Hi all

Ive noticed on here that a lot of people are against tuning the me7 ECU for 1.8T with it being 'back to basics' - boost, fuel, timing etc style mapping.

I have a 1.8T fitted with a K04-064 and its tuned in the above manner.  CWMDAPP is 8 - full open loop,  Fuelling by lamfa and EGT protection over set limit.   LDRXN is maxed with the knock map pulled right back.  Timing maps across the VVT tuned identical KFZW and KFZW2.   VVT maps used to exploit the torque curve.  Disabling the ARMD functions for a smoother feel.

So, what is exactly wrong or bad advice about tuning in the above way?  Way I see is that the ME7 ECU is made for emissions based as all cars needed to hit strict emissions set by the EU, but also make power.  Is it worth trying to tune the emissions based ECU to try and get best optimal power from it whilst retaining all the maps that were implemented to be able to hit the strict criteria for emissions?

Why have 7 or 8 maps to control boost and fuel each when it can be simplified to have just the 1 or 2 in the case of boost or fuel?

I can see the pressure difference theory for the boost, but how much is boost really going to differentiate between 30mbar on a hot day and a cold day and the difference of a few hundred feet above sea level.

Discuss.

Was told its the wrong way to do it.

This is my boost map.  KFLDRAPP.... Rest of the boost maps/ PIDS can be left blank

I've drove both with pid control and non pid and really can't tell the difference.  My car is for track use,  but driven in a daily fashion it's perfect.   From looking at the boost map you can see that unless you stamp down hard on the throttle,  then it's using actuator pressure to control the boost delivery.  Surely you can't get lower boost with a pid setup if you still have good actuator pressure for a wide range of the boost map?

As you say,  might be a bit more noticeable on a k03 setup where 99% of them have weak actuators.   

From what I have heard,  there's around 8 or 9 UK tuners using the above method (non-pid) to tune highly modified stage 2 setups.  I know the place I got mine done, which I won't mention, do this on their tfsi maps aswell.

Carsey, you are leaving a lot on the table with that.

IMO, this is the wrong approach and should only even be considered after you're fully capable of tuning it correctly.

I would say it is similar to "reputable" US tuners running ME7 mafless as they were not able to tune it properly (at least in the past, I am not sure how does it look today).

Running open loop boost control does have sense only if you need boost levels higher than ~1550 mbar and you are not able/do not want to use 5120 hack IMHO.

It seems ME7 is still too advanced ECU for many tuners around the world.

I wouldn't say that it's too advanced, it's just not tuner friendly.

After spending literally hundreds of hours studying Motronic (hell, maybe even into the thousands if I add it all up since 2010), I've come to this conclusion: Motronic is a great engine management suite insofar as it allows for incredible precision and refinement. It also lends itself to a very broad range of engine types within a manufacturer's lineup and between different manufacturers altogether (i.e. VW, Audi, Ford, Maserati, BMW, etc...)

However, in order to do so, it relies on a great deal of assumed/pre-programmed data upfront to generate that precision. This is fine if you're an OEM user and have the resources to generate all that upfront data (i.e. VE, torque losses, gas flow rates in and out of the engine etc...).

However, if you start changing those variables by way of modifying the engine, then it's very difficult to predict where those changes will manifest. I have to give Motronic a lot of credit insofar as it's actually amazingly adaptable to changes given the amount of maps and assumed or generated variables/constants it uses. However, you just have to accept the fact that when you tinker with Motronic, it's just like adjusting your own neurochemistry. By and large your brain will adapt, but you always have to respect the fact that you're counting on a lot of system adaptability to accommodate any changes you make and there may be some unintended or even disastrous consequences if you don't respect it.

Anyway, I didn't intend for this to be come a treatise lol. But it's been on my mind for some time now. 

Best of luck OP with your tuning and hello all.

I'm going to jump in here as a tech more so than a tuner and just say this. What you're doing is sort of akin to going back to a carb. I've hear plenty of rednecks talk about oh fuck it I'm just gonna throw a carb on this Rabbit or Golf because it's "easier". But in actuality, it's really just saying that since I don't know how this fuel injection shit works I'm going to dump it. Fuel injection. Has many more upsides than carburator including taking atmospheric density, temperature, and coolant temp into the equation, all huge plusses. So much so that most of my customers can't even figure out how a carburator car is supposed to function, and will bring it in for running poorly when cold, thinking it should fire up and go like a fuel injected car.

I've dealt with far too many customers to realize that they don't know what detonation is, what it feels like, what it does, and half of them will just say ,"lacking power fuck it throttle down", not realizing they're about to melt their engine down.

As far as tuning your own car, if you want to do it this way, and you know what running rich or lean or detonating feels, sounds, and smells like, go for it. But you can't recognize it faster than the ecm. Some tuners I've talked to even push timing so far as to always have some amount of timing retard going on in value block 20 in the ecm, and this allows for better performance during weather or other conditions, or adding higher octane fuel that will allow the advanced timing, while not melting the engine due to detonation on a hot day. Again, something you can't do if you remove the knock sensing ability from an ecm.

 And I absolutely positively would never give a car to a customer that had safety measures disabled like that. Because even if their girlfriend happens to borrow the car and throw 87 octane in it while driving through the US Southwest on a 110 degree day, it's your name that's going to end up on the internet when your tune blows up their engine, and she lies about putting the wrong fuel in to not get in trouble.

Hell I've seem customers lie about putting gasoline in a diesel even after fuel testing came back and showed they did. I've had people claim I was liable for a transmission leak their car developed, because I was the last one to touch their car, and try to get me to buy them a new trans because I hadn't seen their car in a year and they just kept driving it, leaking, low on fluid.

The shortest answer I can give is because you're backdating the car to CIS intelligence level, and eventually something you didn't forsee is going to blow an engine up, and then you'll be argueing with people who dont understand tuning principles about youe tune on the internet. Aaaand, somebody will rightly call you out for disabling important safety controls in the ecm that dont need to be deleted to make good power.

People are stupid, and they will drag you down to their own dumb level and take money out of your pocket. And, the reason that we're able to be getting the horsepower out of 4 cylinders that's more than v8s used to put out, is BECAUSE of these things in the ECM, not in spite of them.