# ECU question for the technically inclined...



## hpro123 (Apr 30, 2002)

The facts:

Stock Euro-speced SR20DE ECU from a car with CAI/Exhaust and S4 cams has been sent to tuner for tuning.

On return, its behaviour (when compared with the stock ECU)was very noteworthy:

1. Idle smoother and close to 1000-1100 rpm.
2. Car seemed to pull much harder throughout the rpm range.
3. Up top there was a very noticeable gain.
4. Rev-limiter removed (we never let the car go above 8400!!! rpm as shown on the instrument cluster).

This behaviour has been duplicated in another stock SR20DE when we substituted the tuned ECU for the stock one. Without even allowing for a "learning" period so we could do back to back comparisons between stock and "tuned" ECU, there was definite improvement troughout the rev range and the rev limiter was indeed somewhere above 8200rpm (if at all).

Now comes the tricky part!

We opened the ECU in order to pull out the chip from the daughterboard and see what it contained. Well, there was a 40-pin connector soldered on the ECU but NO DAUGHTERBOARD. Furthermore, the jumper on the back side that needs to be "changed" for the daughterboard to work had never been touched so we know that the ECU never worked off a duaghterboard located ROM. Apparently the "tuners" for some reason soldered the connector there but did not proceed in altering the CJ1/CJ2 jumpers. Still, the ECU IS DIFFERENT than the stock one. 

To put it more eloquently.... WTF???!!!???!!!???!!!????????

During a very close visual inspection fo the moded ECU, we found that the only thing with visual evidence of tampering was the little metal thingy on the right of the 84-pin CPU chip indicated by the red arrow in the following image (this is a stock ECU but the compenent is shown). 










I am totally lost here people. Anyone technically inclined with an educated guess among you???

Chris
1992 Sunny 2.0GTi


----------



## wickedsr20 (Aug 8, 2002)

The stock ECU's can be reprogrammed w/o needing a daughterboard to compensate for bolt-on upgrades. I was under the impression that a daughterboard was only added to control NOS or a turbo safely, with the daughterboard holding revised timing/fuel/ignition maps when boost/NOS is added versus stock settings on the ECU. Go to www.jimwolftechnology.com, get their contact #, and verify this with them. They do the majority of Nissan ECU reprogramming.


----------



## hpro123 (Apr 30, 2002)

Every modified ECU I have seen until now (including JWT) does it with daughterboards. Can you check yours and/or post a photo of it?

Chris


----------



## Guest (Oct 21, 2002)

hpro123 said:


> *little metal thingy on the right of the 84-pin CPU *


Does it have a frequency on the top like 14.18 MHz or something similar?


----------



## wickedsr20 (Aug 8, 2002)

I'll give it a check real soon.


----------



## hpro123 (Apr 30, 2002)

*Re: Re: ECU question for the technically inclined...*



Mudge said:


> *Does it have a frequency on the top like 14.18 MHz or something similar? *


No! At least not clearly.

Things written on said items:

"Modified": 8.860
NDK.82

Stock Part: 8AMQ-8
TEW2L


Chris


----------

