Car slower after reflash!!!!! Help

[skrecht]

Was at the dealer for several reasons the past two months. At one visit, a minor reflash was done and i wasn't sure i noticed anything, though the car ran great for about two days (weather was super crisp and this car loves that).
With remaining problems, i found a mazda bulletin posted here on this site that had to do with hesitation/stumbling on acceleration, which was my issue. After the reflash, the car is not happy anymore. There is no more rush at 3-3500 rpm where that rush was always there. Now there is a gradual increase in rpms and no sudden rush of turbo boost.
My car is stock with no mods, so everythign is pretty predictable since i don't have any performance mods that might be the cause.
Has anyone else experienced this????
Can I get reflashed back or undo reflash.
I don't understand, why would the newest reflash, out in feb '05 cause this? You'd think it'll make things run better
Car feels choked and doesn't have that freeness as it did before, even in awesome turbo weather, the car is tired and feels bogged down. Please help, its driving me crazy and always on my mind when driving. I think a stock civic will kill me now.
thanks guys
peace

 

[Striker187]

are u sure it's slower? cause pre-flash, there would be a sudden burst of acceleration after the hesitation. post-flash, the map is smoother and more linear so you don't feel that huge power jump. you can think of it as the power is now more evenly distributed rather than it being lumped into one section of the rpm band.

 

[skrecht]

i understand what you are saying, and if so, i'd rather have that surge of power. But I'm not sure what's going on. Remember, the car had the original flash after being purchased new (i have the sticker on the door jam for that one). So the car was "flashed", and when so, on nice cold days, starting at the power surge, it will pull steadily and hard till maybe 1000 revs before redline where you don't feel too much pulling going on. So yes i acknowlege your answer, but trust me, were you to drive the car before and after, you'd notice.
But i'll run it like i used to tomorrow and judge again and see whether i get a more even distribution of power and wether the car only "seems" to feel slower......but man i miss that rush at 3500 rpms especially when passing in traffica on 2nd or getting on the hwy on 3rd and hitting it hard. On a nice day, even though car is stock, its got a nice rush to it.
thanks for any more information that you could send this way

 

[Striker187]

what's this new pcm flash that's out? haven't heard about it. any info on it?

 

[skrecht]

If you check at a mazdaspeed dealer they should be able to tell you of any new updates to the pcm. I was surprised to find that out too since they never notify us.

 

[TX Speed Demon]

Posted this in the other thread:

skrecht: do you have a boost gauge? You could be running less boost with the new turbo set up than your stock one. As for your bogging issues it is simply too much fuel. If it seems like you get cleaner pulls at partial throttle and it bogs down when under wide open throttle this is definatly it. Mazda did this cause in basic terms more fuel is safer for the engine. We have stock internals not made for forced induction applications and Mazda tuned the car to be safer/more reliable at the expense of performance.

Your options are to:
1) Get some sort of Air Fuel Controller. DSM Convert sells the cheapest one. You could also go for somthing like the MPI or haltech. These allow you to control the amount of fuel delivered in the engine. So you can set an air/fuel ratio that is tuned more toward performance and less toward safety.

2) Start Modding. You need to figure out a way to get more air into the mix. The easiest way is raising the boost pressure. Doing this however will put more stress on your engine. So it would be a wise choice to purchase some supporting mods that let your car get more air in, cool it down and get it out.

This is the route I'm going. I first bought an FMIC since it was the most expensive for me. This helped lessen the occurances of hesitation, especially in the summer, as the intake temperatures were decreased.

I then bought an SRI to get the air into the engine easier. All it really did was make my car sound cool.

A few weeks ago I upgraded the exhaust by replacing the J-pipe and midpipe with a 2.5" catless one. This helped the hesitation the most. I can roll into the throttle faster now and get clean pulls all the way through the powerband. If I go to wide open throttle too low in the RPMs it still bogs down till about 4K RPMs then comes alive and pulls like crazy.

This combination is enough to make the car much more enjoyable to drive. It's alot more responsive and does what I want it do a lot more often. Soon though I'll be putting an a MBC and raising my boost from a pathetic 5psi to 8-10psi so the real fun can begin.

 

[BlkZoomZoom]

There is no new "flash". There is only one update to the pcm. You cannot be "flashed" twice. You cannot have the "flash" undone. Period. End of Story.

If your car is stock and have serious driveability problem that you can duplicate at any time, bring it to the dealer and have a tech. ride with you while you duplicate your concern.

 

[skrecht]

duplicating the concern

There is no new "flash". There is only one update to the pcm. You cannot be "flashed" twice. You cannot have the "flash" undone. Period. End of Story.

If your car is stock and have serious driveability problem that you can duplicate at any time, bring it to the dealer and have a tech. ride with you while you duplicate your concern.

now that the car drives "fine", no tech is going to agree with you that the car feels lethargic and isn't pulling as it should through rpm range as it used to. That's the problem that i'll run into.
There may be a possibility of having the pcm replaced completely (spoke to the guys at the dealer and they were toying with that idea). I guess that should take me to original factory specs. If so, i'd drive it that way and see how it was (since i bought the car 10 months old already flashed), and then get the original flash (which i drove the car with for the past 7 months) that i felt gave the car oomph, and see if i want to stop there.
Anyway, i'm not sure what the "update" took car of for i was just happy with the original flash.

 

[BlkZoomZoom]

Pcm's usually come with the most updated software.

I don't understand what your saying. If the car has the port campaign sticker then it has the latest software in it, there are no updates that can be done at this time.