Bricked ECU

[Charbo]

Sorry about the long post, if there is anyway to fix this myself without buying a bunch of extra stuff or hardcore soldering please let me know.

 

So I was trying to be cheap and bought an ft232rl cable from ebay in hopes of tuning my 2005 Legacy GT..I tested the monitoring with romraider by monitoring the car as it ran for a bit, then I backed up my stock rom with ecuflash 1.29. I found a few stage 1 tune roms and decided to try loading one, but instead of clicking test write, I just clicked write. Everything went fine for a minute until it started having issues writing after it had deleted my stock rom. I didnt know what to do and panicked, turning the car off and unplugging the green test/flash connector. I turned the key back on to try to start the car and I get the Er HC message, full temp gauge and all dummy lights on just like with the connector plugged in. If I plug the connector back in, the fans no longer cycle either.

 

All signs seem to point to a bricked ecu, and I have done some research on repairing it myself, but I dont have the tools or the soldering expertise to do that.

 

I have contacted tactrix and I am hoping to hear from them tomorrow, and hopefully they can get my ECU back to me quickly. I guess I will be buying an actual tactrix cable to avoid this in the future. With a real cable I can use the newest version of ECUflash right?

[Merc6]

IIRC you can buy a new one and have it programmed cheap. When the 4 gens were still in production I had to drop $1100 both times I bricked mine with the Accessport V1.

[Charbo]

Do you know which one would work on my car? I have found different ones for the same year with the 5eat, and if I do buy one, I want to make sure it will work. I was also told I could use an 04 forester xt ecu without an immobilizer by switching a few wires if it came to that.

 

Most of the ones I found look to be 22611AJ18B, should that be correct?

[Merc6]

Do you know which one would work on my car? I have found different ones for the same year with the 5eat, and if I do buy one, I want to make sure it will work. I was also told I could use an 04 forester xt ecu without an immobilizer by switching a few wires if it came to that.

 

I haven't researched it that far. It was my only car at the time and I was literally out of town when I did it both times. When you search, are you searching here directly or do you go to google and type "what you want to search + legacygt.com" ?

[Charbo]

I searched on ebay and google to find that part number. That was the most common one that came up. I am hoping that tactrix still repairs then, as that would be easier than towing my car to the dealership when the new one arrives if I was to replace it.

[underpowerd]

the vagcom threads left me with the impression that the bl/bm cable was the only full access read/write unit; I'm surprised you got that far with an rl.

 

sorry to hear the misfortune, wishing you a cheap fix.

[Charbo]

Thanks, I saw that also but some people were saying they were able to flash with an rl cable as well. At least I have another vehicle to drive to work, otherwise I would really be scrambling to get it fixed.

[Merc6]

Thanks, I saw that also but some people were saying they were able to flash with an rl cable as well. At least I have another vehicle to drive to work, otherwise I would really be scrambling to get it fixed.

 

Which is what happened to me with the car out of town. Now it's a project car, and time limit is whenever I can get to it.

[Charbo]

Well I would much rather be driving it since it's my car and it's the nicest car I have, but I can't be too picky haha..I did find a used ecu about 45 mins away from me so depending on what tactrix says I may go get it tomorrow. I'm assuming the car has to be at the dealership to reprogram it? My friend does have a trailer I could use worst case.

 

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[Merc6]

I was told sending it off they can have your vin put in it and it work again plug and play for a fraction for the dealer cost. I didn't research it any farther as I was 4 hours out of town and needed to be at work in 10 hours.

[fahr_side]

A lot of Opensource tuners will have the required SHboot mode rig to restore a working ROM to the ECU. If you did manage to read a valid original ROM image off it, it may be possible to restore the immobilizer settings as well. Ask around with local tuners. The ECU has to come off the car anyway so it's not much extra hassle to mail it somewhere for recovery. Colby at Tactrix is of course very adept at this but there are plenty of other guys with this capability.

[ehsnils]

As long as it's only a software issue and not the hardware that's bricked it's possible to recover it.

[Charbo]

I contacted pdx tuning but they did not have the ability to fix it. I heard back from tactrix and will be sending the ecu to them today.

 

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[Charbo]

Can anyone tell me if there is a difference between all the base maps for this car? The stock map was A2WC510C, and the 2 maps that I got are based off A2WC500C and A2WC521N. Is there any difference as long as they are designed for a 5EAT? Or does the rom even matter as far as the transmission goes either? I know there are some functions specific to the automatic such as holding boost when shifting gears, but I didnt know if that was controlled by the ECU or if there was a separate TCU?

 

Edit: Looks like the 521N Rom was for a MT, and the numbers are for the firmware revision. Is there any advantage to the newer or older firmware?

[fahr_side]

There may be some improved logic in the later versions. Of course noone should ever try flashing an MT ROM to an AT ECU or viceversa as that may brick it or make it unable to start the car. I'm sure Colby has asked you to send your downloaded original ROM but be sure and email that to him in any case.

[Charbo]

Thanks, I sent him the rom I was able to save from my ecu before I did anything. It opened fine in rom raider and looked ok. Are you saying I should send him the rom I was trying to flash to have him take a look at that as well?

[fahr_side]

No, just the one you pulled off.