ECU Flash for 4.6?

[larrycohen28]

Wondering if anyone has heard about any ECU mods out there to make the 4.6 more powerful and/or shift faster.

 

[ctrcbob]

With the great warranty we have, I don't want anyone (other than a Genesis Technician) fooling with the ECU.

Car is fast enough as it is.

 

[TJPark01]

I hear you loud and clear on that one. This car is already a bit overkill on the power side. More is not going to make this thing better, unless you take it to a track, or on the autobahn.

 

[wallymn]

The only tinkering I would like to see is an ESC defeat... not much point to more power if the brakes kick in all the time.

 

[TJPark01]

The only tinkering I would like to see is an ESC defeat... not much point to more power if the brakes kick in all the time.

Exactly. I like the function where if you press the button it kinda disables the nanny, and if you hold it down for 5-10 seconds it totally disengages it.

 

[dataguy]

Although I'd never do anything to kill my warranty while I still had a warranty, I could see a helpful reprogram would be to tinker with the shift program so the car didn't race through the low gears just to save a couple of MPG...

 

[PINGGOLF]

The only tinkering I would like to see is an ESC defeat... not much point to more power if the brakes kick in all the time.

DONE! Search keyword "ESC"

All you need to do is remove a fuse and the ESC is completely OFF!

To see a small sample go to youtube and type in ROCKETBUILDER and you will see my video called ESC MOD.

We are looking into a separate switch for it right now...looks like an inline fuse and a small push button on\off switch hidden inside the cab.

 

[wallymn]

DONE! Search keyword "ESC"

All you need to do is remove a fuse and the ESC is completely OFF!

To see a small sample go to youtube and type in ROCKETBUILDER and you will see my video called ESC MOD.

We are looking into a separate switch for it right now...looks like an inline fuse and a small push button on\off switch hidden inside the cab.

Read that thread, No Speedo, Check engine light. no thanks...

I would pay for an ECU update that allows me to hit the ESC button (5 seconds?) and disable it and the rest of the car still works....

 

[TJPark01]

The one I really really want, is the button that flips your license plate around when you're at those photo intersections. An appropriate substitute plate would read, EATME.

 

[PINGGOLF]

Read that thread, No Speedo, Check engine light. no thanks...

I would pay for an ECU update that allows me to hit the ESC button (5 seconds?) and disable it and the rest of the car still works....

True...however, you are more likely to get a ticket spinning and drifting than speeding...at least where I come from

The check engine light is doing what it is supposed to and will turn off shortly once it realizes everything is ok.

I would not pay one red cent for something that I can do by pulling a fuse. That just doesn't make sense to me. Hence the reason for all the research.

To each his own though!

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[larrycohen28]

With the great warranty we have, I don't want anyone (other than a Genesis Technician) fooling with the ECU.

Car is fast enough as it is.

Actually, the warranty for the electronics including the ECU is only 3 years/36000 miles. Plus, with a good ECU program, it will actually make the car more reliable and get better gas mileage.

 

[bradyb]

The one I really really want, is the button that flips your license plate around when you're at those photo intersections. An appropriate substitute plate would read, EATME.

perfect for a joyride through red-light cameras whilst wearing a clown mask!

 

[MrB0462]

Although I'd never do anything to kill my warranty while I still had a warranty, I could see a helpful reprogram would be to tinker with the shift program so the car didn't race through the low gears just to save a couple of MPG...

But by doing what you describe you would probably void the warranty

 

[msitter]

I come out of the GM LS series ranks where a lot of work has been done on ECU tuning. The factory does a pretty good job of tuning for maximum efficiency in the unmodified state. As soon as something is changed to increase the flow of air through retuning can be beneficial. That said what has been found is that while ultimate power increases are rare in a stock engine, the manufacturers are very heavy handed in low rpm torque management, leaving a lot of power on the table down low in the rpm range. In the case of the Camaro, almost 100 hp can be found down low without changing overall max hp. Recovering that low down hp results in quicker 0-60 and 1/4 mile times because a greater amount of power becomes available earlier. In the case of the Camaro as well, the rear axles have been seen to be a weak link and premature failure becomes the norm. Of course warranty claims are denied as soon as the reflash is discovered as being the reason for driveline failure. Because the Tau V8 is a low volume engine, I would seriously doubt that anyone will spend much time trying to crack the code and write software to alter the fuel, spark trans tables, if it is possible at all. GM and Ford have somewhat open code made available to the aftermarket. I don't think that anyone has been able to get into the Chrysler Hemi ecu as the only computer mods I have seen are piggybacked on the unit to trick it and not reflashes. BMW has been very active in looking for reflashed ecu units and has made life miserable for owners with them even to the point of denying all warranty claims and red flagging the vin in the system. Some owners have gone so far as to have 2 ecu's one for driving the car and one stock one for service calls. This is mostly on the twin turbo engines because a lot of power can be found just turning up the boost and richening up the mixture(+100 hp max).

 

[SCVDon]

Last time we took our '09 4.6 in for service the dealer reflashed the ECU to update it. Don't know what was changed, but the service rep said that there's were some cars having problems and so there was an update. Took them several hours to D/L the update and then burn it to the car.

 

[Rey]

My sense is that the market is presently too small for any aftermarket producer to do the R&D for a revised reflash/ECU add on for the V8. But, the market for the V6 is much larger because this motor also adorns the Genesis coupe. Stillen is doing mods for the coupe, and they may someday reprogram the V6's ECU. Once this is done maybe they will consider the V8. HKS has also done some add-on minicomputers to ECUs which change the signals from the ECU without reprogaming the ECU itself. These add-on minicomputers can be easily removed for warranty work, but they are also expensive.
I have now over 10K miles on a Sprint Booster, which changes the sensitivity of throttle and transmission shifting. I think it is a good mod for those dissatisfied with their transmission/throttle sensitivity.
I think an ECU reprogam could adjust several features:
1. There is a serious torque management in first gear, reducing first gear torque to the point where drag race starts are almost useless. My guess is that this torque management is there to preserve transmision life.
2. I am not sure I would want to turn off electronic stability control completely, but traction control shut off might be a more useful option.
3. At wide open throttle the ECU goes into an open-loop mode, which basically dumps available fuel without much regard to emissions. This is legal, and manufacturers universally have a very rich mixture on open loop. Leaning out this mixture effortlessly increases horsepower. I checked the fuel mixture on my Genesis using a reference-quality air fuel ratio meter. I was consistently seeing mixtures in the 11:1 range, even after adding a K&N. You can lean open loop mixture by cleaning up the intake and freeing the exhaust.
4. The design redline of this motor appears to be 6500 rpm, not 6200-6300 rpm as experienced. A good reflash will raise this level to 6500 rpm.
My conclusion is that while the reflash option is presently unobtainable, there are still significant power increases available through intake and exhaust mods - but they will make the car louder. Careful selection/matching of mods can reduce this sound without a proportionate power decrease.
With its first gear torque management the Genesis will never excel at drag racing. Where the Genesis shines is in higher gears used in passing and "roll-ons".

 

[scotttisha]

My sense is that the market is presently too small for any aftermarket producer to do the R&D for a revised reflash/ECU add on for the V8. But, the market for the V6 is much larger because this motor also adorns the Genesis coupe. Stillen is doing mods for the coupe, and they may someday reprogram the V6's ECU. Once this is done maybe they will consider the V8. HKS has also done some add-on minicomputers to ECUs which change the signals from the ECU without reprogaming the ECU itself. These add-on minicomputers can be easily removed for warranty work, but they are also expensive.
I have now over 10K miles on a Sprint Booster, which changes the sensitivity of throttle and transmission shifting. I think it is a good mod for those dissatisfied with their transmission/throttle sensitivity.
I think an ECU reprogam could adjust several features:
1. There is a serious torque management in first gear, reducing first gear torque to the point where drag race starts are almost useless. My guess is that this torque management is there to preserve transmision life.
2. I am not sure I would want to turn off electronic stability control completely, but traction control shut off might be a more useful option.
3. At wide open throttle the ECU goes into an open-loop mode, which basically dumps available fuel without much regard to emissions. This is legal, and manufacturers universally have a very rich mixture on open loop. Leaning out this mixture effortlessly increases horsepower. I checked the fuel mixture on my Genesis using a reference-quality air fuel ratio meter. I was consistently seeing mixtures in the 11:1 range, even after adding a K&N. You can lean open loop mixture by cleaning up the intake and freeing the exhaust.
4. The design redline of this motor appears to be 6500 rpm, not 6200-6300 rpm as experienced. A good reflash will raise this level to 6500 rpm.
My conclusion is that while the reflash option is presently unobtainable, there are still significant power increases available through intake and exhaust mods - but they will make the car louder. Careful selection/matching of mods can reduce this sound without a proportionate power decrease.
With its first gear torque management the Genesis will never excel at drag racing. Where the Genesis shines is in higher gears used in passing and "roll-ons".

Well, you know what you're talking about at least. I agree with the mods. Not sure if the slight exhaust mod I did helped. I think, in theory, it should have, but I can't say that it was significant enough for the butt dyno to register the difference.

I would love to see the shift point change, the aggressiveness of the shifting increase (quicker shifting), air/fuel mixture correction, and traction control delete. All things that can be done via software update..... Just need to get more people interested so that it's worth the time for a performance company to develop it.

 

[bradyb]

Last time we took our '09 4.6 in for service the dealer reflashed the ECU to update it. Don't know what was changed, but the service rep said that there's were some cars having problems and so there was an update. Took them several hours to D/L the update and then burn it to the car.

so its been a while since your reflash, have you noticed anything yet?

 

[bradyb]

there must be a way to hook up a laptop and interface with and look into the ecu and modify settings like shift points, cooling fan temp on off, spark advance, traction control on/off, stability control on/off, fuel pressure/pulse modd and duration.

 

[Gambler]

there must be a way to hook up a laptop and interface with and look into the ecu and modify settings like shift points, cooling fan temp on off, spark advance, traction control on/off, stability control on/off, fuel pressure/pulse modd and duration.

Oh it is possible, you just need access to Hyundai's proprietary code to know what memory locations to rewrite. You can reverse engineer it for us if you have time.