Korean company VF Tuner has just announced that it’s cracked the Toyota GR Corolla’s ECU. This milestone should provide owners with the chance to fully explore their GR Corolla’s performance potential. It could even improve engine longevity in the right circumstances.
The GR Corolla is already a powerful little car. Toyota says that from the factory, it develops 300 hp (223 kW). That’s quite a lot for a three-cylinder engine and at least one independent test suggests that it might make as much as 344 hp (256 kW). Opening up the ECU for further tuning could make for cramming more ponies under its bugling hood quite quickly.
According to VF Tuner, it’s planning to begin beta tuning support this week now that it’s cracked the ECU code. The team shared the news on the GR Corolla Facebook group. The possibilities aren’t completely endless but the sky is a lot higher than it was only a day or two ago.
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With the ability to change settings in the ECU, the team at VF Tuner can do all sorts of things. For example, it can trade a bit of fuel economy in the quest for more horsepower by adding fuel, boost, and appropriate timing to match. It could go the other way too and make a more fuel-efficient map that loses a bit of horsepower too.
With an unlocked ECU, VF Tuner can also substitute E85 for pump gas. This would help to protect the engine while running on a bigger boost pressure.
It’s safe to expect that owners will soon have the chance to flip between different ECU maps while driving. On its Facebook page, VF Tuner specifically says that it’s working on such custom features for both the GR Corolla and the GR Yaris.
On-the-fly ECU map swapping is an awesome feature that can allow the car to go from a performance-focused map to a fuel economy-focused one without having to stop and perform a manual ECU flash. In fact, it’s not dissimilar from what happens in a car with multiple drive modes that go from Sport to Eco for example. We can’t wait to see what they come up with.
