OK here we go... It's ECU time!

The way that I understand the ITS rules one can modify an ECU provided it is still using the stock ECU case/frame. If this is the case, I assume people are using like a SPOON chip or MUGEN? Excuse my ignorance, but I didn't think Hondas could plug in a new rom easily... Is this true?

What are people running for IT legal ECU programs say for a GSR?

Thanks in advance!

 

Erick's racing chips works good

 

You can socket and chip (cheap), or go Zdyne (not so cheap)

 

You can run anything as long as it fits inside the stock box and connects to an unmoddified harness. Stock ECU+ chips, hondata, motec, whatever.

This brings up an interesting question. Are OBD1->OBD2 adapters IT legal?

 

Nope, it says unmodified wiring harness.

IT rules suck for OBD2 Hondas.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jpl95si &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">IT rules suck for OBD2 Hondas.</TD></TR></TABLE>

IT rules and classes suck period.

IT rules cane be summed up as:

Simple, obvious, logical == illegal
Ridiculous and stupid == legal

The ECU rule is a perfect example.

 

Remember your history.

The IT rules came to be 20+ years ago and the major problem is that it's hard to implement a major re-think in SCCA since the rules changing process is (a) member driven, and (b) grounded in the assumption that changes happen one line at a time.

I'm not saying that it's good - just that there's a reason that things are seized up.

K

 

Hondata out of the question for IT?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by EKology &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Hondata out of the question for IT?</TD></TR></TABLE>

OBD2 cars require you to convert to an OBD1 ECU, thus modifying the harness.... illegal, yes... detectable? I suppose if you know what you're looking for.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by .RJ &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

OBD2 cars require you to convert to an OBD1 ECU, thus modifying the harness.... illegal, yes... detectable? I suppose if you know what you're looking for.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I have actually seen a few Hondata ECU's that were ready for use with your standard OBD2-A wiring harness. Would this make it illegal since you aren't tampering with the harness? Sorry to pick at such details, a little more knowledge never hurt anyone.

 

[QUOTE=.RJ]

OBD2 cars require you to convert to an OBD1 ECU, thus modifying the harness.... illegal, yes... detectable? I suppose if you know what you're looking for.[/QUOTE

what if you ran one of there conversion ecu. were you plug your stock untouched hraness into the ecu and it converts it from there on in. i think something like this would be legal, No?

 

Heh, now we get into the grey areas of the rules?

Sounds legal to me, but I dont know chit

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Knestis &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> the rules changing process is (a) member driven, and (b) grounded in the assumption that changes happen one line at a time.

</TD></TR></TABLE>

This approach has lots of downsides and can be frustrating.
The upside however is that sudden rule changes based on individual beliefs or sponsorship deals (etc. etc) simply don't happen. There is lots of rules stability in IT.

Too much rules stability??? Maybe.

Pick your poison.

 

The problem is, at least with a 99-00 Si, that you must use the factory ECU case for the car. The OBDI cases all seem to be quite a bit larger. I guess if you need more revs you could find a Mugen ECU or something.

 

One thing I have yet to check into is there are supposedly some JDM OBD1 ECU's that are the same size (case & board) as US OBD2. If you socket one of those and re-pin the coupler from the board side (as opposed to harnees side) all should be legal, but also big bucks over the standard entry Hondata setup.

Another approach that I am going to start (after 25 hour) is some good ol letter writing to the comp board to try and update the ECU rules to match what's cheaply availaable instead of some convoluted extra cost setup. Running just a Mugen chip (or whatever) in your ODB2 board give you zero ability to tune.

Remember one intent of the orginal rules is to keep people from stuffing big dollar items like Motec, etc... into their cars.

 

i can confirm that JDM OBDII ecu is the same size as a OBDI ecu.

at least thats how it was with my OBDII 2000 JDM ITR ecu

 

Jeremy has some good ideas there but I fear that he's giving the rules writers a little too much credit, intent-wise.

I'm pretty confident that the wording of the rule is more about recognition that club racing tech inspectors lack the technical sophistication necessary to not only understand the logic and data involved, but to even recognize what guts are supposed to be in the box.

The wrong box or wrong harness they think can be spotted - although that's debatable.

They didn't want to simply open the rules completely because (a) it would be impolitic, (b) electronics are evil, or (c) they simply had philosophical issues with the concept. Talk to someone with a cabureted IT car and chances are that they'll suggest that the open ECU rules are the equivalent of EFI cars ulimited cams so there was a strong lobbying force there.

K

 

don't know the size of the obdII ecus myself but the only option is hondata. Hondata offers an OBDI ecu that's repinned with the OBDII connectors so you can just plug it in to your stock harness. Then you can use the S100 hondata system which is internal to the ecu, no external box. Now getting that to fit inside an OBDII case, I have no idea. But you've got some of it figured out. Maybe the board can be trimmed in places to fit inside the OBDII case.

s

 

OK So I want to make sure I am getting this right.... I have a 95 OBD1 GSR P72 ECU (Stock). Are you saying that I could therotecially gut the stock ecu parts out of the box and throw a hondata ecu inside my stock box and that would be ok? As long as it uses the stock connectors like it does right? Boy thats seems like a stretch, but hey thats just me! Although, a hondata would be nice with the full tuning ability. Hmm....

Is that right?

 

check out pgmfi.org for whats involved with just socketing and chipping a p72 ecu. hondata is similar, except they use an emulator that allows them real-time tuning. the socketing method (uberdata, crome, etc) allows you full tuning capability, but you have to "burn" a new chip each time you make a change. efituningforless.com (occasional h-t sponsor) offers socketing services for cheap. skip on the OTC ecu tunes though, unless you've got some serious cams/headwork/etc. to take advantage of the chit-load of fuel they dump into the system. i tried a couple different tunes on a dyno and discovered that a mild STS build d-series motor doesn't take to well to 11:1 a/f ratios and a 5800rpm vtec crossover...

nate

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by VTECAcuraGSR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">OK So I want to make sure I am getting this right.... I have a 95 OBD1 GSR P72 ECU (Stock). Are you saying that I could therotecially gut the stock ecu parts out of the box and throw a hondata ecu inside my stock box and that would be ok? As long as it uses the stock connectors like it does right? Boy thats seems like a stretch, but hey thats just me! Although, a hondata would be nice with the full tuning ability. Hmm....

Is that right?</TD></TR></TABLE>

is the car obd1 or obdII? If it's obd1 it's really easy. the free editors are nice but I like hondata, that's just me. Either way you go just get the ecu chipped at the least. Once it's chipped you can use either hondata or the uberdata, crome, etc stuff. So, back to the question. yes, if you have obd1 you can get an S100 hondata unit and it's just a tiny board that connects inside the box, nothing external. Just plug in the ecu and go, absolutely legal and no connectors to worry about or wiring to splice.

If you have an obdII car it gets a little more complicated. Hondata can take an obd1 board and put on obdII plugs so you don't need a conversion harness. Then you get the S100 so it's all inside the ecu. Now whether that obd1 board will fit inside the obdII case I don't know. But that would be it and completely legal, at least in my estimation. No conversion harness and all contained inside a stock case. Nothing to really protest. Not a stretch, you can't hack up the wiring and must fit inside stock box are the rules. That's all the rules say and they're being followed in this case.

hope that helps.

s

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jpl95si &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Nope, it says unmodified wiring harness.

IT rules suck for OBD2 Hondas.</TD></TR></TABLE>

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by .RJ &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

OBD2 cars require you to convert to an OBD1 ECU, thus modifying the harness.... illegal, yes... detectable? I suppose if you know what you're looking for.</TD></TR></TABLE>

you don't have to modify the harness if you use this:



from hondata website:
Hondata has OBDI P28 ECUs modified with OBDII connectors. These plug straight into an OBDII vehicle with no adapter harness necessary. Available with OBDII A (96-97) and OBDII B (98-00) connectors.

So, like I said if you can fit that obd1 board inside an OBDII case you're all set, you can add the S100 to it and you're good to go and within the rules.


<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by EKology &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

I have actually seen a few Hondata ECU's that were ready for use with your standard OBD2-A wiring harness. Would this make it illegal since you aren't tampering with the harness? </TD></TR></TABLE>

legal yes. The ecu's you're talking about is what I had just posted above.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jpl95si &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> Running just a Mugen chip (or whatever) in your ODB2 board give you zero ability to tune.

</TD></TR></TABLE>

except putting a chip onto an OBD2 board is a big PITA. The obd2 boards went to surface mount, as opposed to thru hole like the old ones. It can be done but it's more labor and the chips are like $100 and not rewritable and the chips must be rewired in, no way to socket it. So, basically it's not worth it at all.

s

 

If you have an OBDII car, couldn't you just update/backdate it to OBDI? This assuming there was an OBDI car listed on the same line.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by solo-x &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">check out pgmfi.org for whats involved with just socketing and chipping a p72 ecu. hondata is similar, except they use an emulator that allows them real-time tuning. the socketing method (uberdata, crome, etc) allows you full tuning capability, but you have to "burn" a new chip each time you make a change. </TD></TR></TABLE>

They have romulator support now. You can use uberdata to real-time tune. There really is no benefit of going hondata, other than it makes you poorer and there are more "certified" tuners for it.

 

For the GSR's and Si's both, that's a non-issue as 94-95 GSR's, 99-00 Si's, 96-00 EX's, etc. are all or will all be on their own lines in IT. Where the hell did my GCR go? I think that's right.

Stevel: It is not legal if it's not in a factory box from the specific car it's going in. That means even if the OBDI box has OBDII pinouts it's still not legal unless it's in an OBDII box, which for Civics at least is totally different. As was mentioned, whether or not tech would notice is questionable. An astute competitor might, and then you get to go through fun protests and impounding and DSQ's weeeeee!