ECU upgrades

[DiscoDan]

Hi All,

yes I have done a search, but all I seem to get is if you have the money buy the later ecu and flash it.
However I don't have the money and am now looking for ideas as to which is the best ECU to go for.

I know TRS do a replacement and I have driven a manual D2 with this and also Davies from Sydney do one and I have driven an auto version with this ECU.

Are there any pro's or con's to either and which way have you gone and why?

Thanks for all input

Danny

[Disco EMU]

Careful ..... with any ECU upgrade or chip the engine runs at a much higher temperature, which can start other engine other issues and chalk up some big bucks :eek: $$$$:blink::blink:

Have a chat with "discowhite" or Peter Davis from Roving Mechanical .... both will do an ECU upgrade and can give you an idea of the pros and cons.

Good Luck

Craig

[DiscoDan]

Thanks Craig,

chatting to Phil now

[DougLD]

Hi Danny
I have a Davis upgrade in the Disco a TD5 manual and you will certainly notice the difference in power as for it running hotter i have not noticed the gauge travel any higher but i have not towed the camper since having it done.
Regards
Doug

[Jedimastermat]

Gday Danny
Ive got the Davis chip in my TD5 also. Its an auto. Its definitely noticable. Not noticable for temp and I did tow the camper through NSW SA (Inaminica-Arkaroola) shortly afterwards. Not overly big loss in fuel efficiency either for power gain. Much less lag between giving it the berries and the beast moving :D
Set you back a couple of hundred bucks (4-500ish I seem to recall). Got the Davis version as they are 3 minutes from home, service the car anyway, and Ive never had any problems with Bruce and the team, in fact, they have been marvellous on numerous occasions.
cheers
mat

[Ean Austral]

Gday Danny,
I got a TRS in my 2001 5sp and would say that the power in noticeable if and when you need it but in general day to day driving it just seems smoother thru the gears as you dont seem to rev as much, As for the hotter temp, havent noticed any difference..

Dad got his D2a done at TRS whilst towing his 20 ft caravan around Aust on his last trip,and towed it from SA up the east coast across and back to WA..Being an auto he noticed heaps of difference with no temp rise at all..He's comment was it was like having another gear..


Cheers Ean

[Dubbo]

I recently had my 2003 manual TD5 remapped at Graham Coopers at St Peters in Sydney. They were very careful to measure exhaust gas temperatures before and after. The remapped ECU means the car is now very very quick. I have just driven over 3000 km on a single trip but kept speeds down to around 90-100 kmph. I am now regularly getting 8.5 to 9 litres per 100 km on such trips. There is no noticeable increase in the temp guage but then the cooling system may still be coping even if the exhaust gases are a bit hotter.
I choose to drive the car conservatively and only use the extra power for passing. I have much greater flexibility around town, 4th is now used where 3rd was necessary and most hills are easy in 5th.

[Disco EMU]

I recently had my 2003 manual TD5 remapped at Graham Coopers at St Peters in Sydney. They were very careful to measure exhaust gas temperatures before and after.

There must be a genuine reason for that. I know I've read somewhere that the increased temperature can warp the exhaust manifold. When I've spoken to various mechanics about an ecu upgrade they've mentioned modifying it to counteract the increased temp as well as the EGR removal.

I know that it's something I'm keen to do in the future, but I'll have to firstly get a flashable ecu then do the re-map. So it's already costing a little extra .... the last thing I wanna do is f**k up something else in the process.

Certainly more research (and more money) is required from my perspective.

[Blknight.aus]

you need to watch it as you can easily cook the engine if you wind it up too hard for too long.

you could (in theory) rechip the engine to make a couple of thousand horspower but it would only make it for about point nothing of a second if you asked for all of it at once. while your not using it its not a problem as your not pumping the fuel in to make the heat.

very very roughy

repeated short hits of hard use that spike the EGT's are bad for your valves, exhaust manifold and the turbo.

long runs at high temps will cause heat soak in the head thats either going to warp the head do the head gasket or overload the cooling system. (overloading the cooling system then takes out the head after its overheated)

I have what amounts to what I consider to be a chipping level thats as far as you can go with a stock TD5, I got mine from tombie.

I believe that BD was having some issues with some of their early maps (which I assume is now all sorted) as most of the killed td5's that I've seen that have had a remap have had their update in them. That may also be a factor of a particular batch of engines, the fact that they are the most commonly done update which would load the stats for engine failure or a bunch of people who have no sympathy for their engines. I also havent seen a freshly killed td5 for 18+ months now.

[Ean Austral]

There must be a genuine reason for that. I know I've read somewhere that the increased temperature can warp the exhaust manifold. When I've spoken to various mechanics about an ecu upgrade they've mentioned modifying it to counteract the increased temp as well as the EGR removal.

I know that it's something I'm keen to do in the future, but I'll have to firstly get a flashable ecu then do the re-map. So it's already costing a little extra .... the last thing I wanna do is f**k up something else in the process.

Certainly more research (and more money) is required from my perspective.

Just wondering why you need to get a flashable ECU. The non flashable one's can be re-mapped.

Cheers Ean

[Disco EMU]

Just wondering why you need to get a flashable ECU. The non flashable one's can be re-mapped.


Ean

Didn't realise that .... seems that I'm talk out of my arse .... again!

When I was talking with "Discowhite" (Phil) he wanted to know if my ECU was flashable or not. I just assumed that meant the earlier ECU's couldn't be re-mapped..... Can you explain it for me?

Thanks

Craig

[Blknight.aus]

NNN suffixed ECU's are flashable unplug the brain, plug it into the computer and upload the new map.

non NNN ECU's need to have the cover pulled and a chip change.

-

[Narangga]

Ean

Didn't realise that .... seems that I'm talk out of my arse .... again!

When I was talking with "Discowhite" (Phil) he wanted to know if my ECU was flashable or not. I just assumed that meant the earlier ECU's couldn't be re-mapped..... Can you explain it for me?

Thanks

Craig

From the "ecu upgrade td5 99 thread" is my quote:

"Every one has an opinion on who does good work etc etc but the experience I had with TRS was that I air freighted the ECU from my 2000 manual Td5 on the weekend from Arnhem Land to Adelaide, they added the chip and upgraded on the Monday and bubble wrapped it and Express Posted it so I had it on the Wednesday and I reinstalled it Sat, relearnt the security and away I went - all for a fixed price."

Happy with it and like Dobbo 8.5-9.5 litres/km or 10.5-12 l/100km. Haven't driven long distances on it yet but have a 450km round trip to Gapuwiyak on Monday.

[discowhite]

Ean

Didn't realise that .... seems that I'm talk out of my arse .... again!

When I was talking with "Discowhite" (Phil) he wanted to know if my ECU was flashable or not. I just assumed that meant the earlier ECU's couldn't be re-mapped..... Can you explain it for me?

Thanks

Craig

this was in the pm;)


now the only thing that may add an issue is the year of your disco..being a 2000 mod it may have a non flashable ecu. to find out you need to have a look at the ecu and see if has the correct part number. you need it to say NNN somewhere NOT, MSB.
its really easy to check, just need a screw driver to pull it out of the battery/ecu box.



ive sent/replied to so many pm's its hard to keep track of what ive told who...

cheers phil

[Redback]

Just wondering why you need to get a flashable ECU. The non flashable one's can be re-mapped.

Cheers Ean

No they can't, the MSB Prefix non flashable ECU needs a soldered in chip, only the NNN prefix flashable ECU can be re-mapped.

Baz.

[Ean Austral]

No they can't, the MSB Prefix non flashable ECU needs a soldered in chip, only the NNN prefix flashable ECU can be re-mapped.

Baz.

I based what I said on the assumption that TRS re-mapped my 2001 ECU which I believed to be a non-flashable 1..
It appears that my assumptions are wrong so it is me who seems to be talking out of their arse..


Cheers Ean

[ghand2]

In preperation for a trip towing my campa with boat on top with my 2001 auto to the N.T., I did the Tombi 2 ECU up grade, EGR removal, Straight through main muffler, removed the cat converter and installed an engine saver monitor with water level & head temperature. On a long climb & trying to maintain 110 kph the adjusting pot for the head temp part of the engine saver started to alarm after I had set it to the max. This convinced me to back off even though there was no increase in engine water temp. The next vital thing I need is an EGT gauge. Hate to cook such a magic machine.
Geoff

[pohm66]

There is Welcome to Syntek (http://www.syntek.com.au/index.html) at Brendale on the Northside of Brisbane if you looking for local support.

Pretty sure Brett did Craig Davis'd R & D before moving back to up to the Sunny State.

[Redback]

I based what I said on the assumption that TRS re-mapped my 2001 ECU which I believed to be a non-flashable 1..
It appears that my assumptions are wrong so it is me who seems to be talking out of their arse..


Cheers Ean

Have you checked to see if your ECU is flashable? it may well be:)

Baz.

[DiscoDan]

Thanks have checked mine and it is the non flashable type eg not NNN, so I might be sending away to TRS soon

[Lucky-One]

Hello all,
Hello DiscoDan,


it is NO problem to make a MSB-ECU work like a NNN-ECU.
I made this and it works 100%!

After changing a chip on the ECU - the ECU is fully flashable per software! The fuelmap and the settingmap could be changed per OBD-Port. Via Nanocom or ROVACOM without problems. You can use every Original-LR-Maps, free Italy-Tuningmaps or any other legaly Tuningfiles. (i.e. For the Defender you get the Italy-Maps with 140HP and 170HP. With no costs!)

The costs for changing the Chip are only about 50 GBP!
If you want only the Chip - if you could solder it in by yourself - only 20 GBP.
Don´t believe the Persons which say that it is not possible.
It works definitive 100%!

Sorry for my bad english...

and regards from Germany

Lucky

[DiscoDan]

Hello all,
Hello DiscoDan,


it is NO problem to make a MSB-ECU work like a NNN-ECU.
I made this and it works 100%!

After changing a chip on the ECU - the ECU is fully flashable per software! The fuelmap and the settingmap could be changed per OBD-Port. Via Nanocom or ROVACOM without problems. You can use every Original-LR-Maps, free Italy-Tuningmaps or any other legaly Tuningfiles. (i.e. For the Defender you get the Italy-Maps with 140HP and 170HP. With no costs!)

The costs for changing the Chip are only about 50 GBP!
If you want only the Chip - if you could solder it in by yourself - only 20 GBP.
Don´t believe the Persons which say that it is not possible.
It works definitive 100%!

Sorry for my bad english...

and regards from Germany

Lucky

Thanks for this Lucky,

Do you have a web site or link to this?

[Lucky-One]

Hello DiscoDan,

in Germany we have the same problems with the ECUs. The newer NNN are very expensive. If you get one you have to pay 250-300€ (410-490 AUD) A good working MSB Ecu you get for 55€-120€ (85-130) AUD.
How are the prices in Australia?

I don´t know a link for the chips, because I found this out by my own. I only read one times in a LR-Forum that a ECU-repair-company can make this, but i got no more infos about.
So I used my old MSB-ECU to try this - and it works. In the past i made it some times again for friends of mine without problems. If you take the right chip and use the right file in the eprom-burner it can be done in one and a half hour to make a MSB-NNN-Clon-ECU. The chips for making a MSB-ECU work like a NNN you can get from me. I have a eprom-burner to play the needed software on the right chip. I can also write the needed original Landroverfile (or if you want a free italy tuning-map) direct on the chip or - after soldering the chip in the ECU with my NANOCOM to the ECU.

For more infos you can send me a PN.

Regards Heiko