Hi all, just picked up a 2018 RS400 AWD! New to the Q50 world, but not new to engine tuning (coming from the VW world where flash tunes are a big thing). In the VW world, when you take your car in for warranty work, if they feel the need, they can scan the car to see if the ECU was flashed. There are multiple ways they could tell, including a flash counter, last flash date, ROM checksum, checking the ECU for the max boost the car has ever logged, etc. If they found anything and chose to void your warranty, that flag in the VW system was called "TD1" so getting TD1'd sucked.
Some tuners, APR, for example, would store the information from the ECU before they flashed the car, such as flash counter and last flash date, so when you flashed back to stock, it would flash your stock ROM back and then go into memory to overwrite the flash counter and last flash date from when the car was stock. Basically, they don't leave a trace.
I know there has been a lot of information (and misinformation) about what Infiniti can or cannot see, if there's a flash counter, etc. so I reached out to EcuTek directly to ask them for some information and here is my dialog with them:
viperboy said:
I was hoping to get some clarification on the Infiniti tunes. I'm coming from the VW world (specifically APR) where we have to worry about VW deep-diving into our ECUs and looking for things like ROM Checksum, flash counters, last flash date, etc. They've even gone as far as checking the max boost the car has ever hit as a way to try and detect JB1/JB4. Supposedly, APR backs up the data on the first flash and when you flash back to stock, it writes your stock map but also finds the location of the above in memory and overwrites it with what it has to make it "undetectable" to the dealer.
My question is - is Infiniti/Nissan like this? I'm not sure if they have the concept of a flash counter on regular cars (I know the GT-R is a different beast) of if they plug your car into their tools if they can tell you were ever flashed if I would use your process to go back to stock. Does that leave anything behind?
EcuTek said:
While we correct check sum's when return to stock etc we don't go to the same levels as overprogramming the exact image and overwriting modules and EEPROM that would record flash counters. We don't actively try to hide things like this and unless you remove the licence from the ECU it will retain this when flashed to stock (even the the check sum is corrected still). I am not sure exactly what hardware is in the infinities but as you say, if the dealer is enthusiastic enough they can use many different methods to find out if it has been tuned or not. As with any tune some risk is involved. That being said some infinity dealers are working with tuners on these cars (
https://www.amsperformance.com/infiniti-q60-red-alpha/) so there must be some understanding at least with some dealerships.
viperboy said:
Thank you for your answer.
While you might not "overprogram" the ECU, are you aware if there is any mechanism in these cars that record the number of flashes performed on the ECU? Have you heard about this ever from anyone at Nissan/Infiniti? Is this something done on any of their other cars aside from the GT-R?
EcuTek said:
There is a stock flash counter and programming log in the ECM ROM are not effected by our fast flash programming but the initial programming attempt will count up one when the licence etc is initially installed, which would show to a dealer that its programmed once. the programming log ad counter is a standard code feature in most cars now days as it is quite common for the factory to program the car with new calibrations for recalls, warranty claims and calibration updates. In the GTR there is a separate module for recording programming launch and rev limit events but i don't know if they have this on the infinity cars.
viperboy said:
Thank you again for the info.
When you uninstall the license completely, I assume that counter doesn't go down? And is each flash another increment if you completely removed the license and re-registered the car?
EcuTek said:
Correct, we don't reset the flash counter if it is advanced, if you were to remove the licence and then reinstall the licence it would advance the factory counter as it doesn't use our special programming method for initial programming (after the first flash it uses our method and the counter stays the same). The factory programming log information is stored in the boot section of ROM so we don't program over the top of it as this carries risks of causing unknown issues (at extremes bricking ECU's).
As mentioned previously there are risks with increasing the output above stock and these may not be covered by warranties, and regardless of the methods its done (flash or plug in box) if the dealer is savy and determined they would be able to dig deep enough to find this out.
TL;DR - I really appreciate the info and transparency that I got from EcuTek! It does look like the ECU stores the flash counter, it appears it can be detected by a dealer if they want, EcuTek doesn't overwrite the flash counter like some VW tuners do, and you gotta pay to play, as there's always a risk. Just thought I'd get this info out to you guys for some more clarity.
