When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
It's a chipped ECU which is VERY popular in Japan. At one point you could take your car to a tuner, they would dyno the car and write a custom chip for your stock ECU. You could also buy an ECU outright to plug in.
Reading the Japanese web page it sounds like a pretty good ECU, a lot of thought went into it. Or it's just a lot of marketing BS .
It's over $1000 for that ECU!
For a stock or near-stock car that ECU should work great.
It's a chipped ECU which is VERY popular in Japan. At one point you could take your car to a tuner, they would dyno the car and write a custom chip for your stock ECU. You could also buy an ECU outright to plug in.
Reading the Japanese web page it sounds like a pretty good ECU, a lot of thought went into it. Or it's just a lot of marketing BS .
It's over $1000 for that ECU!
For a stock or near-stock car that ECU should work great.
Dale
That was my impression as well reading through the website.
I've sent an email to the creator of that ECU-- Nakamura san. Have also sent a PM to KaiGreenFD.
Since I'm moderately fluent in Japanese I'm hoping he could help me get set up with the tuning software.
It seems to be built in Visual Basic 6 which is quite ancient. I had some trouble even getting it installed on my PC.
Now I'm just trying to find out how I can actually connect to the ECU...
I have some minimal experience tuning rotaries from when I tuned my turbo rx-8 using VersaTuner, but I have no plans to tune this car for power.
Mostly looking at it as a learning opportunity and also an easy place to monitor all my sensors at once.
Might use it for some silly antics like shooting flames out the exhaust on which is a relatively benign way for beginners to have fun tuning.
I'll be keeping this thread updated with my findings as a resource for anyone on the forums that might also happen to run into one of these.
It's a chipped ECU which is VERY popular in Japan. At one point you could take your car to a tuner, they would dyno the car and write a custom chip for your stock ECU. You could also buy an ECU outright to plug in.
Reading the Japanese web page it sounds like a pretty good ECU, a lot of thought went into it. Or it's just a lot of marketing BS .
It's over $1000 for that ECU!
For a stock or near-stock car that ECU should work great.
Dale
this one is newer than the others, its only a few years old
the owner of the company goes to sevenstock, and he was telling us about his new thing. or i should say its not like the RE Amemiya or Knightsports ECU's that can be 30 years old, this one is only like 5...
the owner of the company goes to sevenstock, and he was telling us about his new thing. or i should say its not like the RE Amemiya or Knightsports ECU's that can be 30 years old, this one is only like 5...
Oh I see. I thought you meant my specific ECU, but you meant this brand in general.
If it's that recent, I wonder why he decided to use Visual Basic 6.... Microsoft dropped support for that in 2005.
Maybe he just used what he knew.
-Joey
I don't know how far down the rabbit hole I'd go with trying to hook up or tune that ECU. You'd be time and effort ahead going with a PowerFC, it's VERY well supported and has English software .
Also at this point the car is so stock that I don't think messing with any of the ECU settings will help beyond what's already there. It's really cool that you have that ECU though!
I don't know how far down the rabbit hole I'd go with trying to hook up or tune that ECU. You'd be time and effort ahead going with a PowerFC, it's VERY well supported and has English software .
Also at this point the car is so stock that I don't think messing with any of the ECU settings will help beyond what's already there. It's really cool that you have that ECU though!
Dale
I'd hate to see a $1500 ecu go to waste just because of my ignorance.
Plus, I like to learn new things so I think I'll try a little longer to hunt down the creator, Nakamura san.
From my phone call with KaiGreenFd yesterday he describes Nakamura san as being extremely helpful and kind.
Since I can speak Japanese, there shouldn't be any issues communicating with him.
He could also potentially put me in touch with the previous owner of this car since he probably tuned the car for them. That would also be pretty cool.
Still awaiting a reply to my email.
I know its been 4 years but did you ever get in touch with the Nakamura san, the ECU's creator? I just bought an FD here in Okinawa and it has the same ECU.
I know its been 4 years but did you ever get in touch with the Nakamura san, the ECU's creator? I just bought an FD here in Okinawa and it has the same ECU.
i spoke to him briefly through facebook and all i learned was that its remapped via EEPROM using legacy windows applications that even predate windows XP.
it was too much of a learning curve riddled with hardware compatibility issues to try running an outdated processor with very limited capabilities.
He also mentioned that theyre all tuned for RON 100 octane gas. (About 93.5 octane in the states)
Meaning most gas stations in america cant even offer adequate gas for their maps. Thats what made me decide to switch off that ecu after breaking in my new engine. Now i run powerfc with fc tweak.
i spoke to him briefly through facebook and all i learned was that its remapped via EEPROM using legacy windows applications that even predate windows XP.
it was too much of a learning curve riddled with hardware compatibility issues to try running an outdated processor with very limited capabilities.
He also mentioned that theyre all tuned for RON 100 octane gas. (About 93.5 octane in the states)
Meaning most gas stations in america cant even offer adequate gas for their maps. Thats what made me decide to switch off that ecu after breaking in my new engine. Now i run powerfc with fc tweak.
Stands to reason, since Japanese pump gas is 100 RON.
On the other hand, E85 costs $50 a gallon here...
Also, that ECU isn't just a plug-n-play upgrade, it comes with dyno tuning for every car, as far as I can tell.
appreciate the info, he did finally respond to me and said pretty much the same thing lol. When i bring it to the states i will probably swap it for a haltech or powerfc.
. 
