VGS3 TCU’s could always be read and flashed by Vediamo if you had and SDS. In fact that was a feature of the VGS3 by design. I would say the delay in having something for performance tuning was on the SW editing side by getting the DAMOS or definitions for the tables fully defined from the ROM. There have been a few vendors who offered the ability tune the TCU shift characteristics for some time. Specifically clutch fill rates, volumes, and pressures by shift transitions and TCC lockup control. These were marketed to transmission rebuilders, mostly in Europe, to tweak the the “comfort” characteristics of the non AMG 722.9s. What they didn’t have was overall line pressure control, torque management tables, shift speed/rpm and AMG specific mode settings included in the editors.
This type of control is common in GM/dodge/ford world through SW like HP tuners. All modern clutch to clutch style transmission operate the same way. Apply pressure and volume of fluid to a clutch or brake basket at a certain time to switch gears, with torque mgt acting like a nanny to keep things from breaking. Even a moderately powered car can break transmission parts without some TM in place. The balance is in tuning the shift timing, pressures and volumes, shift points, against hard parts in your trans. Even if we could remove all TM, the problem just moves down the line to hard parts.
That diversion from the thread topic aside, If RT has the editor capability, and the access to the correct tables, there is no technical reason they can’t do what they say. RT has lots of connections via Hartmut, so if anybody can get access to the information needed they can. I Think the price is a little high for the target market since most people entertaining this upgrade are people tuning older models now, not new 200K S classes, so if this was like $1500, and we could customize shift points and overall line pressure, I’d be down in a heartbeat. RT if you’re looking for testimonials, happy to try it out… 😉
The TCU can 100 prevent be flashed via OBD2. The move to embed the TCU on the mechatronics of the valve body assembly was to limit the physical distance between the controller to the solenoids on the VB. This decreased the time for Signal to reach them and improve shift times. There are bench flashing adapters that you can connect to the trans-VB plate to directly flash as well, but because of the design move to put the TCU on the VB, OBD flashing was also a major design consideration. I have no doubt RT can Flash this. How will it works on the average car is tbd.
Thanks to @ KLR CLS (mbworld.org/forums/).
Thanks to Laurance edit.
www.obd2shop.co.uk
