Mapping an A3 etc etc...

[Davidkent]

Quick one really, I'm new to the Audi scene, and this forum.. so excuse any ignorance!

Basically, I've seen a postal service for remapping advertised, i was thinking of sending my ECU off and having this done..

I've also heard that a thing such as the KWP2000 Enables you to write a map file yourself.

Is this something i could do myself?
It'd be cheaper, and though i'm only getting a Generic Map and not a full custom map, its still going to improve things surely?

I've seen a lot of VAG forums where the KWP2000 is mentioned, just thought its worth an ask tbh!

Cheers

 

[dunk]

the kwp2000 and other flashers from fleabay are clones of the real tools - may or may not work at all, may kill your ecu but not that likely. most will flash an edc15 ie earlier cars, some will flash some later edc16 but the kwp2000 will not do edc16

so in theory yes, you can write your own map and flash your own car.

even if you have a reliable flasher, then can you trust the map? a generic reflash through the interweb is probably ok if you know the provenance of the remapper/code, but dont think you can play with a laptop for 1/2 hour and make your own remap - it isnt going to happen im afraid.

any map you get to flash with a generic flasher will be unlocked code - most flash companies use a protected system so that the flasher/upgrader never see unproteced map code and each downloaded map can only be flashed to 1 car, to protect the work of the map writer from being flashed to hundreds of the same car for 1 fee.

a real map with hours of development work behind it is likely to cost you £350-500 - i really wouldnt bother trying to write your own - save up and buy a good remap.

there are plenty of very cheap fly-by-night remappers with an ebay clone flasher and bad/pointless/stolen maps so dont go with the unknown (particularly mobile) cheap deals.

most remaps are done through the diagnostic port on modern audis, but on older ones the ecu might have to be opened to access the rom chip itself to be replaced or reprogrammed. i wouldnt post your ecu to anyone unless its broken - drive to a remapper and make sure they back up your original code first.

having said all that, a good flash tool could be used to swap between a tuned map and standard map by yourself, although there are some tuning companies that already supply a dongle with 1 or 2 tuned maps and your standard one to easily swap between maps yourself - these are usually around £500 including the remap.

 

[Davidkent]

That all seems pretty interesting to me.

So If i had aflasher, i could do it?

I wouldn't be looking at writing my own maps, basically just putting a generic Map file onto my ECU.
I'd back the original file up to disc first obviously...

Cheers

 

[dunk]

with a good master flasher, you can read the existing map and reflash with another, enabling you to swap as required - remembering a few things:

a crash or flash failure may render your ecu unusable until you take it out and do a bench reflash with additional BDM hardare - proper flash tools have a good recovery system to help avoid this disaster.

each flash will increment the flash counter unless you have an expensive flasher that can reset the counter - a dealer can see the ecu has been flashed lots of times

a slave flasher encrypts the read map before it writes it to disk - only the same flasher master software can read/adjust the encrypted binary file - and at the same time usually will only load/flash the encrypted format that comes from the matching master software

a master flasher will read/write unencrypted binary images from the ecu flash memory so is far more flexible - you can peek in to the binary with something like winols demo to see what differences exist between maps.

you havnt said what ecu/car you need to support - various clones of galletto (eg 1250, 1260) and cmd (eg 1236, 1244a, 1251)flashers are available, some better than others, some with more ecu support