silver1.3

I just got the "M" flash today. Everybody's been talking about how they dont want to loose that rush of speed above when the car is reflashed. Im not really sure if I lost it or not. My questions are these:

Is it that you loose the speed and its put in the midrange or the fact that the midrange is boosted a little up so the difference between the before the rush and the rush isn't so great anymore thus less feeling of the rush? If that makes sense.

what do you all mean by the midrange? - I would say 4k - 6k in the rpm. Is this right?

I seems my temp needle moved up one click. I would assume this is because its running leaner. Yes or no?

Should my gas milage improve since its running a little leaner, or is it no enough leanness (is that even a word :p ) to make a difference.

Does the computer need to relearn if its a manual transmission - I've heard on automatics because of the shift points and all, but does this hold true on the 6 speeds?

These questions may seem rudimentary, but I'd like to know the answers. I've done a search but I cant seem to find anything specific.

thanks a bunch for any info yall can give.

greg

StewC625

Hi Greg:

The biggest thing that I noticed, post-M-flash is that the midrange power - from 3800 RPM and up - seemed better. Also the start up routine seemed different - when ice cold, starts and revs to 2500 RPMs, settles at 1800 and then slowly comes down.

The system DOES forget your driving history - you start with a "clean slate" - the adaptive throttle system "writes" info to the ECU on your driving habits every 3 miles. What the system does is establishes a "score" number for your driving habits on a sliding scale of values from "gentle" to "aggressive", across a few parameters. The way the Mazda RX-8 specialist at my dealer (Autobarn, Evanston, IL) explained things is imagine a scale from 1 to 10 with 1 being granny and 10 being "hot shoe". Every three miles it writes another data point in the database - with this "driver score" as part of it. The ECU setting of your driving habits is the average of these data points. The more you "drive it like you stole it" the more aggressive and sensitive the throttle is at tip-in (hair trigger throttle), and it makes other aggression adjustments to make the power less linear and more sporting like. Conversely, if you baby the car, it rewards that behavior as well.

Anyway, when I picked up my car after the M flash, the car seemed "off power" a bit. The tech advised me to "drive it like you stole it" for the first 10 or 20 miles to write those initial data points high on the aggressive driving scale, to maximize the sporting feel being written into the ECU. After just 3 miles the car had noticably quicker throttle response and more midrange power, less linear.

silver1.3

thanks Stew, great response - thanks for info!!!

ayap888

The M flash has smoother acceleration. But Stew is right - floor the gas pedal at 2nd gear and rev to max ... the ECU learned that in my RX8 pretty quickly. So, now everytime I start to drive my car .. it always go very quickly to 6000-6500 RPM at 2nd gear. It's like "whoaaa boy, hold your horses" the car is still ice cold after a night below 28 C. But it seems like the M Flash somehow compensate for the low power at the low end torque. Now I have to drive in tiptronic mode to slow down the 2nd gear shift on cold mornings. But once the engine is warm, the auto transmission shifts very quickly to 6000+ RPM in 2nd gear that I don't feel the low-end torque. I think the M optimized the 165 lb torque at 5000 RPM for the auto tranny. While Car and Driver clocked the auto tranny at 9 seconds (that was not the M flash). I timed my 0-60 and it was 7 seconds after the M flash. the M somehow eliminated tranny and torque/power lag.

G8rboy

Greg- most of us have noticed that "smoothing out" of the power curve... I noticed quite a difference when I drove it away from the dealer after the reflash. I enjoy it so much that my mileage on average has dropped 1mpg on average since the flash

As for the temp needle- I hadn't noticed any difference, but they did change where the oil pressure "gauge" (it's really just a dummy switch) points when it detects pressure by one notch to the right I believe.

As Stew said - keep driving it like you stole it and you won't regret it... they'd have to surgically remove my grin at this point :D

StewC625

I resemble that remark! :D

StewC625

I recently brought my car in for an oil change and chatted up the service guy a bit more on this - there's a finite number of data points the system tracks, also. When it reaches the limit on the data points it starts throwing out the old ones and substuting the new ones. Therefore, if you go a few weeks of driving like a granny, the car WILL learn this behavior, and then if you go back to driving like a thief, it will re-learn this behavior.

Although it does take time. He didn't know the exact number of data points, but both of us were guessing it's in the hundreds.

Shamblerock

Guys, I think the learning process of the ECU is more immediate from my experience. I noticed that if I drive like a granny for a couple of days and then I decide to open her up a couple of times over a period of 1/2 hour, the first of many floorings are decent but then next few are more sporty feeling and I think are quicker acceleration. I guess I am saying that you just have to boot it a few time initially and then she gets the message loud and clear as to what your intentions are. So if you are planning to race someone, boot it around for 5 minutes and then she'll be at max power.

G8rboy

The 20 brake tap/oil needle sweep test clears the ECU's NVRAM (at least the e-shaft's position information), so I would imagine that this info is cleared as well.

StewC625

abbid, I'm guessing you're right ...

Sociopath

What is this "20 brake tap" everyone is talking about? What is this "e-shaft's" position? Are you saying by tapping the brake 20 times, you clear out the so called memory?

w0rm

Might want to check your manual. If i remember correctly its ACC ON key position, tap brake pedal 20 times in 8 seconds and the oil pressure gauge will sweep side to side to let you know it reset.

G8rboy

It's not in the owners manual - it was once on a TSB, which was a backwards way to check if one had the 'L' flash or higher. You're right about the procedure though...

w0rm

Ah, I'm pretty sure it is in my owners manual. ('05)
Didnt think about the 04s, sorry.

G8rboy

True, true... I keep forgetting the '05's are on the road now