Wny do tuners marry to an ECM?
 

It seems that most if not all modern tuners marry themselves to a particular ECM and can't be used on other bikes, (or multiple bikes for multiple license fees). My question is what is the reasoning behind this? Is it something technical? Some kind of licensing requirement of Harley-Davidson? I can't believe it's purely a money grabbing policy from the tuner manufacturers, but I've been wrong before. I've done a fair bit of research on this and haven't come up with an answer, and I've not actually seen any one else ask the question. So does anyone have an answer that's not just speculation? Thanks!

For what it's worth I just purchased a V&H FP3 to tune up my 2017 Sportster Iron, knowing full well it was going to be bike specific. Looking at a full exhaust system, etc. but haven't decided on which yet. Yesterday I bought a 2017 Street Rod with 54 miles on it because the price was just too good to be passed up. Since I won't be able to get it on the road for another 5 months I really don't know what it rides like, but I'm not expecting I'll want to do any tuning on it if it's half way decent.

money

Money.

The companies would only ever sell one or two.

The Dynojet would cost $550 and an additional license is about $200 = $750

If you can get 2 x FP3 for less then that is the way to go for price but not necessarily an apples to apples feature comparison.

Did anybody mention money?

$$$$$ and more $$$$$

the Powervision unit does have a licensing program. for the 200 dollar fee you can buy extra licenses that will allow it to work on more than one bike. the technoresearch direct link has a similar program. I'm not sure on the TTS Mastertune and their site is not loading at the moment.
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It's all speculation :) but follow the money.

In any language, the tuner is still just a computer. The computer code writers can write & do anything they want. Marrying or licensing the computer to the bike sells more, & eliminates the used marketplace (virtually no "used" e-bay sellers :)). Reminder..... typically, manufacturers do not directly profit from the "used" marketplace.

Bottom line..... marrying or licensing keeps the cash flow coming & arguably allows the manufacturer to remain solvent & viable.

The developer of the software/hardware spent considerable time and resources to do so, and if the units were transferable, any dealership could buy 1 device,and then tune an unlimited # of bikes. There would never be enough $ for the original engineers to do any updates, or make payroll, for that matter. Would you spend millions to make hundreds?

So, I'm sensing you guys think it's all about the money. :) I still don't fully buy that argument, but I'm definitely outnumbered so far! Surely a professional tuning shop doesn't buy a new tuner for each bike, they must do it through licensing or some such mechanism, (or pay $5000 for their equipment instead of $500).

You're correct. For Power Vision (PV), they have exactly that option.
Here's a link to PV's online process >>>>> http://www.dynojet.com/powervision-t...g-license.aspx

You're right, the shop doesn't pay the customer does... congrats on your first post and welcome to the Forum

Like @roussfam said. YOU buy a new tuner that the shop then uses to tune your bike. At the end you get to keep your tuner, that way if you are half across the country you (or a mechanic) can still access your ECM via your tuner.

Thanks for all the replies. If there really is no technical reason then I think I'll just build my own, (I'm half-way there already). :D My own theory is that since these are professional companies they probably have some kind of licensing agreement with H-D that requires this kind of customer licensing on their part. If it's enforced by something special in the ECM then I'm probably not going to get anywhere. If it is just money for the tuners and there's no restriction by H-D then it'll make things easier for me.

From what I have read you may lose your warranty on the engine once you use the FP3. I think you ought to go have a discussion with your dealer unless you are not concerned about warranty.

Probability easier to build a new ECM than to break the encryption. And once you go that far, the only remedy is a new ECM from HD, should you try to go back to stock.

Hack away but be ready to spend some more to fix it when broken. We all like challenges

Plenty of ECM's in the aftermarket if you want complete control. I'd look at PE3 ecu's. BUT for what you already have. It's hard to beat $400-500 tuner and a tune. Run better and fuel mileage.

My vote is for money and to keep control over the product.

Well if it's encrypted that's a non-starter, I'm not going to waste my time breaking encryption. If it's merely encoded data then that's something I'll take a stab at. This is more an academic exercise than anything else. As soon as it gets too hard I'll give up! I've already got some of the non-mapping stuff figured out on my Sportster and this weekend I'll compare that with the Street Rod.

Just about every locked tuner has someone on the internet who will "unlock it" for a small fee.

It's 100% about money.

Really?
I know you can buy licences for Power Vision, and Keys for direct link, but I've never seen anyone offer to unlock a blue TTS VCI. I have heard of someone who can replace the lock chip inside an old SE super tuner VCI, but that's not unlocking, that's essentially rebuilding the VCI with new components.

The SE super tuner can be unlocked by software. Some guys can then do it remotely once it's done initially.
It's about $160 CDN for the service. I've used it.

No idea about blue TTS whatever.

From a tech perspective, there is no reason to bind the tuner to the ecu. This is about licensing the tuner for use on a single bike. Technically it would be possible to know if the tuner has downloaded a tune as it retains the stock tune. Again, technically it would be possible to know if the stock tune had been restored to the bike it is married to, the tuner could essentially be unlocked, but for either Dynojet or V&H it appears they want to be able to charge for unlocking as well.

I doubt the comms to the ECU is encrypted, but as mentioned likely encoded. The problem will be figuring out which locations in the data map correspond to the data values you want to download, and then raw data values my not at all correspond to anything understandable. Likely these numbers will be either a signed or unsigned data type INT, UINT, LONG, SINGLE, DOUBLE ... or some user/OEM defined data type. There will be multiple values that will interact with one another further complicating the choice of what number to use to affect a specific change. If you have access to the ECU data map, this would be the only starting point. Otherwise one could risk serious damage to the ECU data set. One could inadvertently overwrite a necessary value that is part of a sanity check and effectively brick the ECU. All of this on top of fully understanding CAN as implemented by the ECU manufacturer. Sniffing comms packets in an existing tuner/ECU marriage would be the easiest, unless you have a full protocol spec, but then you'd already have a tuner.

I've done some comms reverse engineering in the past, no way would this be worth the effort for me. Best of luck to whoever tackles it though.

Worth the effort? No, I can't honestly say it would be. But an interesting challenge? To me, yes. I've done some CAN reverse engineering before on a simple control system and I've got the necessary tools to read the traffic between the tuner and the ECM. And of course I've already got the tuner, (two now I picked up a second bike - an FP3 and a H-D tuner). I'll take your 'best of luck' well wishes though, as I'm sure I'm going to need plenty of it!

Keep us posted. The HD world needs more of this sort of thing and less "which website do I order a set of 2-1 chrome pipes for my *insert random touring model* for way, way too much money?"

This might be an interesting READ for ya ...
https://www.hdforums.com/forum/ignit...ock-efi-3.html

Thanks! It certainly was interesting, and answered a few key questions.

I did unlock my own PV a while back because I fried my own ECM and I wasn't going to pay another 500 bucks for a tuner that I already had, neither I was going to pay 200 for the same reason, I've used it to flash some friend bikes but that's all, all the tuners can be unlocked, is just a matter of time and effort to do so, I know people that unlocks the harley tuner, the powervision is harder since you have to emulate some internal stuff but It can (have been) done

Interesting stuff. Clearly talk of seed/key pairs implies encryption, yet checksum algorithm suggests data integrity. Not sure how those get used in the same sentence. I haven't taken the plunge, but wonder if the PV is running on some OS? If it is, likely a Linux or Linux derivative. If that were the case, it should likely be easier to replicate/reverse the PV firmware than it is to map the ECU data space. Of course reversing the PV would reveal the ECU data map, or at least, the significant map portions. I'm sure there are areas of the data map the PV is not concerned with, and neither DynoJet or HD would want anyone to touch.

So here's a little nugget of information I found on the Dynojet website as a reason you might not be able to lock a PowerVision to a particular ECM:

ECM was previously tuned with TTS Mastertune

• When an ECM is flashed with TTS MasterTune, it puts a proprietary lock in the ECM. You or your tuner must have saved the original backup (.mte file), that flashed back in the ECM with the TTS’s MasterTune.
• The Power Vision, Screamn’ Eagle’s Super Tuner, or even the Digital Tech dealer tool CAN NOT enter flash (read or write the calibration) on that particular ECM. That being said a guy needs to be careful when using a TTS device, because if you’re out on the road and need service, or diagnostic work you’ll need a laptop with TTS Mastetune, the flash dongle, and the original .mte backup file.
• If you don’t have the .mte backup file and the dongle, or access to any TTS dongle, you’ll need to replace the ECM with a new one or send the existing ECM to TTS to be unlocked!

Sounds like great fun if you buy a used bike from someone other than the original owner, (or owner that might have tuned the bike before it found it's way to you). :icon_eek:

The reason behind this is probably because once they unlock the ECM with the original handshake algorithm they probably patch the algorithm itself and replace it with a custom version that only the TTS understands, once any other tuner tries to handshake with the original HD algorithm the handshake is denied, a more hardcore way to marry the ECM.

What service or diagnostic work does the 'Lock ECM" prevent from happening? With a TTS locked ECM. I have married FOBs, accessed the radio, bled brakes, checked injectors, married TSSM, tested lighting and reset lighting draw............ Only thing I have not been able to do. Overwrite a custom calibration that my customer paid for. What have you found when playing with Harley's digital tech, or other device that gives you access to these things?

This was just something I found online during my search about locking ECMs. I don't have a PowerVision. I read on another forum that an owner couldn't hook up his PV to another ECM to do simple diagnostics, although I don't know if that was caused by the ECM having previously been flashed by a TTS unit. I then found the info I posted on the Dynojet website, so they as manufacturers know it can be an issue. And to be clear this is using a PowerVision after a TTS Mastertune. Don't know if it applies to any other combination of tuners.

I'll keep my personal views of this practice to myself. :D

Here's one with a Happy Ending :)

https://www.hdforums.com/forum/gener...ed-advice.html

Oh, you read it on manufactures website that happens to be talking about their biggest competition and then back it up with something you read on a forum from a customer? Got it. I will stick with my knowledge I actually got from using products and testing with said products.

The quote I used states Digital Tech. I'm not going over what the vision is and isn't again.

Hey, don't shoot the messenger! :D See the link in multihdrdr's post as another example.

To be fair to Dynojet I only posted the piece of their support article that related to this specific issue as I felt it was pertinent to this thread. There are other issues they list that might prevent the PV from locking to an ECM. I'll find the link, (on another PC), and post it here for full disclosure. I don't want it to appear that they're bashing their competition from something I posted out of context.

I don't have any tuning equipment outside of a still in the box V&H FP3 and a soon to be delivered H-D (Screamin' Eagle?) tuner. I don't know anything about any of them, including TTS, PowerVision, Digital Tech, or any other ones on the market.

Wow, someone loves their TTS a bit too much.

A tuner is a tuner. Air fuel / spark - the end. No one cares which one you use. No need to go all Braveheart over it

/unsubbed cause now it's just useless information

Wow, someone love to virtue signal without bring anything to the table. I just don't like when people spread BS on forums. Intentional or not. Like the statement of a tuner is a tuner. Some will only allow you to adjust either so much. Others don't limit. Or the statement of no one cares. Based on my 10 years of tuning bikes and running a dyno. I can assure you. You are wrong. Next you will be saying a Tmax will do just as good as the stock Delphi.

Here's the link I promised from above. Can't seem to edit the original post.

https://dynojet.zendesk.com/hc/en-us...ashing-a-tune-