Ba Ecus Learning 'bad Habits'?

[Sweno]

G'day all,

I went to a REPCO trade tutorial sort of thing a while ago and the bloke running it said that BA Falcons have a major problem in their ECU.

He said it learnt so called 'bad habits' and would eventually just run rougher and rougher bad power/economy etc.

But when you reset it, say by disconnecting the battery for a while, power and economy etc would be back to normal specs...

I was wondering if anyone had heard of this sort of thing before?

If so do they do the same thing even when we spend all this money on tunes and edits?

Just curious

Edited 01/04/09 10:55 AM by Sweno

[ebxmple]

You can always wire in a KAM reset relay. Every time you switch the car off it resets the ecu just like disconnecting the battery.

[iTec]

kinda true, it does exist but is hardly a "major problem".

adaptive learning is a feature of the ecu to give you better fuel economy and keep the tune safe based on the current fuel. It can get nasty in tuned cars where it will constantly pull out timing meaning cars loose power, its rare for it to be noticable but and can be turned off by your tuner but most dont recomend it as it is a saftey feature.

[MercuryXr6Turbo]

With what you say Itec, should modded T's be retuned or even just dynoed every "so many" kilometers to ensure the tune is correct?

[iTec]

you dont need to retune, just reflashing the tune that is in your box will do.

saying that it is worth sticking your car on a dyno every now and then just to make sure all is well. I dont think I have been to a dyno day yet where somebody has not come up with an issue..

As for retunes, taking your car to your tuner atleast once a year just to have it checked would be wise, upto them then as to if it is worth retuning or not.

[MercuryXr6Turbo]

Cheers for the comments... will just re-flash from time to time and let the tuners do the rest when I'm getting it serviced.

[Adam]

The idea of it all is that over time things deteriorate. Fuel pumps don't flow as well as they did when new, air filters flow a bit less as they older etc etc.

The adaptive learning allows for these tiny changes.

The knock control is what pulls the timing out. I had knock control adjusted and eventually turned off on my old ute because timing was always being removed. Because of this the tune was kept conservative.

In normal cases everything should be left on.