ECU talk

[Christos Pronios]

> Christos Pronios wrote:
> > Ben,
> > 
> > DIY tuning for our ECUs has been beyond the stage you 
> > describe for more than 4 years now! 
> 
> 
> That's what I like to hear.
> 
> 
> 
> > Even if we use a "freeware"
> > program circa 2001 to edit them, they are as good or better than the
> > typical standalone program.
> 
> Gotcha. Got any links to recommended programs? And do you have any 
> personal experience with Calum's ECU, or are you using the royal "we"?

Well, I do have several but since you are/will be in contact with Calum,
the easiest thing to do would be to just become a Supporter (to the tune
of $5) at sr20forum and browse the relevant "Calum" forums. Most of it is
already in there and you can get a 1st-hand idea of what people are or are
not doing with DIY ECU tuning.

In case you do need more direct info email me, I will find sometime to do it!

I do NOT have a Calum daughter-board (he does NOT have an ECU, just the
daughter board that is soldered on the OEM ECU) but I DO have used
extensively 3 other boards that have minor hardware differences.

>From a historical perspective though, some 7 years ago people like us (not
quite but now I AM using the royal "us" ! :-) ) figured out the same thing
that GRiD and others in Japan and JWT in the US knew... how to attach the
daughter board in the connector already existing on the ECU, relocate a
jumper and have the ECU read from the daughter board rather the original
onboard memory. From there on, 2-3 free programs appeared that let anyone
edit the "maps" in the binary image before it was "burnt" via an EEPROM
programmer in chips and they were put on the daughter board. This was 2001!

The actual BIG step was made when the same bright guys reverse-engineered
the Consult protocol and made it possible to have all the consult
functionality for less than US$300, this was back in 2003. One of the
"missing" parts in the DIY ECU tuning (much more so for us on the other
side of the pond) was the luck of the original ECU image on our ECUs.
Different generations, markets, years, etc. have slight differences and
this created some hickups when DIYing with a different "base ECU image".
Now, for US$100 or less you can get a Consult cable AND a semi-free
Consult program (or even FREE ones) that let you download your own actual
ECU image and then play with that.

After that, the big steps were when people (Calum included) created
"real-time" versions of the ECUs -  there are 3 I know of!. Instead of
going through the tried and tested but cumbersome process of old (guess,
edit image, burn in EEPROM burner, remove ECU, remove old chips, put in
new chips, drive-test-measure, and go through it again) they created
Daughter boards (more expensive of course) that allow you (more or less)
to perform changes while the car is running. This shortened the process by
at least 80%.

And this is where we are now.

Chris