2014 E550 - Learning to Tune

[Rescu2000]

Hey guys,
I just bought an HP Tuner for a couple of Jeeps I have with LS swapped engines. I also own a 2014 E550 convertible (w207 series) that I would like to tune. Of course I am going to read for months and learn all I can before I write my first tune. I just wanted to see if anyone has any Tunes that they would be willing to share for me to look at. I've already downloaded most of the ones I've seen on here.
2012 E550 Stock
2012 E550 650tq (fresh start 3)
Stock S550
2015 C63 NA
2014 G63
2014 SL63

Thanks and I will return to reading the posts on how to tune these cars.

[chevota]

I'm happy to help as best I can. 18 months ago I was where you are, so know the feeling.
So, are you using 91 Oct gas? Do you want max possible power or just a nice bump?
Last question: One LS Jeep wasn't enough, you had to have two?

Here's my latest for 50% Ethanol: E550x 100 (4 Oct '23).hpt

Don't try to use it, it may end badly, it's just to look at/compare. Feel free to ask any questions

[Rescu2000]

Well I had one Jeep with a 3.8L supercharged V6 and my Girlfriend had a 3.6L jeep. Her son totaled hers, then my lower end finally gave out on mine. So Mine went into the shop for an LS swap and while I was looking for a donor engine a guy was selling a 4-door JK for what I was paying for the swap.... So what else was I going to do? LOL

So I bought that one for the Girlfriend and I've been working on it while the other engine is being installed.

Back to the fast cars... I have 93 Octane in this region and when I first got the car I bought an OE tune. It did add some power, but I'm sure it is hyper conservative for liability and the "one size fits all" application of a mail order tune. But still I would have probably just left that on there for a while, until...

I thought, "Hey I should get a copy of my stock tune and save it just in case something happens." So I flashed the original tune back on it using the MyGenius, hooked up the HP Tuner, it said it needed to update so I let it do that and read the stock tune out. Well, that was the end of the OE Tune. The MyGenius won't flash it back now. I emailed them and maybe a reset fee will get it, who knows, but I'm probably better off just biting the bullet on doing it myself or using a remote tuner to get this one "car specific" for the maximum power.

I'll check out your tune for reference. I saw the ones from NotMyPie and was looking through those and some AMG ones, just to learn. I was a little scared to get too deep in yours because they seemed to be very very specific to your car and an unknown issue with it.

[chevota]

I too bought OE right after I got the car. It worked great until something like a month later my power dropped like 35% across the board.
Before I added that HP patch, which made me nervous, I copied my ECU using KESS. I copied the oem tune, then the OE, then the OE 100 Octane.
Then I loaded the HP patch. I then discovered the OE would not load, but I can easily reload the copy I saved using KESS and OE works fine again. So it's no doubt to prevent pirating/sharing, I assume? I rekon the MyGenius thing does a checksum and it's a go/no go?
Smogging it was another worry, because I read they do checksums now, and that HP patch no doubt kills that.

I never found my mystery issue, and I'm not sure what my tune would do on a normal car so I always give that warning. For sure my spark timing is too much now, and I think I killed most of the safety built in for retard? Maybe not, I've never tested it on gas, but I suspect it might not retard enough and it could cause damage, I just don't know.
I don't think 93 will be ping free with the oem spark tables, I think it wants more like 95? Hard to say, but we'll find out.

I more or less know how to tune a normal M278, but there will be some trial and error. There's really only two fears I have, one is exhaust temps, which I don't think will be an issue? The other is too much boost, which it can certainly do very easily. How much is too much, I don't really know, just that it can go too far. So basically just do some runs as-is, stock, so I can get a baseline, then we'll tinker from there.
There is no documentation on what all the stuff in HP does. Not that I'm aware of. I watched some videos but it was more Ford & Chevy, kinda useless for me. So more all the stuff I changed is me tinkering, tirial and error. I'm not into safeties so most of that stuff I just push out if the way so I know it won't bother me. I'm also on a first name basis with the safety people at work because I tend to do the same there. Lots of rule breaking and gray areas, and lots of times they simply look away because they don't want to know. So keep them however you like, but they can also bite you by restricting power. Then you have to wonder if they are restricting, and if so, which one and by how much? Then lets say you find it, and loosen it, but you don't gain as much power as you thought. Is that all there is or is there yet another safety now in the way?
You also get to figure out, when you look at something in there, is this thing a limiter, a request, a command? Or perhaps it works together with something else so changing it doesn't do anything unless you change the other with it. And what is that other thing you have to change with it? And in some cases it's not what it's claimed to be at all, so yes, there's mistakes in there too.

I don't think the OE was hyper conservative, but it was was less than ideal and had minimal mods. By that I mean they only tweaked a few key things, where I like to mess with everything. The spark being an example, where OE didn't touch spark so it was pinging and pulling timing and power. So don't worry about not having the OE anymore, we can match or exceed it, but it certainly won't hurt to get it back. If they won't fix it then I'd imagine you could also have the Dealer write the ECU back to stock? I assume that would be a full wipe and solve the problem? Then I'd save that unmolested tune like just in case, or if you need to smog it, or your ECU bricks or fails for whatever reason.

[chevota]

Please collect all the relevant data too. Most people, especially noobs, don't do that and it makes it difficult to see what's going on.
The pix below is what my Scanner looks like, fyi. Using this file in place of yours should give you that and be fully functional, if you want: VCM Scanner.cfg
If noting else, at least all the PID's are loaded, and I assume yours are the same as mine.
Just swap it with the one you have in HP Tuners\Settings\. Move or rename yours and put this in, then you can simply swap back if you want.



Scanner.jpg

[Rescu2000]

Ugh I think I just deleted my response. Well here goes again ...

Should we start a new thread and make it a step-by-step walk through of Tuning one of these? I honestly don't think it will hurt the business of "professional tuners" because 99% of most people will not do this on their own. They would just buy an off the shelf or custom tune.

I would like to start a thread with what some of these tables really mean in practical terms. Like driver input variations 1&2 (I assume sport and econ modes), etc. We can track which tables are safeties, what they do, and what potentially can happen if you bypass them.

I'm not trying to take money away from anyone that does this for a living, but the hobby part of this and the learning should be available to everyone.

[Rescu2000]

Stock Logfile attached. I can get a longer one tomorrow if that helps.

[chevota]

I've learned, the hard way, to copy the text before sending any post anywhere. Here especially. I still get burned now and then so now I write it in Notepad, then copy/paste to the forum. This forum also times you out super fast, it's bizarre really, so I have to remember to click the "Remember me?" box every single time. If not, it may time out while writing and when you click post, poof! Gone...

You can make a new thread if you want, but I'd just keep going here because it will no doubt turn in to a mess. Once you have the gist of the info you want, which I believe will take a lot longer than you think, you can then make a nice clean new thread with all the useless stuff removed. Imo
I wanted to do this from the start too, once I have it all figured out. I suspect that will never happen... I know my eng pretty well, but then I look at others, like the newer 4.0 V8 and 2.0 4cyl, and I'm back a novice. Under my user name here it says "Advanced Tuner". Apparently the bar is pretty low...
I believe a few others may have wanted to make a guide too, but so far nothing. I'd wager that most people who buy HP for a Benz either give up early on, and/or or pay someone to do it, then we never hear from them again? As you can see from the forum, it's tumbleweeds and crickets most of the time. I think I'm the most active member since I joined ~Feb '22.
I'm really stubborn when it comes to things like this, the tuning I mean. Plus, anything I can do it myself, there is all but zero chance I'll pay someone to do it for me, even if the time spent makes no sense to a normal person, I can't help it. But I love a challenge and love to learn, as long as it's interesting to me, and horsepower is Plus I'd never be happy with how someone else tuned it and I'd be in there messing with it anyway. So here I am, still playing with it. Stubborn for sure, and no guarantees on sanity...

I see your log, it looks good! All the data I need and it's running pretty much like I expected.
A lot of knock retard. Not bad, it's normal, I just thought it would be less with the better gas you said you had. Makes me wonder if it's really higher, or perhaps my 30% Ethanol mix is a lot higher than I thought. I dunno...

IAT is higher than I expected for the rather low ambient temp. Makes me wonder about your intercooler pump. Do you have the original pump in there? If you replaced it, did you get the same one or the new improved "010" pump? Apparently they're short lived so if you ever buy one, get the 010 at minimum. And is your intercooler isolated from the eng or does it share eng water? Mine is isolated but apparently some earlier cars were not. Seems weird they would do that but it's certainly not the first weird thing I've found.

You're 2wd right? I mean the data says it is. What kind of tires are on the back and how much tread? Or maybe an easier question; was traction an issue with the OE tune?

This should be pretty easy. Let me cook you up something to start with and we'll see what happens

[Rescu2000]

I've got brand new Michelin pilot sports on the back. It's hard to get it to spin the back tires now. It would shred the previous ones with the OE tune and bark then when it shifted into 2nd or 3rd. It wouldn't do that with the new ones.

The car is stock and only has 60k miles on it. I don't know about the intercooler, but I'll see if I can check it out tomorrow. The car is RWD with just about every option. I looked quite a while before I found one this optioned out. It has the sport package with the AMG brakes, distronic, driver assist, 360 camera, park assist, etc etc etc.

It is a convertible A207 model. I only put 93 octane in it.

I did see that IAT go red and thought that was odd given the cool temps we have right now. Makes me wonder about the intercooler as well. I'll look at that upgrade.

[Rescu2000]

Did you need my stock rom or do I need to just add those changes to it via compare?

[chevota]

I deleted the post with the tune based on my file. Tried to delete just the tune from it but I guess you can't? So I deleted the whole post.

[Rescu2000]

No, I had to copy the files. That file had a different VIN. I copied MOST of the tables over.

The ones I didn't were under Temperature Control. Mainly because I ran out of time this morning. Mine is a 2014 and yours is a 2016 and they looked pretty similar so I thought it might have just been year revisions. I can copy them over though no problem.

Should I copy the Lambda values (Bank 1, var 0, 2nd fuel B1, etc) 2nd fuel? I only ask because I wondered if they were specific to your methanol setup...

Never mind, saw that they are read only.

[chevota]

I cudda swore I loaded someone elses tune once. I guess I remember it wrong.
So here it is based on your file: 2014 E550 chevota.hpt

That whole tune, fuel and all, was from scratch for your car, using pure gasoline. The oem fuel map is too lean to use with more than oem boost.
My Ethanol map in the 2nd post is richer than oem, but leaner than the gas version.

You need the older version of Editor to do the fuel. They say you can take an online course and get a code to "unlock" the current Editor to do fuel, but I did and it would not unlock! Super annoying because the course was long and painful. Plus I had some weird issue where my power would lose power after a bit under full load. Turns out it was the newer Editor. Not sure why exactly, but it happened twice. Reverting back to the old Editor and problem is gone. So many little details like this that bite you in the butt, and no clues or instructions.

And I assume you have checked the Advanced tab under Edit\View so you can see everything?

[Rescu2000]

Well guys I was hoping to get the OE tune back on there and just leave it at that, but they've been pretty shitty to me. At first they said they could make me new files for $100. So I paid that, sent them the read out of my car from the MyGenius. They said that it was the same as my original read and the HP Tuners has "locked" my PCM. So they offered me my $100 back. Then I talked through a couple more options with them on trying to get the OE tune back on there. They kept giving me vague and dodgy responses. Finally they got to where they are flat out getting shitty with me and they are now refusing to even give me the $100 back. So, I'm just ready to move on with an HP tune and hopefully their attitude towards customer service will dictate their future.

[Rescu2000]

Chevota,
Here is the log file. I'm going to go do some research on tuning for 93 octane. That's really all I wanted the other tune for anyway.

[chevota]

Damn. Well, lesson learned I guess.
I do not believe your ECU is locked at all, but the MyGenius might be.
Not sure exactly how that MyGenius works, but I recall that once used it's locked to that car, so if you want to use it on another car you have to send it in to be wiped and start over. Maybe as far as the MyGenius is concerned, it's now another car?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I kinda sorta remember that MyGenius allowed me to put the OEM file back on, after the HP patch, I just wouldn't put the OE tune back on. It's been like 20 months so I'm fuzzy on the details. Is that what you're seeing, or? Either way you have the OEM tune on the ECU now, and the HP patch, correct?

As far as sending them your ECU, I would not. No way Jose. As mentioned about the MyGenius loading the oem file back on, I'm pretty sure that is the full oem load and should restore it back like it never happened. Well, except for the HP patch of course. Someone school me if I'm wrong, but I believe that's how it works.

If you want it back to oem without the HP patch, then I would ask HP if they have an uninstall for the patch? Seems logical they would, because why not, but I never asked. That would be sweet... If not, tell them others are asking for it too and it should be an obvious thing to have.

If all fails I would either take it to a dealer and ask them to fully wipe/restore it, or ask someone here, like maybe outlaw50, to restore it remotely.
I'm pretty sure that can be done with Xentry? Or maybe Vediamo? I dunno, fuzzy on the details but I do recall discussing it with someone somewhere.
My local dealer offered to do it for one hour labor, which I think was like $160? However you do it, you should be golden and the MyGenius should work again.

[chevota]

That run was from my tune wasn't it? If so, it's acting like my car, meaning it's being uncooperative. We still have plenty of room to bump it up.

[Rescu2000]

The my genius appears to see the patch as a modification to the original tune and won't write to it. Either way the OE tune guys have pissed me off to the point that I would never do business with them again anyway. I'll pay renntech $3000 before I give OE Tuning another penny. My mygenius is unlocked because I wrote the original tune back to the car to read it out. I was NOT trying to read the OE tune or anything, just trying to get a back up of my PCM in case anything ever happened.

Yes that was with your tune. It was in econ mode at first and I didn't catch that so I switched it between the two acceleration spikes.

[Rescu2000]

Also what's do you mean by uncooperative? The boost clearly came up from 8-10 to 15 psi. That is giving it a big bump already.

[chevota]

I just thought it would raise boost a little more, and more importantly, carry it longer. No worries, there's plenty of room to tinker.
Less than full throttle it'll act different in eco mode, but full throttle should be the same in either mode.

You can make a backup of the ECU as it is, it'll simply have the HP patch on it. I assume it will, I never tried it. My only worry is I don't know if the HP patch will make it fail smog or not. So if you have to smog it, I guess we'll find out. Otherwise I'd just leave the HP patch on it.