Trying to add v2

[TurboSinceBirth]

Ouch that sucks. I will have keep in mind to make sure to switch chargers. The one I keep next to my car is only 6 amp. The other at the shop has a 40 amp start setting.

[fridayda13th]

So who can a bricked ecu?

[ChargerX3]

What's wrong???? I should have went to your house so you could help me lol. Did I brick my ecu? I dont think its the ecu I can't get the ecuflash to load the rom

We can try to flash it again but it will probably take Brett or jester to repair the surface mount. Brett will like playing with your sl ecu anyways.

[99 vr4]

PM sent

[futurevr4man]

im going to ask the question again because it was not answered...

is the smartest way to flash, to leave the car on? i flashed it fine the first time without the car running, but i do NOT want to brick an ecu

[99 vr4]

Actually if the car is running, it will shutdown as soon as the flash starts. That is how I usually flash mine. I also run the car to warm it up and top off the battery before flashing... And I have a new red top battery to boot.

It's more important too have a good battery with a lot of reserve or a good charger hooked up.

[Greg E]

is the smartest way to flash, to leave the car on? i flashed it fine the first time without the car running, but i do NOT want to brick an ecu

I do that when I'm feeling too lazy to get the battery tender and I know it's going to be a long flash. Long in this instance meaning > 5 seconds. Hasn't caused a problem but I'd never recommend anyone do it.

ECUFlash only changes the memory ranges that are different from the previous flash. Guys are bricking ECUs because there are so many changes between a stock ROM and Chrome V2 that it can take as long as 15 seconds for a complete flash. The battery can't handle the draw from the tactrix cable for that long and the flash becomes corrupted.

While you're out tuning, you're typically only changing one or two values in a table so that flash only takes a few seconds. Very little chance you'll brick your ECU. I never use a tender while tuning. Only the initial flash of Chrome (or when beta testing new ROMs).

ECUFlash has a cool feature called "test write" where you can get an accurate gauge on how long your flash is going to take. If it takes a while to test write, then it's safe to assume you should get the tender for the real flash.

Something that has worked for me in the past to "unbrick" an ECU is to grab other ROMs and flash it over and over. I'll jump between the various stock ROMs I got, old tunes, old betas.... Just randomly flashing very different ROMs. It's actually worked 3 out of 5 times now where for some reason the ECU comes back to life somehow. In fact the ECU in my 98 VR4 has bricked and un-bricked 2x now.

I don't want to create any false sense of hope but it is something you can try if you ever get stuck in a parking lot somewhere doing a flash.

[futurevr4man]

interesting. and good info. thanks greg

[fridayda13th]

Very interesting. What battery tender are you guys using?

[BlackStealth]

Use a car charger on the highest setting (in my case that is about 15 volts). When I flashed my bench ECU from stock to Chrome 2.0 I think it was about 40-45 seconds.