Anybody ever make a "valet" ROM?
 

My son is almost 18, is graduating and asked if he could take the BRZ to Prom.

Ive never let him take it out alone, but he drives it just fine.

I was 18 once, and no matter how careful I tell him to be, I know what he will do to impress a lady.
He also just got a speeding ticket last week and isnt driving at all for right now.

Anyway. I was thinking that if he convinced me to let him take the car, I could make a neutered ROM that would keep him from driving like a fool.

Like set the rev limit/fuel cutoff to ~4500.

Doesnt the veyron and maybe the vette have a special key that unleashes full power?

Just curious if anyone else has ever considered reducing performance instead of increasing it....

not to state the obvious, but a 4000 or 4500 RPM redline will keep you from hitting higher RPMs, but it won't prevent anyone from still driving like a fool. My car started in limp mode one time (due to running Torque and a bluetooth adapter) and while it was limited to 4000 RPM I was still able to drive at a pretty brisk pace through a backroad by upshifting.

If you're honestly considering this as an option, it sounds like you don't want to / shouldn't let him take it. Either tell him "no" and be done with it or trust that he'll appreciate the opportunity to drive your car and will drive it well.

Limiting the engine to 4000 or 4500 RPM could limit his ability to avoid accidents; I've experienced plenty of situations in which I had to "gun it" (and ultimately break the law by speeding) to avoid being part of a seriously bad situation. I, personally, wouldn't feel comfortable knowingly limiting the cars ability in any way.

First of all, what tuning option do you have? Secondly, instead of limiting the rev limit that much, you can back it down to say 6500 RPM and limit the amount of timing advance. That will slow the car down way more than a rev limit while still allowing him to wind out the motor. Since break in, I can't think of a drive where I didn't run it to at least 5k for 1st and second and that is driving easy. The motor likes to breath.

Instead of rev limits and fuel, limit it by load. You pretty much can't do anything without it falling on its face if you limit the load vs RPM. It forces you to drive it normal. You can still drive fast, it just takes longer but good luck getting it sideways or walking away from anything.

Load is okay, but I think it would be harder to get right and would take more fine tuning. Just pull all of the timing from the car and it will fall on its face. Have you ever tried WOT on a cold engine? It doesn't even pull all of the timing and it is gutless.

If you have EcuTek its literally a matter of a couple clicks to limit load so really it depends what he is using.

Easy stuff. You can adjust the speed limiter or you can adjust the rev limiter. You can even limit throttle opening to limit power as well. Or any combination thereof. Perhaps the easiest thing would be to just limit revs to 4000rpm. Can't really get into much trouble when driving on the boring side of the power band :)

Have you drive the car with little advance? I bet you are making ~140hp max which makes more a not so exciting car.

Either way, to the OP, please have your son drive the car as changed with you there and make him away of the changes. Just changing things could be a bad thing if he expects one thing and gets another.

As other have said you can set rev limit but also speed limit that can be set.

Both available in RomRaider tables.

I don't recommend dropping ignition advance under load to limit power. Sustained high load/low spark advance conditions can cause EGTs to creep up. You will probably see your header glow red if you sustain this condition for a minute or two. Throttle/speed/rev limiters are a better solution :)

it depends what you're using for tuning. with ecutek you could get really creative and have it respond weirdly to rapid throttle changes, like a custom map reducing requested torque against throttle delta, and throw a cel if he gets too crazy. that way he can still get up to the speed limit he just won't have any fun in the process, and if he trips it he'll think he broke something and call you freaking out :).

After a recent trip to the dealer I made a simple valet tune restricted to 2900rpm and 40mph. Its an easy solution.

Just to add my two cents, as mentioned above you could approach it from many angles, but I'm with Shiv on this one - use the requested torque tables to implement a soft rev cut. He won't freak out when it just suddenly cuts fuel, as it would with a rev limit (and it's less harsh on the car) - the power will just completely fall off as soon as he hits that area.

If you really want to make it dull as hell to drive, just drop the requested torque all across the mid and upper ranges, you could even restrict it from ever going into WOT (like the intelligent mode in the STIs).