Note: This article is primarily aimed at those who only plan to start chiptuning and don't know what equipment to buy. The skilled specialists who have dealt with this for a long time will not be interested in this article, perhaps from the point of view of "listening to others' opinions". And our recommended equipment is well adapted to modern "people's" cars. By "modern people's cars" we mean the widespread serial passenger cars not older than 2010 driving in Russia and the CIS countries. On this basis, it is possible to cover around 90-95% of cars in this category within a minimum budget, working with quality licensed equipment. The 'modern people's car' category includes such cars as the VW Golf, Skoda Octavia, Kia Sportage, Hyundai Creta, Renault Fluence, Lifan X60, Opel Astra J, Lada Vesta and many more. But not including the Lamborghini Huracan or the old Opel Vectra B. Diagnostics Scanner Starting with a scanner. Without a good scanner, getting into chip tuning is like climbing a high mountain without equipment - you won't get very far, and if you do, you`ll get in a lot of trouble. We recommend working with at least the following two scanners: Scandoc Compact and Scanmatic2 Pro. Scandoc Compact fits many car brands and costs around 25,000 roubles (standard included) + 45,000 roubles (a set of modules for all the available models\ in the scanner). If you are on a tight budget, you can buy just the standard included and buy in addition modules separately as needed (but this is more expensive). Scandoc works perfectly with most popular foreign cars, can connect to all control units on the car, reset various adaptations, etc. A great device from a Russian developer. Scandoc scanner official website Scanmatik2 Pro fits many car brands too. It is sold in a variety of configurations. The maximum costs around 30 thousand roubles, and includes various cables, adapters, etc. For the chip tuning alone, the basic set is enough - it costs 10,000 roubles less. Scanmatik is not as strong as Scandoc in terms of coverage of car brands and models, but it is better at supporting Russian cars. In addition, Scanmatik2 Pro can be used as a J2534 Cable. Because of the low cost of the unit, we strongly recommend purchasing one as well. Scanmatik 2 Pro official website In addition to the two instruments described above, if you specialise in a particular brand, we recommend purchasing a scanner that supports 100% specific to that brand. Ideally, it should be a dealership scanner. Or at least one that is close to a dealer's scanner in terms of functionality. As a last resort consider where to "borrow" the dealer's scanner in case of an urgent need. Why is it necessary? If you are planning to flash the latest cars of a certain brand, If you are planning to flash the latest cars of a certain brand, there is a high probability that after reprogramming, errors will appear for a certain ECU, which the Multi-brand car scanner will not be able to connect to, as it does not "know" such ECU yet. The downside of buying a dealer (or almost dealer) scanner is obvious - the steep price. In this case, you'll have to make a decision - either splurge well, or refuse to chip-tune the latest cars, or simply take your chances. Flashers and Programmers Obviously, in chip tuning, like any other craft, there can be no strictly compulsory equipment. We can only recommend a set of equipment from ourselves. After all, everything depends, in the first place, on the car fleet you're working with. But if you, like us, aim for the 'modern people's car' category, then we would recommend the following configuration: • Combiloader • MMCFlash • PCMFlash • BitBox • K-Tag The first four items on the list are Russian-made flashers. The last item is a programmer from the Italian development company Alientech. All of the above products are modular. And they partially overlap each other in terms of functionality if you purchase all licences for all modules. Therefore, in our personal experience, we recommend using the Combiloader as the main software. All available modules can be purchased for it. For Mitsubishi cars, we recommend modules on MMCFlash. For Toyota brand machines, we recommend modules on BitBox or PCMFlash. For other brands, modules on any of these flashers, at your own discretion. You will be able to flash almost any modern car in Russia or the CIS. The only exceptions are old cars, rare cars, some premium cars and literally one-off cars in the popular category. The start investment in this case is small. A set of Russian flashers cost about 30-40 thousand roubles. Including the fact that each flasher will need at least one module (they are not sold without modules). In the future, you can simply buy the necessary modules. The maximum amount that might be required to open all modules and cover all machines supported by these flashers would be around 1 million roubles. That's a lot of money. Although the coverage map turns out to be gigantic. However, it is unlikely that you will need all the modules. Most likely, you will need only half of the coverage map, because you simply will not work with the other half. The licenses for Russian flashers are perpetual (they do not need to be renewed annually). Below we provide links to the official pages of these flashers on the internet: Combiloader official website MMCFlash official website PCMFlash official website BitBox official website If possible, also purchase a K-Tag (Master version). It costs about 70 thousand roubles (the device itself) + modules that can be purchased if need (about 30-40 thousand roubles per module) + annual license renewal (40 thousand roubles). This is about the original, not a Chinese counterfeit. We do not recommend the use of Chinese counterfeits. K-Tag is more of a safety feature, just in case there are any unexpected failures. The chance of breaking an ECU with good licensed equipment is close to zero, but still present. So don't skimp on buying this unit either, as it can configure control units via the BDM and JTAG debug interfaces. It will give you even more peace of mind. K-Tag official web Adapters Combiloader, MMCFlash, PCMFlash and BitBox are just programs, without an adapter. They require any compatible J2534 adapter. We would recommend purchasing the following adapters: • Dialink • Scanmatik2 Pro Dialink is the recommended J2534 adapter for the Combiloader, designed by the same company. Together, these two components work as stably as possible. For our part, we highly recommend that you work with this bundle, on all the cars it supports. The cost of the adapter - about 10 thousand roubles. Scanmatik2 Pro - Scanner + J2534 adapter in one product. Well-proven as an adapter in combination with PCMFlash, MMCFlash and BitBox. Other Of the optional equipment, we strongly recommend purchase: • Quick connect cables • Table-positioner Quick connect cables are cables that allow you to connect to the ECU socket directly from the programmer. They are useful for flashing Certain control units. For example, if you often flash the UAZ Patriot with the Bosch 17.9.71 ECU (this ECU cannot be flashed via OBD2 without first BSM mode digital signature check), there is no point in permanently remove the unit from the car and connect to it "on the table" with wires. It's much faster to do the same directly on the car, just by plugging into the block socket. With quick-connect cables you’ll save a lot of time. And time should be your most important resource in your job. Much more valuable than money. There is nothing special to comment on the table-positioner. It is necessary solely for the convenience and accuracy of your actions when working with control units "on the table". The table-positioner can be purchased for the original K-Tag (approximately 30 thousand roubles). Quick connect cables can be purchased ready-made (average cost 3-5 thousand roubles per piece), or made by yourself. In this article, we have listed the equipment that we recommend for daily use. It is convenient, it is stable and fast, it has high-quality technical support in Russian. And, most importantly, it is well compatible with the vast majority of cars driving in Russia and the CIS countries. If you're not so much concerned with 'people's cars' as with any other kind of car. If you are often visited by Mercedes of the same year that is now on the calendar. If an Alfa Romeo may come to you for chip tuning. If you chip BMW more often than the Korean car assembled in Russia. Then our recommendations will not suit you. In this case, pay attention to plenty of other excellent products for chip tuning: Kess, CMDFlash, Autotuner Tool, MagPro, DimSport Genius\Trasdata, etc. The choice is huge. In any case, no matter what kind of car you are dealing with, the one rule you should always stick to is never to skimp on equipment. Purchase a licensed original product. It is much more expensive than equipment made in China. But you won't have any problems with it for sure. Moreover, you will have access to technical support. Having licensed product, you will just do your work, instead of searching for information on the Internet about how to write the firmware and not to screw up the ECU. Finding ways to fix faulty ECUs is a waste of time.