VF Tuner for the Lotus Emira

[Porter]

Have you guys managed to flash an Emira ECU and then get it to boot?

A lot of us are excited about this! Give us some insight into what you've discovered, if you have time to share.

@VF Tuner
Just bringing this back up in case you missed it. I know you say you're working on the tune, but I'm specifically curious about whether you have any ability yet to flash the platform, even without any substantive tuning changes. What's your current progress on it? We are all quite curious.

Thanks!

 

[EZcheezy]

im rooting for you VF Tuner!

 

[NJemira85]

 

[VF Tuner]

@VF Tuner
Just bringing this back up in case you missed it. I know you say you're working on the tune, but I'm specifically curious about whether you have any ability yet to flash the platform, even without any substantive tuning changes. What's your current progress on it? We are all quite curious.

Thanks!

Yes we can flash it, but currently only on the bench.

 

[Tracked Emira]

Bumpity, bump and beggin for a bacon-like tune to eat up my tires Pleeeease!

 

[NJemira85]

Bumpity, bump and beggin for a bacon-like tune to eat up my tires Pleeeease!

Dyno day officially is this Thursday.

 

[Syzygy]

Dyno day officially is this Thursday.

It is officially Friday and we are hungry little birdies.

 

[TFS]

 

[NJemira85]

The car is having a fault with its primary o2 sensors and dyno has to be postponed. It cannot log AFR on the bFlash unlocked ecu, even with the stock oem tune. To be clear, this is not VF’s fault.

On the back up locked ecu, o2 sensors and AFR remain functional.

BFlash and VF are in the process of troubleshooting.

My understanding is that future unlocks would be done domestically, by VF.

I will keep everyone posted.

 

[VF Tuner]

Yea unfortunately it seems the BFlash unlocking process has caused damage to the ECU.
We went through every other possible diagnostic step, checked, rechecked,

But everything points to the ECU being bad post unlock.

None of these issues existed before the ECU was sent to BFlash.

We had everything ready to go and dyno scheduled but the car is in limp mode

Even with stock tune, our tune, any tune

The customers original / virgin ECU works no problem, only the BFlash unlocked ECU does this (with NO tune, just stock ECU unlocked)

 

[F1 SML8R]

...The customers original / virgin ECU works no problem, only the BFlash unlocked ECU does this (with NO tune, just stock ECU unlocked)

This is why the spare ECU approach is the best during this Beta stage. When all else fails, you can always go back to your OE ECU

 

[675430VME]

The car is having a fault with its primary o2 sensors and dyno has to be postponed. It cannot log AFR on the bFlash unlocked ecu, even with the stock oem tune. To be clear, this is not VF’s fault.

On the back up locked ecu, o2 sensors and AFR remain functional.

BFlash and VF are in the process of troubleshooting.

My understanding is that future unlocks would be done domestically, by VF.

I will keep everyone posted.

Wait, isn't this for a V6?

 

[VF Tuner]

Wait, isn't this for a V6?

Yes this is the v6

 

[675430VME]

Yes this is the v6

I thought you can bench flash yourself? Or did I remember it wrong?

 

[VF Tuner]

I thought you can bench flash yourself? Or did I remember it wrong?

Currently yes but no remote flashing is ready yet,
With this customer we went with BFlash just because we already own a BFlash and just wanted to prove our tune.

Our future setup is planned to be solely with our devices.


Unfortunately the BFlash setup is providing to be a big headache.
This headache didn’t even start at the ECU damage either. BFlash returned the ECU to the customer with no file, no way to tune it, and we had to manually ask for a file and BFlash initially seemed confused or didn’t know what we were talking about.
Almost like they never actually did it before

 

[675430VME]

Currently yes but no remote flashing is ready yet,
With this customer we went with BFlash just because we already own a BFlash and just wanted to prove our tune.

Our future setup is planned to be solely with our devices.


Unfortunately the BFlash setup is providing to be a big headache.
This headache didn’t even start at the ECU damage either. BFlash returned the ECU to the customer with no file, no way to tune it, and we had to manually ask for a file and BFlash initially seemed confused or didn’t know what we were talking about.
Almost like they never actually did it before

Oh...

 

[VF Tuner]

Yea so our plan now is this
1. We will provide our unlocking (Stateside). Ship us your ECU, we will unlock it + provide our tool.
2. We are developing our own complete flash bootloader for our tool for this ECU. Entirely skipping the "original programming method"
3. Developing custom features.
For example, we have launch control releasing for the Lotus Evora here in a few weeks. Same code can be applied to the Emira.

It really just requires community backing to get things going. There are a lot of development costs involved.

I'm heavily considering buying another Emira. (first emira went poop, had tons of problems).

 

[ADC]

@VF Tuner , is there any hope of you one day sharing/licensing your secret sauce to somebody in the UK who can do the unlock? Obviously it sounds like the map flashing itself will eventually be a self-serve OBD affair, which is awesome.

I'm simmering with anticipation for what you are developing, but not super excited by the idea of shipping my ECU back and forth across the Atlantic (tariffs both ways?). I guess the option of having a new ECU drop-shipped to you from Lotus US exists, but also irks me slightly... not least because paying 20% import duties back to the UK on top also kinda sucks.

 

[VF Tuner]

@VF Tuner , is there any hope of you one day sharing/licensing your secret sauce to somebody in the UK who can do the unlock? Obviously it sounds like the map flashing itself will eventually be a self-serve OBD affair, which is awesome.

I'm simmering with anticipation for what you are developing, but not super excited by the idea of shipping my ECU back and forth across the Atlantic (tariffs both ways?). I guess the option of having a new ECU drop-shipped to you from Lotus US exists, but also irks me slightly... not least because paying 20% import duties back to the UK on top also kinda sucks.

I'm going to be directly honest with you. There is on possibility that we will share this info. It will be stolen. It happens every time.

 

[NJemira85]

I want to update everyone here, it is premature to blame bFlash® for this.

This may actually be an ECU connector failure, which is intermittent by its nature. We just don’t know yet. BFlash has been responsive and collaborative in support thus far. Just want to be fair and honest.