jinx22630

Anyone here have any experience w/ reprogramming 2nd gen ECU's? I had a lot of experience with Honda ECU's but not mazda. Just wondering if anyone has dumped any stock roms that they could upload or link to.
Im going to pull mine out of my 88 GXL tommorow, and see what type of eprom it is. I'd really love to have any info, or any links on this supject.
thanks

BlackRx7

unless you know one of the designers of the ecu it would be near impossible, besides its prolly running on like an 8 bit setup nothin to shake a stick when running non stock setup

jinx22630

Not immpossible, Pretty much have honda's proprietary instuctions for the 4th gen ecu's figured out. Adding boost tables, clutch cut etc. just takes a while to do.
I'm done with that, and would like to contribute the same type of thing to the Mazda community

tweaked

iTrader: (4)

I would like to contribute any way I can. I would be willing to donate a series 4 ecu. as long as I am remembered when all is said and done. There are probabley a few other things I can do to help. let me know.

jinx22630

let me know what you have lying around. I'm not promising anything will come of it. But i would like to research the potential of the stock N/A ecu's. I just think we all have to pay way to much for ecu upgrades that dont really do ****, and are put out by companies that dont really care. I used to work for THE Porsche, VW, and BMW eprom tuners (not metioning any names, cause they are real ********), so i know what goes into developing a chip, as related to what it actually cost to produce it. I was thinking that if we could put together a knowlege base, and get everyone working on it, maybe we could come up with something that we could all use for free. This is happening on the Honda level right now, and let me tell you, it's a beautiful thing when people of knowlege come together and do something for the benifit of something they love. Mazda wrote the code, we can re-write it. It cant be done in a matter of days, but a year down the road, who knows what could happen. I'd love to har from anyone who has anything to add to this. And Tweaked, i'd love to have the series 4 ecu, but I can't promise that it would ever come back in working condition. I'd like to pull the Eprom and dump it, then dissasemble, and try to get some idea of how the code is set up.

NZConvertible

Mazda ECU codes have always been very difficult to crack. Those that have had some success have only managed to alter a few variables, mainly by trail and error.

These ECU's are now very old technology, and you have to wonder whether it's worth all that effort to still have a dinosaur at the end of the day (or year). I doubt the Honda ECU's you're referring to are as old as ours. Modern ECU's are definitely worth working on; ours aren't.

Compared to aftermarket programmable ECU's, the scope for improvement is tiny. You're still stuck using the AFM for example.

DaleClark

iTrader: (55)

Here's some good info -

http://www.romtune.com

It's in Japanese, but you can use http://world.altavista.com to translate.

It's a Japanese site, so it only documents the turbo ECU's - they didn't have non-turbos in Japan. But, I imagine the code and the processors etc. are similiar, just different ROMs.

I think there is a lot of potential in the stock ECU - heck, the Japanese tuners have done a lot of crazy stuff with ROM tuning. If you can sort it out, I think you'll really have something going!

Dale

BlackRx7

wow I'd like to see that

but then you have to figure out what makes power and what doesn't, and mazda tuners must have spent so time designing the car the way it is

jinx22630

Yeah, the honda ecu's that i'm refering to came from 87-91, so yeah it's pld technology too, but the things that were discovered has saved alot of people from having to put down the cash for Hondata or Zdyne. Like I said before, it's not an overnight project, and I'm not promising great things. I know a lot of people come here promising to do this or that, and then never deliver.
But i promise, that if everyone here who has an eprom programmer lying around, would start tinkering around, things would start to come together. I think that it would be cool to be able to take cheaper non Turbo ecu's and convert them - or convert auto to 5 speed.
Just a thought. 20,000 minds are better than one

asherwood

jinx22630, What else do you need to get started?

jinx22630

A couple of Ecu's. They don't even have to work. I just need to be able to get a rom image from it, and kinda start mapping out how everything works on the motherboards. I only have the one in my car, and no access to any more so it would be foolish to experiment on mine.

jinx22630

A couple of Ecu's. They don't even have to work. I just need to be able to get a rom image from it, and kinda start mapping out how everything works on the motherboards. I only have the one in my car, and no access to any more so it would be foolish to experiment on mine. N/A ecu's preferably

jinx22630

oops, double post. Actually an N/A auto ecu and 5 speed ecu would be great, just to start the side by side camparison. I would be great to be able to convert auto ecu's to 5 speed ecu's dont you think. Anyway let me know if anyone has either sitting around. Like i said they can be broken, but at least need to have all the parts still on the board. If someone can help, I might be able to throw a little cash your way. Thanks

tweaked

iTrader: (4)

I have at least one ecu that came from an 87 n/a. it is doing nothing right now. I may soon have another one very similar.
One thing I would like to see done, and I have my doubts that it can, is to get rid of the AFM. reprogram it to work with a common MAP or similar. Or if you could get it to work with a ford hotwire setup. then of course we would need to develop a wire harness adapter.
but if we can change fuel and ignition maps. that would be something.
Have you considered the idea of having a daughter board for the computer? one that would simply alter what info the computer gets and/or sends.
I don't know if you are just talking about software or hardware setups as well.
Do you have the equipment to read and right roms?
I have somewhere a setup for eprom. I would have to find it and see if it still works. but I would donate that if you don't have one.
I wouldn't think the program would be very hard to figure out once you got decompiled. My friends and i are good at programming and the like. we all work in the field.
Let me know what you need.

jinx22630

Beautiful!!!!!! this is the kind of response I was hoping for. I cracked open my ECU today just to take a look. found something burned but the car still runs fine- go figure. Anyway, it looks like there are two 27c356 eeproms on the board. One for the software, and one for the maps. I would think that it wouldn't be too hard to find out what everything does. I was already thinking about getting rid of the AFM and just using an Bosch hotwire setup, and adding a controller that lets you adjust fuel at idle. Anyway, you guys that are interested in this, you can pick up an Eprom programmer really cheap at www.batronix.com. Anyway I'm gonna give it a couple of days to stew around in my brain, and come up with some sort of idea of exactly where we need to start. I'll keep you updated.

DraygenX

I have access to 5 ECU's laying around and if we get some more interest in this then I'll be more than happy to help out any way I can

jinx22630

Thanks Brotha!! Like I said, I'm gonna think on this for a bit, then start contacting guys who can give up extra ecu's. I will post everything that I find out, so that everyone else with an interest may start doing it themselves

glorthu

You should be able to pick a cheap EPROM burner up at Radio Shack or Fry's as well. Also might want to grab a UV light to erase them in case of programing errors...

BTW, did you mean 27C256 EPROMs? We still use 27C256B's where I work. I'm a development engineer for alternative fuel heavy duty engines, so I'll try to lend a hand if I can (in my negative free time )!

glorthu

Oops, didn't notice that you said EEPROMS, not EPROMS . Forget the bit about the UV light then, eh!

deevious

http://users.pandora.be/Rotary.Restorations.JRE/

They have experience reprogramming stock ECU's by swapping in a new EPROM

jinx22630

Hey glorthu that would be very cool of you. Yeah, they look like 27c256. well actually 259's i think, cause they're eeproms. I have an eprom programmer already, cause i used to do this on a daily basis for Hondas. I think it would just be more efficient to just put a new eprom in there, instead of erasing the one that it came with. It just takes too damn long most of the time, and you're always getting some weird error. Anyway, I found this guy's site, and I was wondering If anyone knew him. Im gonna try to contact him to see if its cool if I use the info he's already gathered for our project. Anyway everyone who's is interested in this project, check this site out and let me know what you think about the progress that this guuy has made.

http://www.16paws.com/ECU/

Rpeck

Don't companies like E.L prototpes, and others alreay have this down?

I ordered 2 chips for E.L. prototypes for my 88 TII ECU. Once called a "Clean" chip to help it pass smog (It worked by the way) and another that is setup for all my Mods. I think you are trying to do somthing that you can just as easily purchase without wasting any time. I know there are other companies that make 2 Gen ECU chips also.

-Robert

jinx22630

Yeah, but are they free?, and do these companies really have the best intrest of the consumer in mind? Plus it is a challenge. I think a lot of people here are not interested in buying something, that is soooooo cheap to make on your own. I wouldnt go out and spend close to $1000 for Hondata for my civic, because i could do everything that it could do with less problems plus ad a USB port to my ecu and datalog from my laptop.
Its all in what your goals are, and mine are to reverse engineer an rx7 ecu, in order to add features, and use the serial port feature that is already on the board.

jinx22630

Yeah, but are they free?, and do these companies really have the best intrest of the consumer in mind? Plus it is a challenge. I think a lot of people here are not interested in buying something, that is soooooo cheap to make on your own. I wouldnt go out and spend close to $1000 for Hondata for my civic, because i could do everything that it could do with less problems plus ad a USB port to my ecu and datalog from my laptop.
Its all in what your goals are, and mine are to reverse engineer an rx7 ecu, in order to add features, and use the serial port feature that is already on the board.
Plus when this is all said and done with, there will be quite a few people on this forum witht the knowlege of how to do this. I personally would chip anyones ecu for free when and if i figure this all out, all they gotta do is pay for parts and shipping. Im not interested in making money here. Just interested in providing knowledge, and SAVING people MONEY.

jinx22630

Moderator's- Please remove duplicate post.

Thanks