RomRaider

Hey folks,
I have searched and found that some people with Cobb protunes are getting their ecu's locked. This is cool and I understand why. My Brother has and 05 wrx with the APv2 and we added TinyRex's LC patch to it. He added a fmic and went to get it retuned. Before he left we made a back up copy of his rom so that we could just write his new tune over to his old rom and flash it back. This way he would have his LC. Well when he got back we could not get access to his ecu. He called the tuner and his tuner said that he locked his ecu to protect his intellectual property. I understand this and have no problem with it. My brother is real pissed because he lost his lC but is dealing with it. He is also having massive spiking at part throttle with his new tune. His tuner said that he would retune it if he paid for it. Not only that my brother has to drive from Vermont to New Jersey. He is extremely unhappy. We is going to sell his ap but basically is out the cost of the tune. Which was crap anyways because it only gave him 7 more whp and no more torq then the first tune with the tmic. Today I got a call from a friend that was having some problems with his 05 LGT. He added Cobb’s sf intake and the car is running terrible. I asked him if he had a protune and he said no just the apv2 running stage 2 map. So I told him he probably just needed to fine-tune his maf scale and I could help him out. So I traveled the 60 miles to his house and tried to download his rom using ecuflash and kept getting an error. No matter what I tried I could not download his rom. I then tried ecuedit. Same deal. So we took a trip down to the subie dealer where he has a friend that works there. He was unable to access the ecu even with the Subaru equipment. We unmarried his AP and bingo we were able to access the ecu with the subie equipment and my stuff. So basically Cobb has done the same thing as ecutek did except you can unmarry the AP and unlock it. I'm not trying to steal Cobb’s maps but just trying to help friends out. Cobb does not have street tuner for the apv2 yet and seem to be dragging their feet on releasing it. So all these people that are buying the AP are stuck with no choice but to go to a protuner to tune their cars. I think this is Bs. First has anybody found away around this lock? Am I the only one that has come across this problem? My brothers AP was also updated by his tuner and all his old maps and old protune are now showing up as outdated and he cannot use them. So he stuck with this crappy tune. Any one with advice on this???
Thanks for reading my rant.
Jeff

Cobb said that they don't lock the ecu. They said that they ADDED the option for Protuners because Protuners had asked them to do it. Sounds like you already know that though.

It sounds like your tuner locked the ecu ... probably to hide the crappy tune.

I know what Cobb is saying because I ended up calling them myself but it's just not true. I just got a run around. They said it was the tuner not the AP. I understand the protune stuff and I think that it is an ok thing to do as long as they inform the car owner so they know before the commit. As far as my friend with the lgt his was not protuned and his ecu is definitely locked. So basically he is stuck with the stock intake, a crappy OTS stage 2 map that drops his AF into the 9's (according to my wideband). And out $150 bucks on a intake that is not worth crap. They never said or gave my brother any info about locking the ecu. He says that if he had known he would never had done it. The protuner is a very respected tuner and the fact that he wants $450 bucks to give my brother a retune that he should have gotten in the first place is just plain stupid. I mean come on 7hp and 0 gain in tq. That is lame. I have read on an evo form that the AP locks all the ecu's period. Protune or not. It just really pissed me off. I recommended the apv2 to my brother and this happens. He has wasted almost $1500 on the AP and the two protunes he had. That's allot of dough just to throw away. I trusted Cobb on top of that. They had a real good rep and they had really good products. They were honest and customer service was awesome. Now when you call their rude and treat you like they could care less about about you. Just look at their web site. Most of the stuff for the subies is gone. Boy has it changed. I just hope that some one here can get the ram tune thing going soon because that would make tuning so much more easier and I would throw all my cobb ST software in the trash and be done with it. It's just to bad that Cobb as gone this way. Well I'm done. I am just finished with Cobb and won't recommend them to anyone anymore. I have a feeling the tactrix cable is going to be a big seller as others find out what my brother, my friend, and I have discovered.
Thanks for letting me vent.
Jeff

No one in the openecu community is going to bother figuring out how to overcome any "lock" from Cobb or Ecutek. Even if they did, which is highly unlikely, it is not something that we would allow to be posted here as discussion about hacking commercial software will not be tolerated. The primary purpose of the openecu tools and community is the ability to tune the factory ROM, not as a tool for tuning commercially modified ROMs. Sure, a small number of users use these tools to tune their Cobb-married ECUs, but this is not the motivation behind the development of RomRaider and Ecuflash.

If Cobb and Ecutek want to lock out the ECU, then that is their right. If someone doesn't like this, they can vote with wallet and refuse to buy their products.

Understood and I will shut up now.

That sux. Glad I stuck with my ap v1. Does the lc ffs patch work with a v1 married rom. I like the st because of live tuning but you have a limit as to the maps u can access without rom raider. If the lc will work I'm gonna hit tinwrex up for the patch.

Don't buy Cobb or Ecutek. /thread

I second that. When I purchased st and ap I didn't know about open source. I can't even adjust idle with st. Now come on, no idle control! I will say that rom raider is awsome!!!

I would asked the tuner to either unlock it or give you a refund and take his tune with him. If he insists that you've paid him to do work for you, then you should have access to that product. If he refuses, take it up with the credit card company.

Yes it does work. I have it on my car. I have the apv1 and st. Live tuning is God and a very nice feature. If you have a 16 bit ecu send me the rom and I will convert it for you so you can add the patch. I believe that your rom has to be 192k for the patch to work. If it's a 32 bit ecu you have to buy the patch from him and go from their.

Quote: I would asked the tuner to either unlock it or give you a refund and take his tune with him. If he insists that you've paid him to do work for you, then you should have access to that product. If he refuses, take it up with the credit card company.

No go on the refund and never really thought about the charge back thing. He can not unlock the ecu as it is the APv2 that locks the ecu. What we are going to do is unistall his APv2 and reflash his old protune back that we copied before his retune using ecuflash. Then I will go in and retune his wgdc to get rid of the massive spikes at part throttle if it is still there (wasn't there with old protune). And then just do what I did with my car and datalog the crud out of it and retune it that way. I am sure I can gain more then 7hp with the fmic. Thank god you guys added the Maf tab on the logger. Thanks for your support people. I was really upset when I started this thread. I really appreciate all the input from all of you good or bad.
Jeff

This is really irritating ; I mean, paying somebody to tune your car and then having no access to your own ECU.

I would recommend to everyone thinking on getting a tuned, to ask the tuner if he intends to lock the ecu. If you are not OK with that, go and find some other tuner. After all, we are paying for that.

It happened to me a while ago, tuners available in my area were locking the ECUs. I decided to learn and do it myself. As a matter of fact, I have compared my work with other similar setups tuned by reputable shops and tuners, and the difference is in the avg. of 10 whp; I guess this may be related to me being a bit conservative.

In summary; POWER TO THE USER!!! GO ROM RAIDER!!!

I dont have a problem with "professional" tuners trying to either keep their secrets or hide their lack of knowledge. Its a reasonable option for them to protect their business..


But now I hear the latest "FIRMWARE UPDATE" to the APV2 locks the ECU no matter if its been pro-tuned or not. Looks like our days of tuning cars with APs are coming to an end... not cool Cobb, not cool at all. There's a reason a crapload of people bought Accessports instead of going to ECUTEK after the crap they pulled in 06 and now you guys are doing the same. BOOO.

The EcuTek thing was irreversible though, at least initially. Presumably the Cobb-locked ECUs can easily be unlocked by divorcing the AP and ECU.

And if you want to tune a Cobb-locked ECU, Cobb will be happy to sell you their Street Tuner software. And why should they interop with other tuning software? They'd just end up fielding tech support calls from RomRaider users!

Too bad Cobb charges 89% of your annual income plus your first born for Pro Tuner or I'd have it already...

I guess time will tell if the lock will have the same effect on Cobb as it did with Ecutek. At least with Cobb, it is easy for the user to flash back to stock by simply unmarrying the AP and not having to go back to the tuner to do it like Ecutek. I've also read that Cobb and Ecutek's licensing aggrements with their pro-tuners prohibit them offering openecu tunes (or do not allow them to advertise it)? I don't know if that is true or not.