Robert G8RPI.
Last edited:
Tuning Remapping a 1.2 Cat6 convertible
- Thread starter p6baseunit
- Start date
Currently reading:
Tuning Remapping a 1.2 Cat6 convertible
Robert G8RPI.
I had RaceChip tuning box fitted to my Panda 4x4 TA. Just under 20% increase in power and torque. I went for this rather than a remap as it's easy to remove - for warranty purposes.
I informed my insurance company (Aviva) and the increase in premium was just over 5%. If you're a reasonable risk driver it isn't going to cost the earth.
I informed my insurance company (Aviva) and the increase in premium was just over 5%. If you're a reasonable risk driver it isn't going to cost the earth.
The uk police are only allowed to stop a car in the execution of their duty, not just for fun or because they feel like it. They can't start performing diagnostic tests on your car on the side of the road without equipment (which they don't have) but also without probable cause or if you like 'Reasonable suspicion' which means the same thing it's just the uk legal system specific term. Is that ok?? Anyway they can give a glance over the car for anything untoward, they can't go further unless you've given them reason to believe you are doing anything illegal.
Now with outwardly visible modifications they have done crack downs in areas like Southend on sea where they stopped highly modified cars to see what was and wasn't declared by calling the insurance company, then acted accordingly. There is still no way for the traffic officer on the street to test the ECU to see if it has been remapped, or modified, they don't have the equipment or the required specialist know how.
Indeed how do you know 100% your own car has never had any sort of remap?
Now I know this because I have family members who work up in high ranking roles in the police force, they cross over with other areas for conferences and training, and to be honest the police love a gadget so word gets around when something new comes out.
I'm guessing as usual you're basing all your arguments on nothing more than some assumptions you've made?
Now with outwardly visible modifications they have done crack downs in areas like Southend on sea where they stopped highly modified cars to see what was and wasn't declared by calling the insurance company, then acted accordingly. There is still no way for the traffic officer on the street to test the ECU to see if it has been remapped, or modified, they don't have the equipment or the required specialist know how.
Indeed how do you know 100% your own car has never had any sort of remap?
Now I know this because I have family members who work up in high ranking roles in the police force, they cross over with other areas for conferences and training, and to be honest the police love a gadget so word gets around when something new comes out.
I'm guessing as usual you're basing all your arguments on nothing more than some assumptions you've made?
No, that's why I provided links to reputable references. The .gov site says says the police can stop a car for "any reason". It would have to be tested in court, but on the face of it, that would include for "fun" or because they had nothing else to do.
I was suprised to find that DVLA officers and "traffic officers" can stop you too (traffic officers only on motorways and major A roads).
I also said that I did not think that the police checked ECUs, just that they could.
Robert G8RPI.
And VOSA officers too (in England & Wales, though IIRC not in Scotland).
VOSA officers have more powers relating to vehicle inspections, and although they normally target LGV's, PSV's & HGV's, they do sometimes direct their attention at cars.
They have been known to carry out roadside emissions checks on private cars in cities; I'd imagine it's possible some remaps might trigger a fail, particularly diesels. If so, you'll likely get some sort of enforcement notice, whether you've declared it to your insurers or not.
Road side tests for cars are usually aimed at tracking down those using red diesel or other liquids like heating oil, the only time diesels fail with vosa is if they emit visable smoke, the law doesn't care what's in the exhaust or emission when it comes to road worthy-ness just as long as it looks clear.
For commercial vehicles, it's already in the post.
Starting next month, DVSA will begin emissions testing in routine roadside checks for lorries.
It's all over the commercial vehicle forums just now.
How long do you think it will be before this gets extended to cars, particularly in big cities?
Last edited:
VOSA don't care about red diesel, that's a customs and revenue issue. They often take part in multi-agency check points and are the ones with real powers.
B.T.W the original comments were around being uninsured due to undeclared modifications, not roadworthiness or the legality of the modifications.
Robert G8RPI.
VOSA care about everything and they do have the equipment for road side testing these things.
The conversation had moved on
This is what we were talking about, unless you're coal rolling then VOSA are unlikely to fail a diesel car on emissions and any normal remap is unlikely to cause major issues that would fail the road side testing, so yes we had moved on.
Well I have to admit I made a mistake, VOSA no longer exist, their role is now covered by the DVSA. Still no indication that they have anything to do with checking of use of rebated fuel in road vehicles though. As I said that is a customs and revenue responsibility. Sure if a DVSA inspector suspects red diesel use they will inform customs, but they don't go looking for it.
AGH1965
Member
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2015
- Messages
- 649
- Points
- 106
Seriously, do you think that insurrance companies know which checksum is legal and which is not? That's very very unlikely, since there isn't one legal checksum for one particular type of car. Quite often car manufacturers release calibration updates that fix (potential) problems. Your FIAT can get such updates when you bring it to the FIAT dealer for maintenance. Every update changes the checksum, but not all cars will get all updates, because not all updates are mandatory and because not all cars get their maintenance at the FIAT dealer. Therefore there are numerous combinations of updates that could be installed on one particular type of car and each combination of updates has its own legal checksum. Therefore it's very very unlikely that insurrance companies know which checksums are legal and which are not.
They just need a list of checksums from approved updates (these are issued with updates, it's how they make sure the programming was correct) If it matches all good, if not investigate further.
Robert G8RPI.
The fiat 500 has been out 7 years with multiple engine options, changes and updates over the years, how many versions of the ECU software do you think there is over this period and spread across that many models, bearing in mind that one model can see multiple different changes in any on year?
dtimmins1985
Established member
On the checksum or hash im with you 
So? it's just a list of numbers.Even if 1 update a month and 6 engine types thats only a couple of thousand numbers. In reality probably a few hundered Takes a few milliseconds for a computer to see if a read checksum matches the list or not. Getting the list is another matter, but technically its easy.
Robert G8RPI.
Having a read about it seems one ECU can have multiple checksums stored and these can be automatically recalculated and stored each time the car is started and used.. the ecu has built in software to manage and calculate these separate to the software responsible for operating the cars engine. This checksum management, does not need editing when you remap a car as it has no impact on the way the engine it's self work. If the checksum doesn't match what's recorded in by the ecu it can stop the car starting.
Basically you can't just do a scan of the checksum and expect it to be the same, if the car has been started, since it left the factory.... your theory doesn't hold up
Last edited:
Intriguing, but aren't these recalculated codes in the VRAM and are used to confirm the integrity of runtime modifiable values in order to know if the RAM had been corrupted?
The NVRAM checksums could not be changed without re-flashing.
Do the "tuners" use some form of vector table to allow fuel maps etc. to be modified? That could make it quite hard to detect changes. But... surely then disconnecting the battery for a couple of hours would revert it to base code again...
Or do the chip reprogrammers re-flash the core non-volatile code?
That would probably be quite detectable as I reckon Fiat probably sign their firmware code, or at least would know the checksums of every version officially used.
Maybe I'll pull an ECU apart at the weekend and have a look...
The NVRAM checksums could not be changed without re-flashing.
Do the "tuners" use some form of vector table to allow fuel maps etc. to be modified? That could make it quite hard to detect changes. But... surely then disconnecting the battery for a couple of hours would revert it to base code again...
Or do the chip reprogrammers re-flash the core non-volatile code?
That would probably be quite detectable as I reckon Fiat probably sign their firmware code, or at least would know the checksums of every version officially used.
Maybe I'll pull an ECU apart at the weekend and have a look...
A lot of it goes well over my head, I've never been a software person, but from some of the sites I was looking at there was talk of using special checksum calculators to insure that the the correct checksum could then be programmed into the ecu Once flashed so that the ecu would recognise the remap and run properly, with each tweak and change requiring the same procedure to edit the checksum. Any disparity between the programmed checksum and the actual file sizes means the car may not start or causes errors with running.
In normal use the programming of the ecu keeps tabs and will self edit its own checksum as the various parameters of the ecu change depending on the conditions
I don't have personal experience of ECU programming but do have some knowledge of smartphone firmware. The nearest equivalent to a remap would be overwriting factory firmware with an unapproved hacked kernel and modifying the bootloader so that it will run. This is much, much easier than erasing any trace of what you have done. Despite their being literally thousands of legitimate factory firmwares, manufacturers can easily detect any such tampering, and regularly do so when dealing with phones returned under warranty, even when the original firmware and bootloader have been reflashed.
An internet search will quickly find many examples of remapped cars being refused warranty claims after major component failure, even when reflashed with an original map before being taken to the dealership. The general theme is that, whilst dealer software usually won't pick up any evidence, in depth analysis by the manufacturer almost always does. I'd be surprised if Fiat weren't able to do the same.
I'm sure it's not going to happen routinely; such detailed examinations would be likely reserved for only the most serious incidents, but that's exactly when you'd least want to be caught out for running an undeclared remap.
