Flexible tuning strategies

[Dujo]

Didn't see a thread on this already, but I admit I may have missed it.

So my 2013 EB Flex says in the manual that 87 is the recommended fuel, while 93 can be used for more performance if desired. How is this accomplished in the ecu? Does the stock setup have several separate tunes and just switches between them by detecting the octane somehow? (amount of knock?) Or is there basically one tune that has wide enough tables to handle all ranges of fuel?

How does this work in a protune from Torrie, LMS, etc. The Flex is my DD and I want to get it tuned. Now I usually run 93 fuel in the Flex, but I also travel to backwoods Maine a lot and sometimes I can't find premium fuel and I have no choice but to buy 87. I don't want to lose th ability to deal with this situation and I assume that since the stock ecu setup can handle it, that the tuned version can too, but I'm just looking for some more info on how that works.

[EcoPowerParts]

The stock tune looks for knock and if none found will adjust timing. The same thing will happen in the aftermarket tune but the ECU may not be able to pull enough timing. Just put the car back to stock when traveling in areas where you're not sure of octane. You can tune the car in about the same time as a gas fillup and bathroom break.

[Dujo]

Aha ... that's something I didn't think about. With my 2005 LGT, I just have an open source tune rather than any kind of power programmer, and it is not convenient to swap tunes, so I just roll around with a 93 tune and run 91 with easy driving in a pinch.

I was just looking at the LMS tuning stage definitions and noticing that anything that is stage 2 or greater is 91/93 only.

What's the danger of frying the ecu during a tune file swap?

[EcoPowerParts]

Aha ... that's something I didn't think about. With my 2005 LGT, I just have an open source tune rather than any kind of power programmer, and it is not convenient to swap tunes, so I just roll around with a 93 tune and run 91 with easy driving in a pinch.

I was just looking at the LMS tuning stage definitions and noticing that anything that is stage 2 or greater is 91/93 only.

What's the danger of frying the ecu during a tune file swap?

There's always a small percentage of chance that will happen but with the new protocols they have implemented the worst case scenario is if your battery went dead during the swap, other than that pulling the cable or turning off the key. If none of those occur you should be good.