ecu from ebay swap
 

hi i was advised yesterday to try and look for a ecu that had already been mapped so all i would need was a new graph done to suit my car i was told to try find an y7 ecu 3 plug ......i located a 270 bhp ecu y7 on ebay with proven graphs .......but this morning i got in my footwell took up the carpet,plate etc to juts make sure it would fit ....but the ecu in my T reg 2000 turbo is an E3 with the following codes 22611 AE800 A18-000-097 can any one shed anylite on this it must be the standard ecu because it looks like no one has ever taken up the carpet etc ........Will a y7 from a w reg same model fit???

oh and would a swapm if it did fit need recoding to the car

Why did you not just get your original ecu mapped. I personally would not just swap an ecu over in my car. Has the Y7 been mapped already? If so is it ecutek? Open Source??

an ecu needs to be mapped for your cars mods, who told you to buy a new ecu??
just remap the one you have

some bloked pmd yesterday saying to buy one already mapped by ecutek as they are regulary on here for sale .........

he probably means you can save on the licence fee that you have to pay prior to remap.

this is correct as you should only have to pay to have it tweeked to suit your car.

have you bought the wrong ecu?

Y7 is the late MY00 ECU, and E3 is the MY99/00 ECU both are interchangeable on the MY99/00 UK cars without any issue.

so if the ecu you bought has the ecutek license already on it, then you just need to get it checked/tweaked/remapped for your car. costs vary depending on mapper but you wont have to pay the license fee which is circa £300 i think on its own

no i didnt buy it but was watching it on ebay ........so it HAS to be an ecutek mapped ecu does it and cant be mapped by any other company to be any good to me?? i was expecting any mapper has to pay for the lisence

If you buy an ecu which already has an ecutek map then the licence has been paid for. You would only need to pay for a 'tweak' map to match it to your car but I guess depends on the mapper may start with a base map and tune from this.. Most of the mappers on here can do this for you.

I did this when I wanted my Impreza remapping. It too is a MY99 UK Turbo so could only be mapped on the existing ECU using ECUtek software - note ECUtek is software uploaded onto the ECU, not an ECU in its own right such as Simtek etc.

If you see an ECU which you believe to fit (going on what Bob Rawle told me you can't put an import ECU into a UK car for these model years), email the mapper for whom the license is too and they can confirm. If you don't have your map done by the same mapper who the license is to, you may need to buy another license, rendering buying the ECU worthless.

I bought mine off a member on here, 'sp00ks', and confirmed with Bob Rawle that he indeed had mapped it previously and the license was paid for already. Then all I did was pay Bob for his time putting a fresh map onto my Impreza :)

Once the license is on the ecu it can be mapped by anyone, you dont pay twice for the ecutek license, if you do you're being conned. Most mappers will charge around £300 to re-write a map on a licensed ecu, but it may be cheaper to take it to the original mapper if theyre willing to tweak it to suit your mods.

I've read differently on here, do of a mapper would care to confirm that this is the case for all mappers that would be great.

I read up about this when I swapped from a prodrive ecu to a mapped ecu. I got Andrew Carr to do my map and he said that the mapper has to buy the license from ecutek to be able to use their software to map the ecu, therefor once the license has been written on the ecu, the ecu is open to mapping, by anyone.

The license is with the ECU not the mapper.
Once an ECU has the license you do not need to buy another, any mapper can map it.

OP.

If you buy an ECU for your car that has already got the ECUtek license then you can plug it in (if it's the same type ECU) and have any Tom dick or Harry map it.
If you take it to the mapper who mapped it originally they will charge you for a map tweak, usually around the £150 give or take.
If you take the car to a new mapper they will want to start from scratch and do their own map (no mapper likes tweaking someone else's map). This costs in the region of £300.

So, an ECU with the license already installed will cost you in the region of £100/£150. Add the cost of mapping (£300 if you use a new mapper) your going to be looking at a total approaching £450 give or take a few £££, add in the risk of eBay etc etc.
Or, you could take your current ECU and have that mapped. This will cost you around £550 but saves all the hassle of eBay etc etc

As Matty says. Re. the license, that may well now be the case but previously the license would be locked to the mapper with whom it was purchased. I remember back in 2007 or so this being the case with one mapper for certain (I won't mention names as it seems my information is out of date as it were).

When Bob put the mapped ECU into my car he did a full fresh remap as the previous mods were miles different to the basics stuff I had. So to the OP, if you go this route, I'd budget the £280-300 for a fresh map incase the mapper of choice doesn't want to fiddle with said current map. :)

I would stick with finding one on here through a trader or someone with good feedback. If you find one for sale you REALLY want to know who mapped it as it may save you money in the long run. The perfect scenario is to find an ecu that already has a license and has a map from either someone local to you, or a mobile mapper like JGM, Duncan, Bob, etc etc. You can then ring the mapper and ask how much it would be to tweek the map for your car.

As matt says, if you drive in somewhere you'll get charged £550, if you get an ecu and tweek or re-written map you're looking at £400ish, maybe a tad less.

I've been told that mappers cant access another mappers map, this is why it has to be re-written if you go somewhere else. I dont think its a case of mappers "not liking" to tweek other maps, I think its that the ecutek software locks the map to the mapper.