blitz jam mines etc ecus what the big £ about

weeJohn

Lifer
Mostly everyone has made good points here, and not all of them or wrong and not all of them are right in my opinion. There is no point in fitting a 2 grand ECU and getting a monkey to set it up, and anyone looking a big bhp figure then go to a shit dyno and get one. BHP is not everything as Rory said, after my last changes to my set up my peak bhp dropped but the car is running nearly 0.5 seconds faster up the quarter mile. I will take the faster times thanks very much.

I had a Blitz Acess ECU on my car for many years, I was able to change my set up and "reset" the ecu each time myself which suited me as I like to try things not in the mainstream so there was no guarantee it would improve things. It made 248.2 bhp on a good dyno here. Once I got a set up I thought worked well I got a Power FC and paid a reputable tuner here £350 to map it. The car ran well and I used a little less fuel but when I took it to the same dyno it made............... 248.4bhp!!

To say I felt like dragging him out of his shop and giving him a good kicking was an understatement, I wanted his balls!! After some time I asked him out of interest how much he would charge for a tweak if I changed my set up and he was after another £300!!!

Point I am making here is this, if you DONT have access to a good mapper, who wont pull your trunks down and ass rape you every time you want him to change a few things then the Blitz/Jam/cruise/Mines ecu have a place on your car if you dont have a mental set up. Chris has mapped many cars on here and great results for their owners without charging an arm and a leg, at the minute I would not entertain one of theses ecus as I can use and abuse him but I dont think I would be prepared to fork out the sort of money these tuners are expecting for a few hours work.
 
Mostly everyone has made good points here, and not all of them or wrong and not all of them are right in my opinion. There is no point in fitting a 2 grand ECU and getting a monkey to set it up, and anyone looking a big bhp figure then go to a shit dyno and get one. BHP is not everything as Rory said, after my last changes to my set up my peak bhp dropped but the car is running nearly 0.5 seconds faster up the quarter mile. I will take the faster times thanks very much.

I had a Blitz Acess ECU on my car for many years, I was able to change my set up and "reset" the ecu each time myself which suited me as I like to try things not in the mainstream so there was no guarantee it would improve things. It made 248.2 bhp on a good dyno here. Once I got a set up I thought worked well I got a Power FC and paid a reputable tuner here £350 to map it. The car ran well and I used a little less fuel but when I took it to the same dyno it made............... 248.4bhp!!

To say I felt like dragging him out of his shop and giving him a good kicking was an understatement, I wanted his balls!! After some time I asked him out of interest how much he would charge for a tweak if I changed my set up and he was after another £300!!!

Point I am making here is this, if you DONT have access to a good mapper, who wont pull your trunks down and ass rape you every time you want him to change a few things then the Blitz/Jam/cruise/Mines ecu have a place on your car if you dont have a mental set up. Chris has mapped many cars on here and great results for their owners without charging an arm and a leg, at the minute I would not entertain one of theses ecus as I can use and abuse him but I dont think I would be prepared to fork out the sort of money these tuners are expecting for a few hours work.


A point I made earlier but you may not have seen, do you have any idea how much a dyno costs? Aside from that though, you made a very good point, I don't agree with the way that SOME tuners charge the same to 'tweak' your setup after forking out a few hundred euro to initially tune the car to them but that is more like bad after sales service than anything else.

You kind of contradicted yourself when you said that you said "BHP is not everything as Rory said, after my last changes to my set up my peak bhp dropped but the car is running nearly 0.5 seconds faster up the quarter mile. I will take the faster times thanks very much." and then later you said "Once I got a set up I thought worked well I got a Power FC and paid a reputable tuner here £350 to map it. The car ran well and I used a little less fuel but when I took it to the same dyno it made............... 248.4bhp!! To say I felt like dragging him out of his shop and giving him a good kicking was an understatement, I wanted his balls!!"

Could you clarify what you mean? If the car ran better and used less fuel then he obviously mapped the car better than the map on the Blitz access. Are you complaining about the cost of the job or what?
 
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Chris@CCM

Member +
lol, i looked at one of the local lads map on the emanage that some one done in north(i nearly sure it was you) and it was set as yaris on the emanage and the timing map had values of 0 all over it, it was still running stock timing, so it was only fueling sorted(it was fueling very good in fairnes), but how do you justify spending all that money just to raise the fueling? i mean self learning will do same trick and even more with costing les even at 600 pounds
If it was me the engine must have Been knocking if I added more timing at full load if u add timing in low down with emu it can make the car missfire at times (y I don't like emu all that much )
 
What i want to know is,how come knowbody across here has tried to hack these ecu's?
They wont be locked,and if the likes of Mines Jam etc can recalibrate them,then surely a electronics boffin hear could do the same.
Anyone hear good with the electronics? :haha:

Also just for the record,in my opinion my bros car went alot better with the Mines ecu @ 1.2.bar than it has with any map on his Emu or PFC.
Me preferably would have a fully mappable ecu just for safetys sake.Wouldnt want to spend your hard earned just to have it blow up with a stab in the dark ecu.

Murray

You can't recalibrate a Starlet ECU. JAM or Blitz or even Toyota themselves can't recalibrate them once the chip is written it cannot be erased. (Not an eprom)

Most other manufactures leave their ECUs open to updates / calibration incase they need done but Toyota put the R&D into their ECUs and were confident that they will never need recalibrated up until approx year 2000 when it became a law that all car manufactures must leave their ECUs open for updating.

JAM / Blitz replace the daughter board when they upgrade these ECUs. Its not as simple as soldering in an eprom chip and uploading a file onto it.
 
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Murray

Member +
You can't recalibrate a Starlet ECU. JAM or Blitz or even Toyota themselves can't recalibrate them once the chip is written it cannot be erased. (Not an eprom)

Most other manufactures leave their ECUs open to updates / calibration incase they need done but Toyota put the R&D into their ECUs and were confident that they will never need recalibrated up until approx year 2000 when it became a law that all car manufactures must leave their ECUs open for updating.

JAM / Blitz replace the daughter board when they upgrade these ECUs. Its not as simple as soldering in an eprom chip and uploading a file onto it.

Alrighty then,thats a bugger for you toyota drivers then.

Murray
 

J25GTi

Lifer
I drive my peugeot more than my starlet!

For the money, pnp ecus aren't worth the effort when you can get a standalone or piggy back for the same price.

If they were cheaper I imagine they would be worth while using for some peoples set ups!
 

Murray

Member +
the website you are on is called toyotagtturbo - everyone has a toyota mate

Really? i didnt know that.:confused:
I drive a honda,and because i said you toyota drivers,your getting your keks in a twist?:haha:
What i meant was its a shame you lot cant get the same sort of systems that the honda/nissan people can get.remappable stock ecu's.
Thats why i asked my initial qeustion.
Clearer for you?

Murray
 

sx_turbo

Lifer
yeah it is a piss take that toyota owners dont have the same luxury oof reprogramable ecu's,

i'm sure it would have been available over here in time like the jap boy's offer, but unfortunately toyota decided to shut down the firm that cracked the ecu's which is rather flaming anoying.

if i'm honest i'm surprised no one else has bothered cracking them, but i suppose with so many aftermarket ecu's now available there probably isnt much point in doing so.
 

corofin12345

Member +
isnt chris in the middle of doin some plug and play ecu's? at the end of the day id go for any of these ecu's over a fcd setup.. i guess its down to the fact that down here there isnt many places you can go to to get it set up "RIGHT".. i had a look at 2 glanzsa this week and both were knocking and low and beyond they were running fcd's and both people brought their cars to 2 different places to get set up "RIGHT" or so they thought.. at the end of the day if you were to go with a fcd setup and get it running properly ud have yourself one of these ecu's for less money imo
 

Rory

Lifer
He is, but will need mapped to suit ;)

isnt chris in the middle of doin some plug and play ecu's? at the end of the day id go for any of these ecu's over a fcd setup.. i guess its down to the fact that down here there isnt many places you can go to to get it set up "RIGHT".. i had a look at 2 glanzsa this week and both were knocking and low and beyond they were running fcd's and both people brought their cars to 2 different places to get set up "RIGHT" or so they thought.. at the end of the day if you were to go with a fcd setup and get it running properly ud have yourself one of these ecu's for less money imo
 

weeJohn

Lifer
A point I made earlier but you may not have seen, do you have any idea how much a dyno costs? Aside from that though, you made a very good point, I don't agree with the way that SOME tuners charge the same to 'tweak' your setup after forking out a few hundred euro to initially tune the car to them but that is more like bad after sales service than anything else.

He road mapped the car, no dyno was involved, I am well aware of the costs to buy and run a dyno. The ECU was bought second hand so it already had a map in it for a TD04, a map that he did. 2 hours work on the motorway and then stop for lunch, then a 15 minute check afterwards. Personally I think he did alright out of me first go, and asking for that ammount for a tweak is a bit crass, dont you?



You kind of contradicted yourself when you said that you said "BHP is not everything as Rory said, after my last changes to my set up my peak bhp dropped but the car is running nearly 0.5 seconds faster up the quarter mile. I will take the faster times thanks very much." and then later you said "Once I got a set up I thought worked well I got a Power FC and paid a reputable tuner here £350 to map it. The car ran well and I used a little less fuel but when I took it to the same dyno it made............... 248.4bhp!! To say I felt like dragging him out of his shop and giving him a good kicking was an understatement, I wanted his balls!!"

Could you clarify what you mean? If the car ran better and used less fuel then he obviously mapped the car better than the map on the Blitz access. Are you complaining about the cost of the job or what?

The car ran equally well on the Blitz, the point I was making by saying it ran well was to point out he had not put a bad map on it.

I am complaining about having forked out over £800 for an ECU and map that was promised to produce more power, by the tuner, than the Blitz. I am prepared to pay for more fuel if there is a power gain to go with it, if I had wanted to save on fuel and not have any better power then I could have went in other directions at less cost.
 
so yes pnp ecus are priced a bit too much if they go past the £300 mark (altough i paid £450 for mine)! but as many stated they are gd for what they are and can work with the correct setup.
 

Paddy

Lifer
i have a jam ecu on my glanza, i am very happy with it, runs alot better than having the stock ecu. the reason i opted for one over emanage is because i wanted something simple and not have to worry about mapping or anything, i fueled fine on a stock ct9 and now running a hybrid ct9 and it also fuels it fine. its a good bit of hassle free kit, plus when u sell the car u can sell it for what u paid for it, its like putting £500 in the bank but getting some fun out of it :)
 

hardcoreep

Member +
well thats wrong
1: The eManage BLUE has no provision inside its software to RAISE the rev limiter or ELIMINATE speed cut. If it does please show me where is can do these things. These features are only available in the eManage Ultimate which offers two modes of speed cut and rev limiter increase.

300whp from a ecu that was not mapped or set up on the car ? Even if that was true it sounds soooooo silly to do that big big risks being taking there , what map sensor was used ? If the stock sensor can only read up to 1.2 bar ish how on earth could u get 300whp from it ?
http://hardcore.ep91.com/features_nrhone.html - Please use shockwave or flash to view.

The car had a MINE'S ECU using a SAFC. As for the MAP sensor. Jim Wolf told me a long time ago how things work. Your car doesn't turn stupid after you've passed the MAP sensor data. What happens is that it uses the last fueling value that was stored. So if your car is running 10.1 afr after 15psi it would theoretically continue to do so until the afrs lean back out. Therefore it was a simple job to run the car SUPER RICH and then use the SAFC to turn down the fuel at the lower rpms. Having a larger MAP sensor just means you're able to put values for what ever boost level you're running. I've run up to 22psi on the stock MAP sensor. With my Access running afrs of 10.5 at redline it was not an issue to turn boost up to 19psi as the extra air just leans out the mixture. Also, since you're reducing the MAP sensor signal with the SAFC you can run more boost.

Hardcore how can you say this though? Have you tested more than one ECU from each tuner? Surely all the Mines ECUs are not mapped the same, as for the BLITZ and JAM ECUs, they are all mapped for individual cars over in Japan are they not?
Yes I have tested more than 1 ECU from each tuner. They are not all mapped individually. The majority of them are not custom mapped. Those that are custom mapped generally have what they've been remapped for written on them. ie a basic Access remapped for a K1-200v will say that on it. As for remapping, its not guess work. JDM tuners spend a lot of time running around Tsukuba circuit with different set ups to get at least a base idea of how the car will behave with whatever turbocharger you have on. They load that data, along with some safety margins to the modifications you have. This is no different than what Jim Wolf does. If you tell him the modifications, exhaust size, cam lift/duration, etc he will send you an ECU with a MAP that will make sure your car will run properly.

Also what experiences do you have with the other plug and play ECUs out there such as TOMS
ECUs I've used are BLITZ Access, TOM's TECS, JAM, MINE'S, SKYROAD, TOYOMOTO. I have the manual for my Access. I've opened up both the JAM and the MINE'S. I've met the gentleman that makes SKYROAD, and the several ex-employees of TOYOMOTO are my personal friends + I've spoken extensively with the owner in FL.

so you forked out 500gbp for an ecu with a better fuel map and better timing map... when it was fited to you car you noticed it runs rich.. so thats already on thing gone bad.. you had to buy an safc to trim fueling.. so more money spent... and the worst part is that when you trim fueling with an safc... your altering the ignition map!
You miss the point. Just because the car is running rich doesn't mean its not making power. Mine did. The reason I wanted to tune, is the same reason most people want to trim the fuel. Here's the answer. If your car is making 120hp before the ECU and you add the JDM ECU power will generally increase. Lets say it goes up to 135hp, however since leaner afrs make even more power, a car that already experienced a 15hp gain will surely have further gains when the SAFC is added to lean the fuel curve. This is what happened to me. After fitting the ECU my dyno operator told me that there was easily 16hp left in the car just from slight modifications to the curve.

“For perfect tuning it is necessary to modify the main computer. This is true whether you want to increase or decrease a vehicles performance. Over time a vehicle evolves. There is a tendency to assume that the content of the ECU doesn’t change, but this isn't the case. Both the ECU and the car evolve together. If a vehicle is to be used as a track car at a fixed temperature and air pressure, then it may be possible to use an interchangeable computer. Of course this isn't realistic, as a vehicle will be driven in various conditions throughout the seasons. The only solution is to take the main computer and tune it. This is what we consider to be "Perfect"
This is also a huge point for me and why I was drawn to stay with my Access even after I could afford a standalone. If your driving conditions never change then a standalone is fine. I had an issue with a tuner re a rally car that went to mexico. The tune given to the car was in Jamaican conditions, next to sea level. The rally was in the mountains of mexico and it lost so much power the crew retired. Why, because unless you spend the extra money for a wideband and have a standalone that had a target feature then your settings are more or less permanent. Its up to the dyno tuner to create whatever safety margin for you. I go from sea level to 1 mile high, back to sea level just for work, the time it would take for a tuner to generate such a program would be too expensive. The Access adjusts itself as you drive and after enough trips back and forth it was quite happy.

What i want to know is,how come knowbody across here has tried to hack these ecu's?
They wont be locked,and if the likes of Mines Jam etc can recalibrate them,then surely a electronics boffin hear could do the same.
Anyone hear good with the electronics?
Murray, they ARE LOCKED. The JAM ECU has a decrypter chip on the other side of the board.
 
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