Ferrari SF90 Turtle Mode limp fixed + dyno tune results - HD Tuning

Hello Ferrari chat and lost google searchers from the future looking to fix the SF90 turtle mode or add some power with an ECU tune. You've come to the right place. So you don't have to go far, here is the dyno media:

If you're not a voracious reader (I am quite verbose) here is the YouTube video and you can skip to the visuals. It's our first proper post/introduction on Ferrari chat and I wanted to showcase a hero car for the occasion. Please Enjoy. Or don't, there are no refunds for your time

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*The dyno graph shows peak gains of 120hp at redline and 145tq at 4k rpm, the 200tq number in the video was an accident as we were talking about marketing numbers at the crank. We cut the video down from 20min and I realized there will always be something I'm not happy with, so it's still not perfect but it is what it is. It's been two weeks and if you knew how much I've written and deleted before posting this, you'd laugh. OCD/ADD/ETC/AARP, I have it all. I couldn't find any dyno results online for an SF90 to compare ours with, but of course every aftermarket company is claiming random numbers for their tunes and piggybacks without proof. (I've seen their tunes, it is ambitious) This is the first dyno proven result and the current record if I'm not mistaken. No big deal.

For those with time to spare, I'm going to give some details behind who we are, what we do and why it's important. I'm going to try to be informative as there are a lot of consumers who want the details, who like to peek behind the curtain, who want to know the technical details behind the magic box controlling their car's engine. To post a video without an explanation would be doing them a disservice and there is so much that goes into it behind the scenes. Even if it's just for a few people, those few people deserve the effort. Again, I apologize in advance for the lengthy post, but the video can only cover so much. I will include visual aids and my usual dry humor to make it as interesting as I can.

Hi. My name is Matt, I make Ferrari's faster by hacking their computers, modifying the code and putting it back in. Most people call it ECU tuning. Boomers call it "chipping," and millennials call it "Jailbreaking." My mom calls it a disgrace to our family, and I should have been a doctor

When I started tuning, I was working with files that were 15kb in size and had mostly empty space. One timing map, one fuel map, one rev limit, that was it. We are looking at files in modern computers over 8MB now. The complexity is staggering and has advanced so much. The modern computers have so many redundancies, it is very hard to trick them with resistors or piggybacks. In 2005, BMW came out with the N54 motor, the era of European cars going turbocharged for efficiency began and the market flooded with people that used to tune Subaru's and Mitsubishi's now trying their hand at Euro cars. So many N54's popped, that BMW and the OEM's took initiative to prevent tuning. Every subsequent ECU from that generation now relied heavily on what we call "torque limits." The ECU has an internal dyno graph that it does not allow power to exceed. That means you can put massive turbos on your car, race fuel, NOS, etc. and it will not make a single HP over stock as it will bump into a torque limit and the car will bleed out that extra power. That also means if you have a piggyback that is tricking the map sensor, you might force boost into the car; However, the ECU will adapt the power out by closing the throttle, pulling timing, and in extreme cases going into component protection mode. That means dumping fuel, drowning out spark and possibly causing engine damage with prolonged stress.

When the next generation ECU's came out for BMW F series, the piggyback tuners told their customers they need a "back end flash" to raise the torque limits so their product would work properly. In all my years of testing I've never seen a working piggyback on a modern ECU without a backend flash. Dinan wrote a white paper on it before drinking the Kool-Aid and selling their own. They happened to do that when there was no way to get into the ECU's, but there was still money to be made. I'm not saying, I'm just saying, you know what I'm saying? When you change hardware on a car, you need to fine tune it, there's a lot more to it than adding boost. You can't change one variable and expect the car to respond. Oftentimes, hardware mods will LOSE power as they will run into torque intervention from the increased airflow. Examples of torque limits here:

The car will not exceed these limits, if there is a redundant limit the car will use the lower target. That means if the overall torque limit is 800nm, and in first gear the limit is 600nm, the car will use the 600nm limit for first gear. So it is important to know every torque limit in the computer to make power. You can raise boost 10psi, add 10 degrees of timing and you'll hit this ceiling and never make a single HP over stock.

The benefit of this complex addition to ECU algorithms for the consumer is these cars make the same power at elevation on mount Everest and in death valley. They have to run wildly different boost and timing adjustments to achieve that, and that's why the torque is calculated by fuel flow and not by arbitrary or subjective measures like boost. Much harder to trick the fuel rail than a Map sensor. It's a great achievement in engineering as in the old days you used to have to tune your carburetor mid journey to adjust for elevation. These Bosch MED17.3.5 ECU's have variables for every condition you can think of, this is an example of one of the intake cam maps at warmup and there are several environmental and conditional camshaft maps:

I don't get paid to teach my competition how to tune, but this map is one I want to show everyone especially other ECU tuners.

This is the max turbocharger speed map. Changing this WILL pop your turbo. A lot of 488's, F8's etc. will have a turbo seize and it's usually the driver side. They aren't great turbos, but not great tuners changing this map will guarantee them to fail. Aftermarket turbos aren't even balanced to the stock max turbocharger speed, changing this is a good way to cause a problem. I really hate seeing customers after they went with another tuner and popped their turbo or motor, I'm happy to fix problems and be the hero, but I'd love it if the industry as a whole isn't scared of tuning their cars. The pie will be bigger if we help each other raise the floor of the quality of tunes. I might lose some customers, but if I can spread the word on this to the rest of the industry players I might save some people a lot of money and anguish. McLaren's were bulletproof until one player entered the tuning market and started forcing power into them irresponsibly. Now the entire brand of McLaren is considered unreliable because so many motors have popped. They are good motors built by Ricardo, the same Graziano trans that Lambo and Ferrari use. They could use some help with assembly and QC but the drivetrain was solid. It really is a shame, I had one and though it was like an abusive relationship I want the company to succeed. I don't want the same thing to happen to the Ferrari market. So consider this a PSA. Tell your tuner to make sure they don't touch this map or the redundant ones. You can make plenty of power below 160,000RPM turbo speed.


On all the newer cars and especially Ferrari's, they are feeling more and more numb. I was sitting at a café over the weekend and an F8 drove by, and my brother asked if it was an electric car because we heard no sound at all as it putted by. Kind of broke my heart. I remember hearing the high RPM 355's when I was in high school and thinking this is what every car should aspire to be. Even the horn sounded cooler in those days. The driving experience isn't the same anymore, we don't get the sound of the older models, nor the engagement. That's why we see the prices of 355's, 458's, etc. going up. Top Gear rated the best sounding car of the year the Ferrari 360 challenge in 2004 (season 5, episode 7), there is no such designation for Ferrari's today. That sound we grew up with is harder to coax out of these cars, but it is in there. The aftermarket is working overtime to engineer a sound for you, a lot of the partners that I work with make exhausts to couple with my calibrations. My job essentially, is to give you that adrenaline you're after. A lot of you have put an exhaust on your SF90 and experienced a turtle mode that is persistent and very hard to solve even with the best technicians money can buy. I spent hundreds of hours developing a solution that is permanent, you also get an insane amount of power if you'd like more than just sound. Burbles and flames are options we provide to further customize your experience.






We are car guys, we have Ferrari's because they are special. They stick out. We modify them further or get options that are insanely expensive because we want to further tailor the driving experience to ourselves. The tailor-made Ferrari program is proof of that. The 296 I ordered for development is a unique color for the same reason. The aftermarket where I work is another avenue for that. Some people like their suits off the shelf, some like the custom fit. For the guys that like to further differentiate, I'm here for you. If you get an exhaust on an F8, 296, SF90 and any future Ferrari model, it will go into limp mode without a tune. It can also go into limp (turtle mode) if the exhaust flap gets stuck, if there's a bend in the hose, a vacuum leak, if you press too many buttons, if you install a cupholder(blasphemy), put pineapple on your pizza, pumpkin syrup in your espresso, who knows. The infamous turtle mode we see on the SF90 can even happen to stock cars. Believe it or not sometimes the dealers can't figure it out either and have me fix it. They are very finicky because they are so complex, and I can alleviate some of that burden if you are interested, whether the car is stock or modified. This is a torque limit on the SF90 for a failure on the exhaust flaps:

*For maps with metadata (x axis) that only go to 3k RPM, that means the last cell is extrapolated, the 300 NM limit lasts to redline. So you will have a 1000hp car that is limited to under 300NM of torque. That's 220ft lbs of torque, you are looking at a mid range car from the 90s level of power in this elite machine! You can have a perfectly healthy stock car and run into this as you're climbing a hill feeling like you're suffocating. I hate that feeling.


If you are curious about me personally, I have imposter syndrome so it's hard to verbally blow myself in a public forum. I'm going to do it anyway, but just know, I'm pretending to hate it because I do in fact enjoy it. I'm just afraid of people knowing that I enjoy it. That's the secret behind imposter syndrome. I of course know this, because I'm a narcissist. I find it amusing that you will never know if I'm joking or not, and to be fair at this point I'm not sure either. This is my writing style, because this isn't a fun thing for me to do unless I sprinkle some entertainment in it. Hopefully someone appreciates the effort. My claim to fame is I am the world's premier Pagani tuner, I tune for a couple Pagani dealerships directly, and have tuned more Pagani's than any tuner in the world. I also tune for a few franchise dealerships Ferrari, Lamborghini, etc. I also do other hyper cars, La Ferrari's, Bugatti's, 918, Carrera GT, McLaren SLR, Senna, etc. I'm trusted with multi million dollar cars because I obsess over my craft and I'm a dependable person. That's how I've cultivated my dealer network that has allowed me to stay somewhat anonymous in my personal life while making a living in a competitive industry. I realize I look like I sell gym memberships or reverse mortgages, or cell phones at a mall kiosk (rule of 3's for comedy) but I assure you I'm smarter than I look.

To wrap things up, I have avoided forums like the plague up to now because I know the cool thing is to be contrarian, you really have to earn your stripes in each niche community and someone will inevitably rain on your parade to get their dopamine for the day. I'd rather spend time on my craft, but I am the best in the world at Ferrari tuning. If I didn't honestly believe that, I'd be doing something else. I'm not a marketing person, I'm not on any social media personally, I like being a recluse and spending my time on my skills as a tuner. I'm sponsoring this forum and making this post in order to show that to people. I've been tuning for 15 years and will do it for as long as we have 4 wheels and roads to drive on, it's my favorite thing.

I know that "buy my product" posts have very little engagement compared to customer review posts or "my car is making a weird noise," posts. I am putting this post up with the intention of catching the lurkers who bought an expensive car with an expensive exhaust (I think the most popular post in this section of the forum is on exhausts) and are searching for a solution to their limp mode, or the guys that want to tune their car but don't know who they can trust with their baby. Most of the tuning companies we compete with are marketing companies that don't develop their own files, they are just good at marketing tunes as a commodity. I don't believe in that business model, the word "tuning" implies the opposite, that it is a qualitative measurement not a quantitative one. The more tunes you do in a day the less time you spend on each one. If there is a technical issue you should be able to get ahold of your tuner or at least know their name. I like fixing things, I lose sleep until I can solve the problem. We have the first fix for the Lamborghini Urus 24" wheel transmission error as well that I developed painstakingly. I sift through a lot of code to be able to provide unique solutions to my customers. I like spending my time doing that vs filming myself or posting on social media, etc. I'm a behind the scenes basement alchemist at heart, not a TV personality. I had to do a lot of soul searching to realize I need to show face in order to give retail customers the same service I give my dealer network.


For your exotic car, we can provide:
Reliable power
Custom suited calibrations to match your hardware modifications
burbles or flames depending on the application
deleting cold start
deleting auto start/stop
raising rev limit


If you have read this whole thing I appreciate the time you took to learn about us and my passion for my craft. If you have any questions you can always reach us by phone, email or Instagram. My buddy Steven runs our branch in Scottsdale, our Instagram page, and will be on the forum daily at your service. Steven has the highest HP F8 on 91 pump gas making 830whp. We look forward to testing an SF90 with big turbos to set another record if anyone is interested.


Matt
949-438-0042
[email protected]
@hdtuningllc

 

Howdy,

If the car is reset to stock by the dealer for an update, we will flash it again for free, and we can also reset it to stock for free as part of our service to our customers should you want to sell the car or return it to stock for any reason.

I looked into the warranty services that are out there as it is a concern for retail customers. I did some research and in case of engine failure they make you disassemble the engine at your cost, then deny the warranty anyway as it's impossible to prove without a reasonable doubt. Technically, if you are worried about something happening the best avenue is don't modify your car;

However, our calibrations are OEM quality, reversible, and undetectable by the dealership. If you have any issues with your tune or are otherwise dissatisfied, we can reset it back to stock and refund you. We keep the stock files indefinitely and back them up so you can always return to stock in case of selling the car, new ownership, new mods, etc.

 

Hi Norman,

It doesn't exist yet anywhere in the world, but we bought a 296 to do development so stay tuned and we will make a post when we have it available. We want to continue to lead the industry in Ferrari calibrations and think having one in house would allow us to make the best product. I like to test things in the middle of the night sometimes so it wouldn't be possible if I didn't have my own to tinker with.

Thanks for your interest

 

Hi Norman,

What spec did you get on the GTB and GTS? I feel like the 296 is subtle compared to the F8, so I went with a wild color.

It's a new generation of ECU, "Bosch MG1" vs the "MED17.3.5" that has been in Ferrari's from the 488 to SF90. I met an ECU engineer from Bosch at SEMA in 2015/2016 and he said "When the MG1 comes out, good luck." They compartmentalized the development to make it harder for anyone to sell info/crack and they have a system in place to update with a new boot loader with new security in the middle of production. I'm working with one of my partners to crack the security to get inside, once inside I am able to make the magic happen.

There's always a way to get in, it just takes time. Will 100% update once we are there.

 

Yes we can do that, keeping the stock cats would be considered stage 1 but the nomenclature is immaterial. There will be a turtle mode/limp mode with an aftermarket muffler if it is not addressed with a tune. We make everything custom suited to your needs so there is no cookie cutter program, everything you need and nothing you don't. You can email us at [email protected] for scheduling and specific details.

 

It depends how you delete the GPF function, but, if you tell the car there is no GPF system, it will eliminate the smoke entirely, but the car will also stall. It's a really advanced system, the GPF code is tied into every other function of the car so you need the right exhaust and the right tune to do it properly