newbie.Ford Excursion Base tune comparison

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eightfold_sg
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Aug 29, 2020 6:31 am
cars: ford excursion v10/diesel

newbie.Ford Excursion Base tune comparison

Post by eightfold_sg »

Hi.

first of all, i'm really excited to see many posts getting wrist deep into tuning.

A little background about me: I hardly have any experience tuning vehicles, or even analyzing calibration tables (tuning maps), only got involved lately by diagnosing p0128 and getting a better understanding of how integrated the system is. Nonetheless, the feeling of fixing my car is satisfying but at the same time I really wanna understand the machine better. . and I think having an electronic setup in every modern vehicle might be useful even if the learning might be slightly steep.

I'm hoping to dip my toes into microcontrollers in the future (maybe DIY mountable infrared sensors?), but for now I wish to at least load some tunes to learn how to analyze the calibration tables and how to diagnose my car.

I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice on my current objective. I was up reading HPtuner last night, and it seems like the editor is free to load and compare tables but I might have to pay (quite an amount for a package) for the OBD scanner? As my current knowledge stands, I really like how everything is pretty high level- it seems like their editor has already included the definition files of many cars. But like many packaged things, the file type seems to be propriety and i'm not sure if the editor would even accept and convert other file types for tunes.

This morning I went back to check out efidynotuning ,cattuner and RTtunerpro, it seems like RTtuner might be a great option as it accepts donation or an affordable registration fee and uses .xdf files (is it open-sourced?). However hardware is separate and I read that going to moates to buy a ford specific hardware to get the calibration tables might be an option. But given the affordability of obd scanners these days, i'm not sure if I would like/need to go that route.

right now, another thing i'm trying to do is familarize myself with Decipha's ford def file and how exactly can I use that information http://www.efidynotuning.com/eecv.htm

I also recognize how much depth of knowledge in terms of time and energy is needed to get to what you guys are doing, so I think my objectives are pretty grounded for now.

Anyways, everything is still piecing together and I stand corrected. Please feel free to drop some advice on software/hardware and any logistical stuff or experiences that you gotten.

best
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antus
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Re: newbie.Ford Excursion Base tune comparison

Post by antus »

Everything you say sounds about right, but its very open ended. Welcome to the forums!

Yes most commercial options are expensive (due to high cost and complexity to develop, split over and small number of users (compared to something everyone might buy at the supermarket)), and they tend to protect their investment by locking it down tight, which is fine if you just want to use it tune your car. Some or most of the cheaper options are less locked up sometimes but not always harder to use and generally the harder to use still will teach you more.

Im not familiar with that page your looking at, or much about Ford, but I can comment that what in Ford land is called a strategy, in GM land is called an operating system (OS, identified by its ID - OSID). That might help you make sense of more of what you read.
Have you read the FAQ? For lots of information and links to significant threads see here: http://pcmhacking.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1396
eightfold_sg
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Aug 29, 2020 6:31 am
cars: ford excursion v10/diesel

Re: newbie.Ford Excursion Base tune comparison

Post by eightfold_sg »

Thanks for the reply.

I made a detour to learn more about the other side of electronics pond and now i'm back to find out more on ECUs.

I wish to start from the ground up and would like to get acquainted with MCU/ECU data/CAN frames/Bin files or whatever is the right definition for the raw hex file you get when you stick a connector into the OBD port and do a CAN dump..

It's weird but I can't seem to find any free repo on OEM raw CAN files. Do you or anyone have a website or folder that has these files shared?

It would be awesome if I could just learn and test things out on the actual raw data.

best
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rolls
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Re: newbie.Ford Excursion Base tune comparison

Post by rolls »

eightfold_sg wrote:Thanks for the reply.

I made a detour to learn more about the other side of electronics pond and now i'm back to find out more on ECUs.

I wish to start from the ground up and would like to get acquainted with MCU/ECU data/CAN frames/Bin files or whatever is the right definition for the raw hex file you get when you stick a connector into the OBD port and do a CAN dump..

It's weird but I can't seem to find any free repo on OEM raw CAN files. Do you or anyone have a website or folder that has these files shared?

It would be awesome if I could just learn and test things out on the actual raw data.

best
It isn't quite that simple. Each operating system has different addressing, and each different processor has completely different comms/memory layouts. Some are encrypted/compressed and all sorts. A CAN dump is just dumping broadcast data, this is fairly useless for the actual base tune itself. You need to suck out the ROM file from the actual processor.

The solution to do this is usually highly proprietary/specific to the car you are interested in. Later model vehicles are more generic these days but it is still very OEM specific.

You can read about my adventure here for mapping/REing the Ford PPC stuff.
viewtopic.php?f=41&t=4940&start=540
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