So who wants their ECU's "Chromed"?

[Greg E]

I heard by a guy at a swedish forum that it might be possible to set the original MAF to read in a larger range or something like that. What do you experienced tuners think. Can't you change what range the MAF reads or is there some other limitation to the MAF that can't be tuned by the ECU?

No real point in that. The newer model Mitsu MAF are affordable enough, readily available and have been tested many times on multiple cars where you dont need to mess with that. Plus the settings for these MAFs are available so the tuning is already done.

[FeaRpb]

I would need some convincing to get this over the DR Arc-2. This just seems like more work to me and it isn't proven for the power I want to run yet.


Hmmmmmmmmmm

[Greg E]

I would need some convincing to get this over the DR Arc-2. This just seems like more work to me and it isn't proven for the power I want to run yet.


Hmmmmmmmmmm

Who says you can't run both??? Get the benefit of the free flowing MAF with all the additional perks.

[Jesters Deadd]

So anyway... I have some good news for your 96/97 guys!!

If you leave all your emissions equipment & O2 sensors hooked up, everything except the purge solinoid will work. This will need to be disabled. Unfortunately, you can't disable the periphery for this without there being a side effect. I am testing this patch out on my car and it will be available for V2.

If you leave the purge solinoid Hooked up and don't disable it, it'll click nonstop. There is some hardware difference in the board. I have not tried hooking up a 98/99 purge solinoid in place of the 96/97 to see of that fixes the issue. Would someone like to test?? I need a clean and STOCK 96/97 car to test. I will provide the parts needed.

The circuit diagrams are the same for both years. 96 vs 99. A solenoid that that is activated when the ECU grounds the circuit. It must be software based.

[FeaRpb]

Who says you can't run both??? Get the benefit of the free flowing MAF with all the additional perks.

WHy run both when I can just run the DR ARC-2 and be done?

[J-Groove]

WHy run both when I can just run the DR ARC-2 and be done?

Correct me if I'm wrong, an Arc 2 unit works with air and fuel only?

With ECU flashing, you can control, Air, Fuel, Timing, Boost etc. and have them all be variable based on atmospheric conditions.

-John

[Greg E]

WHy run both when I can just run the DR ARC-2 and be done?

It's been a while since I've used one but last I remember the ARC doesn't give you things like Launch Control, NLTS, accurate boost gauge, precise fuel and timing control, idle control, accell/decell enrichment, knock sensor calibration, radiator fan control... On and on with all the features I've posted about.

[95gto]

If you don't understand any of the below posts feel free to pm me as I'm sure Greg would appreciate we take this discussion elsewhere.

Curious how you would weight the fact of outright chronological age versus/in addition to the soldering/desoldering/duty-cycle aging, when, in my case, the car is driven much less frequently?

In other words, from a purely practical point of view, how much of a concern is this?

Since overheating a part is far more likely to damage it than normal use, and mutliple sessions of soldering and de-soldering are more likely to overheat the part than normal operation I think its pretty self explanitory. And as the post below points out, new parts are cheap so why chance it by re-using old ones. I would be curious to hear what constitutes "proper handling" of components like this though. My experience has shown these things to be fragile as compared the thru-hole parts.

And as a second source of perspective, the guys that build the drives in our labs won't re-use parts like this for rework, they use new. If someone that knows better than me tells me that option B is better than option A than I will trust the knowledgable folks.

As a professional in HW design I can say these parts can be used MANY times without degradation when properly handled. That said, new passive components are typically pennies if purchased in 10s or 100s. Anyone making a business out of converting ECUs should definitely guarantee new components are used.

I just don't see the honest motivation here to basically attempt to eliminate any possible ecu candidates for the swap. Certainly there is risk in any ecu modification or even running anything buy a true vr4 ecu, but our options are limited here. We could go on and on for years about why I shouldn't be running an SL ecu, but I'd rather have the car running and driving than try to think about problems with the solution.

The "real" vr4 ecu is basically like finding a gold nugget in your sock drawer, so until the day comes when an affordable alternative is available I'll be happy going down the road.

Certainly the risk of serious problems with a 99 type ecu is less than running a 20 year old stock ecu with a clusterf*ck of piggybacks lying to the ecu trying to get a reasonable afr and timing map.

I mean what do you guys want? Even brand new AEM's fail. SAFC's fail. Everything can and will fail eventually. You just have to recognize when there is a problem in your tune or your hardware and stop before you blow things up.

I think this explains a lot, and in a nut shell you are not understanding me.

No one is limiting the ecu's you can use or advocating that we ignore other sources, its quite the opposite. All questions of proper ecu functionality become moot when the components on the "clone" match the true ecu. And this type of re-work and modding makes non-3/s ecu's perfect options.

My statement was one that was echoed by JimVR4, the better option is to use new. But by no means is it the only option that will work.

[Chris@Rvengeperformance]

If you don't understand any of the below posts feel free to pm me as I'm sure Greg would appreciate we take this discussion elsewhere.



Since overheating a part is far more likely to damage it than normal use, and mutliple sessions of soldering and de-soldering are more likely to overheat the part than normal operation I think its pretty self explanitory. And as the post below points out, new parts are cheap so why chance it by re-using old ones. I would be curious to hear what constitutes "proper handling" of components like this though. My experience has shown these things to be fragile as compared the thru-hole parts.

And as a second source of perspective, the guys that build the drives in our labs won't re-use parts like this for rework, they use new. If someone that knows better than me tells me that option B is better than option A than I will trust the knowledgable folks.





I think this explains a lot, and in a nut shell you are not understanding me.

No one is limiting the ecu's you can use or advocating that we ignore other sources, its quite the opposite. All questions of proper ecu functionality become moot when the components on the "clone" match the true ecu. And this type of re-work and modding makes non-3/s ecu's perfect options.

My statement was one that was echoed by JimVR4, the better option is to use new. But by no means is it the only option that will work.

sorry if I am taking you the wrong way. I'm just seeing constant criticism of pretty much anything that pops up here on the hardware side. There is reason to be careful, but a lot of these statements are leading to mis-information being spread and people thinking for instance that an SL ecu will not even run the car.

[99 vr4]

The circuit diagrams are the same for both years. 96 vs 99. A solenoid that that is activated when the ECU grounds the circuit. It must be software based.

Hey but is the part the same . . .? I dont have ASA here but we can check later