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August 8, 2005
The Hondata k100--9 months later
Almost nine months after its November 19, 2004 introduction, Hondata's k100 remains perhaps the least understood and most perplexing of the company's Honda ECU upgrade products. Intended to offer a less intimidating, less expensive non-userprogrammable version of the Hondata K-Pro, the k100 really never established a niche and perhaps there really wasn't a need for it.
Let's revisit what the k100 is, what it can, and what it cannot do. The idea behind the k100 is to provide the exact same ECU programming capabilities as the K-Pro has, with the sole difference that only a dealer can actually make programming changes. In order to facilitate that, a stock Honda ECU is prepared in the exact same way as an ECU that is being upgraded to K-Pro. However, the k100 daughterboard is much simpler than the K-Pro daughterboard and does not have its own programming interface. The ECU that's being upgraded to k100 status also does not receive a USB connector cutout in its metal housing.
How is the k100 programmed then? The procedure is not complicated but rather cumbersome. The dealer must remove the customer's k100 ECU from the customer's car, open the ECU, remove the motherboard and install the motherboard in a "true" K-Pro ECU that has the USB cutout. He then removes the k100 board and replaces it with his K-Pro board. This "Franken" ECU then goes back into the customer car for tuning. Once tuning is finished, the dealer then removes the ECU from the customer car, replaces the K-Pro board with the customer's k100 board, puts them back in the customer's ECU casing, and then puts the now reprogrammed k100 back into the customer's car. Quite an ordeal.
The theoretical benefits to the customer are that s/he never needs to worry about tuning. The dealer does that. The beenfit to the dealer is that he has a captive customer who needs to come back for re-tuning or software updates. Manufacturers of power adders may decide to bundle their products with a specially tuned k100. To the best of my knowledge, only Comptech has done that so far, with its street supercharger kit for the 2002/2004 Acura RSX Type-S.
There are problems. Judging by the number of questions asked in forums, customers seem very confused about what the k100 actually is. Dealers have been reluctant to accept the k100 because Hondata requires them to do the board upgrades themselves, which requires training at Hondata. The soldering involved is not trivial and the procedure is somewhat complex. Once a k100 has been programmed, it cannot simply be tweaked if it doesn't work right in a customer's car. This means that k100 calibrations must be quite conservative. Even then, a customer's modifications may not agree with it. Further, Hondata releases frequent software updates that often include bug fixes and important enhancements. They can easily be loaded into the K-Pro. Loading them into a k100 requires a trip to the dealer (theoretically, a dealer need not be involved to program a k100; a K-Pro owner willing to perform the above described procedure can do it). Customers have also been irked by the fact that pricing for a k100 to K-Pro upgrade has been left up to dealers. It's a simple procedure (making the USB cutout and replacing the k100 with a K-Pro board) but there are less than a dozen listed Hondata dealers worldwide that handle the k100.
There has been one big success for the k100. Since it is a non-programmable system, Comptech has been able to receive CARB approval for k100-equipped supercharger kits. Those kits perform much better than competing kits without Hondata functionality. I also hear that foreign Hondata dealers may be happy with the k100 as there is no need to send the entire ECU to the US.
All in all, one can sort of see the reason behind the k100, but Hondata really never made a clear and convincing case for it. It's hard to accept the idea of a programmable ECU that is rendered unprogrammable while having the same altered functionality compared to a stock ECU that makes programming/tweaking/tuning a virtual necessity. (Consider also that the K-Pro board is only the interface; the Honda ECU is inherently programmable, and it is the Hondata modifications to the motherboard, combined with the K-Manager software, that make the Honda ECU programmable).
At some point, well before the launch of the k100, there were ECU forum discussions about the business aspects of the K-Pro at clubrsx.com. A lot of interesting ideas were offered, including many that addressed issues that I believe the k100 seeks to address. Hondata did not, as I had hoped, participate in that discussion. In my opinion, that exchange of ideas and opinions could have led to interesting alternates to the current k100.
Posted by conradb212 at August 8, 2005 1:59 PM