ok, so it was kind of misleading.you actually dont need THAT much bling, but this sounds promising. Plagarized from a very informative member:


if anyone knows more about this, and would like to share their stories, please do. Or if someone is in the market for a programming that doesnt cost $700-800, this might be a good idea. oh, people who can read german would also be helpful.
here is the link for the original thread: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ad.php?t=27676

apparently, powerchips and some guy named travis weren't very helpful or something or another. no idea.

 

MTH... The name sounds familiar, and I seem to recall that Andy has some knowledge on their software. If he doesn't chime-in, you might want to PM him...

 

I have the cable and software from Franz Hoezl (MTH).

The pulley goes in on Wednesday and will put the car on the dyno shortly after.
My point was that it is cheap and for 200$ you will have the cable and you are able to put the stock program back on the car when getting it serviced.
Everything is done thru his website and once you download your original ECU file you will have to email it to him. Turn around time normally is a day or two.

Also......because of the price I will not be dissapointed if I do not see the huge HP gains. The program it self costs 60 Euros.....which is 75$ USor even less than that.

After all the talk lately on the board about prices for MINI tuning products and lack of innovation....I think this is a step in the right direction. BTW...all the German MINI scene praises MTH for being the best.

I am not related to MTH.....just one of their customers.

Alex

 

I have sent some emails asking some basic questions. Emailing to MTH is no problem and everything is English so it should be safe to assume that they can correspond in English.

The cable supplier that they refer you to, however, has everything in German. I emailed them in English. If they can't respond, I will email them in my broken German. I lived in Germany over 30 years ago and could speak German reasonably well at that time, but "use it or lose it." Between my little bit of German and babbel fish, I will see what I can do.

I have a cable for my OBDII software. I'm wondering if it would work.

Let's try to keep each other informed.

 

I love the Germans way of doing business. They are pricing fairly, but even better is that on the www.obd3.de website, clicking on Hardware Interfaces gets a graphic with the pinout for the serial to ALCL cable! Would you EVER see that from an American business?

The cable is so inexpensive that I don't think I can seek out the ALCL connector and make the cable much cheaper than I can buy it from them, so I will buy one.

There is a cable on the site linked in the other thread that will allow you to use a USB port. There is also one that will use a com port. I got an email answer this morning from Herr Holzl at MTH indicating that the com port cable is more suitable. I don't know why, and I fully expect that the USB port would work. Maybe there is a little more hassle setting up the USB port in their software is why he offered this comment, but I don't know.

I have been in the automation software industry for 16 years and have worked extensively with German engineers and technology companies. They have almost always been very good to work with. Visiting their facilities is always interesting. After presentations, they never clap, they knock on the table with their knuckles instead. When they eat lunch, they stand up at tall tables rather than sitting. It is very uncommon, in my experience, to see them gouge anyone on prices. I look forward to downloading from my ECU and working with these guys.

Have a great day,

 

I heard that a few had some problems with the USB cable. I took them a few attempts to download/upload the file from/to the ECU.
It still works......but the COM version is more stable.

Alex

 

I believe Eric at helix has used and tested the MTH chip. I don't think he saw much power from it. Actually I think I was andy@rosstech

 

Yes and I believe Andy actually had it in his MINI for awhile. I don't think it really did anything. You should be able to do a search on it here. $200 for a chip may be incredibly inexpensive, but if it doesn't do anything, then it would still be too expensive for $20 in my book.

 

From Dyno sheets that I saw on German forums it was just as good as anything else.

I have the file...so if you can wait I will report what the dyno says.
Franz Hoezl also updates his files which is free to his customers.
So before knocking it.....I would wait and see.

Alex

 

Sorry - I wasn't blindly knocking it really. My point was that we did see independent dynos of this chip and it didn't do anything. But who knows, that was a while ago and maybe they reworked the chip. Good luck with it. :smile:

 

I won't speak for him, but Andy seemed relatively happy with it:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...&highlight=mth

 

My point is that for the amount of money I will be happy to see 4 to 6 wheel HP.

I have seen dyno sheets where a unichipped JCW car with intake made less power than a Powerchip/15% pulley car with just an intake on it on the same dyno.
Now you have people that can not get their software back onto their ECU because of cables that need to be send around for a lot more money.
My goal is to have a bit more power than JCW and that is with 15%/ Intake and Exhaust with the MTH file for a fraction of the JCW cost. ....I forgot the my TB which has not arrived yet.

Alex

 

I had the chip as well. I think I paid 72 euros for it (I already had the cable). Franz's english isnt the best but he does have a number of different programs available and I believe he's doing the tuning for some of the more $$$ tuners althought I dont know if there is a difference in the programs. I dont have a number on performance gains (uploaded the software at the same time I had Helix install the pulley) but I do know hes fairly liberal with his redlines!

--
Cheese

 

I'm kind of stalled on this. I tried to buy the cable from the supplier that MTH referred me to. The only way I can do it is to transfer funds into their bank account. I'm accustomed to mail ordering and buying over the internet with plastic.

Another issue I have is that if the USB cable doesn't work so good, I will have to use another computer with a serial port. The only way I can transfer files to that computer is with a floppy disk. It has Windows 95. How large is the file that I will need to transfer and will it work on Win 95?

Does anyone know any other sources for the cable. I am impressed with these guys, but I wish MTH could make it easier to obtain the cable.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

 

The cable source and part number that I had here previously will not get the job done. I am taking this out so as not to mislead anyone. You can read the correct info in a post below.

 

If your computer can access the internet then you can attach the file or a compressed zip version of it to email and send it to yourself then open the email and unzip the file on your laptop without needing the floppy. Otherwise if you have a local area network you can transfer files from one computer to another. Either way should allow you to get the file onto your older laptop.

Let us know how it all turns out if you install the mth powerchip.

 

LilRedMini,

the file is 59k big so not big at all. All my files and Cartune software fit on a floppy.
The USB version of the cable works.....there are many guys on the German MINI forum that use it without any troubles. If you use the serial one make sure that the BAUD setting on the port is high.

The wire is easy to do....just go to your bank. I can understand though that using plastic would be a lot easier and you would have to pay a fee for doing a wire on top of that. I know that Germany is not so big on plastic unfortunately.
I hope the cable you found will work. One thing that will not work for sure is if you use a serial to USB converter.
Many people reported problems with that.

Did the upload serveral times last week since I thought I would get the pulley installed but that did not happen.

Good luck,

Alex

 

Minihune,

The problem is that the laptop I use most of the time has no serial port. It is, on a switch that I have to backup files and so on with my desktop. I do my work on this laptop. I am an Automation Engineer and do Automation Software applications, working mostly in my home office. So, I have to back up my work on a separate computer.

I have another older lap top with Win 95 on which I have my OBD2 troubleshooting, scanning and data monitoring software. It would not be worth the hassle to connect it to the switch or set it up for internet access. If I can just floppy everything over there it will be the simplest. I keep that computer in my shop most of the time, so it just makes sense to run the MTH on that box.

Alex,

Thanks for the info. Do you know if the MTH software will run on Win95? It is probably a Win32 app, but I would like to know for sure. If I have to, I will get a USB cable and run it on this machine.

I can understand why the USB converter won't work. I'm pretty sure that a USB connector has fewer pins than a com port. Since every single wire in the com port is wired to the OBD2 connector, it stands to reason that this would not work.


Thanks guys for your replies and help. I will keep you posted.

 

It will work on Win95.
They even say it is better since it does less stuff in the background.
I actually did it thru a Win95 laptop I borrowed from a friend and I used the floppy method to get everything sent to MTH. :D

Alex

 

Alex,

Thanks very much. It sounds like I now have "all my ducks in a row." I will order all this stuff soon and will report back once everything is in place.

I am doing a few other mods at the same time, so it will probably be several weeks before I have everything done.

Thanks again.

 

I only thought that I had my ducks in a row.

I figured out that the simple OBD2 to Com port cable is used to connect the OBD2 connector on your car to the "black box" that you get from the source you are referred to by MTH.

For Com port you use; "Com-Port Version Interface MTH-Cartune KKL," plus you use the "OBD2 Kabel" from the same supplier to connect the "black box" to the car.

It is a hassle to pay the company for the hardware parts. You must go to your bank and transfer money as they do not accept credit cards. The MTH people do, however, accept credit cards making this part easy. I wish they would also sell the hardware pieces. I'll bet they could increase their business greatly if they did so.

I have already paid for, downloaded and transferred the MTH application to my shop laptop. I now have to get the cable and will have to make a trip to the bank during business hours. Oh well.

I will continue to report progress.

 

thanks for the info!

eagerly waiting to hear how the loading goes and most importantly, the performance. this may be next in line in my mods list.

now if i could just get this rear sway bar installed...

 

If you already have an OBDII cable for your OBD software, Im almost positive that will work.

--
Cheese

 

I do have a cable and "black box" for my OBD2 software. I am under the impression that there is firmware of some sort in these "black boxes" that are specific to the software.

Do you have any experience indicating otherwise?

Thanks very much for your commment and suggestion. Since I already have the software I'm considering giving it a try, but if there is some encryption of some sort going on in the "black box" the results might be bad.

Thanks again.

 

Before ordering the cable von Deutschland, I tried my other OBD2 cable. It does indeed support ISO 9141, however it also supports PWM, VPW and I think also another protocol. It would not work, so I think there is something in my diagnostic software that switches between these standards and the MTH was confused. If it were strictly ISO it probably would have worked.

I did get a feel for how easy the software appears to operate. I ordered the cable air mail, so maybe I'll get it early next week.

I'll keep you informed.