Car Tuning equipment

Ecu tuning tools are for reading and writing the content of the ecu. There is a wide variety of tuning equipment sold on the market but originally all tuning tools which have any value came from Italy and Germany. Since Byteshooter was sold by the developer there has been not much developed from Germany anymore. So there are only three major players left: Alientech, Flashtec and Dimsport. Since a few years there is newcomer from the same area as the other three: Magic Motor Sport.

If you want to start your own chip-tuning-Business, you will definitely needs some quality tuning tools. We would strongly advice against buying a cloned or cracked tool. These Chinese clones do not have the latest updates and are poorly built without the necessary processing power needed for the newest ECU family like the tricore. We would like to remind you that the cost of one ECU is between 1200 and 2000 euro. So better be prepared and use the right equipment. ZIPtuning is a preferred dealer of Alientech and Flashtec

Bootmode tools & OBD flasher.

There are two ways of programming an ECU; through the diagnostic socket. This is called OBD tuning and through a built-in communication port on the circuit board. This is called in bootmode or debugging mode.

So there are two kind of tuning tools availible on the market:

1. OBD Flashers (eg Alientech Kess)

2. Bootmode tools (eg Alientech Ktag)

With OBD tuning tools you can flash an ECU over the diagnostic port from the car. With the Bootmode tool you can program the ECU through one of the communication ports (BDM/JTAG) on the circuit board. The ECU has three data carrier which can be read, two eproms and a processor. Usually the engine controlling maps are inside the large eprom. But there are a few exceptions where the information is (partly) stored inside the processor.

The OBD file
Most OBD-flashers only read the part which contains the engine controlling maps. The OBD file does not always contain all information from the ecu.

The Bootmode file: Complete back of the ecu.
Sometimes it is necessary to make a full backup, because you can’t read all you need through OBD. When you remove the ecu from the car and read it in boot mode (debugging mode) you are able to make a complete backup of the ecu.

Master vs slave

All tuning tools from Flashtec and Alientech are availible in two versions. The master tool and the slave tool.

The slave tool is cheaper to purchase but has the disadvantage that it can only flash tuning files obtained from the master tool which is owned by the tuning supplier. We can only sell slave tools which are connected to our master tool.

With the master version of the tuning tool you can read the content of the ecu and edit it yourself. The master is a lot more expensive. We adivise you to buy a master tool when:
- you want to develop your own tuning files.
- you modify more then an average of 25 vehicle a month