I have a D16Z6 that I personally tuned on CROME w/ an SST chipped ECU. I placed the vehicle out for sale and it sat for about 2 weeks... during those 2 weeks, the brake switch failed and the brake lights stuck on and then killed the battery.

I repaired the brakelight switch and charged the battery and set it back out for sale. Right before the buyer came by to pick it up, I took it out for one last test-drive. I immediately noticed that the tune no longer had launch control enabled. I have launch control forced at 4500rpm. I tried several times to get it to engage, but no luck. I had already taken my wideband out of the car so i was unable to view the AFRs.

I went ahead and sold the car as-is, and the new owner had never really asked about the tune. I had never even mentioned anything about launch control.

I have never seen this happen before... The car still runs and drives perfectly. Everything works perfectly(just as it did before the battery died).

Just curious if anyone else has had issues with chips "forgetting" their data after a dead battery??

 

chips do go bad after time, sometimes years, sometimes weeks. It has happened to me while using crome before, but thats why i always make at least two chips for customers.

Its common for chips to sometimes lose the program.. just reburn another one.

 

Thank you.

Luckily, I still have the .bin saved on my laptop. I think im going to email the new owner and let him get a new chip burned.

 

Not one out of over 600 local customers I have tuned have had a chip loose it's data.
I have NEVER seen a chip loose it's tune. (SST)

 

what chips do you use, the 512's? or something else?

 

Special sst chip called the "SST - PHEARABLE" lol just kidding :-)
Yeah standard SST chips everyone uses man. Never had an issue.

 

I had a similar issue a few times, had to do with the battery being turned the wrong way, so it was closer to the firewall, and it wasn't tied down. Every-time a hard shift would happen, it'd ground out against the body of the car.

Check all the wiring to make sure its nice and tight OP, chips shouldn't go bad, but sometimes they do but its not always the "chips" fault.. make sure the pins in the ecu are tight, and all that good stuff, thats something to definitely check before re-burning another chip.

 

I really cant see something hapening with the wiring... Especially just from sitting outside for a few weeks. This car was my rock-solid reliable DD, and was in tip-top shape.

Like I said earlier, the car is already sold and isnt in my hands anymore, so the only real option that I have is to have the new owner attempt to get a new chip burned.

 

You must smoke AMAZING Crack...

I have never seen a chip LOSE a tune or forget "part" of the program...

 

hahahaa

 

-EMI Electro magnetic interference... I.e. Sometimes people leave MSD boxs near their ECU which can cause it to slowly degrade. Devices such as Ignition coils, plug wires, Radios, igniters, all emit bands of EMI that can degrade or "re-arrange" the 1's and 0's (bits or +'s and -'s boolean data) stored inside the ROM.

-Magnets. Anything with a magnet will completelly "format" a memory block. Memory consists of 1's and 0's, a magnet basically rearranges a block so that it all reads 1. or 0. Depends on how you hold the magnet.

-voltage. The ECU itself, or the way its wired, can degrade the ROM, especially if the rom is loose, or the contacts become dirty. Anytime you have an electrical connection via metal you have corrosion. try pulling out and replacing the ROM chip itself to see if this is the cause. Also voltage spikes through the car's electrical system (mainly during cranking) can damage an ECU if it is not properlly grounded. Check your grounds.

-UV radiation can erase SOME EEPROMS. Sunlight contains UV.

-Too many re-writes. An erasable or re-programmable ROM or FLASH chip thats been written too many times becomes like a re-copied piece of paper, it degrades in its ability to hold information without corruption. if someone had re-tuned your chip too much, this could be the root of the problem. The same happens if you keep copying CD's one after another, one from the last. Eventually the CD-R will have a harder and harder time reading the last recorded CD, until eventually it wont recognize it or give you under-run errors. CD's also store 1's and 0's like a memory block, or hard drive, although the data is physically inscribed to the disc via laser.


I'm not arguing with you, i'm just saying it could happen sometimes, chips that dont verify, i try to rewrite and verify again. If they dont verify a second time, i put in a new chip and it works, i've come across bad chips. It CAN happen,just because it hasn't happened to you doesn't mean it hasn't, or won't.

 

or it could be a bad J1 jumper

 

Static electricity can mess up a chip. But all you have to do destatic it by grounding it out

 

I've had the same thing happen on a customers car, once. He had hit a bump or something, and the car ran like ***. No CEL. Calls me and I'm thinking the chipped could have popped out or something. The chip was fine. I take out chip, reburn a new one and it worked. I was like WTF. So to double check I popped in the original one and it ran like **** again. The car had been running perfectly for a few weeks prior to this.
I see no other explanation. I even tried using the same chip but with my own ecu and same thing happened.

 

Did you try to read the buffer from the damaged chip to see what/if any info had changed?

I would say that someone probably zapped it with their finger (static electricity) I've done that once and it f#@ked up the chip for reading the tune. However, I have never seen it erase only part of a tune like the op's issue.

 

Yeah, the file wouldn't open in crome. Didn't bother checking it in hex to see what parts changed/got deleted.

 

or someone was playing with the chip, then put it back in backwards and burned it out.........

there a local guy who sells hondata that always say sst/crome chips forget programming. its never happened to me and iv never seen it personally.