EVEN BIGGER IN PERSON
A few weeks ago, this gorgeous 2010 S63 AMG showed up at Speedriven's Palatine, IL garage ... presenting a perfect opportunity to illustrate how the Block Tuner works on the newer Mercedes / AMG models.
In short, Speedriven's Block Tuner allows the end-user to "flash" their car's ECU through the OBDII port, effectively switching between a "stock" file and a "tuned" file in a matter of minutes - which is ideal for customers with warranty concerns or who choose to go to their local dealer for regular maintenance.
The S63 shown here makes use of the Bosch ME9.7 ECU (in fact, all of the current naturally-aspirated 63 series AMG cars do, as well), which needs to be "unlocked" here at Speedriven before it can be tuned over the OBDII. On the S63, the ECU is located under the hood, at the base of the windshield, on the driver's side (shown, below).
SIMPLE ENOUGH
The ECU is usually sent back the day we receive it here at Speedriven, so if you drop the ECU into a FedEx box on Monday afternoon, you'll be back on the road by 10AM Wednesday. Now that the ECU is no longer "write-protected" you'll be able to write to it using the Block Tuner.
NOTE: using the Block Tuner to read the ECU won't be a necessary step on a 63, because we can load a Speedriven file on the ECU while it's here being unlocked, and ship the Block Tuner pre-loaded with the factory file and the Speedriven file, already. Unlocking the ECU is not detectable by the dealer.
The process for loading a file from your computer to the Block Tuner is the same as a USB thumb drive or external hard drive. Just drag and drop the file into the Block Tuner folder (shown here, on a Mac).
STILL SIMPLE ENOUGH
You can load 2 files on the Block Tuner, and select between them using the physical switch on the Block (up/down = stock/tuned, or pump gas/race gas, or tuner 1/tuner 2 for a comparison, for example).
Once that's done, you can remove the Block Tuner from the computer. Select the file you'd like to load onto the car by putting the switch in either the up or down position, then plug the Block into the OBDII port, under the dash (below) ...
IT FITS PERFECTLY
... turning the key to the "on" position will initiate a programming cycle. The instruments will react and the engine fans will start running throughout the cycle. Once programming is complete, the Block Tuner's LED will glow green. Turn off the car, remove the Block Tuner, and you're ready to go with a new file loaded on the car.
If you ever want to put your ECU back to stock, make sure there is a stock setting on the Block Tuner, select the stock file by setting the switch to the appropriate up or down position, and load the file to the ECU (following the included manual, of course).
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