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WARNING: Tuning mistakes will damage your Saab trionic 7 engine beyond repair!
Saab-tuners takes no responsibility for tuning mistakeson your Saab, either in this guide or by you yourself!
If you are unsure it may be the safer option to let us perform your Stage 1 tuning, contact us to get your Stage 1 tuning written on your ECU for only 200 euro's.
The above noted, we do take pride and care in writing to our best knowledge and ability. So read everything carefully and understand what is hapening. That way you are less likely to make a mistake and destroy your Saab's engine.
On with the show, lets get started:
The interface:
First you will need to construct a interface from your Saab computer to your PC and a 12v power supply. There are three ways to do this. In our How To's we will go trough the process of constructing them, here we will help you choose the best one for your tuning needs.
- CAN/USB interface + power supply (follow this link to the build guide).
Pro's: no need to open up your ECU and solder pins on your ECU & you can make a nice all in one power + CAN/USB interface cable & will work with modern PC with XP / VISTA / 7 & the added bonus is that live data feeds from the ECU can be recorded in the car. This is a big, big pro when you want to go beyond a simple custom stage 1.
Con's: expensive (aprox. $ 150,- in materials) & can't repair write-failed ECU's.
- Parralell BDM interface + power supply (follow this link to the build guide).
Pro's: cheap (aprox $ 50,- in materials) & the ruggid write / repair all ECU's interface.
Con's: Need to solder pins on the ECU circuit board & need to have a "old" PC with a paralell printer port and Windows 98 DOS installed or a USB Windows 98 DOS boot drive.
- USB BDM interface + power supply (aprox $ 100,- in materials) (follow this link to the build guide).
Pro's: The ruggid write / repair all ECU's interface without the need to boot in Windows 98 DOS.
Con's: Need to solder pins on the ECU circuit board & the need to make it yourself or try to buy one from johnc on ECUproject.
The tuning software for your Saab:
Well, you have built your tuning interface, now it's time to test the interface and download your original file from your Saab ECU to your PC. Again we have the three options from above:
- CAN/USB interface:
- Connect the Saab ECU to the CAN/USB interface, the USB cable to your computer and plug in the adapter.
- Start T7 suite.
- In T7 suite go to "Actions / ECU interaction" in the top menu.
- Go to "Actions / Download binary file from ECU" and download your origional file from the Saab ECU, select a name you will remember "date - yourname - original.bin" could work for you.
- Make sure you watch the CAN/USB interface. It should flash red on startup once then only blink green during the download.
If the red led flashes on read / write actions your data is corrupted. You should abort/wait and reboot and try again.
- Open the downloaded file in T7 suite.
- Parralell BDM interface:
- Connect the interface to your paralell printer port, the Saab ECU to the interface, and the Saab ECU to the power supply.
- Start up DOS on Windows 98 and start BD32.exe, you van download this from the Trionic suites site.
- Test the interface by giving the command MD 0X0 128, you should get the same result on both times you give the command. If you get diffrent results on both MD 0X0 128 query's you should abort and go back to the "How To's" to check your interface.
- Give the command RESET this will reset the intercace connection.
- Give the command DO PREPT7.DO, this will prepare the ECU for reading and writing.
- Give the command DUMPT7 FILNAME.S19, this will download your current software and save it in the root folder with the filename you use in stead of FILENAME.
- Open the downloaded file in T7 suite.
- USB BDM interface:
- Connect the interface to your USB port, the Saab ECU to the interface, the Saab ECU to the power supply and start up the BDM tool.
- If the BDM tool gives negative feedback on your connection you should check your interface, USB drivers and power supply.
- Click on the "download flash from ECU" button and specify the desired FILENAME.BIN. "Date - yourname - original.bin" could work for you as a filename.
-Open the downloaded file in T7 suite.
Tuning your Saab's software to Stage 1:
Cool, you have successfully downloaded your own file from your ECU, let's learn from it and let's NOT use it! Chances are your original file has lived in your ECU during the complete lifetime of your car. In that case you have missed out on a lot of upgrades from Saab.
What are we going to use the original file for?
It is going to learn us the exact type of updated software we need as a basis, and it's going to give us the VIN number & Immobilizer code we need to get our Stage 1 tuned file to run in the Saab.
(Rough scetch below, more details to follow asap!)
- Open the file you downloaded from your ECU in T7 suite.
- You can find your VIN / IMO code in the firmware (menu option).
- Save your VIN number & IMO code in a text file to copy paste later on.
- Check the model year with the VIN database in T7 suite.
- Find the latest BIN from your car on ecuproject.com.
- Open this latest BIN in T7 suite.
- Paste the VIN number & IMO code in the new bin file.
- Now go to the wonderfull button "Tune me up" in the tuning tab.
- you will now be prompted to specify the Horsepower (PK) and Newton meters (Nm) you would like to have. BEWARE: It is easy to enter a bigger number then your hardware (turbo / engine) can handle. Please don't be tempted to overtune, you will destroy your turbo and or your engine (in the long run)!
- When you go to sites of other quality Saab tuners like Hirsch / Maptun / Nordic / Abbott you can take a quick look at the power they are giving you. Compare your car with their specs and be safe, set up your tune 5 / 10 PK & Nm lower as the pro's do!
- you will be shown a confirmation screen & a log on completion. Check both for mistakes you could have made. When in doubt stop and ask for advice!
You now have a Stage 1 upgrade for your car.
- Exit T7 suite and rename the file to ....._Stage1.bin.
- Your original file is saved and renamed automatically by T7 Suite.
Now fire up your interface and flash the Stage 1 tuning file to the spare ECU you bought for your Saab.
CAN/USB:
- Open the stage 1 file.
- Connect your CAN/USB interface and power up the ECU (12v).
- Go to actions / flash current bin to ECU and gogogo!
When your red light blinks more than 1 long time on startup write errors occur during flashing, wait it out and reflash after rebooting your PC.
*** Well, obviously we are not finished with this article, it's a work in progress and we hope to give you a completed article a.s.a.p. ***
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