pauly24

Hi guys,

This is my first post, I just got myself a nice 1998 CLK230 Kompressor.
Looking to upgrade the pulley and retuning the ecu.

Now I'm an auto engineer, I like to do everything myself. In some of my previous cars to retune the ECU, what I had to do was replace a chip in the ecu with one that I've retuned with a eeprom programmer through my computer. Needed the definition flies and what not for the specific car.

Other cars I've had, I just needed the correct software and interface cable and I could reflash the memory of the ecu directly from the laptop through the diagnostic port.

Can someone point me in the right direction of software/hardware needed to retune the W208 CLK230 komp ecu?

Also anyone know of a place that sells just the pullys?

Thanks guys.

dlbehrns

this car obviously is not in the US. You can take the ECU out and send it to a tuner familiar with your motor/model. Evosport does pulleys for US models. Try Kleemann in Europe.

pauly24

I wouldn't send out my ECU in 100 years, or get an off the shelf 'chip' done.
Probably one of the silliest things you can do. If your car is bone stock then I can understand as each car SHOULD be the same.

But if your planning mods you need it done specifically for your car, tuned either on a dyno or on the road.

Anyways I've been on a few merc forums and it doesn't seem like anyone really knows how to do this, I guess the merc community is that big on DIY stuff, understandable though not really a car people go crazy with modding, hard to find good info about this stuff.

malahhaor

That's probably because there are too few people out there who are willing to take a $50K Automobile and go inside of it with a laptop and play around.
There are plenty of companies that will do a custom tune on a dyno. You just have to find one near you with good customer feedback.

pauly24

Yes hence why I said its understandable theres not much out there. but I've worked in Powertrain departments for OE automobile companies, I've played with stuff like this for a job.
Hence why I'm trying to track down the required equipment/software to do this with mercs but having no such luck!

dlbehrns

I sent my ECU to INMotionusa.com and was more than pleased with the tune they did. This company originated in Austria. There are many companies in the US and I would assume Europe, Kleemann to name one that will do an excellent job of tuning your onboard computer. Unless you are familiar with remapping your ECU and have the software to do it I woulnd't undertake the procedure. Some people are paranoid about this issue and I can understand why. What the heck, everybody has to be afraid of something. NOT!

pauly24

haha ok everyone just isnt getting the point.

If anyone knows of the software that the tuners use, or a name of a piggy back ecu. I would rather keep the stock system inplace instead of using a piggy back or an aftermarket ecu all together. But its looking like I might have to go down that way.

Once you makes severe changes to your car, there is no way that someone in a workshop with nothing but your ECU can make a good tune. Since they don't have your car and reading its values, theres no way of them knowing how much your engine flows under different loads and when its going to knock etc... The can do it, but it will be an extremely safe tune, retarded timing, very rich fuel etc, and your car will make no where near as much power as if it was done on a dyne (rolling road as some people call it)

Then if you go and change your car again, to get the best out of it, yup off to the dyno again... so over the life of modding your car, you could easily spend thousands of dollars on tuning.

anyones, so if anyone knows anything please chime in!!

thanks again.

dlbehrns

This is the company I used and was very pleased with the outcome. The sky did not fall.
http://www.inmotionusa.com/mercedesgraphs.html

nastyclk

EDITED below

pauly24

Innovate motorsports sell wideband controllers, Nothing they have can tune an ECU. You use this controller to help you tune with the other software/hardware you use to change the values in the ecu.
When you are tuning your car, the standard O2 sensor is just a narrowband sensor, it can read fuel ratios around 1 lambda (14.7 for petrol) and really not much else.
Narrow bands are only good for letting your computer know if its running rich or lean, not the actual value.

When you replace your standard narrowband O2 with a wideband O2, you need a wideband controller (step in innovate) to take that wideband signal and convert it to a number that you can use.
So now with a wideband you can see the exact fuel ratio your car is running, you can see if its rich like 10.8:1 or lean as 18:1. The range depends on the sensor/controller normally.
Then with the tuning software you can adjust your fuel maps to inject more or less fuel as required and you use the wideband controller as your feedback to your fuel ratios.

I use the techedge controller myself, have used it on several of my cars and have no complaints with it what so ever. Have never used the innovate, but at the end of the day they do the same thing.

The techedge can simulate a narrowband, so I put my wideband in place of my narrow band, feed the signal back to the controller then used the controller to simulate a narrowband signal and feed that into the ecu so the car can run normally. I think most controllers have this as a feature.

More then happy to help, maybe ill create a quick write up on the basics of how the combustion process works then people can get a better understanding of how fuel ratios and spark timing affects power, once you know the basics it doesn't take much to work out how a car should be tuned.

Also as fair as I know the star diagnostic is just that, a diagnostic tool, it doesn't let you change any map tables in the ecu. No dealer ever has this power. Thats something thats reserved for Powertrain engineers.... and tuners

nastyclk

I havent been in touch with them for quite some time(its taking way longer to get my car together than expected) but Eurocharged Performance/LET Motorsports can point you in the right direction. I know they used to rent their tuning software(with a hefty deposit like $2,000) and I believe you could tune it yourself or they could do it remotely with a good internet connection. I got about $15,000 in my motor so needless to say I am in need of a custom tune but due to a recent lay off I am trying to finish as much of my car myself so I might attempt to tune it to save money. I have been looking into Innovate LM-1, LM-2tuning programmer and its like you said you will need a laptop with software to read the encrypted ECU(not STAR) in conjuction with the LM-2. That software is like 30 to 40 grand from Europe I dont know the name of it sorry. Maybe we can work together and figure something out since it sounds like you might be knowlegable with ECU's.

Thunderdome66

good luck guy,s and please keep us informed of any progress as this is something I to will be needing to play with shortly

pauly24

Im pretty sure its a chip out retune.
In other words you cant just hook a computer or some hardware upto the ecu and flash it like new models.
You need to remove the eeprom form the ecu (bet you its a Motorola chip)
(This is what I'm presuming)

Which means all you need is a chip reader/writer for the specific chip ($50 max)
The hard part is finding a definition file for the bin.

I will be able to download the contents of the chip onto my computer and view them, but without a definition file I wont have a clue whats what.

Ill be able to pull up a whole bunch of numbers, but not knowing where what is, you could be looking at a fuel map or could be the serial number for the ecu.

If you have enough patience (someone has to do this to create a definition file) is you go through trying to find everything. Bit by bit you sort stuff out, find the start and finish addresses of each table etc... Once you know where things are its easy to edit, then you just use your chip burner to write back to the eeprom and back in it goes into the ecu.

But then there are possibly checksums that need to be corrected for it to work.

Thats the chip out method, the other method is if the ECU has flash memory, then it as easy as just getting the right software, hook the comp up and away you go.

But if you say the software is 40k? I doubt it though because every other software ive seen for other makes are close to the 1000 mark, if not under.

Ill keep searching for some more info.

pauly24

What you need is possibly something like this,
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/DIGIM...ht_1268wt_1165

That should let you download the BIN file from the ecu in one way or another (not sure if this exact one supports our w208 or not)
Then you can edit the BIN file as you like, like how I said in my previous post then program straight back in.

The tricky bit is what to do with the BIN once you get it though.

nastyclk

From what ive been told is the German engineered ECU's are encrypted and its hard to decipher and Im assuming it took someone a long time to do this and write software to perform changes to the ECU. I also heard that its mercedes propriertary software and their coding etc is worth alot so the software is also expensive. Not sure whats true though

Also I opened my ECU awhile ago and I think your right about the eprom Im pretty sure it was motorola.

pauly24

nastyclk, what you said is correct.
But this also holds true for every other vehicle out there. Mercedes is no different, and tuning them is no different to any other vehicle.

When the LS1 came out it took tuners a while to crack the code, I worked at the company who designed those ECUs for a little bit. One of the guys mentioned about a password being needed and encryption, he thought it was impossible for anyone to change it. He didn't have a clue about tuners out there doing their stuff.

nastyclk

there are only a few tuners in USA that can actually custom tune, not flash a predetermined tune downloaded from Europe. Renntech, Brabus, Eurocharged and a few others so it obviously has been deciphered. I just dont understand why to tune our cars is so much more expensive then others, are we being strong armed with ye ol mercedes benx tax and just paying for the name.

pauly24

http://www.kwp2000.info/ looks like it can do what we want it to do. (can be brought for under $100)

This will get the file to your computer, once its on our computer though we either have to have some software (still trying to tack this one down) that can help us easily edit it.

Or we could probably just use a HEX editor and hunt around trying to find the maps ourselves.

16g-95gsx

I never post and just sort of roam the boards looking for information specific to MB applications and this is one issue that I am trying to work out myself. This is a serious issue to me with these cars, the lack of current user ability. I have done quite a bit of work in the past building cars and I would never in a 1000 years consider buying a "tune" from someone. I spent the better part of the day researching ways that I could disassemble the MB code so that I could begin to create my own modified bin files. I come from the eprom programming crowd so I need to get a better grasp on what is needed to truly flash the ecu, which while similar does have its own complications. With the amount of "tuners" out there, it has to be capable of being done.

Sadly this is a serious issue with this community, one that IMO holds the entire development of these platforms back. Those that can do it keep it quiet, and there is no information shared anywhere.

dlbehrns

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=140941 (dated/old but worth reading)

(quote from the above thread)There is only one system today that is secure enough (both for user and car owner) and in fact is able to "reanimate" an ecu when needed -- OptiCan Flasher, just google it.

pauly24

Spot on 16g-95gsx, every other car community I've been apart of people share the information, everything is open for people to use. There are no secrets. In the merc world the people that know how to do it even keep the name of the software hidden.
Its sad because everytime someone like us comes along we have to start from scratch and reinvent the wheel instead of developing the existing wheel for the better.
It definitely has kept the merc aftermarket tuner community in the dark and can be seen by the lack of knowledge.
At the current state I have given up as I do not have the time or the willingness to go through bin files and find maps and created definition files for something which is obviously done. Bit of a pity but thats the way the cookie crumbles, decided to go play with my LS2 instead and leave the merc as is.

16g-95gsx

The information is out there, it just will take a little bit of work on our part. With all due respect to the "tuners" out there in the MB world, I have a tough time imagining that they are all breaking it down to component level design and digging through the bins themselves, reinventing the wheel each time. Therefore logic tells you that there are already systems in place that allow the flashing of these ECU's and it is just a matter of doing the work to get your hands on the information needed. These setups are capable of so much more than anyone ever runs with them, but people need to step up to the plate and bring them to their full potential. For example there aren't many options in the automotive world for a 5.5L all aluminum V8 with dual overhead cams, 4 valves per cylinder, and dual variable valve control, that is about as much of a tuners wet dream as it comes and the fact that it is already coupled to an auto trans just makes it that much better. Great platforms but they have only barely broken the surface of what they should be capable of doing.

2PRECISE

I tore my hair out trying to accomplish the same. I gave up myself and gonna move to another platform. The problem is everyone thinks ur rich and stupid driving a benz. You see some of the prices for parts?????

ahmed18881

u need either a software called race2000 from Italy OR a software called winOLS from Germany. each cost in the range of 2000 euros and u need a flasher to copy the bin in the ECU galletto (Italian) an be bought for less than 100 euros .... then u have to buy the definition files for the car/cars you want to tune... (usually called damos) and you have to buy the Check sum DLLs ... this is just to get started. to monitor your car correctly u either have to get an obd2 logger to see what the changes you are doing in the maps are affecting the car... also a wideband O2 reader is a must... to setup all this it will cost u around 5000K .... its a nice idea to make a business out of it, but very hard as alot of competition in this field, and its one of the most secretive businesses out there... no tuner will give u his tips and tricks, the race2000 people offer training courses, but most of ECU tuning is for diesel cars, and few for gasoline. to really know what going on u have to be involved in mechanics, electronics, and software reverse engineering... plus messing around our expensive engines mistakes will be expensive too, that why go to people with good customer feedback is much cheaper and safer

TVT_DESIGN

We've used a lot of different hardware/software combinations and even used you are not getting into this for less then 3k. If you had the computer knowledge to pull out maps without the help of one of these software programs you wouldn't be asking about it on the forum, so I'll assume you dont.

I know a few places that sell older software, but it is kind of hit or miss on working. An Optican unit will run you 1k-1.5k and not include any software to modify the file. Good software (ECM, RACE, even Map3d to a lesser extent) is gonna run you another 2k.

This is not like the Japanese or Domestic markets when it comes to tuning. The tuning on these Euro cars is very pricey and overly complicated.

Good luck on your search though. Just remember you get what you pay for.