ECU Programming - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

thrawnis · 03-06-2009, 09:41 PM

My local shop said that he could send my ECU to Jet Chips for around $300-400 and they would reprogram it to improve the performance. I don't want to permanently change the programming on the ECU so I was thinking about going to a junkyard and picking up a working ECU from an 2007+ Camry V6, then sending that to Jet so that way I have two ECUs: one with good gas mileage for when I go on trips, and a second performance-minded version for when I want to have fun.

Questions:
1. Has anyone here used Jet for their Gen6 V6?
2. What kind of power improvements can I expect?
3. Is it easy to swap the ECU?
4. What do you guys think about this idea as a whole? Not worth it? Possibly worth it?

Thanks in advance!

gdanaher · 03-07-2009, 08:17 AM

Wouldn't your time be better spent by contacting Jet directly and asking these questions of them? Cerainly they will be in a position to better address those issues and give you straight, educated answers.

Tobeit · 03-07-2009, 12:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thrawnis

My local shop said that he could send my ECU to Jet Chips for around $300-400 and they would reprogram it to improve the performance. I don't want to permanently change the programming on the ECU so I was thinking about going to a junkyard and picking up a working ECU from an 2007+ Camry V6, then sending that to Jet so that way I have two ECUs: one with good gas mileage for when I go on trips, and a second performance-minded version for when I want to have fun.

Questions:
1. Has anyone here used Jet for their Gen6 V6?
2. What kind of power improvements can I expect?
3. Is it easy to swap the ECU?
4. What do you guys think about this idea as a whole? Not worth it? Possibly worth it?

Thanks in advance!

Can only comment on (4) based on gut feeling - not worth the effort and potential risk.

thrawnis · 03-07-2009, 01:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gdanaher

Wouldn't your time be better spent by contacting Jet directly and asking these questions of them? Cerainly they will be in a position to better address those issues and give you straight, educated answers.

I will be contacting Jet about this, but the sales reps are not going to have the first-hand experience that owners of our cars will have so I wanted to start here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tobeit

Can only comment on (4) based on gut feeling - not worth the effort and potential risk.

I was kind of thinking the same thing. My guess is that by risk you mean voiding the warranty, damaging something, etc.?

Tobeit · 03-07-2009, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thrawnis

I was kind of thinking the same thing. My guess is that by risk you mean voiding the warranty, damaging something, etc.?

Especially if you want to keep switching the ECU...

rondia · 03-07-2009, 09:50 PM

Switching the ECU is a lot of work. You have to remove cowling by windshield and remove w/wiper assy or else remove intake to get at it. Not worth all the work to do it.

thrawnis · 03-07-2009, 09:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rondia

Switching the ECU is a lot of work. You have to remove cowling by windshield and remove w/wiper assy or else remove intake to get at it. Not worth all the work to do it.

Thanks Rondia, that is good to know. I guess it isn't as easy as I would have hoped.

gene112601 · 03-08-2009, 03:50 AM

well if ur car was a I4 will be easy to sway ECU but since urs is V6 got lot of work to do... well good luck!

***darksparkz*** · 03-09-2009, 01:03 AM

Why not just do an engine management, either an SAFC, or something up to an AEM FIC or even an EMS. Then you can have a shop tune it to a few presets, either gas or performance, and you can just adjust it on the fly.

thrawnis · 03-09-2009, 01:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by darksparkz

Why not just do an engine management, either an SAFC, or something up to an AEM FIC or even an EMS. Then you can have a shop tune it to a few presets, either gas or performance, and you can just adjust it on the fly.

Those are a bunch of terms I am not familiar with! I tried looking up and SAFC but couldn't figure what it was. FIC was Fuel/Ignition Controller, but I looked at the AEM version and they didn't seem to have one for the Camry. My guess is that EMS stands for Engine Management System, but I don't even know where to start with something like that.

Besides for the AEM FIC, do you have any suggestions on manufacturers or specific products I might be able to look at?

***darksparkz*** · 03-09-2009, 10:56 AM

Well, to be honest, I don't think having Jet "tune" your ECU will do much at all. Look up Apexi S-AFC. It's essentially probably what Jet is going to tune, just the air/fuel ratios.

Since you barely have any mods to your car anyways, it wouldn't be worth it at all. It'd only be worth it if your built or have some sort of forced induction. The Camrys are already great on gas mileage, a little tuning wouldn't do much to what the engineers at Toyota came up with.

If you want to go faster, just step on the gas, or buy a sports car.