Quote:
Originally Posted by SilverSurfer
the 97/98 ECU was only around for 2 years and the daughter board that was used to map these back in around 2000/2001 was not cost effective to produce or at least continue to produce for a market that was only a 2 year peiod.
It was also on the verge of ECUTEK where mapping technology took a huge leap forward. The old 97/98 ECU daughterboard/chip was a tweak and try method requiring the board to be removed and reprogrammed each time.
Mappers are now used to doing everything from a laptop and not interested in the time/effort required to remap the older ECU.
The 1993-1996 ECU was different as the rally regs at the time stated the ECU could not be replaced, hence a spare location was provided on the board for easy changes.
This is what I played with for a number of years (probably supplied about 500) and this was further developed by ESL for live mapping via a laptop. they basically relaced the reprogrammable EPROM with a more modern Flash device and supporting software. The ESL is a great modification as it retains all of the safety features of the stock ECU which no other aftermarket ECU for that year can provide.
They were/are developing a 97/98 version but is has taken a long time (around 3 years) and IIRC somethingto do with a 'scrambler chip' that the daughter board has to use to cope with the imobiliser.
You mention the cars are loosing value so why doesn't someone develop something. Well the time and effort required to develop soemthing has to be recouped. This would not be possible on a car ECU that onlyspanned 2 years especially if the cars are getting older, less valuable and being scrapped insome cases.
Your best bet is a 2nd Hand Apexi but the 97/98 car also suffers from small injectors and small turbo, so they would also need upgrading to get the benefit out of any ECU upgrade, be it cheap or expensive.
Or fit a manual or electronic boost controller and get someone to set it to around 1.2bar and check the fuelling and ignition. Anything above 1.2bar will trigger the fuel-cut and also require the larger injectors/turbo as decribed above.
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and i suspose that you cant put a different ECU in(MY96 or MY00)?
would it take a lot to graft one in ?