As you may or may not know there is a specialist company in the states called Hondata which specialise in the tuning of Vtech engines website at www.hondata.com.
Now the way they do things are different to what the like of Apexi do which simply control the engagement point of the Vtech. Hondata do two things.
1) a reflash of the ecu
2) use a reprogrammable ecu
1) a reflash uses basically the same ecu that is in the car but with new parameters for example say, fueling, air mixture, throttle input and Vtech engagement (to name but a few!). This is done in order to optimize the engine to gain full performance.
Some may ask- but why do you need to do this when the manufacturers should have produced full optimisation anyway? But we should all know that this is not the case, reasons for this are numerous...you can make your own speculations.
A reflash is advantageous in that the stock ECU is used (cheaper) and in
most cases the reflash is compatible with factory diagnostic equipment (as with the Hondata).
2) a Reprogrammable ecu - this is the full hog in terms of ECU tuning, a reprogrammable ECU is a full replacement, much more parameters are adjustable and allow the end user to customise any modifications they make in order to get the maximum benefit, in many cases the end user has easy access in order to reprogram the ECU themselves as well as extract much more diagnostic data from the ECU than with the standard ECU.
A full ECU replacement is expensive and is very much for the hard core enthusiast as compatibility with factory diagnostics maybe lost.
HONDATA
produce a generic optimised reflash for the Acura TSX in the states up to 2006. They also do a fully reprogrammable ECU but i'm not really interested in this...here I talk about the REFLASH ONLY.
If you don't know, the Acura TSX is basically the new Honda Accord in UK. However there are subtle differences..barring the interior. The 04 TSX actually has 10bhp more compared to the 04 Accord in UK and I know that in 06 the power of the TSX was upped further! I have no idea if the UK car got the same upgrades....but it does seems there are differences so therefore a reflash for an 04 may not necessarily be suitable for an 06 car.
The reason i think there are power differences is due to the Euro emission laws.....well issue aside..
Last I heard hondata had perfected the reflash on the 04 TSX...currently this is being tested on the 04 Accord in UK. Due to the differences in the 06 car Hondata seem to be doing further testing for those models....
The Torque and Power change - iVTEC!!
the so called ivtech in this generation of accord works slightly differently than the Vtech of old. with the old vtech you get a distinct pants in seat feel when the vtech engages....with the ivtech Honda have tried to REFINE the mechanism to achieve a more gradual transition (be it good or bad..that's what they did
).
With the Accord you should notice a slight change in pull and noise when your car reaches 6K rpm. If you look at the BHP and torque curves for the Accord you'll see a dip in BHP and torque from 5Krpm onwards until the Vtech engages at 6Krpm. this a really change from the Vtech from old.
With the old Vtech there was very little dip and when the Vtech engaged there was a distinct hike in BHP and torque.
Hondata cures this by lowering the Vtech point to 5000rpm and changing other parameters to eradicate this dip.
To me this would drastically change the driving characteristic of this already fine car and if you want to know more please have a look at the Hondata site!
Any questions please ask.
Now the way they do things are different to what the like of Apexi do which simply control the engagement point of the Vtech. Hondata do two things.
1) a reflash of the ecu
2) use a reprogrammable ecu
1) a reflash uses basically the same ecu that is in the car but with new parameters for example say, fueling, air mixture, throttle input and Vtech engagement (to name but a few!). This is done in order to optimize the engine to gain full performance.
Some may ask- but why do you need to do this when the manufacturers should have produced full optimisation anyway? But we should all know that this is not the case, reasons for this are numerous...you can make your own speculations.
A reflash is advantageous in that the stock ECU is used (cheaper) and in
most cases the reflash is compatible with factory diagnostic equipment (as with the Hondata).
2) a Reprogrammable ecu - this is the full hog in terms of ECU tuning, a reprogrammable ECU is a full replacement, much more parameters are adjustable and allow the end user to customise any modifications they make in order to get the maximum benefit, in many cases the end user has easy access in order to reprogram the ECU themselves as well as extract much more diagnostic data from the ECU than with the standard ECU.
A full ECU replacement is expensive and is very much for the hard core enthusiast as compatibility with factory diagnostics maybe lost.
HONDATA
produce a generic optimised reflash for the Acura TSX in the states up to 2006. They also do a fully reprogrammable ECU but i'm not really interested in this...here I talk about the REFLASH ONLY.
If you don't know, the Acura TSX is basically the new Honda Accord in UK. However there are subtle differences..barring the interior. The 04 TSX actually has 10bhp more compared to the 04 Accord in UK and I know that in 06 the power of the TSX was upped further! I have no idea if the UK car got the same upgrades....but it does seems there are differences so therefore a reflash for an 04 may not necessarily be suitable for an 06 car.
The reason i think there are power differences is due to the Euro emission laws.....well issue aside..
Last I heard hondata had perfected the reflash on the 04 TSX...currently this is being tested on the 04 Accord in UK. Due to the differences in the 06 car Hondata seem to be doing further testing for those models....
The Torque and Power change - iVTEC!!
the so called ivtech in this generation of accord works slightly differently than the Vtech of old. with the old vtech you get a distinct pants in seat feel when the vtech engages....with the ivtech Honda have tried to REFINE the mechanism to achieve a more gradual transition (be it good or bad..that's what they did
). With the Accord you should notice a slight change in pull and noise when your car reaches 6K rpm. If you look at the BHP and torque curves for the Accord you'll see a dip in BHP and torque from 5Krpm onwards until the Vtech engages at 6Krpm. this a really change from the Vtech from old.
With the old Vtech there was very little dip and when the Vtech engaged there was a distinct hike in BHP and torque.
Hondata cures this by lowering the Vtech point to 5000rpm and changing other parameters to eradicate this dip.
To me this would drastically change the driving characteristic of this already fine car and if you want to know more please have a look at the Hondata site!
Any questions please ask.
