Gibbo

I am running the TSI piggyback which has all the aux functions, I will tell you bluntly, DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON ANY AFTER MARKET ECU OR PIGGY BACK ECU ......YET!!

Wait until a little more development, get the sway bars, get the flywheel, get the exhaust but don't waste you money on the ECU, for me it was $1,500 that would have better gone elsewhere at this point. My ultimate goal is FI (soon) however it is lucky that the FI options will work on my piggyback system not good judgement.

rotarenvy

If your interested in a clasic in years to come then you want the car to be STD in which case the std flashes will work fine. if they don't, rebuilding the motor to std specs and they will work fine. you don't need WDS to maintain a car, it just saves alot of time. hymee's scan tool should be able to spit out error codes anyway.

Maestro

Maybe I should sell my RX-8 Dealer Manuals to you guys :D

timbo

I think you have missed my point. Which "std flash", and how do you maintain a car that has a corrupted ECU? Where will we get these std flashes, and how will they be uploaded?

This is not just a Mazda problem, but relates to any modern vehicle with proprietary ECU software. It will probably be quite easy to obtain the electronics that are the basis of the ECU -- they're relatively standard bits of hardware/circuitry. And there are a number of devices which will read the ECU unput/output but that is entirely different to being able to modify the ECU processing -- which might be required, if for example, there is a shift to different fuel standards, say, in 30 years' time (not necessarily a good example for a rotary, but you get my drift... ). To maintain a classic that far into the future you will need the tools of the day, just as you need a set of Whitworth spanners to maintain any pre-1975 (from memory) English built car.

rotarenvy

a std flash is any flash that is loaded by mazda! just because mazda keeps modifying them dosn't mean the first flash they issued wont run the car. No one even knows what they do each time they update the flash! chips are quite resiliant and rarely become corupted without someone stuffing up while programing one. and if it is corupted and you can't flash it yourself then just buy a new managment from the wreckers and plug it in. just look at modern servicing they just replace worn components if it is to factory specs the std flash will run it.

if you need more hands on options, private companies do develop fully featured scan/program tools for popular cars (and not just hymee style software). You can run a motec or such if they do change fuels or something drastic. I have heard of people changing carburetors from old cars as the designs were dangerous (heating the fuel with a naked flame to vapourise it) so why not change engine managments?

timbo

Well, I'm normally optimistic, too. But, having worked in IT for too many years and seen major software become unsupported and progressively unuseable as the technology on which it was developed disappears, I am not so sure in this case.

I mentioned possible replacement alternatives in my original (hijacking :o ) post, but it is interesting to not that as each generation or OEM ECU gets more complex, the amount of time for these alternatives to appear grows. A good example is the ECU for the Cosmo 20B, where AFAIK only one (piggy-back) has appeared.

As to ECU boards sitting in wreckers yards -- hmm -- I wonder if there might not be a better market in sending them off to be recycled for the value of the gold and silver they contain in the short term, rather than storing them for a replacement at sometime in the future ... but we shall just have to see. Has anyone gone to a wreckers to get the ECU for a recent HSV??

rotarenvy

I see your point but I feel the problems will be ironed out by the dedicated when these new cars become clasics. The cosmo is a strange beast with 3 rotors and engine managment companies don't design to the fireing order of 3 rotars. go back to 2 rotars and you find how many engine managment units? the renesis isn't nearly as unique.

when people do engine conversions the cheepest way is to use the stock computer. I bet there are a few owners who have secificaly bought a HSV motor with the ECU from a wrecker. but yes the I agree you will see a greater push to recycling and the australian tradition of the wrecker will die and parts will be harder to find.