GOLFMK8
GOLFMK7
GOLFMK6
GOLFMKV

Open source tuning solution

J

joedubs

Go Kart Champion
Well folks.... It's almost a reality. Open source tuning for the Simos 18. I'm curious how much interest there is in something like this. Posting in R because we all have the same ecu and the golf section is dead.

In 2020 I had decided to go hybrid + mpi on my sportwagen. I had been holding out for Eurodyne mpi support and by the fall when I had everything installed I was ready to bite the bullet and just go UM. They had a long wait and were really uninterested in discussing things with someone that asks too many questions. While I sat around I started doing some research into how these ecus actually work.

To make a really long story short, by mid October after a lot of trial and error I had enabled the MPI in my Eurodyne tune. I also wrote a 'high speed' logger which runs on a raspberry pi and is started when you enable the cruise control. With the help of a few other people we've enabled native flexfuel, and even modified the application software so true performance flex is possible (ignition and fueling adjustment based on measured ethanol content from a standard flexfuel sensor).

Early on, I had hooked up with the genius behind the Eurodyne Tune Adjuster app (Brian, bri3d), and he's been a MASSIVE help through all of this. He's written a flashing program (available on his GitHub) for flashing the ecu. It works today and it's what I've been using to flash modified calibrations and the modified software.

What open source tuning is NOT:
A replacement tuning option for APR/Cobb/EcuTek/etc customers. It's a DIY option available to those that are looking for more control of their ecu and aren't afraid to do the leg work. Maestro without the limits. JB4 without the piggyback. It's entirely community supported.

What is possible:
Literally anything.

How does it work:
At present, you need to acquire a flash file and apply a patch to it. Then flash it to the ecu. Acquire definitions files (which some of us are working on) for your calibration and modify the calibration accordingly. Flash it to the ECU. Log, rinse, repeat. We based our work on Eurodyne because it's what we had and it's a great tool. Soon that won't be necessary.

Who's this for:
People that want to use and/or contribute to a community supported tuning option. Support the transfer of knowledge. Learn something. If you know assembly or you're familiar with reverse engineering...

Why are you telling me this?
Because with the help of a few really cool people I was able to achieve something really rad and I'm all amped up about it. Thanks @ZuMBLe @aaronc7 @arob157 @Exley @Diggs24 @Hoon @rao
 
FB-GTI

FB-GTI

Ready to race!
Location
MO
Car(s)
VW GTI -> Golf R
Is the open source going to be as easy to use as HP Tuners product?

Pro's and Con's vs HP Tuners?

Seems to me that the larger the pool of people you can involve the better, and I'm wondering if leveraging what HP Tuners has done opens the door to more people versus the pool that know assembly language programming and how to reverse engineer software.
 
aaronc7

aaronc7

Autocross Champion
Location
USA
Car(s)
17 S3
FB-GTI said:
Is the open source going to be as easy to use as HP Tuners product?

Pro's and Con's vs HP Tuners?

Seems to me that the larger the pool of people you can involve the better, and I'm wondering if leveraging what HP Tuners has done opens the door to more people versus the pool that know assembly language programming and how to reverse engineer software.
Click to expand...

A commercial product like HP Tuners does simplify the process a lot. Open source is very powerful and interesting to me, but you're looking at maintaining multiple definition files, the PiCAN logging solution you manually edit some config files to log what you want, you need to know the memory/RAM address of these things, what they are called "not easy plain english names". For those savvy on this kind of stuff, not a big deal, but it's a steep learning curve and honestly many won't be into that. Over time as the open source software gets better / more streamlined this can get better...but it just depends what the devs end up doing.

Versus something like hp tuners-- they maintain all of that back end work and give you a single interface for tuning, logging, etc. Overall more powerful editing and logging software, compare functions, smoothing functions etc all built in. However at this point in time, hp tuners is still missing some important tables and logging values. It should get better over time-- they have been slowly but surely adding things.

Another key difference is HP tuners only allows you to edit the calibration--tables and such in the tune. Open source you're free to edit the Application Software / Operating System (whatever you want to call it), to actually alter the logic. So adding things like full flex fuel with timing/load/boost adjustments is possible. But this isn't exactly a trivial task either...or else everyone would have it by now. For HP tuners, you're at the mercy of the devs to add and implement something like this. They have added Flex fuel for other platforms, so it's possible...but they have a lot of other priorities. The good news is that MPI and basic fuel-only flex fuel is part of the factory logic-- so you can enable that stuff with calibration only changes--so hp tuners is a viable option there.

I could probably ramble on some more, but I'll stop there and hope that helps. I'm currently messing around with hp tuners a lot, but the open source stuff is still very cool and interesting to me and I talk to joedubs almost every day about it. To me, if hp tuners lets me edit any thing in the calibration (it already allows this), and has a good logger/scanner (not quite there yet), it's well worth the $200 license cost if you want to tune yourself. Open source route is very cool, and literally the options are endless, if you're willing to put in the work / take on the learning curve.
 
J

joedubs

Go Kart Champion
FB-GTI said:
Is the open source going to be as easy to use as HP Tuners product?

Pro's and Con's vs HP Tuners?

Seems to me that the larger the pool of people you can involve the better, and I'm wondering if leveraging what HP Tuners has done opens the door to more people versus the pool that know assembly language programming and how to reverse engineer software.
Click to expand...

"Easy to use" is relative I guess. Right now, no. Hptuners has an expensive commercial product that's been developed and matured over a number of years. We're editing in TunerPro and flashing using a command line instead of clicking a button on a GUI. Hptuners is an AWESOME platform and some of what we want applies there as well (i.e. @aaronc7 's mpi came about from the modifications I had made on my sportwagen). Hptuners also isn't available for all the cars in the platform.

Reverse engineering the assembly is the only way to develop new ecu features, I was half joking. It would be awesome if others around wanted to get involved in that end of things, but the number of people with that skillset is dwindling. You also won't be able to add things to the actual software if you use HPTuners. It's a pre-defined box and there's only so much freedom to think outside of it.
 
Z

ZuMBLe

Autocross Champion
Location
NY
Car(s)
Alltrack 6MT
If anyone out there is interested in tuning these cars and has experience in software development, contact @joedubs . There some some really good information to be shared and lots of exciting things to be developed.
 
W

Warfe-Motorsports

Ready to race!
Location
Virginia
Car(s)
2016 Audi A3 MQB
This will be similar to stuff on NefMoto. What tool/cable can be used for flashing? Im interested in contributing what i know. Ive got numerous files that could be helpful for GTI, A3, S3.
 
aaronc7

aaronc7

Autocross Champion
Location
USA
Car(s)
17 S3
Warfe-Motorsports said:
This will be similar to stuff on NefMoto. What tool/cable can be used for flashing? Im interested in contributing what i know. Ive got numerous files that could be helpful for GTI, A3, S3.
Click to expand...

Those guys are using PiCAN and have a working flasher and high speed loggers that's posted on github. I think a big difference in this vs what you see on NefMoto is almost all smoke and mirrors.....for simos18 at least.

All the action is on our Slack channel! Shoot a PM if you wanna join
 
D

danielvolt

New member
Location
NL
Car(s)
TT MK3 ABT
aaronc7 said:
Those guys are using PiCAN and have a working flasher and high speed loggers that's posted on github. I think a big difference in this vs what you see on NefMoto is almost all smoke and mirrors.....for simos18 at least.

All the action is on our Slack channel! Shoot a PM if you wanna join
Click to expand...
Sent you a PM! Audi TT 8s (CHHC simos18) owner here.
 
aaronc7

aaronc7

Autocross Champion
Location
USA
Car(s)
17 S3
Things are afoot

@joedubs



 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top