMD chip and the AMD name to generate confidence in the product?
>>_________________
>>[img]/albums/album04/gov.jpg[/img]
>>Alta pulley, Stebro exhaust, Pipercross intake, progress rear anti-sway bar.
>>Visit Vince's MINI page
I would guess Cool New is the US distributor for AMD. I know someone who has purchased this product for his Cooper S after adding a whole host of mods such as a Ported Cylinder Head, Full Miltec System, K&N Typhoon amongst others. What AMD did with the one click was using the knowledge they had collected from testing, developed an ECU setting specific to his car. He has nothing but good things to say about it, he said the throttle response in particular was much smoother. I e-mailed AMD with regards to the Works and I was told that they'd managed to squeeze another 8bhp+ by modifying the ECU.

http://www.amdtechnik.com/

 

Hi All - will reply to each of you here...

Doscilindros: Sorry for all the Subaru - related examples... I was trying to show about a three year timeline of picking up trends that lead to a hypothesis - that ends up being a solidly backed fact (for instance, the airwave over the i/c scoop, etc). That is easier to show on the Subaru side of the house than on the Mini side just yet - because the car is not that far along the cycle yet.

It also shows our theories on tuning that apply to the MC, Evo and Impreza.

Andy: Pursuing those wideband AFR plots for you...

Orbhot and LMB - you are correct, Rally Performance is the North American Distributor for Cool New. The company, Rally Performance, has three divisions if you will - Cool New for the Mini, Lancersport, and ScoobySport.

Cool New has rapidly gained a superb reputation in the UK. They are now the worldwide distributor for Quicksilver exhausts, and have an agreement with AmD to distribute the One Click. We have worked with them for years now actually, and have similar practices on tuning.

You can purchase the One Click through us, but it IS an AmD one click. It is the same product that you would get if bought by AmD, and is in fact the exact mapping done by their techs. If there are issues, we deal with AmD right in the UK.

Rest assured, if we were doing the mapping as we do with the other cars, it would be at least equal to the work done by AmD. I'm that serious about our ECUs.

Regards,
KC

 

RallyPerformance,

This may be helpful to you. Here's the wideband A/F logged on my MCS between the stock and 15% pulley:



Looks like less than 0.5 difference between the stock pulley and the 15% pulley. As I stated before, neither Turner/Conforti nor AmD/RallyPerformance have posted any such graphs to back up their marketing scare tactics.

 

>>RallyPerformance,
>>
>>This may be helpful to you. Here's the wideband A/F logged on my MCS between the stock and 15% pulley:
>>
>>
>>
>>Looks like less than 0.5 difference between the stock pulley and the 15% pulley. As I stated before, neither Turner/Conforti nor AmD/RallyPerformance have posted any such graphs to back up their marketing scare tactics.

Would some mind explainng what the graph above shows? What is the A/F ratio?

Thanks.

 

Air to Fuel ratio. Too rich and you lose power. Too lean and you run the engine too hot and risk blowing things. I'll let the experts explain the graph and determine what the optimal values are for the MCS.

 

>>RallyPerformance,
>>
>>This may be helpful to you. Here's the wideband A/F logged on my MCS between the stock and 15% pulley:
>>

>>Looks like less than 0.5 difference between the stock pulley and the 15% pulley. As I stated before, neither Turner/Conforti nor AmD/RallyPerformance have posted any such graphs to back up their marketing scare tactics.

Andy,

Thanks for being so forethright about this matter. It is easy to scare those of us who car about cars, and know just enough to be dangerous. "Umm, Lean is bad, umm okay?"

Help me understand this a little better, I've fallen for some of this apparenlty.

The graph you showed, were is that measurement taken ? If it's out the tailpipe, I'm not sure how it disputes Conforti's claims. I thought his point was that since after adding a pulley, certain parameters would be out of range for that stock ECU and default tables would be used. This would cause high temperatures to be measured in the exhaust causing the ECU to add more fuel. If any knocking was detected then even more fuel would be added. He has been quoted as saying the average person can't dyno there car anymore, or something to that effect right ? I took that too mean that measurements at the exhaust weren't going to tell the whole story. Obviously I don't know what a wideband sensor does.
I'm a victim of the scare tactics aren't I?

 

Those readings were taken using a wideband A/F meter that measures the ratio of air-to-fuel in exhaust. It actually measures the presence of oxygen in exhaust, but since we know the oxygen content of air, and we are presuming that the oxygen content of exhaust should be the same as air, were it not for all that unburnt fuel, we can deduce the air fuel ratio. The O2 sensor used by the factory for mixture control is a 2-state sensor, a cheapie that really is only accurate for telling you if you are over 14.7 or under 14.7. It sucks at telling you exactly what the A/F ratio is at, say, any point in the above graph. That's the reason for using a separate wideband A/F meter, that kicks *** at doing exactly what is shown in the above graph.

Here's a little something I wrote a while back on the subject of A/F ratios:

The DME controls Air/Fuel mixture in order to maintain power, efficiency, and emissions. A/F is expressed as either a ratio (14.7:1 for example) or as a Lambda value. With iso-octane ("ideal" gasoline), Lambda of 1.0 is equal to 14.7:1 A/F. This is known as "Stoichiometric", a condition where there is a perfect balance between oxygen molecules and the various hydrogen and carbon based molecules in petroleum. With the oxygenated gasoline that most of us use, actual A/F ratio of 15:1 is closer to stoichiometric.

If Lambda is greater than 1.0, then there is a surplus of air and the engine is running lean. If Lambda is less than 1.0, then there is a surplus of fuel and the engine is running rich. It should be noted that the ratios are mass-based, not volume-based.

So, why don't we always run at 1.0 all the time? Well, we do MOST of the time. At cruise and idle, mixture is held tightly to 1.0 to keep the catalytic convertor at optimal efficiency, so the emissions are minimized. However, when we need acceleration, the mixture gets richer. Why? Maximum power is made between 0.85 to 0.95 Lambda (12.5 to 14.0 A/F with iso-octane). So, under acceleration, mixtures get richer. Sometimes you want to get even richer under acceleration to keep detonation (pre-ignition of the mixture from excess cylinder temperatures) away. The MCS engine, which has a relatively high compression ratio for a supercharged engine, which especially under lots of boost, is very succeptible to detonation).

So, now that we know that the ECU wants to be able to control the A/F ratio. It has a prescribed set of values (maps) for a given RPM, Load, etc. So, the DME tells the injectors to pulse for exactly XX.X milliseconds and that SHOULD get us the proper A/F ratio that we want. Well, if you tell an employee to go do something, you want to make sure they actually did it, right? The ECU has some snitches (the front O2 sensor and the MAF, for the most part) that will report back whether or not the desired mixture has been attained. The rear O2 sensor is used mostly to monitor the condition of the catalytic convertor, although in some applications it also contributes to trim information.

Based on feedback from the snitches, the DME learns to apply a correction factor to its commands to the fuel injectors. If you know that your employees take longer than the standard allotted time to do a specified job, you will need to adjust for that in your planning (injectors are in a union, so it is tough to fire them). The learned values go between the maps in the ECU's Flash ROM (the "chip&quot and the signal to the fuel injectors. These learned compensations are known as "trim". So, when you see "trim", it means "compensation".

 

400ex wrote:

Those measurements were taken by a TechEdge TE WB-1.5 wideband A/F meter using an NTK L1H1 sensor mounted in a bung just upstream of the catalytic convertor in my '03 MCS. I'm not sure the DME adds fuel in response to knock detection, it definitely can retard the timing though. There is no EGT (Exhaust Gas Temperature) sensor in the MINI, so it can only monitor things like coolant temp, and Oxygen sensor temp, neither of which give an accurate picture of EGT.

The point is, I haven't seen a significant difference in A/F ratios between stock and pulleyed cars. I haven't seen a significant difference in EGT between stock and pulleyed cars (actually I haven't seen any EGT data for the MINI at all - note to self: buy an EGT gauge). The only parties that are preaching the dangers of running a pulley without an ECU change are Turner/Conforti and AmD/Rallyperformance. Oddly, both groups have presented zero EGT and zero A/F and zero customer failure evidence to back up their claims. For all I know, maybe they have data and just haven't shown it. But, given the HUGE numbers of MCS driving around with stock programming and 15% pulleys, and given that the only evidence to be presented so far shows that the sky is NOT falling, it looks like the ball is in the court of the Turner/Conforti and AmD/Rallyperformance camps. Both groups coincidentally sell ECU upgrades that cost much more than pulleys alone ... hmmmm.

 

Andy,

Thanks you, excellent explanation.

2 more questions if you don't mind:

Colder range plugs have become popular when doing the pulley and do come with the JCW. I am presuming this is a additional precaution against detonation ? If so, should this colder range plug be used regardless of climatic conditions, ie: when it is extrememly cold outside already ? Or does the reduced quality of gas in the winter make it a wash?

Do extreme cold temps say 20 f and below have any impact on the graphs you presented. On ATV's, which have no fuel injection obviously, it was always required to install a bigger jet for these temps. It is clear that the ECU will trim itself, but a limit to how much it can compensate for must exist, correct ?

Thanks for the enlightenment.

 

I am bringing this back up on top for a few additional questions.

Is this the same program that AmD uses on their Tuner Car? If so, the AmD car has gotten some excellent reviews. During the Evo challenge between all the main tuners, the reviewers indicated that they really liked the performance on the AmD car and were almost ready to claim that one a winner above the JCW. All the AmD car had, I believe was a pulley, chip and exhaust as far as speed parts go.

I am getting very interested in this one. AmD does a lot of homework on their tuning and they are a respected company. For just a little more than the Shark, which most people are indicating is not really adding much performance, you can get the same "swap" features of the Shark.

Someone really has got to do some testing on these chips upgrades. If the AmD does about 80% of what Randy's does this may be a really good option. For a significantly lower price and not having to send out for a cable every time BMW updates software is really nice.

 

I still haven't seen any before and after dyno plots showing the effect of only the AmD One-Click on an MCS. Here's the only such plots I have seen for the Shark:

 

Andy,

I haven't seen any either. Although there are some discussions going on with AmD about the chip on Mini2 http://www.mini2.com/forum/showthrea...;highlight=AMD

They are a well respected Audi tuner, perhaps the best, and have been in business for 17 years. So that is why I am really interested. The version that they had on the Tuner car in Evo was version 1.0beta. They are now on 2.7, so a lot of improvements have been made since then.

I like the idea of a single unit than a laptop with cable. I would like the laptop/cable idea of someone would sell a cable, but without it, it is such a pain to work with.

Does anyone have one on. Any perceptions, and dynos?

 

>>Andy,
>>
>>I haven't seen any either. Although there are some discussions going on with AmD about the chip on Mini2 http://www.mini2.com/forum/showthrea...;highlight=AMD
>>

Thanks for the link. AMD states an 8 hp gain but it is only tuned for 91 octane gas - I'd like to see what they could do with a 93 octane map.....