What is the difference between Chip Tuning and ECU Remapping? The difference is basically the age of the techniques used to obtain the cars “map file”. Nowadays you are very unlikely to get your car “chipped” due to the evolution of electronics and chips themselves. Basically, chip tuning is on older approach while remapping is a more modern approach.
Chip tuning or most commonly known as “Chipping” is the old way of increasing a car’s performance and economy, used on cars built before 2000. ECU remapping is the modern term, and the modern way of doing the same thing chipping does for older cars.
Remapping a car’s ECU is carrying out the same process as chip tuning, but does so without actually chipping the car. All cars built before the year 2000, to modify a car you would physically be opening the vehicle’s electronic control unit (ECU) and taking out the chip (Eeprom) to manually tune and reconfigure the engine map file, and then replacing it into the car, usually via a soldering method. This procedure is allot riskier than remapping, but no problem for a skilled chip tuner.
Now due to evolution of electronics and software we are able to things much safer, and much more effective with ECU remapping. Using the cars OBD port fitted in cars post 2000, we can now hook up to the diagnostics port (OBD port) in your vehicle withKess v2 or MPPS, and with specialist software and expert analysis, we can remap and re-programme your ECU without any invasive techniques.
Having your car remapped or chip tuned with ECU tuning tools in UK will be a safe bet, because we always back up all the software and data of your cars ECU, so should you change your mind or experience any issues, we can either revert to the factory settings, or re-do the ECU remapping, to get perfect performance and efficiency for you.
So, if you’re wanting to increase your car’s performance and efficiency, and you’re driving a car built before 2000 then you will need a chip tuner like kess v2, ktag, mpps v18, fgtech 4, etc. (It depends).If you’re driving a car after 2000, then you need ECU remapping with ECM Titanium 1.61 with kess/ktag.
There are many ECU tuning/remapping tools, but it depends on what you are gonna to do with it. The chart below maybe helps you.
ECU tools/ Communication |
MPPS V18 | KESS v2 | KTAG | FgTech2 / Fgtech 4 |
OBD2 | √ | √ | √ | |
BOOT | √ | √ | √ | |
BDM | √ | √ | ||
J-TAG | √ | √ | ||
Tricore | √ |
So, KESS v2 supports obd2, boot
MPPS v18 works for obd2,Multiboot, Tricore for Marelli ECU’s
KTAG can work for bdm, j-tag, boot
FgTech Galleto v54 4 (or Fgtech 2)work no issues with obd2, bdm, j-tag, boot
Example: SOFi SP8-F USB Programmer Remaps Chip tuning a 2004 Volvo XC90 2.4VD, ECU was a BOSCH EDC15C11 which had a 44pin AM29F400BT chip.
We removed the chip, placed it into our chip reader and backed up the cars map file. The file was then adjusted for a power map. We erased the chip then wrote the new modified map file to the chip. Once the chip was wrote we prepared the ECU’s PCB and re-soldered the chip back to the board.