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Tuning i20N Engine & ECU Tuning Discussion

But will it brick the ECU too?

It has to be so that you can reinstate the stock tune and then flash the tune back yourself or it's a waste of time. That's what I had to do with my MX-5 ND 2L and I used to sweat each time in case it messed up.
I don't know but why would you need an ECU flash from the dealer? There's only rev hang active recall
 
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I don't know but why would you need an ECU flash from the dealer? There's only rev hang active recall
Updates are getting more common as the ECU's get more complex. They will install any updates at a service and you wont know until it's too late.

My stock tune was saved before the modified one was entered. If you don't have that ability then the company that tunes it will have to do it for you and will charge.

The important thing to do is to ask what happens if the dealer updates the ECU program? You can tell the dealer and the engine/drivetrain warranty is gone and they will hopefully not update the ECU.
 
So Klasen Motors in germany who work with Courtenay sport in the UK have started stage 3 (hybrid turbo) testing, from what i can gather from their youtube videos they've only changed the compressor wheel to avoid housing changes.

First posted test results are 282ps, 405nm with a larger compressor wheel (torque seems to be being limited for the clutch, pretty standard so far by the looks of it, MT had torque at 430nm for the initial stage 2 development but it was capped at 410 for clutch and engine safety) 1.57bar pretty much held flat from 3k rpm onward and more than 1.2 bar at redline, very promising considering the stock turbo is so bad!

Screenshot_20241017_133012_Instagram.jpg
 
RPM Performance, decent price, does the job and a stealth option is available!
Stealth surely helps, plus they have resonated or not, so I guess it is a good option! Any difference between resonated or not? Does the resonated one still bring benefits on sound and exhaust flow?
 
Stealth surely helps, plus they have resonated or not, so I guess it is a good option! Any difference between resonated or not? Does the resonated one still bring benefits on sound and exhaust flow?
res just brings the sound down, i don't think you're feeling the difference in power between res and non res, if you're after the car just being ASBO loud, non res is the option but res will save your ears on long drives and at the top end of the revs
 
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I see no comments at all concerning how many engines have been broken during this process. Furthermore, if programmers wont find the binary code which reduces power and modify it, no matter how boost and ignition you put to the ecu maps, car will bring the power down. As far as i can tell, the upgrated turbo , according feature specs, can produce around 320 hp. But this will never happen, if they dont find and modify the safety feature code which restricts the power and torgue gains, no matter what the programmer writtes to the ignition, boost and air fuel ration maps.
Recently i wrote a post and adviced someone from this forum, not to become the guinea pig, as i am sure that more engines will break. i hope he heard my advice and he is not one among thr users of the broken i20n engines. Patience is a virtue.
Last but not least, in my annual 1 year service, the teck guy read my ECU and told me that from now on they gonna do the same so as to decline a warranty for every car they find that is on modify ecu.
 
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I see no comments at all concerning how many engines have been broken during this process. Furthermore, if programmers wont find the binary code which reduces power and modify it, no matter how boost and ignition you put to the ecu maps, car will bring the power down. As far as i can tell, the upgrated turbo , according feature specs, can produce around 320 hp. But this will never happen, if they dont find and modify the safety feature code which restricts the power and torgue gains, no matter what the programmer writtes to the ignition, boost and air fuel ration maps.
Recently i wrote a post and adviced someone from this forum, not to become the guinea pig, as i am sure that more engines will break. i hope he heard my advice and he is not one among thr users of the broken i20n engines. Patience is a virtue.
Last but not least, in my annual 1 year service, the teck guy read my ECU and told me that from now on they gonna do the same so as to decline a warranty for every car they find that is on modify ecu.
there's only one way to find limits, unfortunately that is by hitting them. torque and power limiter maps relating to high EGT's and the torque limiter map are accessible and have been altered because the cars do pull boost and power at high EGT's, you can see that happen in Misha's video on a racechip'd car, but hopefully, considering these maps have been tested for thousands of miles by numerous tuners, they'd have run in to a further "power pulling" map by now.

ECU remapping voids basically every single manufacturer warranty, unfortunately that's nothing that was unexpected.

Hybrid turbo looks promising, what's more concerning than any potential power/torque limiting maps is the strength of the internals, if they're anything like the i30N, they're pretty strong and can take nearly 2x the standard power but that's to be determined i guess.

Only time will tell what the car can do and what limits it'll run into, a lot of companies offering this all over EU now, a lot of dedicated N tuners are happy with the results and although the small turbo restriction is a shame, it's impressive enough that further revisions of remaps including upgrades relating to intake and IAT cooling have seen a safe 260hp, 410nm!
 
I see no comments at all concerning how many engines have been broken during this process. Furthermore, if programmers wont find the binary code which reduces power and modify it, no matter how boost and ignition you put to the ecu maps, car will bring the power down. As far as i can tell, the upgrated turbo , according feature specs, can produce around 320 hp. But this will never happen, if they dont find and modify the safety feature code which restricts the power and torgue gains, no matter what the programmer writtes to the ignition, boost and air fuel ration maps.
Recently i wrote a post and adviced someone from this forum, not to become the guinea pig, as i am sure that more engines will break. i hope he heard my advice and he is not one among thr users of the broken i20n engines. Patience is a virtue.
Last but not least, in my annual 1 year service, the teck guy read my ECU and told me that from now on they gonna do the same so as to decline a warranty for every car they find that is on modify ecu.
As ever you make some very pertinent points. As of yet I don’t believe any engines have been broken but it’s only a matter of time if people are determined to chase high power levels.
Apparently the safety code you mention has now been found and ‘modified’ to allow the upgraded turbo to achieve over 300bhp. The big question now is how well does the engine survive generating 50%+ bhp. It’s one thing to do it for a few seconds sprint on a dyno and another altogether out on the track or open road.
Regarding the dealership scanning the ECU you surprise me as U.K. dealers seem to have little or no interest in this. Indeed, I’m not even sure they have the capability to scan the ECU for this kind of issue.
Personally, I need to know a whole lot more about the modified turbo route before I am willing to commit to such a thing.
 
As ever you make some very pertinent points. As of yet I don’t believe any engines have been broken but it’s only a matter of time if people are determined to chase high power levels.
Apparently the safety code you mention has now been found and ‘modified’ to allow the upgraded turbo to achieve over 300bhp. The big question now is how well does the engine survive generating 50%+ bhp. It’s one thing to do it for a few seconds sprint on a dyno and another altogether out on the track or open road.
Regarding the dealership scanning the ECU you surprise me as U.K. dealers seem to have little or no interest in this. Indeed, I’m not even sure they have the capability to scan the ECU for this kind of issue.
Personally, I need to know a whole lot more about the modified turbo route before I am willing to commit to such a thing.
Classen states clearly at 9.13 minutes in his video that he is not allowed to say, but he has broken at least 3? engines by himself in his programming career (i have heard of more but i am not allowed to say either).
The main problem is that people continue to believe that this ecu is the same as the other N ecus (for example i30ns) BUT IT IS NOT!! I have check and warn people many times, that this ecu is totally different from every other ecu i have seen and if tunners try to program with the "classical" way, many many engines will get destroyed and nobody will give you money back to fix them.
i am not selling anything or try to make a profit here. i just use my knowledge to make some warnings based on my proffesional experience so people wont break their cars.
Last but not least, to find limits is good, but i would go the other way round.
Before i altered the ignition and boost maps only to find out on the dyno that ecu is pulling ignition and boost, i would have first searched in the binary code with reverse engineering to find the hex address where the ecu is being programmed to make the safety checks, thus reduce the power, before programming the ignition and boost maps. I strongly believe thats the right way to move forward.
 
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Classen states clearly at 9.13 minutes in his video that he is not allowed to say, but he has broken at least 3? engines by himself in his programming career (i have heard of more but i am not allowed to say either).
The main problem is that people continue to believe that this ecu is the same as the other N ecus (for example i30ns) BUT IT IS NOT!! I have check and warn people many times, that this ecu is totally different from every other ecu i have seen and if tunners try to program with the "classical" way, many many engines will get destroyed and nobody will give you money back to fix them.
i am not selling anything or try to make a profit here. i just use my knowledge to make some warnings based on my proffesional experience so people wont break their cars.
Last but not least, to find limits is good, but i would go the other way round.
Before i altered the ignition and boost maps only to find out on the dyno that ecu is pulling ignition and boost, i would have first searched in the binary code with reverse engineering to find the hex address where the ecu is being programmed to make the safety checks, thus reduce the power, before programming the ignition and boost maps. I strongly believe thats the right way to move forward.
I highly doubt any reputable tuner is just blasting straight past safety limits or we'd have seen these cars popping like champagne bottles... it seems we're well past the initial development stage on this variation of the Kefico CPEGD 3.20.1 and there's a near complete damos file to read the original calibration file. Although it may very well be different from other ECU's it is certainly mappable and it is also certainly safe because otherwise there's numerous reputable tuning companies across europe and australia putting their livelihood on the line.

I can tell you i know 3 of the people with UK "test" cars or cars that have had the customer available remap applied and they've had no issues, they've all had the work done at different locations with years of tuning experience. One was remapped at K-tec to what you'd refer to as stage 1, One at big fish garage to stage 2, another at TRS performance to stage 2. 1000's of miles of testing, 1000's of miles of real world use and reputable tuners offering this remap to the public begs the question: if it was so unsafe, would they not have gone bang by now?

Let me also reiterate, I DO NOT STAND TO GAIN ANYTHING FROM MY OPINION AND I AM NOT BEING PAID BY ANY COMPANIES TO PUSH THEIR AGENDA

I won't argue if you continue to disagree since you're an expert or whatever but it's evidently something that can be, has been and will continue to be done, safely 🤷🏼
 
Classen states clearly at 9.13 minutes in his video that he is not allowed to say, but he has broken at least 3? engines by himself in his programming career (i have heard of more but i am not allowed to say either).
The main problem is that people continue to believe that this ecu is the same as the other N ecus (for example i30ns) BUT IT IS NOT!! I have check and warn people many times, that this ecu is totally different from every other ecu i have seen and if tunners try to program with the "classical" way, many many engines will get destroyed and nobody will give you money back to fix them.
i am not selling anything or try to make a profit here. i just use my knowledge to make some warnings based on my proffesional experience so people wont break their cars.
Last but not least, to find limits is good, but i would go the other way round.
Before i altered the ignition and boost maps only to find out on the dyno that ecu is pulling ignition and boost, i would have first searched in the binary code with reverse engineering to find the hex address where the ecu is being programmed to make the safety checks, thus reduce the power, before programming the ignition and boost maps. I strongly believe thats the right way to move forward.
Oh yes, I do remember him saying that about broken engines - I was only referring to i20N engines. As to the rest, well I too have heard that the i20N ECU software is laid out quite differently and your logic sounds good to me - though I do not claim any expertise in this field.
 
I highly doubt any reputable tuner is just blasting straight past safety limits or we'd have seen these cars popping like champagne bottles... it seems we're well past the initial development stage on this variation of the Kefico CPEGD 3.20.1 and there's a near complete damos file to read the original calibration file. Although it may very well be different from other ECU's it is certainly mappable and it is also certainly safe because otherwise there's numerous reputable tuning companies across europe and australia putting their livelihood on the line.

I can tell you i know 3 of the people with UK "test" cars or cars that have had the customer available remap applied and they've had no issues, they've all had the work done at different locations with years of tuning experience. One was remapped at K-tec to what you'd refer to as stage 1, One at big fish garage to stage 2, another at TRS performance to stage 2. 1000's of miles of testing, 1000's of miles of real world use and reputable tuners offering this remap to the public begs the question: if it was so unsafe, would they not have gone bang by now?

Let me also reiterate, I DO NOT STAND TO GAIN ANYTHING FROM MY OPINION AND I AM NOT BEING PAID BY ANY COMPANIES TO PUSH THEIR AGENDA

I won't argue if you continue to disagree since you're an expert or whatever but it's evidently something that can be, has been and will continue to be done, safely 🤷🏼
i have seen with my own eyes many cars popping like champagne bootles in the past, programmed by many respectable companies, so this is not new to me. Furthermore , you should realize by now, that one common strategy in ecu programming all over the world is that the map file is developed from one company and being distributed to the others. You have ALREADY evidence that this happens with classen and courtney, as with dte germany and Dtuk etc etc
I have check the binary code of many "different" respectable companies in many programmed cars and some are EXACTLY the same. That means that one has develop the program and distributes it to the others. Binary check means to check 01010101 all over the ecu (more than 1.000.000 binary digits all in the same place, are all the same, so no binary change at all proves that it is a copy of one another.
Another thing is very obvious to me is that in such type of ecus like i20n which are parametrical with sensors, which do not put steady values to maps, but gather data from sensors to decide what numbers to give based on parametrical functions, actual difference between a parallel ecu like dte or racechip and remap is minimal.
For example stage one dte and racechip, produce around 240ps, and stage two around 250 ps(we have measure many many cars by now). When stage 1 remap gives 240 and stage 2 remap gives 256, you can see that differences are minimal, and you should wonder if 6-10 more horsepower in stage 2, worths loosing the warranty of the car and the possibility to break the engine - but this is a personal risk people take for themselves.
Last but not least, i have a feeling that by only changing the turbo of the car, the parametrical ecu will compensate and produce horsepower and torgue figures very close to the achieved one by classen. So many times, the most simple solution, which is in front of your eyes (just modify the stock turbo), because of the parametrical nature of the i20n ecu, can be proved wise, unbreakable and very efficient.
Finnaly i would like to ask, do you know if tuners can reverse back the ecu into stock form?
 
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