In other words why do all these car companies leave so much room for improvement in their software? Is it emissions, longevity, or what.

also i read somewhere that running lean makes the car better on gas and faster at the same time. Is that true? seems false to me

 

Never heard this one and since you haven't offered what ratio constitutes the claim of lean that you heard about, it's hard to formulate a comment. So I'll assume.

Running lean can increase internal temperatures and can lead to pre-ignition (ping) and worse, detonation. The ECU will have to retard ignition timing to compensate. This will result in loss of power (not to mention less fuel being burned per engine cycle) and lower fuel economy. The ideal ratio at sea level is 14.7:1 which is 14.7 parts atmospheric air to one part fuel.

 

if the ECU is max out potential then the wear and tear happen at faster rate, therefore alot of thing can break before warranty ended. Honda don't want to deal with warranty repair if it can be avoided.

 

No aftermarket tuner is going to give you a 50-100K mile warranty. Manufacturers will. Also they tune them a little sloppy on purpose for comfort. Quick throttle response and quicker/firmer shifts will not make grandmas happy. Most people just want a comfortable car cause they're busy playing with their phone or singing along with the radio.

 

From what I've read, Ford actually de-tunes some of their cars to negate excessive horsepower.

 

I'm pretty sure a lot of manufacturers do that as well. Some of the cars are underrated. BMW and Audi comes to mind.

 

^^^Audi really? BMW yes their number look like a joke but the 0-60 mph and 1/4 mile number reflect something else. For instance the new 328i listed only 250hp but 0-60 is 5.5, 1/4 13.9, god that is the same time as 2013 Accord V6 MT which rate at 278hp. I do understand that BMW TQ came really early some thing like at 1200 RPM.

 

Got to remember that the HP/WGT ratios are pretty close as the Accord (12.7) weighs more than the BMW (14.0), but the big difference is the 8 speed trans in the BMW as the overall ratio from a dead stop start is 14.84 compared to the Honda's 13.24. Just an FYI the '07 TL A/T is 11.6 and the 6M/T is 12.92, so the Bimmer is quite low to help the get up and go.

As far as the OE ECU, as has been stated above, it is programmed for the best overall fuel mileage and relative lively performace, within reason.

On one of my cars, everything stock, but replaced just the ECU with a G-Force unit and the HP jumped from 200 HP from the factory to 305 HP and it only took 15 minutes, and the only other item that needed to be installed was a fuel pump upgrade.

 

good point I did not even think of comfort.

 

seriously, and with a $350 tune from BMS the little 4 banger 328 goes 0-60 in 4.9 seconds. If I knew anything about tuning or cars in general before I got my TL, i probably wouldnt have bought it. I love my TL dont get me wrong but my next car will have to be RWD and a tighter turn radius.

 

compromises.

I had the pleasure of driving a 6.0 GTO this weekend.
it was less than impressive.

suspension sucked, very heavy, horrible fuel economy.
these are trade off's for the torque and sound from a v8.

but thats it. torque and sound.
I'd rather have a full all around package like the TL.


P.S. even tho it was RWD, the TL out handles The Judge, easily.

 

they can be quite fast with a stage II tune, 335i with stage II using Cobb AP custom tune can launch the car into 12s mark in 1/4 miles meanwhile I never seen any TL broke into the 12s mark even with S/C added (except for one TL-S with NSX rim up front running slick and doing 150-200 shoot of nos. timer was 12.6-12.8 in 1/4 mile track)

 

Mostly emissions and CAFE. Plus reliability of course. They have to assume that you may get bad batches of fuel, etc. However on a NA car there isn't normally a ton of gain just on a ECU tune. Turbo cars are another matter.

 

Most cars naturally aspirated don't leave that much on the table from the factory considering everything uses a knock sensor.

There are two ways to increase power, timing and A/F ratio (and boost). Detonation is the main reason factory engineers don't try and get every last hp but they come really close. Knock sensors used to be a backup just in case the cars pinged. Now in many cars knock sensors are used as part of the tuning. They're always running at the threshold of detonation. Not much to gain if at all unless you're using higher than required octane.

The old saying "leaner is meaner" holds true some of the time. It's usually used for forced induction. I'll keep AF ratios around 12.5:1 overall but that's with meth injection so it's not entirely as rich as it sounds. On race gas I'll go 13.0, even 13.2:1 since detonation and preignition are no longer issues.

AFR can be changed richer or leaner depending on how the car comes from the factory. Leaner will make more power assuming more detonation to a point but after that point you start raising combustion temps with little to no gain and even a loss of power and that's assuming no detonation.

Some cars have some sort of torque management to protect parts but I don't think the TL has anything of the sort other than shutting the throttle during shifts on the 5at. And the less power on the early or was it late models was for torque steer, not parts breakage.

Manufacturers have to assume the worst. The occasional tank of 87, the idiots with the pedal to the floor all the time no matter how loaded down the car is with weight or how hot it is outside. These cars are sold over a variety of climates and it's hard to perfectly optimize them for every possible condition.

 

^ this guy knows his shit

 

 

Audi's supercharged 3.0 V6 is definitely underrated. Looking at the fact the B8 S4 is trapping 106-108 mph at 4,000 lbs with AWD, there's no way that engine is making only 333 hp at the crank. It's probably putting that much to the wheels.

QFT.

Looking at some of the meager power numbers the Flashpro is producing on the the few TL's that have it is a bit disappointing. Granted, it has other benefits, like eliminating the Vtec dip, smoothing out the idle after induction work and best of all, eliminating rev hang.

 

yes he has had a credible rep around here for years. I knew nothing about cars before using this forum and now I pretty much never take it to a mechanic.

 

^^Yes, In a word: Safety. The ECU calculates and controls combinations of engine functions such as mixture, and timing, VTEC, etc. Optimal settings are affected by octane, altitude, temperature, and driving inputs. For a car to be reliable under many different operating conditions, the manufacturer must program "safety margins" into the ECU so the car doesn't break under less than perfect conditions (i.e. low octane, extreme temps, mountain climbing).

They keep the settings away from the very edge of performance so the car won't ping itself to death in short order because the timing is too advanced, fuel too lean, etc.--all in order to make just a couple more horsepower.

The ECU tuners use precise maps that reduce these safety margins, but eek out gains in pure HP and torque. Some of these programs are very sophisticated, but for normally aspirated cars the returns are usually subtle. And at the very edge of this tuning are diminishing returns in HP. Everything comes with a price--for example, I always had to run 93 in my Z or damage the engine.

Most people just aren't as crazy as we are, and car manufacturers must make highly reliable cars to stay in business.

 

Exactly. They are providing a warranty for several years and simply assume that with a wide variety of factors involved (mostly negative ones) that a certain amount of room needs to be given.

If every car were tuned to 'the max' you'd see a lot more longevity issues, check engine lights and failed smog tests etc.

 

Given the realities that car manufacturers have to work with, I'd go as far to say that they are indeed maxing out what they can while having your engine being reliable for a few hundred K miles. I hate cars nailed it spot on along with Ken199TL.

Do you guys honestly think that a Hennesy 1200bblhp viper is going to last 100K miles? not likely...