A guide to Remapping

Procomm

Club Member
Thought i would add this as there is confusion

What does it mean

ECU Chips.
(Chipping)
Old cars, prior to around year 2000 used to have EPROMS in the ECU that had to be removed, re calibrated and refitted. Some were just plug in chips, others needed to be soldered.
This service was widely known as "chipping."

ECU Remapping: (A remap)
Arguably the most common term used today and is used to cover so many things it has become almost meaningless but regardless, its true meaning is simply to re calibrate the existing system.

As the name suggest, the seller is not clarifying exactly how this will be done, but it may involve a new chip, a remap via the vehicles OBD port, a custom ECU remap or a full on live remap.


Custom ECU Remapping:
During custom mapping, you run the vehicle on a dyno or out on the road with a data logger, knock detection equipment and wideband AFR monitoring gear and assess what parts of the ECU calibration require work and then go back to the workshop and re calibrate the necessary parts of the calibration on the PC before uploading it back into the ECU and performing the same test again.

This is repeated until such time as the calibration is as close to perfect as you can get it. Normally this can be done to an exceptional standard in one day at a cost of around £250 all in.
(This is often all you can do with a modern ECU that cannot be done live.)

Live ECU Mapping: (Not available for all types of ECU)
During live mapping, you attach an emulator to the ECU and actually access the information within it whilst the engine is running and the ECU is in use. This is the ultimate form of mapping and usually gives far more accurate results than simple chipping or remapping and is usually quite a lot better than a custom mapping session too because you can adjust the data at the same time as the ECU is supplying results to the engine and so can assess the results in real time which makes it the ultimate way of finding little glitches, hesitations and flat spots. This is doubly true for those engines that have strayed from the norm and are now utilising uprated cams, ported heads, altered compression ratios etc. Live mapping on a dyno costs between £200 and £500 depending on the type of vehicle and work that needs doing. Average cost is £300.

I hope this clears it up a little, the Cougars ECU is not compatible with a Live ECU Remap




Information gathered from http://www.motorsport-developments.co.uk/custommapp.html

 
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interesting, am i to understand the remap i had done 3 years ago in birmingham was of no value? im wondering

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i do believe i still have the printout somewhere show the results after the said mapping
 
That really depends on what you wanted to gain from a remap, what they actually did and whether you believe you got value for money

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As far as I am aware, on a standard cougar v6 engine smoothing the torque curve and the power curve will slightly increase fuel economy by 1 - 3mpg and may or maynot give you a sense of your car accellerating a bit quicker depending upon how much of a change was needed around the opening of the secondaries
 
ah yes but i dont have a v6, mines a 4 pot... when al was with me they did the rolly road thing to check.. and before it went for a blast on the rolly.. they found it was already over 135... at the end it came back at something like 167.. but the torc line apparantly was the most importent which al saw and said it was very cool... well over 3 years ago, er my trip to black poole cost me 40 squid from poole dorset i did about 300 ish miles but a little shorter coming back some reason i dont know..so i dont know, she pulls well always has really..there is a little bit more kick there in the higher band and id say not so flat on the 3000 rpm bit like she used to be thats about it really
 
I have no experience with a 4 pot i'm afraid, if you have your print out though, the steeper the curve the quicker the throttle response, the less jaggeddy the line the less you will feel a sudden jolt as power is delivered, just makes for a nicer driving experience than constantly getting your head snapped back as power is delivered through each gear
 
img021.jpgimg022.jpg

these are the final readouts if you would like to check them from 3 years ago






I have no experience with a 4 pot i'm afraid, if you have your print out though, the steeper the curve the quicker the throttle response, the less jaggeddy the line the less you will feel a sudden jolt as power is delivered, just makes for a nicer driving experience than constantly getting your head snapped back as power is delivered through each gear
 
provided picture 2 is the after which it seems to be, its hard to tell but i would guess that the 2 lines at roughly 45% were the original BHP and Torque and the 2nd set of lines are after the remap which would suggest your car has a significantly improved 0-60 but i would be suprised if you would notice any difference myself, I may be wrong though, how does she drive compared to before the remap, most people feel their car drives much better just after a remap, then realise a month or so after that its not that much different :LOL:
 
actually she responds quite well , er maybe look at the first 2? these are the last 2 on the first they check the car it was already 149 before they started . on the second run it went up to 158 or 9img023.jpgimg024.jpg after driving her since 2003, then doing the map 3 years ago im now use to the way she is.. becca has a cougar and when i drove it it used to be like mine and noticed i had to boot it a little more than i have to in mine so ..i guess something happened? lol
 
Can I ask why RichB's post regarding remaps was deleted from the Group Buy post and not moved here? I thought his point was rather useful rather than just flippantly discarding it to the bin.
 
Can I ask why RichB's post regarding remaps was deleted from the Group Buy post and not moved here? I thought his point was rather useful rather than just flippantly discarding it to the bin.

I'll see if i can find any info John. I read the post myself and i can see no reason for it to be deleted other than by mistake.
 
I'll see if i can find any info John. I read the post myself and i can see no reason for it to be deleted other than by mistake.

It wouldn't be a problem if it was deleted by mistake Al, but it was quite clearly stated in the GB thread when Rich asked, that it 'had been deleted'. From my perspective, a bit disrespectful to a long standing and well respected member of this club. Is this how all former Cougar owners will end up being treated???
 
It wouldn't be a problem if it was deleted by mistake Al, but it was quite clearly stated in the GB thread when Rich asked, that it 'had been deleted'. From my perspective, a bit disrespectful to a long standing and well respected member of this club. Is this how all former Cougar owners will end up being treated???

I agree 100% with your post John, but my opinion is that this post was mistakenly deleted. Rich is respected as much now as ever so i very much doubt his post was removed for any ulterior reasons.
I've searched everywhere i know of to find "deleted" posts but with no success, so it seems the post has been permanently deleted rather than "soft deleted".
One possibility: the forum had some issues a few days ago, i'll contact Mark to see if posts/threads were lost.

Can we continue with this in administration so as to keep this thread clear.

edit:
There was an issue with the site between ~21:25 and ~22:25 on the 23rd Sept 2014.
The thread where Rich's post "vanished" from has no posts after 21st september until the last replies made yesterday by scunnycougar and backseateducation.

See here: https://forums.ukcougar.club/threads/27194-Site-Problem-23rd-Sept-2014?p=476245#post476245
 
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ah yes but i dont have a v6, mines a 4 pot... when al was with me they did the rolly road thing to check.. and before it went for a blast on the rolly.. they found it was already over 135... at the end it came back at something like 167.. but the torc line apparantly was the most importent which al saw and said it was very cool... well over 3 years ago, er my trip to black poole cost me 40 squid from poole dorset i did about 300 ish miles but a little shorter coming back some reason i dont know..so i dont know, she pulls well always has really..there is a little bit more kick there in the higher band and id say not so flat on the 3000 rpm bit like she used to be thats about it really


In my opinion the Zetec is rev-happy and great fun when it's up on the cam. But it does lack in torque, and you really feel it in a heavier car like the Cougar or - even worse - the Mondy. Ramping up the torque will have definitely improved the drivability of your Coug around town, but you will have made compromises elsewhere.

I never did a thing to Mako's engine (a Zetec) and she was a pain in the backside around MK with all the roundabouts. But get her on the open road and she flew. 50-70 performance was perfect, but that's really what she was designed for.

I'd be interested to try yours out some day just as a comparison.
 
I seem to remember that following my remap of S97, the torque curve was greatly improved and was very noticably smoother to drive, but the compromise was at the top end. My max speed was reduced from warp factor three to 125mph...apparantly :rolleyes:
 
To clarify I deleted all chat from the group buy thread as this is the correct place for it to go and I had said it would be deleted. Perhaps In hindsight should have moved it but I had asked three times to discuss the rights and wrongs of mapping in this thread.

It has nothing to do with who wrote it, or why they wrote it


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As I mentioned in the other thread, and this isn't meant to be inflammatory but just another view.

£200 will get you a fair way to a decent brake set-up or even a bit of bargain hunting might turn up some nice suspension or it'll get some de-cat pipes made up and fitted if you haven't already, they will 'free up' more than a remap on a naturally aspirated petrol that isn't 'restricted' in the first place will.

If you want a map, do it, I'm not here to question why but I think for the money you can get 'better' drivability upgrades. If the increases shown are worth £200 to you, do it.

At least the Ford ECU can think fast enough, our early MX5 are limited simply by the virtue the ECU runs out of sheer clock speed and limits itself, that's right, we don't remap, we overclock our cars!
 
My original point was that I got no noticable benefits when I went to the last rolling road event in Birmingham, I don't know if it was outside the parameters of the ecu taking into consideration the engine modifications that my car had, if I was going to get the Fiesta mapped I would go to Jamsport or a Mountune dealer as there have been proven gains from them doing remaps with engine mods similar to what the average cougar has, i.e. exhaust and air filter.
I did think that after the racebits day that my mpg could've been slightly improved but it just seemed the same in the following weeks on the daily round trip to work. People should be realistic in their expectations of what can be achieved from a rolling road remap on a Cougar.
Most people that have spent on upgrades for the car to chase power have been disappointed, including myself, my car lost some low down grunt after my cams were fitted but certainly gained on the top end where it pulled for longer, it bogged down easily at low revs too. Ultimately my money was wasted going to the rolling road day because the ecu couldn't be programmed to make any significant improvement to my cougar, since I don't know about the tech side of things, I can't say what is possible from a standard Cougar but some attendees were pleased with the perceived improvements after their visit. Maybe generic improvements for standard cars work well.
As for my previous post in the rolling road thread, whenever a post is usually removed, there is a smaller oblong box explaining that the post has been removed and I think that there used to be an explanation, although that may have been in another incarnation of the forum, I don't remember. This post was just deleted and as far as I am aware, I didn't infringe any forum rules. I never noticed there was another thread for chat.
Incidentally where is the thread that is to discuss the virtues of remapping Si?
 
But this thread wasn't live when I posted my comments so I thought that since this thread became live after my post, it would've been a common courtesy to move it to this thread or at least give me the chance to move it rather than just deleting it.
The purpose of my post was to make people aware that their expectations could exceed the scope of a rolling road remap.