Help Needed

Ok, Ive never claimed to know how to tune but I know what kind of gains it can give u. Thats why I got a road tune, so i didnt have to reflash and log everything myself. Car drives good now.

 

 

~Dave

Something sounds fishy. Could be that I just don't trust dealers. I haven't heard of tuning and flashing killing ecu's but I guess it's possible. Who did your tuning?

Bump

If your ECU were "fried", I doubt the disconnect-neg, wait, restart would've worked.. I'm pretty sure they can't get "half-fried".

 

Tuning and flashing shouldn't fry an ECU anyways, at worst it should screw up the ROM memory, so it can't be read by the car. Assuming you're not running 12V through the ODBII cable.. I doubt that's the problem.

 

(not a lawyer, mechanic or subaru employee (or really a tuner)... use advice at your own risk)

Also.. just in case it DOES turn out to be a bad ECU, I'd shop around before shelling out 1100 to the dealer... but thats just imho

Blows. Sorry to hear. You dont need an ECU is my 99.9% bet. Either its bricked and borked or its not.

Try sending your ECU to Tactrix see if they can do a SH Boot recovery like they did to mine. Granted I bricked it outright but it sounds like yours is locked up with possibly a bad rom flashed to it.

 

Its worth a shot... I also found a LGT 5-Speed ECU in a local yard to me and I got it for 150, so I do have a spare if they can ever get it to match up to my imobilizer... I'm not sure if I can have 2 ECU's work at the same time, or if I need a ECU matched with a BCU, which would mean I just need to get another BCU so I always have a working setup spare if I brick another.

Are you sure the ECU is "fried"? What did you use to pull that error?

 

I came across several threads on google detailing an error message which I believe is yours:

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1923168&page=2

 

And some posts regarding things melting because of exhaust going backwards towards the pump into the engine as a result of the valve being stuck open.

 

You got a road tune... What did your tuner do exactly? Just tossed a customized open source tune on it? Or ECUTek?

No, I'm not sure the ECU is fried, thats what the Subie dealer is tellin me, that was the point of this hole thread. I used my laptop & a tactrix 2.0 cable. Anyways, its Infamous tuned, ran on his stg2 tune for about 9-10 months, then added the mentioned mods & road tuned with him doing several logs & revisions. The car drove great for a few weeks then, not so good...

If they can't communicate with the ECU it definately sounds like something is up with it. It may be worth the $75 to have tactrix do a recovery write to it and then check the last tune you were using and see if it will write ok. Also no need to ever disconnect the battery to clear a code, just use the Tactrix cable and clear it that way. Do a ECU reset through learning view and it will clear any codes and also reset your trims and knock correction table. Unfortunately tuning you take the risk of bricking an ECU from time to time... hence why I want to get two ECU's working on my car... no downtime that way.

 

What does your display say when you turn the key to the on position? Mine would display "Run Mode Change System Check" and I unplugged the ECU and it did the same thing so I knew for a fact that I f'ed up mine.

 

I also have the circuit to fix the ECU, but your already in Cali near Tactrix so your better off having them do it. I'm a min of 2 days shipping time each way otherwise I'd offer giving it a try.

Oh, you have a tactrix and Infamous tune, awesome!

 

I would think that your ECU is NOT messed up if YOU can connect via Tactrix and download via ECUflash whatever tune you have on there onto your laptop and you're also not getting any sort of error messages...

You need to report if you can connect to the ECU via ECUFlash or Learning view... that will tell us alot on the condition of your ECU.

Thanks everyone. Car is at dealer, i work weekends so I'll go up there with my laptop.

Seeing how you can connect to the ECU and pull codes it sounds like your flash is just fine... When thats bad you can't do ANYTHING... hell the car didn't even crank over for me. With all of those codes though, it sounds like a block of wires melted and shorted out somewhere.... I would start looking over the engine bay to see what you can find.

 

Try to clear them and see if they all come back instantly. next option would be to test an ECU from someone else to see if it generates the same codes right away if this current one does that... Then you will definitely know its a harness problem somewhere.

This might help, for a previous project I picked up an audi v8/Ecu/Harness and they have a TON of immobilizer triggers, I talked to a few different service departments for different idea's, and they all basically said they need my car and a blank check. I finally got a hold of a tech that gave me actual usefull information such as a list of triggers, what they actually look for, and possible ways to disable them.

 

My moral of the story: I suggest talking to another tech at another subaru shop.

Sorry to hear this. what dealership did you go to initially? Just curious.

:spin:Singh Subaru in Riverside

 

Phil is the service manager, younger guy has a 06 wrx, very modded and tuned for sure...says he has the best electrical guy around, that he could wire my car blindfolded...lol. But he cant find a short or melted wire. Although neither can I, but I dont charge$115 an hr for service.

Buy an ecu from car-part.com that is local to you and bring it in for the dealer to reprogam and test their theory. Way cheaper and easy to do. I'd start there.

Thats a crock, Will they not charge you if their theory is wrong and you spend 1100 on an ECU from their supplier? If not then they should at least ATTEMPT to fix it with a JY ecu and not bitch about it.

 

mine was $150 and would have cost $35 to get re-immobilized if I was willing to tow my car to the dealer... Thats not a bad amount to test.

 

I still don't think its the ECU since you can connect and pull codes... mine was completely dead, wouldn't crank, wouldn't start, couldn't connect... nada. But you could just have one fried circuit/relay or something on the board and the brain part of the ECU is still readable.

My car will never get fixed....!!! Towed car to another mechanic, its been there almost 3 weeks and still no real diagnosis. He says now it has to b towed back to a Subie dealer! WHAT!

 

As stated before this was my dd & 2nd Subie. I'm so upset about this I'm thinking of parting it out and selling it. Maybe at 36yrs its time to stop modding.

 

Sorry to hear about your car. I don't think 36 years is too old to be modding, but if you have 3 kids and count on this car as your daily driver, buy something else to mod or something else to daily drive.

36 isn't really too old, but I think you have to be conservative with your mods and either be willing to pay a lot to quickly get back on the road, or be able to do everything yourself and not really on dealers, etc.... I'm in the same boat, tore my achilles, and the next day my fuel pump dies... Luckily I can't drive anyway, but the thought of my wife replacing my fuel pump makes me very scared...