Hello Enthusiasts,
Official details posted at CivicX.com –
As some of you know we were able to successfully infiltrate the Type-R ECU last year. From previous experience in the BMW realm we knew that these newer Bosch ECUs use an RSA signed software package. A lot of people don’t know this, but we also run BimmerSoftware.com and have created not only freeware and licensed tools for the BMW market, but have also created some custom flash tools for big BMW tuning companies like Active Autowerke and TTFS. This ECU was not terribly different or difficult to gain access to, as some would allude.
I set out to break the RSA keys necessary for proper signing in hopes that we’d be able to offer a solution without needing to send your ECU in for unlocking. While the computers are still burning at the process, there’s no ETA on when that might actually conclude. So where do we go from here?
We’re happy to announce KTuner is available this week for the 17+ Civic Type-R in the United States. We are training one of our Canadian dealers to handle unlocking for all of Canada and we are working with dealers around the world to bring support to Type-R owners abroad. This will cover not only FK8, but also FK2 support for the European and Asian markets.
We’ve had a vehicle for extended drivability testing and have brought on multiple local vehicles as testers. Along with that we have a few remote testers currently giving us feedback on our stage 1 tune, which will be included in the software.
There are indicators that this market is being treated by some as a “premium” market and with that comes higher prices. We don’t really see why that’s the case. Some companies have spent large amounts of money to get into this ECU, and we commend them for pushing the platform forward, but we found out first hand that it wasn’t as difficult as it is being made to seem. We have no intention of raising our unit prices for our KTunerFlash V1.2 ($449) and KTunerFlash V2 Touch ($649). We also will not be making a special version of the hardware that is locked to only a Type-R. This being the case, anyone who currently has a unit will be able to use that unit if they end up getting a Type-R later on down the road.
The only extra costs associated will come from the need to send your ECU to an authorized dealer who is able to unlock. KTuner will be handling all unlocking to begin with. We’ve setup staff to handle this here for the U.S. market, but will be adding additional U.S. dealers to offer this service in order to better accommodate the market and keep wait times to a minimum.
This week we start taking orders for the United States Type-R market. ECUs will need to be scheduled to be sent in and the price for unlocking the ECU is $300. That includes overnight return shipping. As we get started in Canada and other countries we will try to set comparable pricing and shipping options.
That makes the V1.2 Kit $749 and the V2 Kit $949 including the price of unlocking and return shipping.
With the recent announcements for the Type-R we’ve seen a huge demand develop for tuning, so to prevent a ton of orders all at once we will be launching with the V1.2 orders first and begin taking orders for those who want the V2 units the week of March 6th.
We’ve reached out to several tuners who are into these ECUs as well and we’re hoping they’ll choose to make KTuner their delivery platform of choice to offer remote tuning services to their customers!
We also are aware of some individuals who “run the software on a virtual machine generally disconnected from the internet” that have been attempting to hack our software on multiple occasions so they “can break it down into the components” and extract our tune files. For this reason we’re entertaining the idea of making this ROM completely open source in the near future, where KTuner hardware could still be used to flash any modified files resulting from community efforts. Open source has brought other communities together and with all of the one vs another arguments going on… the community certainly needs a reason to come together.
Stay tuned for more information regarding the Type-R.
KTuner