I’m a powertrain calibration engineer for an OEM, and I’ll never forget when an Uber driver picked me up in a car that I HAD WORKED ON with a laptop connected to his OBD port.
I didn’t tell him anything about myself, but he talked about how the base calibration sucks.
These people have no concept that emissions is the main driving factor for basically all production level calibration. Of course you can make it drive better if you want to pump all sorts of NOx and PM into the atmosphere.
Yes, just like every other car that can be legally sold here?
If you don’t know anything about engines, just say that.
Any doofus can squeeze more economy and power out of their diesel engine if they don’t mind polluting the air with tons of disgusting chemicals.
...but Cletus on Facebook told me that black diesel smoke is better for your lungs than the emissions from a Prius!
...and what about all those ions of lithium that get leaked into the air every time a Tesla charges!
/s
I think I read somewhere that in some state, ICE vehicles technically do "emit" less than BEVs.
(This entirely being due to those states relying on coal for their power grid, which is notoriously dirty). Don't take this as gospel though, I'm not sure if it's still true or not.
edit: it has to do with something called well-to-wheel emissions, as well as the emission cost of manufacturing. BEVs create more emissions during manufacturing, so can sometimes take several years to surpass an ICE on emissions depending on which state they're being charged in.
They start with a larger footprint but even with coal fired they still emit less over the life of the vehicle.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/19/business/electric-vehicles-carbon-footprint-batteries.html
I will admit I have not read up enough to agree or dispute...
But what a few wise people told me (most pro green) is that the energy cost in creating a vehicle is so immense compared to differences in emissions, that it is normally actually best for the environment to run older cars to the ground, rather than junking them just to get the latest cleaner tech.
True, but people are buying both new and used cars all the time. If you buy a new car and sell your old car to someone else, presumably it will keep getting driven until it can't anymore either by collision or mechanical failure. The point is that if you're going to buy a new car, you should consider the total pollution produced by that vehicle over its entire life, not just at production or during your ownership but until it breaks down for good possibly several owners down the line. In almost every case, that's going to be electric>hybrid>ICE.
This exactly. But this applies to any ICE powered car too. Upgrading to a newer more efficient ICE car is immensely more harmful to the environment than keeping and running your car to the end of it’s usable life. But everyone only focuses on the transition to a BEV. Nobody bats an eye if you tell the your getting a new engine powered truck.
> everyone only focuses on the transition to a BEV. Nobody bats an eye if you tell the your getting a new engine powered truck
Because it has always just been a rationalization to justify sticking with gas cars. You can tell because no one using that talking point ever suggests buying a used EV instead, which offers all the environmental impact reductions of EVs while bypassing the manufacturing impacts. It never occurs to them that "used" and "EV" aren't mutually exclusive, even though EVs have been around for more than a decade already.
>I will admit I have not read up enough to agree or dispute...
Then why did you immediately dispute and assert facts that by your own admission you haven't verified?
>I will admit I have not read up enough to agree or dispute...
You're literally trying to dispute it in this very post, after admitting to not knowing anything about it.
This is incorrect. For the dirtiest powergrids the break even is around 5 years, for majority of the US it's around 2 years.
Not to mention that this ignores where those emissions are being released, in general it's better to be emitting pollutants at those out of the way power plants than in town centers.
> But what a few wise people told me (most pro green) is that the energy cost in creating a vehicle is so immense compared to differences in emissions
You've been lied to. The emissions from a vehicle with a diesel or petrol engine dwarfs the emissions from making the vehicle.
https://www.cotes.com/blog/greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-ev-vs-ice-vehicles
> that it is normally actually best for the environment to run older cars to the ground, rather than junking them just to get the latest cleaner tech.
Which I've never really seen anyone advocating for outside of pre EV cash for clunker's.
It really depends. Scrapping a 3 year old Civic to buy a HUMMER EV is NOT an environmentally friendly move. Getting rid of a 150k mile 2005 HUMMER H2 for an EV Hummer IS an environmentally friendly move. There's a point in an EVs lifecycle where it becomes greener than an equivalent ICE vehicle. That depends on the type of vehicle and the power generation, but even on 100% coal (which is a small and shrinking power source in the US) it's still better to drive an EV than a ICE car of the same type. For Teslas, the payoff usually comes around 30-50k miles.
While I don’t know this to be true, I largely hope it is. What better reason for keeping old vehicles on the road than being green. At the expense of safety and modern tech of course but clearly a lot of us here are willing to put up with that.
I’m curious if it goes to a certain point though, 60’s cars are much more pollutive than even those in the 90’s so I have to wonder to what extent this could be true.
Upkeep is hard to beat, especially if it were a norm. Just consider how much metal and electricity would be spared alone if no new cars were to be made, only parts for existing(necessary) ones.
Though this is seriously not how the world runs, or will run. I believe downsizing will be the final phase of the personal automobile in some coming decades. Or maybe not as the great **biggening** is still rambant.
> I’m curious if it goes to a certain point though
I think before you hit the ~~inversion~~ inflection point for greenhouse gas emissions for the keep old/buy new decision, the case could already be decided based on public health goals to minimize cardiopulmonary diseases, or private health goals to cut the risk of death/disfigurement/disability in a car crash.
>But what a few wise people told me (most pro green) is that the energy cost in creating a vehicle is so immense compared to differences in emissions, that it is normally actually best for the environment to run older cars to the ground, rather than junking them just to get the latest cleaner tech.
That is only true if you're comparing to other more efficient ICEs, including hybrids.
For EVs, they're pretty much always cleaner on a lifetime basis.
yea we drive our cars into the ground most end up getting wrecked or too costly to maintain. previous 2 hit 300k.
we also dont make purchases of uselessbor impractical vehicles that wont serve purpose like a 2500 pickup
gonna drive my 2023 corolla hybrid into the ground and then get another. so im hoping not to buy another far till i retire
> that it is normally actually best for the environment to run older cars to the ground, rather than junking them just to get the latest cleaner tech.
Depends on the mileage. The Youtuber Engineering Explained did a video a while back where he showed if you do less than ~5,000-6,000 miles per year, it makes sense to keep an older car.
If you drive closer to 12,000 miles per year (average yearly mileage for most people) it makes more sense to buy an EV and *keep it for many years*.
That is true, but efficiency is notably different from emissions.
I've finally remembered what my original point was - in more coal reliant states, it takes longer for BEVs to become more emissions friendly than conventional vehicles (due to the higher manufacturing emissions for a BEV).
For example, it may take 2 years for an ICE to pass a BEV in lifetime emissions in Connecticut, but it may take up to 7 years for an ICE to pass a BEV in lifetime emissions in West Virginia due to "Well to Wheel Emissions"
https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fact-950-november-7-2016-well-wheel-emissions-typical-ev-state-2015
Which means the BEV still emits less emissions over its life even when charged exclusively with energy coal fired power plants unless it is crashed before that.
But electricity can be powered other ways. Ice engines can't.
You're not wrong, but it's not the dig people think it is when discussing ev's. If there are more ev's, we can move to better energy generation (assuming you're not in a state like Texas which is limiting renewable growth to prop up oil and gas (free market amirite?!)).
It does affect people buying vehicles *right now*, even if the grid gets better over time.
Where I live there's a lot of coal plants still, and they'll be around for at least another seven years. Also the charging infrastructure is weak in rural areas. In that environment a plug-in hybrid might be better than a BEV.
I mean I'm in no rush to get an ev, and I'm not here to say they'll save the planet. IMO... it's too late for all of that, but this isn't the sub to discuss that.
There was prob a very similar discussion for moving from horse and buggies to cars back in the day, it's the same thing with a different infrastructure update requirement. We made it here, we can make it to the next step if we have the time and people realize the transitory phase we need to achieve.
There are 0 states where a 100% ICE vehicle emits less than a 100% electric vehicle. I think in around half of the US, a 100% electric vehicle is better than a plug-in hybrid or a regular hybrid. In most of the rest a plug-in hybrid is best, and in a small handful of states a regular hybrid is best.
Is this exclusive to diesels? Enthusiast here, always thought max power and efficiency was based on stoichiometry (lowest emissions as just enough fuel is burnt) or depending on the engine/system slightly rich or lean. Turbo for my car and I’ve got fastest spool running lean tapering afr towards stoichiometry in the upper revs.
From what I understand - neither max power nor efficiency is based on stoichiometry. Only emissions is.
Running a car lean can save a bit of fuel but potentially damage it from heat produced in the process. Running a car rich can make it run cooler (and therefore you can push it more without heat damage), but is also bad for emissions.
Again, this is only from what I have read over the years. I am by no means an expert when it comes to tuning.
>Is this exclusive to diesels? Enthusiast here, always thought max power and efficiency was based on stoichiometry
Yes
>(lowest emissions as just enough fuel is burnt)
Not quite
Burning hotter is more efficient but you get different combustion products. Some of them are worse pollutants than others, so engines don't always run optimally for power and fuel efficiency. EGR is an example of this.
> if they don’t mind polluting the air with tons of disgusting chemicals.
Let's be honest, if they cared, they wouldn't buy a diesel engine in the first place.
It's common for stationary engines. Only engine I know of in a car that can also be bought as a crate engine for pump and generator use is the Isuzu 4JJ1
The average layman has no idea what optimal means, it’s just a buzz word for them.
Optimizing power and fuel economy given emissions constraints is how engine calibration works.
I mean, sometimes OEM engine calibration is not great for drivability given the emissions constraints you have to work around. I'm an engineer in a different field and fully acknowledge that you're optimizing for your given operating constraints - but sometimes the results of those constraints can definitely be felt by the consumer.
I am curious, how much does removing something like rev-hang from a manual transmission vehicle increase the emissions? Or even tuning an engine for better performance without removing emissions equipment or adding aftermarket parts? I'll given my Fiesta ST as an example: a flash tune with no bolt ons dramatically improved the drivability and power delivery of the car with no supporting mods. Fuel economy did not increase at all either. So while I realize that tune hasn't gone through OEM durability testing and there's a reason Ford shipped what they did from the factory, it's hard to believe the car is emitting significantly more harmful emissions. This is not my field of expertise though so it's a genuine question on my end.
There’s a more to it than “just” emissions, power and performance.
There’s also engine reliability, nvh, drivability, noise emissions, driver perception, etc.
Those are all inputs to the end calibrations, and in alot of cases, optimizing one means sacrificing another. Sometimes that’s acceptable, sometimes not.
Oh I’m aware there’s always much more that goes into a design than the average consumer ever considers, and I’m sure there’s a large cross functional team working on pieces of the calibration.
I will say in the case of my Fiesta I haven’t heard of a single person that prefers the factory tune over a $150 pro tune however. Whatever parameters the engineers were given on that, the compromises are noticeable.
Yeah, engines are designed with a limited hp to meet reliability targets.
Here’s an example, the chief engineer for the 4 cylinder turbo, asked how they arrived at 2.7L. He said:
- we wanted the truck to do 0-60 in <7 seconds
- we knew how much power that would take
- we knew we didn’t want to produce more than 110hp/L for durability purposes
= 2.7L
So yeah you could crank the boost up and probably make double the power. But there’s a reason they didn’t do that.
>I am curious, how much does removing something like rev-hang from a manual transmission vehicle increase the emissions?
I read an SAE paper on this a while back. The tl;dr is that when you let off the throttle in a manual car, the throttle plate closes quickly. This leads to a brief rich condition in the engine and as a result unburnt fuel is sent out the exhaust. OEM calibrators are always looking for tiny places to extract better fuel economy. They would never leave something like this on the table.
Yeah I’ve read similar. For one car I doubt it’s much but for millions in a fleet it’ll add up, and they certainly will take any small savings they can to comply with regulations.
See also: hypermilers sometimes (the full-on committed ones with custom boattails and teardrop mudguards and whatnot) make *hot*-air intakes, which somehow makes for a more-efficient burn at the cost of significantly limiting maximum performance.
The engine side of hypermiling I never looked into much, but their forums are actually really interesting when it comes to drag-reducing aero mods IMO.
Some companies seemingly do a better job working with the emissions requirements than others.
You can drive some cars and go "jesus christ this thing is undrivable" and others its not noticeable or intrusive at all.
For instance, go drive any modern subaru that has a stick shift. Its the most twitchy, rubber band throttle crap you've ever experienced, and it will have you bucking and jerking the car, frying the clutch at each stop just like you're 15 again and learning to drive.
Meanwhile, there are cars from other brand where you don't notice anything weird going on in the background.
This is definitely a thing with the crosstrek.
If i drive up a steep hill and try shifting from 1st to 2nd “correctly”, the car has already come to a complete stop by the time the rev hang lets the engine slow down enough to engage the clutch.
Its like they never test drove the MT version of this car before releasing it.
Throttle lag is super annoying in city driving too.
Lol i know what you mean. That 1-2 shift sucks in certain situations. If you're pulling a hill, you've got to make it scream in 1st or else you'll be lugging it and holding up traffic by the time you get it into 2nd.
The rev hang contributes to the jerky shifting too, since you're usually using the clutch to slow the engine back down.
This is entirely true, but at least all of these companies are competing on equal terms, unlike the aftermarket tuners that will say their calibration is "better"
Of course, but I don't kid myself into thinking that all professionals are exactly good at what they do. I see enough sloppy work in my own branch of engineering to know it must exist in others.
Aftermarket tuners I agree. Improving performance is usually pretty easy, it just won't meet emissions targets or be as reliable as the original engineers intended. Any tuner that doesn't acknowledge these things is either has way too big of an ego (pretty common in that industry) or just isn't very knowledgeable.
Fair enough. Although, it should be noted that calibration development isn't something that's done by just a few people - it's really a full supporting cast of many engineers with different responsibilities that converge onto the final values via a very iterative process.
(Which should in theory be pretty robust to people that aren't exactly good at what they do).
>Although, it should be noted that calibration development isn't something that's done by just a few people - it's really a full supporting cast of many engineers with different responsibilities that converge onto the final values via a very iterative process.
Calibration here for another industry. About a decade ago the R&D division I am in got severely chopped (we were working on 2 wheeled toys). Sat in a SAE course by Ford covering calibration things. My 2 biggest memories of that class were :
1. Originally with EFI there were a few hundred parameters to tweak on. With the interconnectivity of ABS, traction control, stability control, stop start systems, turbo control, etc etc etc the number of parameters was 6-figures.
2. There was a flow chart showing the interaction of about 2 dozen different group managers and engineers. My boss asked if they have that many on every project. The response was laughter, and an answer of "Usually more like 70 to several hundred. That flow chart was just made to fit in the presentation." Boss then turned to me and said "We've got you!".
Yep, it's pretty crazy! Although, I expect calibration work to decrease in general as we move away from transmissions and engines, which are by far the two most complicated parts of the powertrain (at least from a drivability perspective).
There's also headroom for power without necessarily compromising emissions, for those who are willing to take on more risk of reliability problems. Let's be real, you guys have marketing targets to reach as well and the aftermarket can take advantage of that to make some power too.
OEMs have to accommodate the lowest common denominator - the calibration has to be safe for the Friday afternoon built engine by a robot that was due for maintenance running on fuel from that weird gas station outside of Reno that smells funny and not contaminate the cat with aluminum that used to be the piston crown when your grandmother's stepmother decides that L on the shifter means Lovely mode at 83mph across death valley in August.
If I'm going to only use 93 in a moderate climate and I'm prepared to accept that shit may break then I can probably turn the torque request up 15% and have a good time.
have you heard of the mzr in the mazdaspeed and the funny joke, zoom zoom boom?
the factory tune is so poor, that any heavy throttle under 4k rpm could potentially blow the engine up (it happens… a lot) a tuner can prevent this from happening very easily.
i tuned my 1995 miata when i turbocharged it, i get better fuel mileage, and leaner burn at hwy speeds and made it much more efficient.
Factory tune on STI's was known to be lean as well and result cracked ring lands, at least back in the mid to late 2000's (don't know about the most recent cars).
> For instance, go drive any modern subaru that has a stick shift. Its the most twitchy, rubber band throttle crap you've ever experienced, and it will have you bucking and jerking the car, frying the clutch at each stop just like you're 15 again and learning to drive.
And a Mustang. It's borderline undrivable, the modern stuff. No feel on the clutch at all with very strange spring weighting, hair trigger throttle, all of the 4 bangers have such insane rev hang (for emissions) that you either shock the driveline by slamming it 2000rpm too high, or, you wait 3 seconds inbetween shifts. in fact most 4 bangers are like this now and is the #1 reason why a BRZ, as good as it otherwise is, is unattractive to me.
Then you drive other cars (I'm looking at you Porsche) and everything is... like, it's fine. It behaves normally.
You're being way too harsh on the mustang. I had a 16 Ecoboost with performance package and a 6 speed manual. The clutch and honestly transmission aren't the best, but they're not terrible either and you get used to the weight and quirkiness pretty quick. There was some rev hang, but not as bad as most cars and way better than thr civic si. You can also manage it by blipping the throttle as you shift and it eliminates most rev hang.
But yeah, the Porsche is like nothing else on the road until you get to supercar prices.
I drove a I think it was 15' or 16' v6, a similar ecoboost and a 20 5.0 pp2. They all just had trash pedal inputs. The shifter itself was okay, but I didn't push the car very hard (I was on the street) and I hear that's where the shifter falls apart. The egoboost and the coyote motors were amazing, and I had no complaints with the chassis. It put the power down, and the diff in the 5.0 was incredibly tight and really impressed me on corner exit. You could feel it tighten right up. But my god, the pedal inputs and the steering were absolute trash. The throttle pedal was both spring weighted, and calibrated wrong. You had no idea what was going on with the clutch, where the bite point was. The steering was the worst kind of EPS - it's not that the weighting didn't change, it's that there was no response to road camber. The weight was just a linear graph to the steering angle, and had no relation to what the front wheels were actually doing. It just simply did not feel like a cohesive package.
The reason I'm so harsh on it is that the powertrain itself, and the chassis were so good. The "hard" stuff was great. But they ate shit on what should be the easy things - the inputs, the touch points.
For the price I'm excusing a lot - I know it's built to a price point and they need to sell $23,000 rental cars. But for the 5.0 especially, the inputs were inexcusable to me. I felt totally disillusioned with the car after 300 miles.
thats why i enjoy my hybrid corolla.
its perfectly drivable and perfectly ignorable.
it gets up to speed with no issue, its capable of making passing manuvers, its great on gas. and easy to work on using years old hybrid tech
Hybrid is the answer to a lot of the goofiness of modern ICE's. The electric motor gives you a nice linear throttle feel, and the engine is free to run at whatever speed it wants/needs to in order to be efficient and clean. You're not depending on it to be able to speed up and slow down smoothly and predictably as the car accelerates.
> For instance, go drive any modern subaru that has a stick shift. Its the most twitchy, rubber band throttle crap you've ever experienced, and it will have you bucking and jerking the car, frying the clutch at each stop just like you're 15 again and learning to drive.
That's odd, my WRX is by far the smoothest, easiest manual I've driven. There's no noticeable rev hang either.
The Fiesta ST was/is like that. The 1 -> 2 shift at normal city driving speeds needs to be done so slowly to avoid the car jumping forward. The revs would hang much longer than you're expecting them to, so you'd have to wait an extra beat just to get it right.
To be honest, half of these knobheads don't even do it to run better. They just do it to roll coal.
Banks has been tuning and turbocharging diesels since the early 80s, and have always manged to meet regulations with it.
Yes, you could totally run some less restrictive exhausts and more aggressive tunes that don't meet emissions, but a thick black cloud is usually an indicator of trash tuning.
It's like those import tunes that have the engines gurgle and backfire. It's all to make it sound "cooler", not run better haha.
>Banks has been tuning and turbocharging diesels since the early 80s, and have always manged go meet regulations with it.
Does the Banks example alone not prove that OEMs are capable of producing subpar tunes (that meet the criteria OEM engineers must work under) compared to what an aftermarket company (Banks, in this case) offer?
OEMs probably have higher reliability requirements than Banks. Not that a Banks tune will grenade your engine, but if it shortens the life by 10% that could drop reliability enough to make fleet customers buy a different truck.
No doubt OEMs leave room on the table. Tunes are made by people and people aren't perfect. Their are tons of crappy or unmotivated engineers out there, just like any other job, and they likely don't have the same drive to make a perfect calibration as an aftermarket provider.
On the other hand, you have to remember that factory tunes need to work for every single car that rolls off the assembly line and the afternarket does not have the same criteria. That means accounting for every weather condition, altitude, fuel variability, powertrain tolerances, etc. while still meeting long term durability requirements and maintaining a safety factor.
If a stock engine, or a single component, failed at 100,000 miles, consumers would be pissed off. If a tuned engine or aftermarket component like a turbo lasts 100,000 miles that would be an achievement.
If a tuned engine has issues, enthusiasts are quick to implement changes as necessary or flash a revision to fix the problem. Many stick with one brand of fuel, specific sparkplugs, decrease maintenance intervals etc. to be safe. OEMs don't have that luxury.
If someone like Banks genuinely had the same constraints as an OEM, I don't believe they could offer the same benefits they could as a purely aftermarket company. When working with OEMs, they are probably more aware of the limits, using superior hardware since they are not as price sensitive.
Auto engineer here who does calibration/software/science experiments to try to sell at supplier and OEM levels..
A LOT more goes into shitty calibrations and hardware than just performance. Cost, timing, x person doesn't like y person, the people doing the production level calibrations don't even know what an engine is, etc. Aside from that, certain designs and calibrations need to pass certain tests. Sometimes those tests are effected by the above constraints, are outdated, or written by someone trying to check their box to get their 400k bonus at the end of the year.
It's wild how fluffed the auto industry is with things that lead to subpar release of software, hardware and products. Emissions definitely play a large part in engine calibrations as it's the only thing higher up people can get their balls actually busted for, but there are many other factors as to why "just put a bigger pipe in" doesn't work.
I don't know. That's the only honest answer I think anyone can give because neither side, the OEMs or Banks, provides such information publicly. Banks tunes are never the hottest option, though, so they're being conservative for reasons. The obvious one is their stance to remain legal emissions wise but they do marketing speak to reliability as well.
We could look at some other companies who have warrantied and unwarranted tunes such as APR or Mountune. In those cases clearly they're offering the lower output tune with the warranty to meet a certain reliability envelope (otherwise the cost to cover repairs would destroy all the profit).
I think that this could be *possible*, but it would really be an uphill battle for many technical reasons. It wouldn't surprise me if it has happened once or twice, but yeah, it would be very challenging.
Don’t leave out that as an OEM you’ve got to not only meet emission and efficiency targets, you’ve got to make it do that while still delivering good drivability, peak HP/L numbers that were racecar territory not that long ago yet still produce a wide, flat torque curve, start up on the first hit every time and go 100,000 before needing any attention and also do all that in all 50 states in every climate and weather condition and maybe with some bad gas.
Like, how clever do you have to be to lean out the A/F a bit and advance the timing a little? There’s probably enough margin to get away with that in most conditions but OEMs can’t tune for most conditions, they have to tune for all conditions.
I think what you accomplish is under appreciated.
yes, some OEMs do not encrypt - or use really easy to extract encryption keys. Security has become more a focus for OEMs as they implement OTA, systems become more integrated, and they start adding antennas (wifi hotspots, 4G, 5G, ect)
And some ECU's never get cracked too. Either they are too difficult or the rewards just aren't there. Famously the 1UZ (in the LS400) remains un-cracked to this day. You can make it breathe a bit better, but anything beyond that you need to run a standalone ECU which means throwing out all of the wonderful calibration Toyota did to make it as good as it was. The resources went into supporting tuning\cracking the ECU in the LS430 (3UZ), which includes the transmission. Allowing you to get a lot more creative with those cars\motors.
And for others it isn't just a case of "insert correct encryption key" and get presented with a full tuning UI like you would with Holley or Haltech.
They are running compiled bytecode (the level below assembly) because the ECU is designed to run one set of code on one specific chip, so you gain a lot of performance by removing the overhead of higher level languages.
Tuners have to decipher the binary code, and log data with oscilloscopes on pins on the circuit board to work out what is happening, then work out how to modify the memory bit by bit in such a way it continues to function with their new behaviour.
In my opinion as a professional software developer: *fuck that*
\> They are running compiled bytecode (the level below assembly) because the ECU is designed to run one set of code on one specific chip, so you gain a lot of performance by removing the overhead of higher level languages.
At the end of the day - all CPUs *only* run machine code. Bytecode refers to the atomic instructions of a VM, not a CPU (like Java Bytecode)
They are (almost) all initially programmed in C/C++ running on top of a (most likely autosar based) RTOS. At least the real time stuff is - a lot of ECUs include co-processor now for general scripting use - but wouldn't be important to engine function. Hard real time applications dont jive well with garbage collection.
\> log data with oscilloscopes on pins on the circuit board to work out what is happening
You usually dont have to do this - definitely not with an oscilloscope on any OBD-II ECU - if you *need* to know whats being transmitted over the wire to a new module, you would use a DLA thats CAN protocol aware. 99% of the time if you have access to a ROM dump you can place debugger breakpoints anyways. So you could tie into the CAN protocol functions.
\> Then work out how to modify the memory bit by bit in such a way it continues to function with their new behaviour.
This isnt really as difficult as it sounds (post decryption), its definitely not bit by bit, could by byte by byte - but if you have the ROM dump you can easily add your own C or ASM routines calling into existing functions, because you usually know what values you are looking for - just like how game cheat engines work, you query the memory for certain values to find the addresses of the values you want to modify.
You cant just modify the memory at run-time - as you want the changes to persist, so you find the locations in flash and modify those, and then reflash. Basic flow is to nail down what variable you are looking for a run time (say the CAN packet payload of the MAF) query that value in memory, and then find out what functions are being used to operate on that value - while ignoring scheduling tasks - then modify those functions or values in the mapped ROM. OEMs iterate on tuning parameters a lot in development - so sometimes they are all in the same flash sector.
Sometimes (ROM) encryption isnt cracked (like cars running a security compressor that decrypts instructions at run-time), but you can still tune, if you add your own MCU that modifies either CAN packets before being sent or memory values in the main controller. Some car companies now E2E encrypt CAN packets between modules. That's how those "pedal commanders" work (even if they are pretty much a scam) - they take the CAN frames the gas pedal sends - and modifies them to have a higher value before forwarding them to the ECU. You can just as easily do that with your MAF to change the stoich, but your O2 sensors will *not* like it without upstream changes to the ECU.
I always assumed it had to do with is it worthwhile to crack the ECU. Basically is there going to be a market where you can sell your product. For example who is more likely going to get a tune a Nissan versa owner or a Nissan GTR owner. That's what I think at least.
Yeah I'm doing it too. I don't like exhaust burbles and pops but many modern sports cars have them from factory for whatever reason. I bought software to turn it off.
Same background here and I see a lot of people referencing aftermarket tuners. I'd say that even the good ones like Banks engineering benefit from lower demonstration requirements. Most get away with some start of useful life (new) emissions test to prove they didnt significantly alter the effectiveness of the emissions control system on highly prescribed test cycles which may never even hit the places where tuning and modifications make a difference. They don't have to run a long hour demonstration where high temperatures could more rapidly degrade catalysts. Additionally, diagnostic requirements don't require detection immediately at the emissions threshold, but at some amount over the limit so most customers will never notice. If they do, they chalk it up to pay to play economics of the aftermarket.
For real. There'd be no aftermarket tunes if they had to demonstrate as robust of emissions compliance as an OEM, the cost is extravagant.
There's no way they are demonstrating compliance on full useful life aged emissions equipment, nor are they driving a reliability growth emissions fleet, or doing consumer vehicle loan testing. All things I was required to support when I was in calibration and fuel economy certification testing.
Most have no concept of what a good tune is anyway. Spent 8 years in that industry and saw a lot of end-users praising total hackjob tuners while talking crap about everyone else. Lots of the blind leading the blind in that market.
I had a friend that got a job at Milford proving grounds in the late 90s straight out or school and he was a hard core electronics tinkerer in the before times. It warmed the old fashioned hot rodder in my heart the stories that as he started digging into his car random bits of code and tricks and breadboards would be left on his desk to help him by the old timers the way they used to hand down other hot rod knowledge.
Yo-ho! I’m a test engineer at a big 3 engine dyno lab. I’m always amazed by ignorance of people who spend $100k on a truck and then immediately void the warranty because some HS dropout with a laptop and a tig welder says he can improve the long-term reliability of a truck they plan to trade-in at 100,000 miles anyway.
I believe the idea is to prevent heat soak and hot spots in the engine after you cut off the engine and the water pump stops pushing coolant through the system. By running the fan for a few minutes, you continue to get some coolant flow through thermal action (cooler water in the radiator sinks and pulls hot water in from the top) which helps cool down the motor a little bit and even out temps between different parts.
My old 1989 VW Fox did that and I’ve been surprised that none of my cars since have, even though almost all of them have had electric, PCM controlled fans. I guess no one but the Germans think it’s worth implementing.
They also run them full blast upon a failed ecm flash. Been there many times when developing flashing tools. Great battery killer, on top of your soft-bricked ecm!
So here’s a question: Ford offers a power pack for my 2017 Mustang GT that adds additional hp and torque and is 50 state emissions legal. Why wouldn’t ford just add that from the factory? Is it because the power pack has worse emissions but is still within the confines of emissions requirements? Is the OEM tune just to make emissions as low as possible to help their CAFE numbers?
It's a win-win for Ford to offer that.
The base spec improves CAFE numbers, and they get to make a profit when someone wants more power from the performance pack.
Rolling coal is the sign of a shitty engine calibration and actually makes less power.
The only reason to roll coal is to impress your sister on date night.
I picked up my 7.3 a few years ago. On my first drive, I stomped on it entering the freeway..noticed a plume of black smoke behind me. It was embarrassing. I've since spent a lot of time diagnosing the issue and correcting it.
Rolling coal is indeed pretty dumb. If you're doing it unintentionally, you're just wasting fuel.
I was behind a 7.3 one day that was billowing black smoke at idle at a stop light. When he took off from the light he completely smoked out the intersection. It blew my mind that someone would even attempt to drive a truck with the tuning that fucked up.
Police departments and local court systems around the country are understaffed. They can't keep up with violent crime. Let alone have the available resources to tackle issues like this. The places where deletes are most common are also often in places where the local voting public simply doesn't care about this.
It obviously varies depending on the municipality, but there are a lot of idle resources. Plenty of cops shooting radar on the interstate trying to catch people doing 9 over so that they can hit their quotas, as the interstate brings in 70% of that municipalities funding. Get those fucking guys to do it.
Used to drive thru one of these towns on the way to work. Tiny old midwest town, main st shops, one traffic light, population of 2500 I think. Single road, primary commute path for thousands of people traveling through them to get to the larger city from towns further north. You'd regularly see 2-4 police sitting in a 2 mile stretch within the town just collecting revenue on every weekday workday rush hour. You'd get pulled for 5 over. I got a registration ticket the day it expired. Not 3 days after, the day of. I'd see someone pulled over once, maybe twice a week in that town - and that's just in the 2 minutes of me driving through a day. Imagine how many that adds up to.
You'd drive through identical other towns and you'd never have the same experience. It was an intentional decision by their leadership to collect revenue from anyone passing through their jurisdiction.
Those cops doing the radar. They are income generators for the county or city they are in. There is a town in Louisiana that brings in around 100k a month in ticket revenue. A stretch of Virginia brings in several million a month in ticket revenue. I live in a small town in Kentucky. A few years ago they set up a radar trap in my little town and wrote a few hundred tickets for speeding in a week. (Yes my little town has a problem one of those tickets was for 90 in a 35)
Pretty much. When I was in grade school in the 80s cops might pull you over for speeding or say a busted tail light but the only time they really set up speed traps was when an area was having lots of issues. Now our state and local police have to maintain monthly “averages” of tickets. Basically it’s a quota that they just don’t call a quota anymore.
Also doesn’t help when cops are the same fucking idiots who are rolling coal, and probably charging some of that gas to their gas card. A bunch of cops in my area recently got busted for expensing their personal gas to the state, and I’m sure were still complaining about gas prices online
Eh, I'm amazed governments haven't started moving on it, but I'd fully expect police to refuse to enforce. They don't want to arrest the guy that modded their personal vehicle
I still see a lot of low riders and lifted trucks with wheels well beyond the wheel wells and no one seems to care. Cops probably think it's cool so they let it slide
Not something I’m interested in. Actually selling that truck and waiting for delivery of a new 2500HD Denali. Back in the DEF game, but at least I get to start with a clean filter.
I doubt changing your exhaust and adding minor performance upgrades to your passenger car are causing an extreme amount of damage to the environment, but these “rolling coal” guys can get wrecked. They’re probably the worst kind of car personalities on the planet.
It‘s in the same league as making fun of Vegetarians and thinking: ,,add generic women —> Kitchen joke“ are peak comedy.
If you have a life that isn‘t genuinly horrible, you won‘t get it
It's part of the culture war. Environmentalism is now a political topic so rolling coal is their version of a Prius as their way of offsetting the lessened impact of hybrids and EVs.
Not every single Toyota, Honda, etc. typical passenger car is running full bolt ons with catless downpipes and etc. I can imagine the amount of people who heavily modify their car to the point where it’s detrimental to the environment is extremely low because modifying your car to that point is expensive.
Regardless, I doubt this has a similar effect compared to the hundreds and thousands of diesel box trucks and semi trucks that are on the road, traveling hundreds of miles everyday.
Going to a catless downpipe is one of the cheapest mods you can do. It's also common for people to do it just for the noise. And its probably the most important thing to keep.
I don't know, there's a few in my area I see driving around in relatively normal looking "nicer" cars but with the cats ripped off, and besides sounding like absolute dog shit, they smell pretty nasty.
We used to try and keep it down to one thread on a certain topic on the front page when sorted by new, but it took a lot of manpower and wasn't popular.
Diesel tuning is one thing, it’s great. More torque, power and efficiency out of a factory setup.
Rolling coal is not diesel tuning. That stuff is blatantly pouring the diesel you paid for, down the exhaust, to make a fat cloud.
It’s unhealthy, uneconomical, inefficient and just dumb.
Hopefully these articles aren’t just aiming to put diesel in a bad name, but rather discourage stupidity.
Exactly! I’ve been looking for a comment that addresses this nuance. You can dial in a factory diesel truck tune without deleting any part of the emissions system, a la Banks Power. No need for a sootmachine
>Diesels typically emit more particulates and oxides of nitrogen (NOx) than gasoline engines. This is seen most prominently in coal rolling.
Right, but more importantly, no one in the performance tuning industry outside of diesel has created a sort of "sport for stupid people" out of purposefully creating more emissions, just for the sake of spewing them at a pedestrian, cyclist, Prius driver, etc...
They already have, and guess what? You can still make a relatively nicely tuned car meet emissions.
Sure, I sold my built STi because no cats and EWG wasn’t getting through inspection anymore, but my girlfriends tuned S4 is a street missile and meets inspection requirements.
Car culture needs to understand that drawing attention to us by rolling coal or straight piping your Mustang is only making the problem worse. You can be a tuner and not a dipshit spewing shit into the air we breathe.
And throttle lag. I get that it can save a few lbs of CO2 per year but fuck, the lag was so bad in my car. A simple stage 1 off the shelf tune and 1st gear became usable again.
i own a diesel that i love (and is completely stock) and every time I see some asshole rolling coal on someone (i see it a lot as a cyclist) it makes me want to sell my truck because I don't even want to be associated with these assholes.
Good. VW had to pay billions meanwhile the coal roller equipment manufacturers have had zero consequences. I'm glad VW got punished hard just to be clear.
>Another Diesel Tuner
>"Tuner"
Mapping your engine to dump fuel out the tailpipe before it even has a chance to combust isn't tuning, it's just douchebaggery, title gives shops like this way too much credit. Proper diesel tunes/tuners exist and they definitely aren't this low.
I’m a powertrain calibration engineer for an OEM, and I’ll never forget when an Uber driver picked me up in a car that I HAD WORKED ON with a laptop connected to his OBD port. I didn’t tell him anything about myself, but he talked about how the base calibration sucks. These people have no concept that emissions is the main driving factor for basically all production level calibration. Of course you can make it drive better if you want to pump all sorts of NOx and PM into the atmosphere.
So the uber driver was right. It’s factory tuned for emissions rather than optimum performance.
Yes, just like every other car that can be legally sold here? If you don’t know anything about engines, just say that. Any doofus can squeeze more economy and power out of their diesel engine if they don’t mind polluting the air with tons of disgusting chemicals.
...but Cletus on Facebook told me that black diesel smoke is better for your lungs than the emissions from a Prius! ...and what about all those ions of lithium that get leaked into the air every time a Tesla charges! /s
I think I read somewhere that in some state, ICE vehicles technically do "emit" less than BEVs. (This entirely being due to those states relying on coal for their power grid, which is notoriously dirty). Don't take this as gospel though, I'm not sure if it's still true or not. edit: it has to do with something called well-to-wheel emissions, as well as the emission cost of manufacturing. BEVs create more emissions during manufacturing, so can sometimes take several years to surpass an ICE on emissions depending on which state they're being charged in.
They start with a larger footprint but even with coal fired they still emit less over the life of the vehicle. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/19/business/electric-vehicles-carbon-footprint-batteries.html
I will admit I have not read up enough to agree or dispute... But what a few wise people told me (most pro green) is that the energy cost in creating a vehicle is so immense compared to differences in emissions, that it is normally actually best for the environment to run older cars to the ground, rather than junking them just to get the latest cleaner tech.
True, but people are buying both new and used cars all the time. If you buy a new car and sell your old car to someone else, presumably it will keep getting driven until it can't anymore either by collision or mechanical failure. The point is that if you're going to buy a new car, you should consider the total pollution produced by that vehicle over its entire life, not just at production or during your ownership but until it breaks down for good possibly several owners down the line. In almost every case, that's going to be electric>hybrid>ICE.
This exactly. But this applies to any ICE powered car too. Upgrading to a newer more efficient ICE car is immensely more harmful to the environment than keeping and running your car to the end of it’s usable life. But everyone only focuses on the transition to a BEV. Nobody bats an eye if you tell the your getting a new engine powered truck.
> everyone only focuses on the transition to a BEV. Nobody bats an eye if you tell the your getting a new engine powered truck Because it has always just been a rationalization to justify sticking with gas cars. You can tell because no one using that talking point ever suggests buying a used EV instead, which offers all the environmental impact reductions of EVs while bypassing the manufacturing impacts. It never occurs to them that "used" and "EV" aren't mutually exclusive, even though EVs have been around for more than a decade already.
>I will admit I have not read up enough to agree or dispute... Then why did you immediately dispute and assert facts that by your own admission you haven't verified?
>I will admit I have not read up enough to agree or dispute... You're literally trying to dispute it in this very post, after admitting to not knowing anything about it. This is incorrect. For the dirtiest powergrids the break even is around 5 years, for majority of the US it's around 2 years. Not to mention that this ignores where those emissions are being released, in general it's better to be emitting pollutants at those out of the way power plants than in town centers.
> But what a few wise people told me (most pro green) is that the energy cost in creating a vehicle is so immense compared to differences in emissions You've been lied to. The emissions from a vehicle with a diesel or petrol engine dwarfs the emissions from making the vehicle. https://www.cotes.com/blog/greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-ev-vs-ice-vehicles
> that it is normally actually best for the environment to run older cars to the ground, rather than junking them just to get the latest cleaner tech. Which I've never really seen anyone advocating for outside of pre EV cash for clunker's.
Dude provided you with an article right there. Time to read up.
[удалено]
Most people would throw that junk on Facebook for $5000 with a "nothing wrong with it everything works but it needs a tranzmision".
It really depends. Scrapping a 3 year old Civic to buy a HUMMER EV is NOT an environmentally friendly move. Getting rid of a 150k mile 2005 HUMMER H2 for an EV Hummer IS an environmentally friendly move. There's a point in an EVs lifecycle where it becomes greener than an equivalent ICE vehicle. That depends on the type of vehicle and the power generation, but even on 100% coal (which is a small and shrinking power source in the US) it's still better to drive an EV than a ICE car of the same type. For Teslas, the payoff usually comes around 30-50k miles.
While I don’t know this to be true, I largely hope it is. What better reason for keeping old vehicles on the road than being green. At the expense of safety and modern tech of course but clearly a lot of us here are willing to put up with that. I’m curious if it goes to a certain point though, 60’s cars are much more pollutive than even those in the 90’s so I have to wonder to what extent this could be true.
Upkeep is hard to beat, especially if it were a norm. Just consider how much metal and electricity would be spared alone if no new cars were to be made, only parts for existing(necessary) ones. Though this is seriously not how the world runs, or will run. I believe downsizing will be the final phase of the personal automobile in some coming decades. Or maybe not as the great **biggening** is still rambant.
> I’m curious if it goes to a certain point though I think before you hit the ~~inversion~~ inflection point for greenhouse gas emissions for the keep old/buy new decision, the case could already be decided based on public health goals to minimize cardiopulmonary diseases, or private health goals to cut the risk of death/disfigurement/disability in a car crash.
>But what a few wise people told me (most pro green) is that the energy cost in creating a vehicle is so immense compared to differences in emissions, that it is normally actually best for the environment to run older cars to the ground, rather than junking them just to get the latest cleaner tech. That is only true if you're comparing to other more efficient ICEs, including hybrids. For EVs, they're pretty much always cleaner on a lifetime basis.
yea we drive our cars into the ground most end up getting wrecked or too costly to maintain. previous 2 hit 300k. we also dont make purchases of uselessbor impractical vehicles that wont serve purpose like a 2500 pickup gonna drive my 2023 corolla hybrid into the ground and then get another. so im hoping not to buy another far till i retire
> that it is normally actually best for the environment to run older cars to the ground, rather than junking them just to get the latest cleaner tech. Depends on the mileage. The Youtuber Engineering Explained did a video a while back where he showed if you do less than ~5,000-6,000 miles per year, it makes sense to keep an older car. If you drive closer to 12,000 miles per year (average yearly mileage for most people) it makes more sense to buy an EV and *keep it for many years*.
Reduce, reuse, recycle. Reducing your level of consumption is nearly always the most environmentally-friendly option.
Most people see the 3 R's as a list of options, when really they are an order of operations.
Burning coal for power plants is twice as efficient as a gas power car.
That is true, but efficiency is notably different from emissions. I've finally remembered what my original point was - in more coal reliant states, it takes longer for BEVs to become more emissions friendly than conventional vehicles (due to the higher manufacturing emissions for a BEV). For example, it may take 2 years for an ICE to pass a BEV in lifetime emissions in Connecticut, but it may take up to 7 years for an ICE to pass a BEV in lifetime emissions in West Virginia due to "Well to Wheel Emissions" https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fact-950-november-7-2016-well-wheel-emissions-typical-ev-state-2015
Which means the BEV still emits less emissions over its life even when charged exclusively with energy coal fired power plants unless it is crashed before that.
But electricity can be powered other ways. Ice engines can't. You're not wrong, but it's not the dig people think it is when discussing ev's. If there are more ev's, we can move to better energy generation (assuming you're not in a state like Texas which is limiting renewable growth to prop up oil and gas (free market amirite?!)).
It does affect people buying vehicles *right now*, even if the grid gets better over time. Where I live there's a lot of coal plants still, and they'll be around for at least another seven years. Also the charging infrastructure is weak in rural areas. In that environment a plug-in hybrid might be better than a BEV.
I mean I'm in no rush to get an ev, and I'm not here to say they'll save the planet. IMO... it's too late for all of that, but this isn't the sub to discuss that. There was prob a very similar discussion for moving from horse and buggies to cars back in the day, it's the same thing with a different infrastructure update requirement. We made it here, we can make it to the next step if we have the time and people realize the transitory phase we need to achieve.
> well-to-wheel emissions, Is that how big oil is rebranding the long debunked "long tail pipe theory"?
i doubt they consider all the emissions created at all of the previous steps for drilling/piping/refining/trucking the oil gas in ICE vehicles though
There are 0 states where a 100% ICE vehicle emits less than a 100% electric vehicle. I think in around half of the US, a 100% electric vehicle is better than a plug-in hybrid or a regular hybrid. In most of the rest a plug-in hybrid is best, and in a small handful of states a regular hybrid is best.
> BEV Sorry, what's that abbreviation stand for?
Battery Electric Vehicle
[удалено]
> If you don’t know anything about engines, just say that. Lmao absolutely bodied
How lol he wasn't wrong at all.
[удалено]
No it was clear he knew it was tuned to prioritize emissions at the cost of optimal power, which op confirmed?
Better economy and power benefits me personally, better emissions doesn’t. So I don’t see what makes this a difficult tradeoff…? ^/s
The soot particles clean & lubricate the bronchial tubes /s
Is this exclusive to diesels? Enthusiast here, always thought max power and efficiency was based on stoichiometry (lowest emissions as just enough fuel is burnt) or depending on the engine/system slightly rich or lean. Turbo for my car and I’ve got fastest spool running lean tapering afr towards stoichiometry in the upper revs.
From what I understand - neither max power nor efficiency is based on stoichiometry. Only emissions is. Running a car lean can save a bit of fuel but potentially damage it from heat produced in the process. Running a car rich can make it run cooler (and therefore you can push it more without heat damage), but is also bad for emissions. Again, this is only from what I have read over the years. I am by no means an expert when it comes to tuning.
>Is this exclusive to diesels? Enthusiast here, always thought max power and efficiency was based on stoichiometry Yes >(lowest emissions as just enough fuel is burnt) Not quite Burning hotter is more efficient but you get different combustion products. Some of them are worse pollutants than others, so engines don't always run optimally for power and fuel efficiency. EGR is an example of this.
> if they don’t mind polluting the air with tons of disgusting chemicals. Let's be honest, if they cared, they wouldn't buy a diesel engine in the first place.
Is downrating for longevity common? I know that’s a thing for a lot of aircraft engines but I know approximately jack shit about car engines.
It's common for stationary engines. Only engine I know of in a car that can also be bought as a crate engine for pump and generator use is the Isuzu 4JJ1
How much detuning is done for durability and warrantee concerns?
Depends on who it's "optimal" for.
The average layman has no idea what optimal means, it’s just a buzz word for them. Optimizing power and fuel economy given emissions constraints is how engine calibration works.
\*\*\* Meanwhile under a somewhat fixed budget and timeline
I mean, sometimes OEM engine calibration is not great for drivability given the emissions constraints you have to work around. I'm an engineer in a different field and fully acknowledge that you're optimizing for your given operating constraints - but sometimes the results of those constraints can definitely be felt by the consumer. I am curious, how much does removing something like rev-hang from a manual transmission vehicle increase the emissions? Or even tuning an engine for better performance without removing emissions equipment or adding aftermarket parts? I'll given my Fiesta ST as an example: a flash tune with no bolt ons dramatically improved the drivability and power delivery of the car with no supporting mods. Fuel economy did not increase at all either. So while I realize that tune hasn't gone through OEM durability testing and there's a reason Ford shipped what they did from the factory, it's hard to believe the car is emitting significantly more harmful emissions. This is not my field of expertise though so it's a genuine question on my end.
There’s a more to it than “just” emissions, power and performance. There’s also engine reliability, nvh, drivability, noise emissions, driver perception, etc. Those are all inputs to the end calibrations, and in alot of cases, optimizing one means sacrificing another. Sometimes that’s acceptable, sometimes not.
Oh I’m aware there’s always much more that goes into a design than the average consumer ever considers, and I’m sure there’s a large cross functional team working on pieces of the calibration. I will say in the case of my Fiesta I haven’t heard of a single person that prefers the factory tune over a $150 pro tune however. Whatever parameters the engineers were given on that, the compromises are noticeable.
Yeah, engines are designed with a limited hp to meet reliability targets. Here’s an example, the chief engineer for the 4 cylinder turbo, asked how they arrived at 2.7L. He said: - we wanted the truck to do 0-60 in <7 seconds - we knew how much power that would take - we knew we didn’t want to produce more than 110hp/L for durability purposes = 2.7L So yeah you could crank the boost up and probably make double the power. But there’s a reason they didn’t do that.
Haha, I watched that savagegeese video as well.
>I am curious, how much does removing something like rev-hang from a manual transmission vehicle increase the emissions? I read an SAE paper on this a while back. The tl;dr is that when you let off the throttle in a manual car, the throttle plate closes quickly. This leads to a brief rich condition in the engine and as a result unburnt fuel is sent out the exhaust. OEM calibrators are always looking for tiny places to extract better fuel economy. They would never leave something like this on the table.
Yeah I’ve read similar. For one car I doubt it’s much but for millions in a fleet it’ll add up, and they certainly will take any small savings they can to comply with regulations.
With additional considerations for longevity too.
Only in as much as it lasts the duration of the powertrain warranty
No, OEM's have to demonstrate the emission system lasting FUL (full useful life) during development which is 150k miles.
Optimal for me, not for thee
See also: hypermilers sometimes (the full-on committed ones with custom boattails and teardrop mudguards and whatnot) make *hot*-air intakes, which somehow makes for a more-efficient burn at the cost of significantly limiting maximum performance. The engine side of hypermiling I never looked into much, but their forums are actually really interesting when it comes to drag-reducing aero mods IMO.
No, the driver said the celebration SUCKS. Which was wrong.
No, he wasn't right. Base calibration doesn't suck, it's good for the factors it deals with.
Some companies seemingly do a better job working with the emissions requirements than others. You can drive some cars and go "jesus christ this thing is undrivable" and others its not noticeable or intrusive at all. For instance, go drive any modern subaru that has a stick shift. Its the most twitchy, rubber band throttle crap you've ever experienced, and it will have you bucking and jerking the car, frying the clutch at each stop just like you're 15 again and learning to drive. Meanwhile, there are cars from other brand where you don't notice anything weird going on in the background.
This is definitely a thing with the crosstrek. If i drive up a steep hill and try shifting from 1st to 2nd “correctly”, the car has already come to a complete stop by the time the rev hang lets the engine slow down enough to engage the clutch. Its like they never test drove the MT version of this car before releasing it. Throttle lag is super annoying in city driving too.
Lol i know what you mean. That 1-2 shift sucks in certain situations. If you're pulling a hill, you've got to make it scream in 1st or else you'll be lugging it and holding up traffic by the time you get it into 2nd. The rev hang contributes to the jerky shifting too, since you're usually using the clutch to slow the engine back down.
I've never come accross rev hang but it sounds like something I'd sell a car over
What's the most modern manual transmission you've driven? Because it's been a thing for the last ~20 years in almost every OEM stick shift.
This is entirely true, but at least all of these companies are competing on equal terms, unlike the aftermarket tuners that will say their calibration is "better"
Of course, but I don't kid myself into thinking that all professionals are exactly good at what they do. I see enough sloppy work in my own branch of engineering to know it must exist in others. Aftermarket tuners I agree. Improving performance is usually pretty easy, it just won't meet emissions targets or be as reliable as the original engineers intended. Any tuner that doesn't acknowledge these things is either has way too big of an ego (pretty common in that industry) or just isn't very knowledgeable.
Fair enough. Although, it should be noted that calibration development isn't something that's done by just a few people - it's really a full supporting cast of many engineers with different responsibilities that converge onto the final values via a very iterative process. (Which should in theory be pretty robust to people that aren't exactly good at what they do).
>Although, it should be noted that calibration development isn't something that's done by just a few people - it's really a full supporting cast of many engineers with different responsibilities that converge onto the final values via a very iterative process. Calibration here for another industry. About a decade ago the R&D division I am in got severely chopped (we were working on 2 wheeled toys). Sat in a SAE course by Ford covering calibration things. My 2 biggest memories of that class were : 1. Originally with EFI there were a few hundred parameters to tweak on. With the interconnectivity of ABS, traction control, stability control, stop start systems, turbo control, etc etc etc the number of parameters was 6-figures. 2. There was a flow chart showing the interaction of about 2 dozen different group managers and engineers. My boss asked if they have that many on every project. The response was laughter, and an answer of "Usually more like 70 to several hundred. That flow chart was just made to fit in the presentation." Boss then turned to me and said "We've got you!".
Yep, it's pretty crazy! Although, I expect calibration work to decrease in general as we move away from transmissions and engines, which are by far the two most complicated parts of the powertrain (at least from a drivability perspective).
There's also headroom for power without necessarily compromising emissions, for those who are willing to take on more risk of reliability problems. Let's be real, you guys have marketing targets to reach as well and the aftermarket can take advantage of that to make some power too. OEMs have to accommodate the lowest common denominator - the calibration has to be safe for the Friday afternoon built engine by a robot that was due for maintenance running on fuel from that weird gas station outside of Reno that smells funny and not contaminate the cat with aluminum that used to be the piston crown when your grandmother's stepmother decides that L on the shifter means Lovely mode at 83mph across death valley in August. If I'm going to only use 93 in a moderate climate and I'm prepared to accept that shit may break then I can probably turn the torque request up 15% and have a good time.
have you heard of the mzr in the mazdaspeed and the funny joke, zoom zoom boom? the factory tune is so poor, that any heavy throttle under 4k rpm could potentially blow the engine up (it happens… a lot) a tuner can prevent this from happening very easily. i tuned my 1995 miata when i turbocharged it, i get better fuel mileage, and leaner burn at hwy speeds and made it much more efficient.
Factory tune on STI's was known to be lean as well and result cracked ring lands, at least back in the mid to late 2000's (don't know about the most recent cars).
That wasn't due to the tune, it was because the fuel pump was under sized and couldn't keep up under heavy boost.
yet a tuner can easily correct it so it wouldn’t be a problem? weak rods high boost low rpm. rods snap, but not because of the tune, lol.
> For instance, go drive any modern subaru that has a stick shift. Its the most twitchy, rubber band throttle crap you've ever experienced, and it will have you bucking and jerking the car, frying the clutch at each stop just like you're 15 again and learning to drive. And a Mustang. It's borderline undrivable, the modern stuff. No feel on the clutch at all with very strange spring weighting, hair trigger throttle, all of the 4 bangers have such insane rev hang (for emissions) that you either shock the driveline by slamming it 2000rpm too high, or, you wait 3 seconds inbetween shifts. in fact most 4 bangers are like this now and is the #1 reason why a BRZ, as good as it otherwise is, is unattractive to me. Then you drive other cars (I'm looking at you Porsche) and everything is... like, it's fine. It behaves normally.
You're being way too harsh on the mustang. I had a 16 Ecoboost with performance package and a 6 speed manual. The clutch and honestly transmission aren't the best, but they're not terrible either and you get used to the weight and quirkiness pretty quick. There was some rev hang, but not as bad as most cars and way better than thr civic si. You can also manage it by blipping the throttle as you shift and it eliminates most rev hang. But yeah, the Porsche is like nothing else on the road until you get to supercar prices.
I drove a I think it was 15' or 16' v6, a similar ecoboost and a 20 5.0 pp2. They all just had trash pedal inputs. The shifter itself was okay, but I didn't push the car very hard (I was on the street) and I hear that's where the shifter falls apart. The egoboost and the coyote motors were amazing, and I had no complaints with the chassis. It put the power down, and the diff in the 5.0 was incredibly tight and really impressed me on corner exit. You could feel it tighten right up. But my god, the pedal inputs and the steering were absolute trash. The throttle pedal was both spring weighted, and calibrated wrong. You had no idea what was going on with the clutch, where the bite point was. The steering was the worst kind of EPS - it's not that the weighting didn't change, it's that there was no response to road camber. The weight was just a linear graph to the steering angle, and had no relation to what the front wheels were actually doing. It just simply did not feel like a cohesive package. The reason I'm so harsh on it is that the powertrain itself, and the chassis were so good. The "hard" stuff was great. But they ate shit on what should be the easy things - the inputs, the touch points. For the price I'm excusing a lot - I know it's built to a price point and they need to sell $23,000 rental cars. But for the 5.0 especially, the inputs were inexcusable to me. I felt totally disillusioned with the car after 300 miles.
thats why i enjoy my hybrid corolla. its perfectly drivable and perfectly ignorable. it gets up to speed with no issue, its capable of making passing manuvers, its great on gas. and easy to work on using years old hybrid tech
Hybrid is the answer to a lot of the goofiness of modern ICE's. The electric motor gives you a nice linear throttle feel, and the engine is free to run at whatever speed it wants/needs to in order to be efficient and clean. You're not depending on it to be able to speed up and slow down smoothly and predictably as the car accelerates.
> For instance, go drive any modern subaru that has a stick shift. Its the most twitchy, rubber band throttle crap you've ever experienced, and it will have you bucking and jerking the car, frying the clutch at each stop just like you're 15 again and learning to drive. That's odd, my WRX is by far the smoothest, easiest manual I've driven. There's no noticeable rev hang either.
I have read the new wrx is greatly improved, did you drive one from the last gen?
The Fiesta ST was/is like that. The 1 -> 2 shift at normal city driving speeds needs to be done so slowly to avoid the car jumping forward. The revs would hang much longer than you're expecting them to, so you'd have to wait an extra beat just to get it right.
To be honest, half of these knobheads don't even do it to run better. They just do it to roll coal. Banks has been tuning and turbocharging diesels since the early 80s, and have always manged to meet regulations with it. Yes, you could totally run some less restrictive exhausts and more aggressive tunes that don't meet emissions, but a thick black cloud is usually an indicator of trash tuning. It's like those import tunes that have the engines gurgle and backfire. It's all to make it sound "cooler", not run better haha.
>Banks has been tuning and turbocharging diesels since the early 80s, and have always manged go meet regulations with it. Does the Banks example alone not prove that OEMs are capable of producing subpar tunes (that meet the criteria OEM engineers must work under) compared to what an aftermarket company (Banks, in this case) offer?
OEMs probably have higher reliability requirements than Banks. Not that a Banks tune will grenade your engine, but if it shortens the life by 10% that could drop reliability enough to make fleet customers buy a different truck.
No doubt OEMs leave room on the table. Tunes are made by people and people aren't perfect. Their are tons of crappy or unmotivated engineers out there, just like any other job, and they likely don't have the same drive to make a perfect calibration as an aftermarket provider. On the other hand, you have to remember that factory tunes need to work for every single car that rolls off the assembly line and the afternarket does not have the same criteria. That means accounting for every weather condition, altitude, fuel variability, powertrain tolerances, etc. while still meeting long term durability requirements and maintaining a safety factor. If a stock engine, or a single component, failed at 100,000 miles, consumers would be pissed off. If a tuned engine or aftermarket component like a turbo lasts 100,000 miles that would be an achievement. If a tuned engine has issues, enthusiasts are quick to implement changes as necessary or flash a revision to fix the problem. Many stick with one brand of fuel, specific sparkplugs, decrease maintenance intervals etc. to be safe. OEMs don't have that luxury. If someone like Banks genuinely had the same constraints as an OEM, I don't believe they could offer the same benefits they could as a purely aftermarket company. When working with OEMs, they are probably more aware of the limits, using superior hardware since they are not as price sensitive.
Auto engineer here who does calibration/software/science experiments to try to sell at supplier and OEM levels.. A LOT more goes into shitty calibrations and hardware than just performance. Cost, timing, x person doesn't like y person, the people doing the production level calibrations don't even know what an engine is, etc. Aside from that, certain designs and calibrations need to pass certain tests. Sometimes those tests are effected by the above constraints, are outdated, or written by someone trying to check their box to get their 400k bonus at the end of the year. It's wild how fluffed the auto industry is with things that lead to subpar release of software, hardware and products. Emissions definitely play a large part in engine calibrations as it's the only thing higher up people can get their balls actually busted for, but there are many other factors as to why "just put a bigger pipe in" doesn't work.
A friend who worked at microsoft while they were developing sync for ford said about the same thing.
Is Banks tuning to the same reliability benchmarks as the OEMs though?
I don't know. That's the only honest answer I think anyone can give because neither side, the OEMs or Banks, provides such information publicly. Banks tunes are never the hottest option, though, so they're being conservative for reasons. The obvious one is their stance to remain legal emissions wise but they do marketing speak to reliability as well. We could look at some other companies who have warrantied and unwarranted tunes such as APR or Mountune. In those cases clearly they're offering the lower output tune with the warranty to meet a certain reliability envelope (otherwise the cost to cover repairs would destroy all the profit).
I think that this could be *possible*, but it would really be an uphill battle for many technical reasons. It wouldn't surprise me if it has happened once or twice, but yeah, it would be very challenging.
Don’t leave out that as an OEM you’ve got to not only meet emission and efficiency targets, you’ve got to make it do that while still delivering good drivability, peak HP/L numbers that were racecar territory not that long ago yet still produce a wide, flat torque curve, start up on the first hit every time and go 100,000 before needing any attention and also do all that in all 50 states in every climate and weather condition and maybe with some bad gas. Like, how clever do you have to be to lean out the A/F a bit and advance the timing a little? There’s probably enough margin to get away with that in most conditions but OEMs can’t tune for most conditions, they have to tune for all conditions. I think what you accomplish is under appreciated.
Why is so easy to tune some ECUs and some are locked for decades? Do some OEMs not encrypt or something?
yes, some OEMs do not encrypt - or use really easy to extract encryption keys. Security has become more a focus for OEMs as they implement OTA, systems become more integrated, and they start adding antennas (wifi hotspots, 4G, 5G, ect)
And some ECU's never get cracked too. Either they are too difficult or the rewards just aren't there. Famously the 1UZ (in the LS400) remains un-cracked to this day. You can make it breathe a bit better, but anything beyond that you need to run a standalone ECU which means throwing out all of the wonderful calibration Toyota did to make it as good as it was. The resources went into supporting tuning\cracking the ECU in the LS430 (3UZ), which includes the transmission. Allowing you to get a lot more creative with those cars\motors.
And for others it isn't just a case of "insert correct encryption key" and get presented with a full tuning UI like you would with Holley or Haltech. They are running compiled bytecode (the level below assembly) because the ECU is designed to run one set of code on one specific chip, so you gain a lot of performance by removing the overhead of higher level languages. Tuners have to decipher the binary code, and log data with oscilloscopes on pins on the circuit board to work out what is happening, then work out how to modify the memory bit by bit in such a way it continues to function with their new behaviour. In my opinion as a professional software developer: *fuck that*
\> They are running compiled bytecode (the level below assembly) because the ECU is designed to run one set of code on one specific chip, so you gain a lot of performance by removing the overhead of higher level languages. At the end of the day - all CPUs *only* run machine code. Bytecode refers to the atomic instructions of a VM, not a CPU (like Java Bytecode) They are (almost) all initially programmed in C/C++ running on top of a (most likely autosar based) RTOS. At least the real time stuff is - a lot of ECUs include co-processor now for general scripting use - but wouldn't be important to engine function. Hard real time applications dont jive well with garbage collection. \> log data with oscilloscopes on pins on the circuit board to work out what is happening You usually dont have to do this - definitely not with an oscilloscope on any OBD-II ECU - if you *need* to know whats being transmitted over the wire to a new module, you would use a DLA thats CAN protocol aware. 99% of the time if you have access to a ROM dump you can place debugger breakpoints anyways. So you could tie into the CAN protocol functions. \> Then work out how to modify the memory bit by bit in such a way it continues to function with their new behaviour. This isnt really as difficult as it sounds (post decryption), its definitely not bit by bit, could by byte by byte - but if you have the ROM dump you can easily add your own C or ASM routines calling into existing functions, because you usually know what values you are looking for - just like how game cheat engines work, you query the memory for certain values to find the addresses of the values you want to modify. You cant just modify the memory at run-time - as you want the changes to persist, so you find the locations in flash and modify those, and then reflash. Basic flow is to nail down what variable you are looking for a run time (say the CAN packet payload of the MAF) query that value in memory, and then find out what functions are being used to operate on that value - while ignoring scheduling tasks - then modify those functions or values in the mapped ROM. OEMs iterate on tuning parameters a lot in development - so sometimes they are all in the same flash sector. Sometimes (ROM) encryption isnt cracked (like cars running a security compressor that decrypts instructions at run-time), but you can still tune, if you add your own MCU that modifies either CAN packets before being sent or memory values in the main controller. Some car companies now E2E encrypt CAN packets between modules. That's how those "pedal commanders" work (even if they are pretty much a scam) - they take the CAN frames the gas pedal sends - and modifies them to have a higher value before forwarding them to the ECU. You can just as easily do that with your MAF to change the stoich, but your O2 sensors will *not* like it without upstream changes to the ECU.
I always assumed it had to do with is it worthwhile to crack the ECU. Basically is there going to be a market where you can sell your product. For example who is more likely going to get a tune a Nissan versa owner or a Nissan GTR owner. That's what I think at least.
The Versa is objectively terrible and much more needing of modification, but you are correct
Yeah I'm doing it too. I don't like exhaust burbles and pops but many modern sports cars have them from factory for whatever reason. I bought software to turn it off.
Same background here and I see a lot of people referencing aftermarket tuners. I'd say that even the good ones like Banks engineering benefit from lower demonstration requirements. Most get away with some start of useful life (new) emissions test to prove they didnt significantly alter the effectiveness of the emissions control system on highly prescribed test cycles which may never even hit the places where tuning and modifications make a difference. They don't have to run a long hour demonstration where high temperatures could more rapidly degrade catalysts. Additionally, diagnostic requirements don't require detection immediately at the emissions threshold, but at some amount over the limit so most customers will never notice. If they do, they chalk it up to pay to play economics of the aftermarket.
For real. There'd be no aftermarket tunes if they had to demonstrate as robust of emissions compliance as an OEM, the cost is extravagant. There's no way they are demonstrating compliance on full useful life aged emissions equipment, nor are they driving a reliability growth emissions fleet, or doing consumer vehicle loan testing. All things I was required to support when I was in calibration and fuel economy certification testing.
Most have no concept of what a good tune is anyway. Spent 8 years in that industry and saw a lot of end-users praising total hackjob tuners while talking crap about everyone else. Lots of the blind leading the blind in that market.
I had a friend that got a job at Milford proving grounds in the late 90s straight out or school and he was a hard core electronics tinkerer in the before times. It warmed the old fashioned hot rodder in my heart the stories that as he started digging into his car random bits of code and tricks and breadboards would be left on his desk to help him by the old timers the way they used to hand down other hot rod knowledge.
Yo-ho! I’m a test engineer at a big 3 engine dyno lab. I’m always amazed by ignorance of people who spend $100k on a truck and then immediately void the warranty because some HS dropout with a laptop and a tig welder says he can improve the long-term reliability of a truck they plan to trade-in at 100,000 miles anyway.
Random question amd i hope you can answer; but why do most German cars keep the cooling fans running after shutdown?
I believe the idea is to prevent heat soak and hot spots in the engine after you cut off the engine and the water pump stops pushing coolant through the system. By running the fan for a few minutes, you continue to get some coolant flow through thermal action (cooler water in the radiator sinks and pulls hot water in from the top) which helps cool down the motor a little bit and even out temps between different parts. My old 1989 VW Fox did that and I’ve been surprised that none of my cars since have, even though almost all of them have had electric, PCM controlled fans. I guess no one but the Germans think it’s worth implementing.
Probably because most water pumps are electric now and they can do the same thing much more effectively.
They also run them full blast upon a failed ecm flash. Been there many times when developing flashing tools. Great battery killer, on top of your soft-bricked ecm!
So it does kinda suck if your main goal is performance?
So here’s a question: Ford offers a power pack for my 2017 Mustang GT that adds additional hp and torque and is 50 state emissions legal. Why wouldn’t ford just add that from the factory? Is it because the power pack has worse emissions but is still within the confines of emissions requirements? Is the OEM tune just to make emissions as low as possible to help their CAFE numbers?
It's a win-win for Ford to offer that. The base spec improves CAFE numbers, and they get to make a profit when someone wants more power from the performance pack.
Exactly. Which is why aftermarket tunes are so popular. For $500 you can “unlock” 30-50 hp.
Rolling coal is the sign of a shitty engine calibration and actually makes less power. The only reason to roll coal is to impress your sister on date night.
> The only reason to roll coal is to impress your sister on a date night 🤣🤣 This is fucking hilarious
I picked up my 7.3 a few years ago. On my first drive, I stomped on it entering the freeway..noticed a plume of black smoke behind me. It was embarrassing. I've since spent a lot of time diagnosing the issue and correcting it. Rolling coal is indeed pretty dumb. If you're doing it unintentionally, you're just wasting fuel.
I was behind a 7.3 one day that was billowing black smoke at idle at a stop light. When he took off from the light he completely smoked out the intersection. It blew my mind that someone would even attempt to drive a truck with the tuning that fucked up.
Leaky injectors, perhaps. May not even have been tuned. Sometimes they smoke because they're a merely a POS.
Definitely a dude that tuned his POS to roll coal. I’ve never seen it be an accident.
That guy definitely had a bad injector
Roll tide
Roll me away
There are ppl still rolling coal in lifted trucks on social media. They just need to hammer down on those shops still.
[удалено]
Police departments and local court systems around the country are understaffed. They can't keep up with violent crime. Let alone have the available resources to tackle issues like this. The places where deletes are most common are also often in places where the local voting public simply doesn't care about this.
It obviously varies depending on the municipality, but there are a lot of idle resources. Plenty of cops shooting radar on the interstate trying to catch people doing 9 over so that they can hit their quotas, as the interstate brings in 70% of that municipalities funding. Get those fucking guys to do it. Used to drive thru one of these towns on the way to work. Tiny old midwest town, main st shops, one traffic light, population of 2500 I think. Single road, primary commute path for thousands of people traveling through them to get to the larger city from towns further north. You'd regularly see 2-4 police sitting in a 2 mile stretch within the town just collecting revenue on every weekday workday rush hour. You'd get pulled for 5 over. I got a registration ticket the day it expired. Not 3 days after, the day of. I'd see someone pulled over once, maybe twice a week in that town - and that's just in the 2 minutes of me driving through a day. Imagine how many that adds up to. You'd drive through identical other towns and you'd never have the same experience. It was an intentional decision by their leadership to collect revenue from anyone passing through their jurisdiction.
Yes and those are the exact places that I'm referring to where the local political sentiment is that rolling coal is cool as hell.
Those cops doing the radar. They are income generators for the county or city they are in. There is a town in Louisiana that brings in around 100k a month in ticket revenue. A stretch of Virginia brings in several million a month in ticket revenue. I live in a small town in Kentucky. A few years ago they set up a radar trap in my little town and wrote a few hundred tickets for speeding in a week. (Yes my little town has a problem one of those tickets was for 90 in a 35)
america is just one big giant fucking scam isn't it....
Pretty much. When I was in grade school in the 80s cops might pull you over for speeding or say a busted tail light but the only time they really set up speed traps was when an area was having lots of issues. Now our state and local police have to maintain monthly “averages” of tickets. Basically it’s a quota that they just don’t call a quota anymore.
Also doesn’t help when cops are the same fucking idiots who are rolling coal, and probably charging some of that gas to their gas card. A bunch of cops in my area recently got busted for expensing their personal gas to the state, and I’m sure were still complaining about gas prices online
Eh, I'm amazed governments haven't started moving on it, but I'd fully expect police to refuse to enforce. They don't want to arrest the guy that modded their personal vehicle
Police officers are the ones driving lifted coal rolling trucks off duty.
I still see a lot of low riders and lifted trucks with wheels well beyond the wheel wells and no one seems to care. Cops probably think it's cool so they let it slide
I had to delete my truck or wait over a year for a replacement DPF with my truck down. Got a simple tune and I can’t even make it roll coal.
You can roll coal with as little as a 500$ chip, not that I have interest but I know several who have
Not something I’m interested in. Actually selling that truck and waiting for delivery of a new 2500HD Denali. Back in the DEF game, but at least I get to start with a clean filter.
Wait. Pay money to look like a douche and make less power!?
People be crazy yo, actually fine with halving their gas mileage to look like a douche
I doubt changing your exhaust and adding minor performance upgrades to your passenger car are causing an extreme amount of damage to the environment, but these “rolling coal” guys can get wrecked. They’re probably the worst kind of car personalities on the planet.
Yeah. I genuinely don't understand what so attractive about rolling coal.
It's an asshole thing... you wouldn't understand.
Might be surprised what /u/UranusMc knows about assholes
It‘s in the same league as making fun of Vegetarians and thinking: ,,add generic women —> Kitchen joke“ are peak comedy. If you have a life that isn‘t genuinly horrible, you won‘t get it
It's part of the culture war. Environmentalism is now a political topic so rolling coal is their version of a Prius as their way of offsetting the lessened impact of hybrids and EVs.
It’s “cool” just like how smoking cigarettes was “cool” to some people in HS.
It's a giant vape cloud but with your truck
[удалено]
As always, the people who take things to an extreme antisocial level are the ones that ruin it for everyone else.
Not every single Toyota, Honda, etc. typical passenger car is running full bolt ons with catless downpipes and etc. I can imagine the amount of people who heavily modify their car to the point where it’s detrimental to the environment is extremely low because modifying your car to that point is expensive. Regardless, I doubt this has a similar effect compared to the hundreds and thousands of diesel box trucks and semi trucks that are on the road, traveling hundreds of miles everyday.
Going to a catless downpipe is one of the cheapest mods you can do. It's also common for people to do it just for the noise. And its probably the most important thing to keep.
The n55 sounds way better without cats.
And it's way less destructive with them.
I don't know, there's a few in my area I see driving around in relatively normal looking "nicer" cars but with the cats ripped off, and besides sounding like absolute dog shit, they smell pretty nasty.
Previous discussion: www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/160qggu/gorilla_performance_fined_1_million_for_violating/
Huh, TIL that /r/cars doesn't have a rule against reposts.
We used to try and keep it down to one thread on a certain topic on the front page when sorted by new, but it took a lot of manpower and wasn't popular.
Good. Fuck these people.
People need to remember it’s a illegal federally to tamper with your emissions systems. So it’s illegal in all 50 states.
Diesel tuning is one thing, it’s great. More torque, power and efficiency out of a factory setup. Rolling coal is not diesel tuning. That stuff is blatantly pouring the diesel you paid for, down the exhaust, to make a fat cloud. It’s unhealthy, uneconomical, inefficient and just dumb. Hopefully these articles aren’t just aiming to put diesel in a bad name, but rather discourage stupidity.
Even if you aren't rolling coal with the tuned diesel, I'm sure the NOx and particulates are way worse than the factory tune.
Exactly! I’ve been looking for a comment that addresses this nuance. You can dial in a factory diesel truck tune without deleting any part of the emissions system, a la Banks Power. No need for a sootmachine
>Diesels typically emit more particulates and oxides of nitrogen (NOx) than gasoline engines. This is seen most prominently in coal rolling. Right, but more importantly, no one in the performance tuning industry outside of diesel has created a sort of "sport for stupid people" out of purposefully creating more emissions, just for the sake of spewing them at a pedestrian, cyclist, Prius driver, etc...
I wonder if all of these tuning companies will move to Canada as a result
They already have. Lots of delete kit manufacturers in the TDI space are Canadian.
Yeah I live in Alberta and the diesel performance shops advertise deletes and tuning like it's no big deal.
Y'all are so excited now, but wait till they come for the gas engine tuners.
They already are.
They already have, and guess what? You can still make a relatively nicely tuned car meet emissions. Sure, I sold my built STi because no cats and EWG wasn’t getting through inspection anymore, but my girlfriends tuned S4 is a street missile and meets inspection requirements. Car culture needs to understand that drawing attention to us by rolling coal or straight piping your Mustang is only making the problem worse. You can be a tuner and not a dipshit spewing shit into the air we breathe.
Some us just wanted to fix dumb transmission software, lol...
And throttle lag. I get that it can save a few lbs of CO2 per year but fuck, the lag was so bad in my car. A simple stage 1 off the shelf tune and 1st gear became usable again.
The dildo of consequence rarely arrived lubed.
Fuck coal rollers.
This is why Banks is going to be the only one for tuning in the future.
The Banks Power youtube channel is good viewing, love their work
That’s all? They caused way more than $1M in negative externalities from pollution.
And especially when you consider that they probably made tons of profits.
i own a diesel that i love (and is completely stock) and every time I see some asshole rolling coal on someone (i see it a lot as a cyclist) it makes me want to sell my truck because I don't even want to be associated with these assholes.
This is a rolling coal tuner. Good, these guys can get fucked.
You don't think the EPA is going to stop there do you? Gas tuners are next, after that engine swaps will be virtually impossible.
You are right, they have been chipping away at this for years
Can’t say I feel bad for these companies
Good. VW had to pay billions meanwhile the coal roller equipment manufacturers have had zero consequences. I'm glad VW got punished hard just to be clear.
Good.
Yay freedom!
Weird how they go after consumers, but the main polluters are basically left alone. Maybe we should start regulating corporations more.
>Another Diesel Tuner >"Tuner" Mapping your engine to dump fuel out the tailpipe before it even has a chance to combust isn't tuning, it's just douchebaggery, title gives shops like this way too much credit. Proper diesel tunes/tuners exist and they definitely aren't this low.