16g-95gsx

That comment is precisely what I feel is wrong in the MB world. The same logic applies to these cars as any others. The cars are great, the people that mod them are the problem. Anyone with a little ambition would be able to circumnavigate the use of these devices, the same issues that you speak of were issues in the domestic and import worlds. It took a while for people to break down the LS1 code, Lancer Evo Code, Subaru STi code, etc, but ultimate what has helped them was a great of people who were dedicated enough to say "Im not going to pay 1000 dollars to have a mail order 'tune'." There are a lot of folks on here with a lot of great backgrounds, perhaps moreso than you would find on an standard import car forum where most of the users are teenagers and early college students, so it would only seem logical that the available knowledge base and resources would allow this mindset of tuning to be changed with a little ambition.

16g-95gsx

I suppose I should add in that I am not at all unfamiliar with tuning, without going into detail about some of the things that I've done this is not at all out of the norm. Getting the bin file is the easy part, I am more concerned about the definition file part, which is where I feel that with the skills of some of the folks on boards like these the MB bins could easily be picked apart. A lot of the systems out there like opti-can are very nice, but they come at a pretty intense price.

MarcusF

It sounds like those who know, sell ECU modifications as a service. It's not personal.

It's also not MB specific. Do a search on Rennlist and you'll see the same answers there.

nastyclk

Now were getting somewhere, this is by far the most informative about tuning our cars ive seen! I would love to be able to tune my own car. I can do everything else on it but tuning and ecu/tcu stops me right in my tracks. This may sound crazy but I opt that we mercedes enthusiast come together and pitch in time and money and have the right people work this issue out. I would be willing to throw in a few hundred and im sure with all the members out there that are sick of this issue we could raise enough and buy everything we need. Then when tuning or any thing similar arises a trusted member who has the equipment can come to the rescue and we could tune our own damn cars. Not for profit but to take care of ourselves and fellow mercedes brethren!

16g-95gsx

No like I said, I am not at all new to tuning, I understand that MB ecu's are shared throughout many different cars and that keys,damos,xdf's etc are what is needed. The reason these tunes are so expensive is because companies (not the "tuners" but the companies that create the flashing units themselves) have done the legwork and made flashing these chipsets easier. Again, it is nothing new, much like the Evo and STi crowd who used to have to buy a multi-thousand dollar flashing device to reprogram their ECU's. The difference is that in those communities people stepped up to the plate and found means to flash their ECU's using flashers like Galletto, etc, which are dirt cheap and they then broke down the OEM code and found the locations within the code with which to edit (which is right now a guarded secret by "Super Tuners").

Ive been a long standing member of the DSM crowd and we do a similiar thing just with socketed eproms. It's amazing what you can do once the code has been broken down and SHARED, as I can change just about anything on the fly with either a new chip or an emulator, this goes for ECU's as well as TCU's obviously. Flashing is done just the same and IMO is much much nicer minus the potential downfalls if the connection is interrupted mid-flash. I do see the more modern code being much larger and harder to dig through, but there should be an enormous wealth of brainpower on boards like these which suprises me that no one steps up.

Chappy

It's a supply/demand issue (IMO). There just isn't the size of community as there is in the STI/DSM, etc. communities to want to develop the specific details you seek.

Hopefully someday I'll be proved wrong.