January 2011 update

[GMPX]

Good news to report for the new year.
For those that are following development progress you might know that I am currently in New Zealand working along side Paul finalising the read and reflash process for the 2006+ 5.9L ECM (though I was told today some 2005's might be using this ECM too).
Anyway, the good news is we have got the in house beta software to the point of being able to bench read and reflash at least three of our test ECM's without any issues. Including recovery from purposely failed flashes.
Some people might be aware of the problem these ECM's have where they will loose the VIN and other important data after they have been programmed. This is actually a bug in the ECM itself, it's not the fault of any handheld programmers, not even Cummins (or Tech Authority seems to have a real solution to fix it either). However, we have come up with a reflash method that will restore the ECM's contents (that is usually lost) to a 100% duplicate of what it was prior to the flash. :good:
For the rest of the week we need to test the licensing for the Cummins, try to get the Scantool talking correctly with the ECM and retest many GM controllers because we have made a lot of changes to the firmware and PC software. So if all goes well our beta testers will be tuning some Cummins ECM's by mid to late January. Beta testers, you will get an Email over the next couple of days explaining what is going on with the beta program.

Cheers,
Ross

[BSwope]

Whoo Hooo, Thanks for the update Ross!! Cant wait.....

[GMPX]

Another good development day today with the 5.9L ECM as good as done. We also got the 6.7L ECM programming done, but it's slow to read (explanation below).

Read Times:
5.9L = about 9 to 10 minutes.
6.7L = about 35 minutes (yes, it's horrid).

Flash Time:
5.9L = 6 minutes (this is a 2006 CM849B with internal and external flash, earlier models will be faster).
6.7L = 6 minutes.

As a comparison, we can read GM's new E39 ECM in about 2 minutes and full flash it in 3:30, yet the E39 has three times the flash memory size of the 5.9L Cummins ECM. The E39 is running our own read and write bootloaders which is why it's so fast, we have full control.
We can't do this on any of the Cummins ECM's, so we are constrained by what Cummins built in to the ECM for reading / flashing and it's slow. :rolleyes:
We were able to get the 5.9L Flash time down to about 5:30 but it was too unreliable, even just on a test bench, so we changed it back to the slower (more reliable) CAN message speed rate. Again, it's not us, we can flash GM controllers over 3Mb in size in 3 minutes. the 5.9L only has about 1Mb to flash.
With the 5.9L ECM it is necessary to reflash the entire ECM every time, for the GM guys who are familiar with a 'cal' flash or 'full' flash, there is no such thing with the Cummins ECM, it has to be a full flash each time.

It important for people to understand the read and flash times can't be controlled by EFILive like we can on the GM controllers, this is just how it is with the Cummins ECM's, which is unfortunate.

Cheers,
Ross

[bobo]

10 minute flash times sure beat stacking $3k worth of tuners together!

[dansdieselp]

Agreed. EFI Live will save customers a lot of money plus actually make there truck run how they want it to. I hope the 6.7 flash time doesn't take a half hour each time though especially if it's a small change that has to be made.

[GMPX]

We are going to look at the flash speed on the 5.9L again today, we saw a delay in our CAN traces last night that if eliminated should save a minute or two.
On the 6.7L, I doubt it will be 30 mins per flash, it's only that slow to read because Cummins really limit how much data can be read per message request. Hopefully they also didn't goof up the built in flash process like the 5.9L that erases the entire ECM per flash. I should know by the end of today....

[GMPX]

Flash time fixed, the 5.9L is down to just on 6 minutes, that is about as good as it can get and still be reliable.

[Dmaxink]

Great Job Ross!:cucumber: I'm more excited than the fat kid at the candy store!:grin:

[GMPX]

6.7L Flash is completed too. EFILive takes 6 minutes, much faster than the Tech Authority 14 minute flash :good:

This doesn't mean we are about to release 6.7L tuning, but at least it's done.

[dansdieselp]

Great to hear Ross.

[07dodge]

6 minutes works for me! Great to see the progress y'all have made recently

[ScarabEpic22]

Even though I dont have a Cummins, this is great news! Ouch, that 35min read time is going to be a killer. Hope your battery is fully charged, even then you'll probably have to stick a charger on it.

[Highlander]

Bimmers take that long if not longer to flash... so this is ok!!!!!

[hardint]

I have an 06 ecm with the correct numbers just waiting for EFI and then a retrofit to my 05 engine in my Ford,please keep the info coming.

[rajkalkat]

put me on the waiting list.

[Goosepilot]

when is this going to be available?

[dansdieselp]

The beta testers are waiting for the firmware to start the testing process. Could be a month before public sees anything.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Will this be for simply reading and writing, or will it also include tuning?

[GMPX]

Tuning

[rajkalkat]

can tunes be switched on the fly?

[GMPX]

We will certainly look in to that at a later date, but not for the first release. It's something we've done for the Duramax's so it's not a new thing for us to do.

[rajkalkat]

have you already selected all the beta testers? i would love a little more tuning, i picked up 80hp by switching to smarty ssr and tuning it.

[GMPX]

The beta test list is closed sorry.

[rajkalkat]

can't wait, i seen what efi live can do on a duramax. i would love to have my truck run clean with little to no smoke.