ECU REMAPPING

For my budget, it was an expensive but worthwhile investment. I found out that Korean cars as in the KIA Spectra have 2 set of ECU in production i.e. for the temperate and hotter climate countries. The KIA Spectra sold in Malaysia uses the latter ECU version which was R&D-ed on low grade (RON89) petrol used in Korea. In Malaysia, the average car uses high grade (RON97) petrol so what happens is that a higher fuel consumption (FC) is experienced. This phenomena is common in all Korean cars used in Malaysia though the KIA Spectra has been the brunt of poor FC jokes (Other Korean car owners won't admit but complain this at their respective forums). By chance, I got to know a Hyundai specialist who does remapping on the KIA Spectra. At the time I had the car remapped, there were 3 remapping programs versions to suit different production batch of the KIA Spectra.This chap certainly knows his business. While my car was being done, I asked and he explained that the original program was replaced by another that reduces the original petrol variable by 10%. Subsequently, the distributor was advanced proportionately to accomodate that adjustment. He clarified improvement in performance translates to engine heat so the maximum tolerance he allowed was equivalent to the safety limits of that car generated by the amount of engine heat from remapping. On first test run, I was not duly impressed and he said the result would not be immediately felt as the ECU needed to gather new reading since the database of my driving style was reset to zero and that required approximately took a full tank of petrol's usage. It's been some time since the remapping job and I now get better response in the low-mid range torque making it nice driving in traffic jams. I also experience improvement in FC but exactly how much I'm not sure. I travel daily 50km. From a full tank on Sunday, my previous regular readout was 1/8 tank full by Saturday. It now records 1/4 tank full so I'd say that's alot. However, I don't think this was attributed purely by remapping but from a combination of mods in my ride.