3.0 TDI ZF8 Calibration pre-emissions "fix" restoration

My Audi Q5 3.0 TDI was recently subjected to the much maligned emissions "fix" which among other things dramatically altered the transmission warmup and normal shift patters such that the engine wrecks itself with excessively high rpm's during cold start, refuses to respond without delay and needlessly holds higher gears during normal driving.

Anticipating the damage I bought an mpvi2 and read the prefix transmission configuration to a hpt file which could be opened by the VCM suite. Reading the post fix configuration results in a VCM error because the newer OS is unsupported. I've submitted the newer hpt and vcm configuration logs as advised.

A couple of questions I'd appreciate answers to:
Is it possible to overwrite the current post-fix configuration by loading the pre-fix hpt file within the VCM stuite and then attempting a write via mpvi2 or does the OS revision have to match?
If impossible I gather if and when the newer OS is supported, the older settings will need to be transferred somehow to the newer base configuration. Is there a direct migration strategy or procedure to upgrade an older OS configuration file to be compatible with the newer OS revision or does all the available configuration data need to be manually copied to the newer OS base configuration?

Cheers

We do not support a method of completely changing the OS back to the old one. That'd require an entire read of what is on the controller, and we only read the calibration data due to limitations in the controllers software.

What you can do though is once the new operating system is defined is copy your old to your new. There's a couple ways to this, but the one I typically use is:
1. Open your new file.
2. Open your old file as a Compare file. (Compare > Open Compare File)
3. Open the Comparison Log (Compare > Open Comparison Log)
4. Right click on the highest member on the list, and "Copy Over All Differences".

You could also go through each individual change made and see which of them you'd like to keep or not.
There may be some changes still left in undefined tables that wouldnt be copied over, but most of whats left undefined in the ZF8 accounts for hardware differences, of which you will have zero as its the same transmission.

Thanks for the quick response.
The steps provided allowed me to copy the pre-fix differences, of which there are many, to the recently captured TCU configuration which I then flashed to the TCU. Following the flash, which occurred at a fraction of the read time, I re-read the TCU, saved the file and compared to the pre-fix template and all seemed consistent.
The cold start behaviour, however, remains exactly the same with excessively high rpm's during engine warm up so either the necessary shift parameters were not captured, not written despite the tool indicating success or hidden elsewhere and not exposed.

I've noticed the Shift Mapping for the warm up is grayed out and indicated shift pattern 30/31 which is no different from the pre emission "fix" configuration. The shift mapping mapping however which used to map shift patterns 30 - 30 and 31 - 31 now maps both 30 and 31 to shift pattern 5 and also cannot be altered. In desperation I attempted to copy the old shift pattern from 31 to 5 but following a flash, there is still no discernable difference in shifting behaviour.

If anyone with experience reverting the Audi TDI emissions ZF8HP nonsense to a pre-fix state or an idea of why my current approach is failing could provide some guidance it would be much appreciated.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sparcplug

Thanks for the quick response.
The steps provided allowed me to copy the pre-fix differences, of which there are many, to the recently captured TCU configuration which I then flashed to the TCU. Following the flash, which occurred at a fraction of the read time, I re-read the TCU, saved the file and compared to the pre-fix template and all seemed consistent.
The cold start behaviour, however, remains exactly the same with excessively high rpm's during engine warm up so either the necessary shift parameters were not captured, not written despite the tool indicating success or hidden elsewhere and not exposed.

I've noticed the Shift Mapping for the warm up is grayed out and indicated shift pattern 30/31 which is no different from the pre emission "fix" configuration. The shift mapping mapping however which used to map shift patterns 30 - 30 and 31 - 31 now maps both 30 and 31 to shift pattern 5 and also cannot be altered. In desperation I attempted to copy the old shift pattern from 31 to 5 but following a flash, there is still no discernable difference in shifting behaviour.

If anyone with experience reverting the Audi TDI emissions ZF8HP nonsense to a pre-fix state or an idea of why my current approach is failing could provide some guidance it would be much appreciated.

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Could you take a log with the Shift Source Base logged? The warmup mode is seldom used as is by most OEMs I've noticed, but that will indicate what "process" is controlling it.
I wonder if the ECM itself is causing the shifts to hold out further (which is a possibility, the ECM and TCM coordinate on EVERYTHING), which that would show.


Do you have a

As a complete beginner, I've absolutely no idea how to log the shift source base. That being said the alterations did seem to take effect; perhaps I failed to notice the effects on the initial attempt. Applying the pre-fix differences to the post fix file and altering the map 5 which the warmup 30/31 patterns are mapped to causes all manner of problems and results in the torque converter failing to lock correctly issuing a transmission code; likely because I failed to overwrite map5's corresponding torque converter lockup settings pattern with map 30's.
I've since reverted to the original post fix configuration to avoid any futher potential damage while I learn what exactly all the settings mean. The only change now is the reversion of the shift and torque converter mapping mappings back to the prefix state, not the value collections they reference; ie warmup settings 30/31 map to 30/31 rather than 5/5.

My ultimate goal was merely to revert the warmup shifting cycle to a pre-fix state and the normal shift patterns aswell to allow much lower rpm shifting by default similar to the pre-fix state.
The rpm values in the tables don't appear to match the actual shift rpm's at all if the rpm's are input shaft values. Anyway once I can identify the shift source I'll proceed accordingly.
Are there any ZF8HP tcm alteration tutorials available?

Finally a degree of success. Following a lengthy reprieve from my attempts, returning to this problem recently I noticed some of the shifting maps differ on the accelerator percentage axis between pre and post emissions shift map configurations; the newer maps containing a greater degree of granularity within the lower accelerator position range. While re-normalizing the original shift maps to the new axis resulted in no changes to the warmup cycle mapping 30/31, shifting behaviour once the warm up cycle is complete maps 5/6 etc etc. has returned to a pre-emssions shifting character once the warmup cycle is over. The torque converter settings were also restored for the maps altered.
Engine braking which is a function of the ECU configuration is still disabled, however I will pursue alternatives to that effect.

My remaining concerns all relate to logging and configuring the warm up cycle.
Firstly I've used vcm scanner to record the transmission variables however shift base didn't provide a meaningful value; this will be clarified by driving around and recording shortly to confirm.
Investigation will proceed into the engine warm up cycle, hopefully with some insight garnered into which lookup tables are actually being referenced. Besides shift base are there any further logging parameters that would be of use?
Despite the lengthy delay between responses, hopefully this thread can be revived for further expert inquiries as I proceed.

PM sent

Attempts to alter maps 30/31 designated and apparently hard coded under shift scheduling -> warmup, to reign in the errant high rpm warmup shift pattern, resulted in no change to shifting behaviour and furthermore vcmscanner logging yields little information on the transmission shift map selections; ShiftBase always reporting Aggression which is of little meaningful use. Either the warmup specified maps are erroneous and other maps are actually being referenced or I can only surmise that perhaps the latest Audi ZF8 TDI operating system hard codes the warm up cycle shifting parameters. Any insight's would be appreciated.

I've attached a few images to demonstrate the current configuration.

The first shows the maps and configuration for the warmup cycle and the second the shift source base scanner value which never changes from "Aggression".

The maps clearly indicate low rpms in all gears at lower accelerator pedal positions for both warmup maps yet the warmup cycle will always shift at rpms higher than 2000 even with marginal throttle input. The maps appear to be completely ignored.
Attachment 101703
The second shows the Shift Base value, is this expected to change to a value other than "Aggression"? How would I determine the actual maps referenced by the TCM via the scanner if Shift Source Base proves inaccurate?
Attachment 101704

Hi sparcplug,

Warmup maps 30/31 both refer to map 5. I've tried to avoid that warmup mode but without success, it impacts manual mode as well.

I have a ticket opened since May 8th (ticket number #218014) to be able to have the map shift ID in VCM Scanner but I'm without news since.

Attachment 102658

I have to admit not all of it made sense to me but wondering if the Ticket has progressed and whether it has been ascertained if there are any "8HP tcm alteration tutorials available?"

many thanks

Any progress on this? I also have Q5 3.0 TDI and looking into remapping TCU switching points to pre-diesel-fix.

have you been able to solve it @ sparcplug? I am curious how it all went down and whether you're satisfied with the results.

post the before and after files.

At this time I am not even sure whether this particular model can be tuned using this system - I am still waiting for support to come back and confirm it is compatible. Just wanted to know whether anybody had any luck tuning Q5 TDI

I have confirmation that 2016 3.0 TDI is supported. Is there anybody with pre-fix mapping saved by any chance?

x2 for a copy of the pre-update transmission file

Q5 TDI, sure but what box?

"I have confirmation that 2016 3.0 TDI is supported." And what gearbox would that be? Seems weird that a TCU mapping company is telling you an Engine is supported

Right ... so 2016 TDI Q5 comes only with ZF8 transmission as far as I know. I do not think there have been any other gearboxes in US. Sorry, should have been clearer for sure.

As a total side bar, I will *likely* have a way to restore my transmission to pre-diesel-fix state, at which time I do plan to grab the whole mapping set from it and save it for posterity.

While a HP tuners file copy of the ZF8 pre-emissions fix transmission configuration was created, the data contained within appears to have been incomplete; omitting various torque converter configurations and settings data owing to the incomplete software and firmware revisions at the time.
I've managed to alter the post-warmup shift maps for the least aggressive transmission maps via referencing the older data and the car now operates at a much lower gear, aggressively upshifting to the highest numerical gear possible.
However, the manic high rpm warmup shifting behaviour remains and engine braking is still entirely absent so the car still largely operates in a vastly diminished capacity; an additional side effect of the changes appears to be a resistance to downshifting when attempting to accelerate.
Generally I'm dissatisfied with the changes which only partially approximate pre-emissions post-warmup shifting behaviour and little else. Coupled with the complete loss of low end torque (below 1800rpm), despite a Malone stage 2 which manifests in a dramatic surge of torque above 1800rpm, and aforementioned reluctance to downshift the car remains a shadow of it's former self.

Additionally if anyone would like the original pre-fix and my altered post-fix hp tuner files, I'd be happy to post them somewhere.