[viurniel]

With reports of ECU encryption to prevent tuning on the C8 vette, will that be the future for the ZL1 too?

https://www.motorauthority.com/news/...edly-untunable

[LT4Greg]

Maybe so!! Guess we will see in the very near future.

[arpad_m]

Well, the necessary encryption tech has been there for a while. Here's to hoping ours is not the last generation of tunable cars

[Yanniz]

Didn’t they say the same thing for previous Gen Corvettes? C7 I think.

[Vtor_ZL1]

Gm will sell you a tuner for $ZZZZ dollars.. for off road use only.



Or worse.... 90's piggybacks !! S-AFC, V-AFC, DTEC... ah so many.

[TEST DRyVer]

This is becoming more and more common with performance cars in the automotive industry. It's not really a concern though. BMW has been trying to lock their DME's tight for a while.
Example: our family car (my wife's car) is a 2015 335i M-sport (F30 chassis with an N55 engine to us Beemer geeks). This was a very difficult ECU to tune. After they came out with the EWG (electronic waste gate) version of this car in the US (2014, I think), it became even more impossible. Within 6-8 months brands like JB4 (Burger Motorsports) came out with a "revolutionary" piggyback for the ECU. Of course is wasn't revolutionary, it was just a piggyback that tricked the ECU to allow for more fuel and boost, but it was the Best solution for extracting available power from the N55 (inline six cylinder with a single turbo, but dual scroll. They dubbed it "twin power," which many confused with the previous twin turbo setup). In under 2 years (that's a long time to finally crack a DME) brands like BM3, Active Autowerk, MHD, etc... starting coming out with proper ECU flash tunes for the modern BMW engines. Now they're REALLY dialing in the tune. Our "family car" started out with 300hp and about 300lbs torque to the crank. After full bolt-ons and a tune, I'm just over 400hp and over 430lbs to the crank. That might not sound like much to many of you here, but take my word for it, the car is definitely rapid and competitive with higher hp cars as it sits.
Bottom line- as long as there is a desire and a market for it (which there definitely is), there will be someone that cracks the DME. In the meantime, you'll at least have a piggyback available almost immediately.

[BlaqWhole]

If GM does this then I can certainly understand their POV on the matter. GM loses lots of money because people tune these cars, blow their engines up, then commit fraud at the dealership by finding ways to scam GM into paying for the work. And it really isn't fair. So if they can figure out a way to make these cars untunable by anyone but them, then good for them. It's either that or they'll start losing soo much money that it won't be profitable to even make the car anymore.

[SliChillax]

All ECUs are encrypted, they all get decrypted in the end. It just takes more time for proper remaps to show up.

[Vigilante375]

Same could be said about the Hellcats when they came out. Car manufacturers will do what they feel is best but in the end, someone will crack their code.

It may take some time but it will always be cracked.

[JD2018_ZL1]

The ZR1 is encrypted. FCA now encrypts everything. It's a matter of time before they encrypt all forms of communication. They are using the digital rights act and they are also claiming security risks.

FCA encryption is pretty easy to bypass. They encrypt a gateway module. All you have to do with those is plug in a harness that bypasses the gateway module. GM actually is encrypting each and every module. That will prove to be very complex and expensive to overcome. Hp tuners did with the ZR1 ECMand TCM but the cost is in the thousands of dollars to be able to tune your car for those. May be ok for a guy that can afford a ZR1 but once you start trickling down to a Camaro that a guy may not be willing to spend 4k to tune it they start to get their desired result. No one touching anything.

So yes you will be seeing more encryption coming.

[Neil350]

Originally Posted by JD2018_ZL1

So yes you will be seeing more encryption coming.

Absolutely true, two part in that it's protection of their technology and the future is smart infrastructure that communicates with vehicles in real time. If we can actually invest in infrastructure is another thing entirely. I imagine after that FCA vehicle hacking deal, that may have some to do with it at as well.

[94turbolsx]

It is definitely coming across the board for GM anyways. I'm sure like the ZR1 it will get cracked but it will be complicated and very expensive to the end user. With GM wanting to implement over the air updates with Tesla style access to your car, you bet your ass they want it all locked up as tight as current tech allows. If Im not mistaken, it was GM who tried to claim through courts that their electronics were their property not the car owner. I dont quite remember all the details of that whole uproar.

[PROMETHEUS]

ZR-1 has already been cracked, Race Proven Motorsports out of DE, just did an upgrade and tune on one.

[staples87]

They can crack it... it just depends on how much time and effort the programmers want to put into doing it. Is it a worthwhile investment to perform the R&D? For a $130k vehicle (ZR1) they'll do it because they can charge the premium to tune it (almost $5k all set and done).