Quote:
Originally Posted by wparsons
What if you flash back to the OEM ROM, can anything be detected as tampering then? I remember reading about the flash count not being updated by the EcuTek flashing process so you can flash between tunes and stock as much as you want but the flash count wouldn't be effected. I've also read that some tuners will update the flash count as needed in case the ecu was flashed by a dealership.
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Based on the info posted in this thread unless your dealer has an IT forensics team as long as your flash count is less than your dealer visits it would be very unlikely to have a warranty denied. I think a good tune should prevent warranty work.
Really tuning a modern car like this isn't so much about gaining HP on WOT pulls but fine tuning driveability, doing as much to eliminate knock and pre-ignition as possible, custom individual (non-mass market) MAF scaling. Basically things that make the engine run better rather than meet minute emission requirements.
For example I know this car uses the cam timing to suck exhaust back into the combustion chamber (modern EGR), basically there are sacrifices the OEM makes for regulations and for mass production, these are things the consumer should be able to fine tune.
With Scion USA burying their heads in the sand and not releasing the latest OEM flash for the transient ignition retard issues which may help with the DI issues, it really makes custom tuning something I want to do sooner rather than later.
I read a few scary posts with graphs that showed how much knock the stock tune gives (not just after shifting either), the OEM tune relies way too much on the knock sensor to pull timing after the fact, its sloppy. A good tune doesn't rely on a knock sensor, that's just there for as insurance. But what do the OEM's care? They only need the engine to last to 60k miles.