loco4rx8

I know nothing about ECUs and mods to cars, so please bear with me. I hope someone can enlighten me and possibly others who are new to these types of discussions.

OK, lets assume for the sake of my question that the reason for the lowered horsepower ends up being changes made to the ECU to meet US emissions standards or whatever, as many people here have theorized.

How good are the chances that someone will come up with a way to re-program or "flash" the ECU and get that horsepower back? What is involved in doing something like that? Would it be against the law (emissions)? Would it void the warranty (I'm thinking yes)? How much would it cost?

Any help or other details on how this works would be appreciated. Thanks!

WTF no turbo

Good question looking for answer myself

The Beav

at least get the less emission friendly japanese fuel map

bureau13

Given your assumptions, I'm sure it would in fact be against the law, technically, but that doesn't mean you would get caught, even in a state that does a smog check. The precat is a perfect example on the FDs. It was only there for startup emissions, so as long as (a) they didn't do a visual, and (b) you don't push your car to the emissions checker and test it cold, it would not impact your ability to pass smog if you removed it. It all depends on exactly what was changed and why.

How involved the change is will directly impact how soon a modified ECU is available. With some ECUs (FC I believe was one of these) everything that needed to be changed was in an external EPROM, so a tuner could pull one chip, replace it, and be done. For the FD, it was a bit more involved, as some of the data that needed to be changed was in internal ROM for the microprocessor. They had to make a daughterboard to fool the processor into addressing an external part to get this data before they could change it.

Then, there are solutions like the Power FC and other standalone ECUs. These devices completely replace the stock computer. Obviously, that is a pretty big job, so while I would say it is inevitable that there will be a Power FC or something similar for the RX-8, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it.

jds

loco4rx8

Interesting. Thanks for the good info!

Superfan

The RX-8's PCM will be easier to mod than the previous RX-7's. I think the interface is OBD-II/ISO. I have to make sure because this week I'm going to order an ISO OBD-II to RS-232 interpreter. I'm going to start to play around and see what data I can pull from it. I'll probably start writing some code this week to run some tests. My first goal is to write a data logger. Then I'll add the other cool stuff like modding the fuel maps, timing, etc.. If any of you guys that know software development want to help out just PM me and we'll set something up. I plan on releasing this as freeware so we could start a project on sourceforge. It'll run on a WINNT based OS and will be mostly written in C++. I'm thinking of writing the backend in (.NET) Managed C++ /w the GUI in CSharp or go with an ATL/COM C++ backend and a VB GUI.

bureau13

DAMN me for becoming a manager. I've forgotten too much :-(

RX-8 Zoomster

I don't think it would be against the law if you changed out the ECU. It might have been for Mazda, and hence why more HP inhibited ECU was put in at port to meet the US emissions. (just speculation).

The problem would be if the modded ECU would pass your emissions test at your State inspection (if it requires it), when you renew your tags. Which Florida does require. It may or may not, because I don't know if those tests are the same. You can circumvent that by having your modded ECU in normal times, and when it comes time for inspection, just swap it out with the original. If it is that simple, which we still don't know if that's the root cause.

bureau13

Broward County no longer requires emissions inspections...I thought it was all of Florida, but maybe its just here in Broward.

I'm pretty sure it is technically against the law to mess with emissions equipment.

jds

Noxlupus

While on this topic, how about removing the electronic speed limiter?

jtdwab

I don't guess its a problem since Mazda lists ECM reprogramming codes on their technical info web sight.

http://www.mazdatechinfo.com/

Unfortunetly they don't have anthing posted yet. I would like to see codes that you could use to up the gas mileage (say for a long trip) then a performance set to load for racing and fun.

Another dream would be to take one of the un-used buttons next to the DCS button and have a high/low performace switch.


I guess we will just have to wait for them to post something in that section to see if doing that will void the warrenty and theirfore the free service.

wakeech

...the car can't go much quicker than what it's limited to without major horsepower increases. if that's what you plan to do, a stand-alone ECU is necessary to get those ponies, and that would elminate the problem at square one.

Superfan, i'm so so so SO disappointed i don't know the first thing about writing software (outside of a little old school stuff like AWK and SED from UNIX)... i would absolutely love to see what the heck you guys will be up to with that.
get in touch with Blue Adept, he's a real hacker too

that is seriously the coolest project i've heard of yet, bar none. i wish you the best of luck.

with the fully electronic throttle (which would be controlled by the ECU?), along with the normal stuff like fuel pulses and ignition timing, you could rather easily choke your car down: a much lower rev limiter (like, 5000rpm), never let the throttle open more than 70-80*, reduce the rate of opening in relation to depression of the accelerator, keep it running leaner the whole time, muck about with all sorts of other things i've not yet thought of... Superfan, you da man. heh heh, and yeah, i've got a good idea about how difficult it would be to effect a program of that sort, never mind testing and developping it to something that works nearly as well as the factory programming (for a small group of people).

RX-8 Zoomster

Thanks for the info. I guess I was mistaken that emissions inspections were required for all Florida. It sounds like it may vary from county to county. I have to check with my county, Hillsborough. It may be still required, since the county is almost all city. I have been over here for 20 months, and was requried before I left, so it could have changed since that time.

You know you may be right. IF they find out about it.

rotarygod

Technically any mod that is made to the car that affects the emissions is illegal. However if the mod has had approval from CARB (California Air Resources Board), it is 50 state legal to install provided that the accompanying sticker be placed on the vehicle in plain sight under the hood. Most ricers don't even use this sticker! Saying that, it does not seperate if it is illegal for the owner or anyone else to do. If they don't say you can do it, you can't. It is illegal for you to remove the cat from your own car. It doesn't mean you will get caught though. Thank god for that since I don't have one on my RX-7. Technically even a simple streetport in the engine is illegal even though you may pass an emissions test. Basically, there are things you can do to your car that will still allow it to pass an inspection and emissions test if you have one. It doesn't mean that it is necessarily legal though.

j9fd3s

the one of the reasons you dont get caught on a smog test with a modified car is that the epa tests the cars differently than the smog station. the epa essentially puts a huge bag on the tailpipe, and then drive the car around, they then measure the contents of the bag. the smog station only checks the percentage. where the epa checks the acutal masses.

mike

blizz81

Sounds pretty cool to me. I'm holding back on comments on all the negative HP/mpg/top speed/etc threads because I think the key will lie in the ECU. I would be interested in analysis of ANY data logging, though I was thinking more of people using CAN OBDII devices rather than hardcode their own

Superfan - how are you going to interpret the data seeing as the 8 uses the CAN protocol? Actually I'd be interested in how you'd interpret the data period w/o CAN taken into account (do you have a standard reference to what OBDII spits out and what the data represents?)

I can't really comprehend the rest of the project, ie reflashing and setting new values. Working around on terminal boxes in assembly a little while back got me thinking about ECUs, but I'd think any OBDII-to-RS232 device would just be a hardware device without software support - am I wrong?
Or can you term into the 232 device and it has a front end of sorts?