hi folks a friend of mine has purchased an 02 plate which has been quite heavily modified
forged block,cams,FMIC,reversed inlet plenum,GT3040 on twisted manifold etc.
the car runs very well but is very rich on idle,cruise and WOT.the ecu is currently ecutekd but he is looking to get another standard ecu so that it can be tuned with opensource software as and when the need arrises.

So,the main question is are there any complications in swapping for a standard 02/03 ecu.im aware there is an immobiliser of sorts so will the code need taken from the current ecu and embedded into the new one or is there another way around it.
Any help would be greatly appreciated

John

 

From what ive gathered so far m8 you would need the key transponder and key chip ecu from the donor car along with the ecu, easier to get the ecutek removed and put back to stock, opensource works great on these cars and is free

 

ah ok well he was kind of hoping it wouldnt involve a doner car and hoped it was like removing the immobiliser on an evo. iv read also that its not an easy swap back from ecutek to standard as a few folks have had trouble reading ecus afterwards.

 

Yer the Evo's are a dam site easier, i helped in the original opensource project for the Evo's
If Ecutek'd back it should work fine as per opensource, do you have a deskey USB dongle at all? i managed to flash mine back to stock myself

 

I have both openport cables 1.3u and Op2.0

 

2.0 is more reliable

 

No point in going open source if you already have an ecutek license, its going to be cheaper to remap the ecu he already has.

Tony

 

Not if he wants to do it himself as per original question

 

I agree wih you to an extent but your stuck with waiting hand and foot on a tuner which can take weeks. Or take it to a new tuner who then has to start again as ecutek dealers cannot read each others maps. Opensource is a better way of tuning as your not stuck with using one tuner or even better DIY

 

I know I don't use he 1.3 much anymore. So can I flash a stock file over even though ecutek has locked it? I'm assuming no

 

is the car JDM or UK

 

Uk as far as I know. I'm pretty sure JDM ecus have no immobiliser enabled
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong

 

You dont want to read it, just remap it

Tony

 

The owner does want it remapped but would prefer to keep the original ecu as it is And remap another

 

I am inclined to agree with Tony. With the spec above it won't take much to seriously damage the engine and if you have no prior mapping experience you are either very brave or very foolish to try to map the above. You want the best mapper to get the best results out of the spec you have there.

 

Again I don't disagree with points being made.The current owner is not 100% happy with the way the car runs at present. I'm led to believe that the car has been remapped several times during spec changes which again is no big problem. One major issue is that the car is mapped for using meths which the owner is not to happy about having to fuss around carrying meths for every fill up.
As stated earlier getting hold of tuners can take weeks which is not really an ideal situation

 

Probably gain several advantages by having an after market ecu installed which is then free for the owner to alter etc..

Simtek or Syvecs for example, the standard ecu on the power level potential you have there is not going to work as well as an after market ecu

Simon

 

Hi jolly, what advantages are you going to have compared to the standard ecu?

 

Stand alone would allow to ditch the maf on the rotated set up. Is the MAF in the OE position or blowthrough.

Personally if i ever went rotated Stand alone would be my choice.

 

No maf, not restricted by standard ecu which beyond 450bhp can be used but is holding it back, live tuning, multiple maps, faster processor, options of als, launch control, he can access it to alter the map if he wants, other features depending on ecu etc.
It should gain power.
Simon

 

Ecutek use deskey encription so if you have a deskey dongle then it's possible or at least it was on mine but i did use ecutek at one time and still have the program on my comp, i gave it up when i worked on opensource

 

The car is running a blow through set up so not much of a restriction. Live tuning would be a good addition but not worth the 1k plus for the ecu.what restrictions does the stock ecu pose? From what iv seen on the opensource software the parameters available are very detailed

 

the restriction is not the physcial restriction side of it, but the having to use a maf and associated ecu.

its not the availablity of the map definition but the standard ecu trying to tune a car well beyonds it's design scope. It's difficult to put into words.. if you brought the car to me in current state did a dyno run on it to get torque and power, and then I remapped it on an aftermarket ecu, I would put money on the fact it would make more power and torque and if you then got someone independent to drive it on either setup without telling them which ecu was plugged in they would find the aftermarket ecu smoother and more power and torque and a better car to drive imho.

Simon

 

Thanks simon, I have no doubts that you could make more power and torque on aftermarket ecus. This is probably down to the lack of knock control in most aftermarket units. I know the evos are very sensitive to knock on the standard ecus so I assume these will be similar. Iv put the question to the owner but I'd like to know more about these ecus if possible. I had heard that a speed density conversion had been done but I think it was newer models

 

The standard ecus knock control can interfere but can be helped by knock sensor location.. Syvecs has knock control and Simtek knock control is coming, currently engine light used as knock detection.. but all configurable so no pulling the power unnecessarily.. but even if you could get the standard ecu to not pull timing due to fantom noise you would still see more power and a nicer car to drive on after market ecu at the potential power level of the spec you mention.

Simon