this is true and its mot like your even coverd if it goes pop , even when you pay xxxx or xxxxx person to do it

i think mappes need to rethink or they may end up with less and less people wanting mapping done

stu

 

Not on open source ecu's

 

I don't think anyone has said it's an impossible task, so not sure where you get that from?

I'll happily pay that bit extra for someone with experience to map my car.

 

i think thats most peoples opinion who love their impreza. your paying for the mappers experience rather than their time.

 

The difference between properly mapping a car and tweaking something yourself is significant. Some of the guys who have been doing it a long time have a proper engineering and mechanical background which is the key to proper engine mapping. They fully understand what changing things do and when things don't go quite right, they know where to look.

Mapping itself is not impossible, as you pointed out, simple equipment and it is essentially altering numbers in cells. Mapping what I would call properly and to get the most out of a car is not so simple, especially when you get into the realms of 500bhp+ cars.

 

I must Say I have had a number of cars mapped by a number of people to be fair I watch them adjusted my map and yes it felt better and once a well know mapper nearly blow my car up running my car very lean on boost. I agree mapping isn't hard it just take time to play and learn. As one mapper said to me when I asked how he learnt " on my own car just playing with the map"
Mmmmm

 

i'm not saying these mappers are not very skilled at what they do , for me it is just the amount of money for the time they spend on a car just seems a rip of ,

people seem scared too try new mappers awell , which doesn't help new people starting out

 

Well there's a thread on here at the moment where big ends have gone , after first drive after a remap , is that the mappers fault ?
Now if your talking getting your car mapped to get every last bhp out of it then that does require more knowledge , but for example , injector swap , de cat and little more boost and get it performing well and safe is easy

 

im with you on this one.

 

Well what would you prefer them to say? That they went and studied "super duper engine mapping jiggery pokey" at Loughborough University for 35 years before becoming a mapper?
How else do you think you learn it? I'd rather it be done on their own car than others like some blithering idiot would do.

There's a reason for this... experienced mappers know what they're doing and have the word of mouth feedback from numerous customers previously or particular tuners who use their services.

Dave down the pub who uses Tom, Dick or Harry for his 1,000brake Scooby "innit" and who is just starting out are not going to get my business for their "hobby" so they can get more practice from my guinea pig engine The operative words being "starting out". I want to use the mapper who is least likely to singe my engine, the experienced guy, the guy with 100's, 1,000's of happy customers, years of experience and backing from others (as stated above).

 

op is right and wrong imo.

tuners spend a lot of money on building there cars up ect ect. thus they have a vested interest in the car - minimumis financial - but being tuned japanse turbochrage engines they realise there will aways be a certain amount of risk. and the fear this risk generates can be exploited by others.
anyone can learn to map i agree, but like most trades mistakes result in the biggest learning curves - and are guys willing to make mistakes a fairly large finacial investment?

how mapping is pushed fairly or unfairly im not sure, and how much its used to induce fear i couldnt say.

but an experienced mapper, i just that. will have mapped many many subaru engines and no matter what people say after so much experience you will get a feel for a set ups positives/negatives, how this particular engine behaves and a myriad of other influencing factors.

and for many the extra couple hundred quid spent on a reputable mapper isnt even questionable. your paying for the years of experience, hoping it provides results an amount of safety.
but its like anything really you pay for a service - the good names establish themselves and rise to the top of unoffical ratings. At the same time they are handsomely rewarded - infact its a golden buisness oppertinity if marketed correctly, and if the current economic climate is favorable.

many mappers also fix minor mechanical tweaks, spark changed here and there, u/s ht lead, hose clamp loose plus lots of other minor "fixes" they may be presented with. yes its there own interests to keep customers happy and maintain there position in the politics there are between tuners/mappers. results speak volumes.

but if you want to have a go at mapping your own vehicle i dont see why if your happy to just go for it - everyone has to earn somewhere
i remeber i bought the haynes manual on emerld ecu mapping by dave walker?? with a cd of a virtual engine and you could play about with things trying to get things right without real damage.
at the time it was beyond what i understood - but i reckon i could give it a go now. obviously the ecu has hardly hit the headlines on subarus, but i imagine in principle it would b similar and those with knowledge of computer programming could quite easily adapt to it, given time.

right/wrong>??

 

I keep hearing about it was mapped by dodgy joe bloggs and it went bang
Or I've mapped it myself and it went bang
How about we get some honesty and if you know who mapped a car that went bang no matter who it was And you can attribute it to the mapping , you post it up here
Have you guys ever thought the first thing that people do when they've done mods or had it mapped is go and give the car some stick , so if summats gonna break the chances are its gonna break then
So are they all attributed to mapping or are the majority mechanical failures due to the new power and stresses ?

 

When I had my Impreza mapped by Bob Rawle, it cost me £280. That was for a FULL custom map from scratch on ecuTEK software. I had purchased the ecu off here and it had a license on it. So even including this license it was £420. So say I didn't have this ecu or license on it, I'm looking at £500 maybe? Still no more for the map, just paying the license costs which has nothing, nada, zilch to do with the mapper... it's the software.

So £280 for said custom map which takes a couple hours... what are we saying the "newbies" to mapping would charge? What credentials have they got to back up their claims/knowledge/skills?

Anyone can swing a spanner, but it doesn't mean I'm taking my Subaru to any old garage for certain work.

 

get what your saying but essentially having someone map your car is adding there exprerience and knowlege - its still a guinea pig but just one at lower levels of risk. your car is still their learning tool.

not slating anyone here atall, just stating actual facts, and yes i realise each has benefits over the other.

i would say on car forums there is a kinof "air of mystery" insinuated by certain mappers - deliberately or not, and at times is used to induce fear into owners - ensuring the mappers future buisness.

in bodybuilding the same happens if you chose a big name "prep coach" to assist you competing in a show. there techniques are kept secret and have an air of mystcysim - and feel just out of reach to the regualr guy. but its just played up b/s. yes the guy have knowledge and know how and when to apply it, but at same time within a years or two, you could reach the same level. imo.

many guys in all walks of life hold others in some kind of holy position in there chosen interest, when in reality they just have the confidence thats come from years of experience.

i think as a mapper in this area it would be quite easy to do your job, get realistic results/keep most people happy and make a decent living from it.

 

End of the day I would still rather pay a proven well known mapper £300 than have a newbie do it for free.

Fair enough the newbie has to start somewhere and all the mappers were newbies one day, but they can go practice on someone elses car not mine.

 

Its like anything in life, practice makes perfect or atleast gives you experience....Ive decided to take the plunge, something ive been interested in for many years. Ive been reading mapping forums for a long time and until you have the tools in front of you alot of the reading goes straight over your head so i read, re-read and re-read again until i understand what is being said.

Im not interested in making money from it and have no desire to touch anyone elses car, thats not what im looking for, im looking to learn something new and having a mechanical and electrical background im fully aware of the consequences if it goes wrong....

One of the first things i read regarding mapping was this...

Thats the approach i intend to take....

 

mate im not dissing mappers here lol,

i quite agree many represent decent value for money imo - esp those that are mobile and loose hours travelling ect. im not calling people a rip off atall.

but at same time, ive been on here long enough to see the "scaremongering" which is a bit harsh, but even implication of massive failures and associated cost being used as a tool to divert people towards a reputable mapper - and again this advice isnt really wrong - what is wrong and probably slightly exsadurated (shocking sp) is using fear or implied threats to discourage others and influnece peoples decisions. i must say its not common for the good mappers to do - but its rife in forum memebrs imo

 

Same argument is why bother putting decent tyres on your car, they are all E-marked.. They all do the same job.

I'll leave my mapping to BR....

 

love that attitude tbh, and applaud you

good luck and im sure given some time and your background interest, its one of the skills youll not only enjoy learning but as such pick it up quite well.

 

Hot potato or what !!! Right i am an newbie tactrix openporter gaining knowledge and experience at the moment. I nearly sold my scooby due to extortionate mapping costs spoiling my hobby. I decided to try a tactrix and made the right decision.
There is loads of scare mongering and mystery surrounding mapping, that until you have crossed to the other side, you believe to be gospel.
There is a gap for the skilled car owner to modify his / her own car themselves, to compensate for any mods they have made.
For a person who wants every single BHP and max power on the edge out of their engine, they should use only qualified , respected mappers.

 

Subscribed.

Whilst I think all (or most) mappers are skilled at what they do, I also feel that they are over priced.

Most customers seem happy with the £300 that has become the normal price, but whether that it because not one mapper has yet broke the mould and decided to do it for a normal hourly rate I don't know. But then again why would they...

I wish I could earn that much money, for the hours involved.

Find me a mapper that isn't skint and has plenty of toys around them ...

 

I would think experience is key to being a good mapper.
Sure,if you are mapping identical engines all day long you would get pretty good at it fairly quickly.

But, given the numerous available mods on engines and various states of build give an almost infinite number of variables.The best mappers will know what specification will produce what results & how to extract the type of performance you may specify i.e torque/bhp balance.

Perhaps,more importantly,they would have the knowledge & experience to analyse & de-bug issues & help with finding faults not only with the software but also with the electrical/mechanical components of a engine if the performance for a particular set-up was not as expected.

They should also from past experience be able to help advise on what particular set-up will give the results you are looking for before you waste £££££'s spending money on mods that won't get you what you want.

 

Sounds like me, lol. Everyone has to start somewhere.

 

Well ,So far the total number of engine failure attributed to mapping is 0
And tbh I don't think the number will rise to a vast amount
What an amazing feat of scare mongery I can see this being
It all seems like , well I knew a bloke who knew a bloke blah blah
That had his mapped for £20 and it blew up

 

I don't think many (if any) people on here have had their cars mapped my an amature, so you're unlikely to get many replies to that.

 

Any **** can map a car.... but it takes more than a **** to map a car effectively and efficiently! To do that takes experience, which is a tad more than reading a couple of data logs, reading a few threads on the internet and knowing how to switch a laptop on.

There are certainly some mappers out there that I wouldn't pay to map my lawn mower.... but that certainly doesn't detract from me not having any problem to pay someone to map my car, so I can thrash the utter nuts off it AND it makes the figures AND it doesn't cause me a mapping related issue AND it has awesome driveability.

I could learn how to map a car, but quite frankly I can't be arsed and simply don't have the time or the inclination.

So.... let's put this all in to perspective before we all start slamming people.

 

good call.

 

This.


Here endeth the lesson.

 

If you compare the cost of mapping (the actual mapping part that is, not the EcuTek license - which is the real rip off IMHO), it's not dissimilar to what you would pay for some of the off the shelf maps such as SuperChips/Bluefin and you will get a far better result from the likes of Duncan, Bob, Simon, etc than you will from one of those, that's for sure.

Personally, I've mapped my own car and am very glad I did. Getting over the psychological barrier that "you will kill your engine if you DIY" was a bit tough but I think that's a good thing as it forced me to learn what I was doing properly first and I now have a great map that gives me exactly what I want from it.

It's not that hard a process and in a lot of cases, I think it is possible to put together a better map at the end of the day simply because you can spend so much more time tweaking it to get it just right.

However, most people might only map the car once, or perhaps only require a map once a year or so in which case, it's not worth investing the time and money in the knowledge and equipment required to map yourself unless they have a particular interest in doing it.

Even for someone who knows what they're doing, using a professional mapper is often a faster way to get to a map set up that you can then fettle with to get it exactly the way you want it.

 

errrrr.........does it? why?