Went to change from my 91 tune to E85 and car acts locked up.

[builttodrive]

I have a 91 winter tune in my car for winter storage and now that it's nice I went to switch the car back over to E85 for this spring/ summer. After I loaded the tune which everything seemed to work normal the car seems locked up. The fuel pumps won't cycle and the ignition won't crank. I have had the car do this before and VMP simply sent me a new file and everything was back to normal. I'm guessing this will probably work again but I want to figure out why it does this so I don't have to wait for a new tune file every time I want to switch my tune. Has anyone else had this happen?

 

[heatsoaked12]

Is your battery fully charged when changing tunes? I heard you should always have a full charge whenever attempting a tune change.

 

[builttodrive]

Is your battery fully charged when changing tunes? I heard you should always have a full charge whenever attempting a tune change.

I believe so. I have a tender on it over winter and it indicated a full charge when I went to load the E85 tune.

 

[ed.halterman.3]

I was always told when loading the tune to hook the battery charger up to it to guarantee full charge

 

[HillbillyHotRod]

^^^ This. Do not want your battery going low during a tune.

 

[builttodrive]

No problem with low battery. I tested it with a volt meter and it was 12.7 volts and with tender on it had 13.5. I tried loading the tune with the tender still on the battery. Also this wasn't the issue the last time it happened either. I tried to simply add 3 degrees global timing as instructed by Justin at VMP and it did this same thing. He sent me a new tune with the timing already added and I loaded it and worked great.

 

[Mainn]

How long ago was it since you last updated your SCT device?

 

[ShelbyGT5HUN]

How long ago was it since you last updated your SCT device?

Is it necessary to update the tuner just to load a tune? The less I mess with the SCT3 the better I feel. I've heard horror stories about people who updated theirs, then got locked out.

 

[builttodrive]

Is it necessary to update the tuner just to load a tune? The less I mess with the SCT3 the better I feel. I've heard horror stories about people who updated theirs, then got locked out.

Thats the part I wonder about. If the tune was already loaded on the handheld and has already been used in the car. What would change and what would an update do?

 

[builttodrive]

Alright got the tune to take and the car fired but I'm not sure if I'm completely out of the woods. I returned the car to stock tune in an attempt to update my SCT device. Sadly it doesn't look like SCT supports my old X3 anymore and I wasn't able to update it. I gave the tune reload another chance and when you get into the menu and it asks if you want to make changes, keep previous, or no. The only way I could get it to work is if I answered no before loading the tune.

Is my old X3 on the fritz and will SCT no longer be offering updates for it?

 

[evolve]

Call SCT, theyll help. I had to do it last year.

 

[ShelbyGT5HUN]

Thats the part I wonder about. If the tune was already loaded on the handheld and has already been used in the car. What would change and what would an update do?

My last tune was loaded and sent on a SCT3 back in 2011. I just ordered and received a new Lund tune a month ago. Should I update my tuner to accommodate this new tune or leave the handheld alone? Since I got the handheld, I never updated it, and I haven't tried loading the new Lund tune.

 

[Mainn]

Is it necessary to update the tuner just to load a tune? The less I mess with the SCT3 the better I feel. I've heard horror stories about people who updated theirs, then got locked out.

Not necessary, no. Recommended though? Yes.

I update my X3 all the time with no problems. It's not all that difficult to do if you follow the right steps. This is especially true if you're already loading a tune onto the device.

My last tune was loaded and sent on a SCT3 back in 2011. I just ordered and received a new Lund tune a month ago. Should I update my tuner to accommodate this new tune or leave the handheld alone? Since I got the handheld, I never updated it, and I haven't tried loading the new Lund tune.

You might as well update the device whilst you're at it. There's no harm in doing so!

1. Load stock tune onto car (this step is very important).
2. Download and run 'SCT Device Updater'.

From there, you should be able to figure it out.

 

[builttodrive]

Not necessary, no. Recommended though? Yes.

I update my X3 all the time with no problems. It's not all that difficult to do if you follow the right steps.

I've updated my X3 many times in the past so I know the steps and that it's not that difficult. When I went to update the device last night it wanted me to upload new SCT software and after I did that the only thing the program would recognize is my serial number. It would automatically check for updates nor would it manually update firmware.

Then I went to SCT's website and they don't even list the X3 on their web page that I could see and finding the software was even a challenge. Seems like the new X4 is here and they are dropping support for the X3.

 

[RBB]

Not necessary, no. Recommended though? Yes.

I update my X3 all the time with no problems. It's not all that difficult to do if you follow the right steps. This is especially true if you're already loading a tune onto the device.



You might as well update the device whilst you're at it. There's no harm in doing so!

1. Load stock tune onto car (this step is very important).
2. Download and run 'SCT Device Updater'.

From there, you should be able to figure it out.

Mainn, I always see guys stressing that the stock tune needs to be loaded on the car before you update your SCT device. Why is this? I just don't see the point. If I'm not using stock injectors, have BAPS, etc then I'm surely not going to try to start the car with the stock tune if something goes wrong with my device. In my case the stock tune is completely worthless.

 

[GT Premi]

Mainn, I always see guys stressing that the stock tune needs to be loaded on the car before you update your SCT device. Why is this? I just don't see the point. If I'm not using stock injectors, have BAPS, etc then I'm surely not going to try to start the car with the stock tune if something goes wrong with my device. In my case the stock tune is completely worthless.

You have to un-marry the device from your car. I think it boils down to a general glitch in SCT firmware updates where some parameter or code doesn't get updated properly. So when you update your device without returning your car to stock first, then try to (re)load a tune into your car, the SCT will say it's locked to another car. There's probably a code file that's shared between the PCM and the programmer that gets updated on the programmer when you install new firmware, but the remnant is still on the PCM. The mismatch causes the SCT to think you're trying to load a tune on a different car.

I could be wrong, though. I'm speaking from an I.T. troubleshooting standpoint. I've worked with my share of firmware problems.

 

[RBB]

You have to un-marry the device from your car. I think it boils down to a general glitch in SCT firmware updates where some parameter or code doesn't get updated properly. So when you update your device without returning your car to stock first, then try to (re)load a tune into your car, the SCT will say it's locked to another car. There's probably a code file that's shared between the PCM and the programmer that gets updated on the programmer when you install new firmware, but the remnant is still on the PCM. The mismatch causes the SCT to think you're trying to load a tune on a different car.

I could be wrong, though. I'm speaking from an I.T. troubleshooting standpoint. I've worked with my share of firmware problems.

Interesting idea, but I don't think that's the case. I've actually updated the firmware on my SCT device twice now without loading the stock tune back on my car. Had no problems either time.

 

[GT Premi]

Interesting idea, but I don't think that's the case. I've actually updated the firmware on my SCT device twice now without loading the stock tune back on my car. Had no problems either time.

Well, like I said, it was just a guess. I did it with my X3 one time and got locked out.

 

[HillbillyHotRod]

I did it once with my X4 and it locked up. Had to call SCT and have them do a remote fix on it.

 

[ShelbyGT5HUN]

It's not the process of updating it, but the reliability of the updated software reacting with this old SCT3. Thats the reason I do not want to update. I have a very good running Windows 7 lap top, that I have turned off all Windows Updates about 4 years ago. Once something works great, I find the more it updates, the worse it performs.

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OP,

I read that if your strategy code gets change through a dealer re-flash, it will render all tunes made for the old strategy code useless and your car will lock up. Can you plug in your SCT and see if the strategy code matches the one on the ECU? Just throwing this out there...