Will the dealership flash the ECU? From what I'm hearing that needs to be done,but the early RSX's need it done real bad? NOt sure what it is supposed to do but have heard from many people that the RSX's got detuned when they got off the boat!

*anyone know how to set the clock on the TYPE-s,.it only tells you how to set the Base model in the book!*

 

take your car to your dealership....they'll be able to update your ECU. Shouldn't take more than 10 minutes. In order to re-do the clock...just hold down the hour and minute buttons...i think they're like 5 and 6. do it when the radio is off. It's something along those lines.

 

Have you done it,.or do you work @ a dealership?
If so,..did you see any improvements?I heard it really needs to be done on the First couple of RSXs' that came out,..just like they had the problem w/ the sub-woofer?the wires were reversed.Mine,.the wires were right,.i did the switch and it did make it worse,.so mine was ok.A certain group of VIN #'s were the ones ahving that problem.It was a TSB

Long story short,..the dealership will do it?They won't have a problem w/ upgrading it??
THANX

 

my car actually was one of the few that needed to be re-programmed. I went to my local dealership...and they did it. I made an appt. so that i wouldn't have to wait....they did it in 5 minutes.

 

I'm going to be dyno'ing my car this weekend then getting the ECU flashed, then dyno'ing again. I'll post the results when I get them.

Interesting twist, though. The dyno guy tells me that the ECU flash may not be all it's cracked up to be in the long run. He says that just resetting the ECU (disconnect the battery for about 5 min.) will also show improvements. His logic is that the car's ECU requires a "learning mode" that accounts for how you drive the car, atmospheric conditions, etc. and modifies the timing and other factors to keep the car at its most efficient - even if this means cutting power. He suggests that we do the following:

1. Baseline dyno - 3 runs with about 5-7 minutes of cooldown between runs
2. Disconnect battery for 5 min to reset the ECU
3. Dyno again 3 runs again with 5-7 min between runs to prevent heatsoak
4. Take to dealership, flash ECU with most recent firmware
5. Bring back to dyno - 3 runs again.

This Saturday I plan on doing this, so keep your fingers crossed for me.

Dyno runs a few weeks ago were very disappointing, so I'm hoping to see a good improvement. Otherwise, I need to have a serious talk with Acura Customer Relations...

 

Well, this is hella interesting because I called Acura client services today and they assured me that the RSX ECU is NOT FLASH PROGRAMMABLE. They said that the exact same ECM has been installed in every RSX-S that has made it to the U.S. and that any information that was floating around on the internet was obviously put there by people who do not know what they're talking about. The guy specifically mentioned that I should be careful because Acura monitors internet forums and has discovered that a large majority of the "inside information" out there is total crap.

I'm not making accusations, just passing along the official Acura response to this question.

 

You're not kidding that this is interesting. I know another person that has had his ECU re-flashed, and experienced an increase in performance under SCCA racing conditions.
My Acura dealer has told me that they do have equipment and specially trained personnel to work on ECUs.

 

Hmmm....... that makes me really curious because my RSX-S was one of the first brought over- made in 8/01 so it could possibly be one of the affected models (the Bose sub was out of phase as well). I cannot find a TSB for this however- it seems like there should be one.

I think that I tend to believe the post above that talks about resetting the ECM- disconnecting the battery for a couple of seconds and allowing the car to idle by itself for a couple of minutes clears the memory in the ECM, optimizing performance for that particular humidity, temperature, etc. That is an old Honda trick that can pep up performance a little until the ECM relearns all the old info again. Besides, I've never known Honda ECMs to be externally programmable- if you want to change something in the box, you have to take it apart and swap components, unlike some other cars. If the ECM was so easily programmable, I imagine that there would several companies offering reprogramming already (at least Mugen).

Anybody here work for an Acura dealership? Is this a Honda coverup? Or are there people driving around with imaginary ECM fixes? Isn't there still one episode of X-Files left?

 

The disconnecting the battery to reset the ECU trick works. I can't post all the dyno figures I got on Saturday because I'm out of town until tomorrow and the data is home.
But I did get a 3whp increase after resetting the ECU. For a short term performance gain, there may be something to the "learning" phase of the ECU. I don't know exactly how that works, but the dyno doesn't lie.
Anyway, the dyno numbers I saw were such an improvement over the previous dyno runs I did at CMP on a portable dynojet (believe it or not, almost 25whp difference) I decided not to get the ECU re-flashed at the dealership. If the car is showing 178.9 at the wheels SAE corrected, (as it did on Saturday, bone stock) then I can't imagine the ECU flash of different software is going to make it much better...

 

Glad you had a good visit to Tom's

Willis

 

Those of you not familuar with HONDA ECUz in the past .. like Integra .. civic ect.. it is designed to Recalibrate itself with certain guidelines when power is restored after a proper reset ... thats why you let the car idle for 5 minutes after the reset ...cause it is collecting information from all the sensors and recalibrating ...

The answer from your Acura dealership sounds like crap... seriously .. Honda ECUz have always been flashable ... all the chipz Have to be .. for that matter,... weither you have to take a chip off the circuit board or not .... think about it ... a manufacturer Makes a chip and the program isnt magically on the chip .. someone had to program it in the first place ... so the hardware to program it is out there ..

Its probably a free service the dealership is to provide since you purchased the car brand new from them ...and they are just being shife ... you heard the other guy ?? the dealership did his... go over the dealerships head if they refuse .. isnt there a honda motor corp u can send an inquiry here in the united states to

 

My ITR owners book has a section in it about that... one page long.

something like:
-start and let the car warm up
-drive at a certain speed for some length of time
-drive at a different speed for some length of time

I think it was related to failing emissions tests... maybe a solution to a failed test.

Will
-who will read his book this evening

 

Well there is my problem, because I never asked the dealer- I went straight to Acura Client Services, i.e. Acura technical support because I assume that they know more about Acuras than the dealer, especially because my dealer is fairly small and hasn't sold a ton of RSX's yet.

I'm trying to track down some hard evidence- every board I've been on has posts with "my friend did this" or "I know a guy that did that" or vague stuff like that. If I could get the name of a dealership service department or a name and number at Acura I could call or even the number of a TSB, I could track down some hard info. If I tell Honda what the internet post says, and Honda the Corporation says that the post is blatantly false or just flat wrong, then it is hard for me to question that without evidence to the contrary.

As far as programming the ECM- I still don't know anyone that can re-program a Honda ECM without replacing the parts inside- every tuner I've talked to wants to take the ECM apart and install a new chip. If you know of someone that can reprogram the ECM without taking it apart, please let me know who, as that would appear to be contrary to what Honda, Inc. told me and would make me question either the knowledge of their staff or the veracity of their statements.

 

Hmmm well the RSX is still pretty new ... soo not many companies are probably offering much .... i just did a quick search and AEM has a programmable Engine Management system for it

http://www.wholesalehyperformance.com/AEM-electric.html

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but the AEM system is a piggyback unit that modifies the signals coming in and out of the ECM rather than the internal processing of the unit. King does list a complete replacement ECM from Mugen, but it is for the JDM R only and they will not reprogram your existing ECM.

BTW, the S2k guys are supposedly getting 20-25 hp from the AEM unit- and you know how hard it is to get big improvements on that engine (already 120 hp/liter!!!). Bet it kicks butt with i-VTEC.

 

IM dskull - he had his ECU re-flashed at his dealer in Atlanta. He noticed performance gains after this procedure.