Diagnostic and ECU remapping tools

[JagCH]

Hi everyone,

I have recently bought a second hand X-Type 2.5 l, which I absolutely adore.

Since it is a love affair, I was considering getting some tools:
An ODB diagnostic tool (I saw some interesting ones in the Gendan website)
Maybe an ECU remapping interface.

Do you have some experience with the above for Jags? Recomendations?

Thanks a ton!

[J44EAG]

The Club ran a diagnostic seminar earlier this year with David Marks and Andy Stoddart leading the session. Both experts in their fields.

This full blown and in depth session included various items of diagnostic equipment from various manufacturers. Some of the kit demonstrated was more successful than others.

The one thing that came across to all those present is that diagnostic and remapping proceedures are a subject for experienced professionals.

Sure you can buy a few pieces of cheap kit on the net and use a general file to mod your car yourself. You may hit lucky with how it goes in practice. I would suggest that you are more likely to damage your engine through well meaning but misguided attempts to mod your car ecu`s. Unless you are an expert who has some professional training with such matters, you could be digging yourself a huge hole. It will be easy to fall into the trap. Getting out again could be a different story.

I run a Paramount moded 4 litre S-type. The modifications were documented in my article published in our magazine, I think fom memory in July 2009. The remap was a professional modification tuned to my individual engine on a rolling road at the Paramount workshop in Slough. Racing Green Cars Ltd near Guildford offer a similar service. With a K&N filter, ecu mod and a big bore exhaust, I`ve gained a useful 30hp and an engine that runs freely within safe limits.

The link here is loaded with good advice. Although written predominently for a diesel market, the advice contained therein holds good for petrol vehicles also.

http://www.evolutionchips.co.uk/remap_c ... 2AodCnu60A

My advice would be to leave this work to those knowledgable in such matters. Each to his own and buyer beware come to mind as appropriate phrases here, I think.

Mike Kennedy. S-type Co-ordinator

[JagCH]

Thanks a ton for the advise, Mike.

This full blown and in depth session included various items of diagnostic equipment from various manufacturers. Some of the kit demonstrated was more successful than others.

You happen to remember what were the ones that were working better?

The one thing that came across to all those present is that diagnostic and remapping proceedures are a subject for experienced professionals.

For the "tuning" itself, I wanted to have that done by a professional since I've never done it on an EFI engine myself.

However, I wanted to be able to swap between maps (orig. and tuned), since the MoT test in Switzerland is quite tough (the car must, besides respecting the limits, keep the same values measured in the previous ones to within a couple of PPM).

Concerning the diagnostic equipment, mainly I want to be able to check that I'm not being "ripped off" by the garage (the car's in Poland, and just as an example, even the official Jaguar garage is not trustworthy - when they changed the seals on the transfer case, they told me that they had checked and adjusted the geometry, and an independent test showed that they did not).

[J44EAG]

Autologic and Jaguar WDS were obviously as expected. You would have to buy professional hardware and software and the cost would more than you will want to spend. Such equipment does not come cheap and you get what you pay for. Add to that annual fees to the software providers and the whole idea of economic top quality diagnostics, goes out of the window. You will find it more cost effective to take your car for diagnosis to a well equiped garage who know what they are doing.

Diagnostic gear only gives a lead where a fault may lay. Failure of several items at once makes trouble shooting easier. Even then you will need to obtain precise electrical diagrams for your car which again reguire electronic software download as hard copy is no longer used by service establishments. Again obtaining that information will cost you money.

It would be wrong for me to advise which commercial units were not successful at the seminar. I could lay myself open for legal deformation if I were to so do.

My V8 shows no difference in particulate output at MOT time. This is partially due to improved performance of the oxygen Lamda sensor control which is more tightly managed by the reflashed ecu software program. I personally doubt whether your vehicle inspectors would be able to detect that you had modded the ecu flash software program. The only real give away would be the faster response of the Lamda sensors and to detect that the tester would have to have another otherwise idential car alongside with which to compare.

It is not feasable to load and unload flash uprates or derates unless you have the correct professional equipment. You may consider holding two ecu units but changing between the two could be very involved. Similarly without professional knowledge you would be hard pushed to know what you were looking at with a simple cheap code reader as far as looking at what your garage may or may not have done to your car.

Rather than use a poor quality garage, my personal opinion is to take the car to a decent garage, rather than entrust your car to people who you are unhappy or hesitant about doing business.

Messing with the electronics on modern cars is unrealistic. The cars and the maintenance/mods equipment is high tech as is the knowledge needed to adjust or interogate such systems.

I would strongly advise against attempting to modify programme software yourself. You could easily end up with a disaster which may be impossible to unravel even with subsiquent professional help. I can`t put it more plainly than that!

If you really do want to modify your X-type or any other vehicle, I suggest you take the car to a specialist tuner who will be able to improve your car performance without destroying values that you need to preserve.

Mike

[SV8Predator]

It would be wrong for me to advise which commercial units were not successful at the seminar. I could lay myself open for legal deformation if I were to so do.

Hopefully you won't become too deformed if you give us a 'heads-up' on the good, bad and indifferent units. I (for one) would be very interested in this information.

The magazines publish this sort of info every issue in their product tests.

So come on, out with it!

(and you won't be at risk of legal action!)

[J44EAG]

OK. We could not get the Gendon units to talk to our cars. However a professional package on a laptop and an Autologic unit worked well.

That is how it went on the day.

A well known and close friend of mine had a go at J44 with several of the diagnostic units. Fortunately even he was not able to do any damage but his mustache subsequently fell off. Must have been the stress of the moment.

Joking apart, what we did find was that the more money spent on the tooling, the more useful the result. There is a world of difference between a simple code reader and a full blown diagnostic unit.

What would be useful would be inbuilt/onboard diagnostic equipment that could enable an owner to interrogate his own car. Sadly, I think that unlikely to ever happen.

Take a look on the S-type BB also on the subject. I have put a fair bit on about ecu mods there.

Mike