Chipping ECU

[James]

Colza and I have done a lot of research tonight into the chipping of factory ECU's and we have made a lot of discoveries.

its looking quite hopeful that this will be possible.

Before we get anyones hopes up we would just like to ask is there anyone familiar with programming the 8051 family of microcontrollers, in particular the 8085?

If there is this could be a lot of help to this avenue of research.

Cheers,

James

[James]

After more thought this is looking very likely possible. We have located the chip in the ECU and worked out how to get the memory contents off it, this is a total of 16kB of data.

I have also located a chip that is reprogramable that can be installed in the place of the factory one.

An easy first step would be to find someone with a mugen ECU and copy their ROM file, then we could make any turbo ecu into a mugen ECU.

OK the big thing with this is going to be decifering the data off the chip, it will be a hole heap of assembler code with data thrown in amongst it, I have the instruction set for the microprocessor so logically we should be able to go through the entire memory contents and diassemble them into assembly which is then fairly straight forward if time consuming to understand.

The maps should be fairly obivously patterened int he data, I have been looking at other old honda ROM dumps and there is quite a bit of blank space in them, im hoping ours will have heaps of blank space because they dont do quite a lot of the emmisions stuff and there isnt any ignition control.


The implications of this are huge, the possiblity to complete re-write anything the ECU does is there, we could start from scratch and make it completely different if we wanted, but I am mainly thinking about changing maps to suit bigger injectors, and possibly shifting the maps to allow them to fuel for higher boost.

ANYONE that thinks they can help with deciphering machine code into assembly or then deciphering the assembly and wants to help could they please contact me, this is something that could take years for one person to do but would go a whole lot quicker with a small team on it.

[Colza]

I am trying to get in touch with the Crome tuner from NZHondas. Will let you know if he is able to help us at all.

[Hyperblade]

Mark_moddy? im sure had a mugen chip didn't he?

I can possible help with the deciphering, don't know much assembly but can program fine.

[turbocab]

Mark_moddy? im sure had a mugen chip didn't he?

wasnt it glen biscan? if so wykthyk has now got this car (or did it have a different chip)

[James]

Glenn biscan had a piggy back fueler didnt he? an old HKS thing or something.

I have looked around some more and I think that scaling our fueling maps should be pretty straight forward.
So modifying the maps to make prelude injectors work just like factory city turbo ones should be pretty straight forward. This would be a good upgrade straight off.
It should be easy to remove fuel cut, will be a bit harder to add proper fueling above fuel cut but its possible, a lot of people on http://www.pgmfi.org have shown. I have heard from someone who ripped the contents out of an 86 civic with fuel injectiong and vacuum advance and they said that the data only filled up half the memory chip, so we could only have 8kB of data to decipher.

The reason I am really interested in this is it would pretty much negate the need for my extra injector controller, instead we could chuck in a set of 240cc injectors and solder in a new chip and run 20+psi, how FREAKIN mean would that be!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And without changing any electronics

[Colza]

It would be interesting to see when the rods let go

[si]

I think glenn had a hks fcon which is a standalone ecu.

It seems Charles did have the code from the mugen ecu at some point but might not have it now. Link to thread

[James]

Thanks for that link Si, I had entirely forgotten about that thread.

So it seems JohnT and CT have a mugen chip in their civic. So I guess if anyone is interested in getting a mugen chip for their car they would probably have to convince those fellas to let us pull their chip out and read it. It should have been socketed when the new one was installed so it might not be too hard. They are pretty robust so its very unlikely it would get damaged.

The guys in that other thread were pretty onto it. I have exams at the moment, but when they are over I will pull the chip out of my ECU and read the data off it. Ill post it up here then and anyone can have a fiddle with it.

[kartracer]

is there anyone currently posting on this site who has the mugen BIN file?
from what i've read in the other thread, the mugen ecu may be better suited to a more aggresive cam?
but it could be a good comparison to help decipher the data in a standard t1 or t2 ecu.
because the mugen chip still has boost cut, im guessing there are no maps past ~14.5psi?

and also, show your interest in this guys, if it became a reality it would be an awesome upgrade for anyone interested in performance.

[si]

I'm pretty sure the mugen racers ran ~23psi so you'd think it would have the boost cut removed and have maps for the higher boost. They ran an Air/Fuel controller too so I guess the ecu didnt do all the work.

Now lets just hope someone still has a mugen ecu somewhere so we can find out!

[James]

Did those mugen cars use a piggy back controller? Man thats ugly.

I assumed tha when they said there was still fuel cut and stuff they must mean an aftermarket ECU you could buy for the city that gave a factory one a bit more grunt, to go with that cool twin pipe mugen exhaust and the mugen lsd

[kartracer]

yeah im sure the race citys were running something more high tech than a fuel cut defender.

si I think there is a difference between the mugen race cars and what was available to the public as an upgrade.

[turbocab]

damn i wish i could read and understand japanese.....
if i could i could probly tell you all about the computer for the race citys,i have the technical specs for preparing the race cars given to me by kazzee.
i can tell you that there is an ecu listed,air/fuel controler and a different black box

[James]

anywayyou could scan them turbocab? That would be a really interesting read