Hello, somewhat of a newb here. i was just wondering if the piggy back ECU's adjusted according to the conditions (temp, altitude, etc)? so if I get a tune done to my car with my mods be it FI, or NA, is the piggy back going to adjust to the conditions?

thanks

 

Yes. Remember that ECU parameters are not fixed but flexible according to conditions. And altering the ECU alters those parameters, but they are still flexible.

 

Unlikely that the piggy back box itself will have barometric adjustments. Piggybacks are often signal tricker/scalers altering what the factory PCM see's from it's sensors. So the values it alters are reactionary to the output of the sensor, and that is it, cold hard math.

Now the factory PCM, with have alot of correction tables from the factory taking into account barro pressure, intake temps, coolant temps, throttle history, etc.. which your piggyback will be altering the signals of the output end of the factory PCM in most cases.

Then you get into if the PCM has tune authority, and if so how much, which in situations like that you can see a PCM learn about mod's and tune them out in the correction factors negating the bolt ons at times.

If you have access to the PCM programming you should save the factory tune obviously, then either disable or zero out correction factor tables that could interfere with your base tune alterations.

But at this point you probally will have sunk a good bit of cash into gear to where going standalone would have been the smarter move half a grand before.

.02

 

What is an example of a piggyback ecu?
I am aware of only the opensource units such as: cobb,uprev and utec...
I have found some good info on the net regarding different types of engine management, i.e, piggy backs, standalones but it doesn't seem as though any of these options are as common as the open source options listed above....
Am I correct?