MY10 2.5NA ECU reflash or other engine mods required?

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MY10 2.5NA ECU reflash or other engine mods required?

Postby familycarmy10 » Sat Jun 18, 2011 1:18 am

Hi guys,

I'm a newbie - so hopefully have posted this in the right place.

I have been unimpressed with the responsiveness of the MY10 Liberty 2.5NA manual wagon since the 1st test drive, but I had to replace my beloved MY00 Liberty RX 2.5 manual wagon due to it being a hail damage insurance write off.
Now that I still ended up buying one (I just couldn't buy a RAV4 which was the closest match i found), I'm wondering how to get that low rev punch back that the standard RX had.
The newer car's max torque is about 400 rpm higher than the RX (229Nm@ 4000 vs 223Nm@3600rpm), but the difference feels much bigger than that. Off idle it just feels like nothing is there (can you have turbo lag with no turbo!). I just don't understand how the performance went backwards with 10 years of development - I'm wondering if they are just focusing on economy & emissions now. I know the liberties are bigger now, but according to the specs the difference is only 10kg's (1440kg vs 1430kg).
Can anything be done with ECU tuning to improve that responsiveness below 3000 rpm? I'm not looking for turbo like performance or anything crazy but just want a bit more pull out of those 2nd gear corners that I used to have with the RX. Or am I wasting time investigating this, as some of the NA tuning threads seems to imply that you need mechanical mods to improve on the stock performance and an engine transplant for proper gains.


thanks for any advice.
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Re: MY10 2.5NA ECU reflash or other engine mods required?

Postby teK-- » Sat Jun 18, 2011 1:41 am

It's the DBW throttle mapping being very conservative, as opposed to the cabled throttle on the gen 3. ECU flash can change your throttle map to something more perky
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Re: MY10 2.5NA ECU reflash or other engine mods required?

Postby familycarmy10 » Sat Jun 18, 2011 10:20 am

Thanks for the response. Is this remap of the throttle something that can be done at home, or do I need to find a tuning workshop to do the reflash.
I don't mind rolling the sleeves up and giving it a go, but being a noob I'm trying to do what research I can in the forums about how it's done. I don't see much about reflash's of 5th gen liberties yet in the forums except a couple of GT's.
If it's possible with my model - could you possibly recommend the easiest path with which cable is required and which software everyone uses (ROMRAIDER?). I'm pretty good with a soldering iron so don't even mind building a cable if I have to provided I can find a wiring diagram.
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Re: MY10 2.5NA ECU reflash or other engine mods required?

Postby senator » Sat Jun 18, 2011 9:20 pm

Have you considered a throttle controller, most units allow you to increase the sensitivity of the throttle by just turning a dial, no ecu tune required.
I know pova and biltz made them for the gen 4 and i am guessing by now something should be out for the gen 5. An ecu tune without supporting mods wouldn't be worth the money.
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Re: MY10 2.5NA ECU reflash or other engine mods required?

Postby parso_rex » Mon Jun 20, 2011 1:43 pm

Theres not too much you can do with the NA's, theres a little with cam timing and maybe some advance that can be added (forget that on an H6 though- maxed out already). The Problem could be that the definitions aren't defined for that particular ECU combo as there would not be much demand for it.This would mean that even though i can download/upload the file I can't edit it.
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Re: MY10 2.5NA ECU reflash or other engine mods required?

Postby familycarmy10 » Tue Jun 21, 2011 10:12 am

With the tips about the DBW mapping being the issue and further reading it sounds to me like the best solution is to get my ECU remapped.
Although a bolt on box (that compensates for the acc pedal sensor) sounds quicker and easier than messing with the ECU, i'd prefer to fix the problem at the source if possible.
But before I get that far it's probably worth me getting a data cable and dumping my ECU tables to try and see if the DBW is really as bad as it feels to drive.
Now to go and find which cable is the right one to have for my model car (hoping the cheaper vag one will do it).
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