Flash limit?

[Autochef]

I thought I remember reading somewhere that there's a limit to how many times you can flash the ECU. Is this true? if so, how many?

Within the last three months I have flashed 27 times.

[Chris@Rvengeperformance]

there is no set limit. Some people have issues at low #s of flashes, but I have flashed mine 100+ times.

Keep the battery charged. Greg also said he's had luck fixing "bricked" ecu's by flashing the previous tune over it a few times. Also, make sure your ecuflash is up to date.

[familyMAN]

Hundreds and hundreds, oh wait, I'm AEM...finally found one reason to not regret waiting for flash before buying AEM:)

[futurevr4man]

It's actually kind of situational to each ecu. I am not going to explain what the "flash" physically does, but its like anything else... Some last 50 flashes some last hundreds (just like some people build their engines in clean rooms with gloves on and spin a bearing in a thousand miles and some build them outside in the rain and they run forever lol)

I would say you should expect it to last 100 - 150 flashes, but I'm not promising anything

[Greg E]

There's no reason to flash your ECU so many times. ...unless you're a really bad tuner. :p

The manufacture rates the chip at 100 flashes but my current ECU is well over 350 now. The ECU in my first 99 was flashed over a hundred and the one in my 98 was flashed over 250 times.


...guess I'm a bad tuner... :(

[mb3000]

Never knew there was a theoretical ceiling to the number of flashes, not really happy about that. Would have made me think twice about purchasing one as it doesn't seem like a good long term option to me anymore.

After you hit the magic number, is there something in the ecu that can be repaired, or is it just toast.

[anyonebutme]

you swap out the IC chip, and go again, lol

Honestly, how often do people mess with their SAFC settings? unless you're testing stuff like Greg is, how many times do you REALLY need to flash an ECU.


Related note: we NEED an emulator.

[mb3000]

How much is the chip, how difficult is the removal/install, is your tune lost, etc?

[Chris@Rvengeperformance]

All flash has a limit to the number of times it can be rewritten, even the precious AEM. It is likely that since AEM planned on the ecu being written to a lot that they used flash that had a lot of write endurance. Mitsu of course did not expect the ECU to be written too much, but that doesn't mean that there is a counter in there that ticks over and shuts the ecu off.

The CPU can be replaced by Jester or Brett. Don't blow this out of proportion though, it is unlikely anyone will ever actually run into this issue.

[anyonebutme]

How much is the chip, how difficult is the removal/install, is your tune lost, etc?

if you're not well versed in PCB IC chip soldering, don't even think about it. Ask your friendly flashable ECU provider. Your tune is on your laptop, so why worry?

[Chris@Rvengeperformance]

How much is the chip, how difficult is the removal/install, is your tune lost, etc?

the cpu is not socketed, so it needs to be professionally replaced. The tune of course would still be on your laptop and easily rewritten to the ecu.

[Greg E]

Never knew there was a theoretical ceiling to the number of flashes, not really happy about that.

Why? That seems silly.

[Greg E]

Related note: we NEED an emulator.

It's been discussed before but designing such circuitry then somehow re-writing the serial bus on the chip is beyond me.

[anyonebutme]

Maybe instead of redesigning the ECU to allow emulation, design a whole new box that will run the car off the laptop?

[Greg E]

LOL!! You over estimate my skills.

Mega-squirt has something like open source tuning solutions but the cost of each individual unit is no better than AEM.

Flash ecu is the best bang for the buck. This flash limitation is nothing more than a physiological issue more than anything.

[DrGonzo]

Are the chips in the flash ECU's EPROM?

Assuming the limitation is the same as most types of chips as they all have some sort of memory wear based off of P/E cycles.

All memory whether it be the chip in ECU or the flash drive you carry in your pocket has a finite amount of P/E cycles "program-erase cycles". They will only last so long before they encounter some sort of data loss. Considering the technology at the time when the 99 ECU's were built compared to today, the amount of P/E cycles for the Flash ECU chip is low "100-500 just from what people above has said, may go even as high as 1-2k" where as today you can get chips good for 1 mill+ P/E cycles before they encounter data loss.

Without knowing the manufacturers P/E specs on the chip I don't think anyone can say what the safe limit is on how many times the chip can be flashed.

Not knowing much about the Flash ECU, I may just be talking out my ass.....LOL

[Greg E]

The manufactures PE limit is 100 flashes. I have the manual for this chip and can post it later.

I personally have gone far past that limit.

[DrGonzo]

HA... so you do have the info on the chip. Good to know.

The PE is just a safe limit they set for all chips. Most go far beyond that though. There is no set point as to when they will start to have data loss though. All chips are different so the limit could never be set in stone. The safe limit is just there to state that the chip will have a minimum of so many cycles.

[Greg E]

Is like the life hours of a light bulb. They're rated at so many hours but most go well past that.