one VIN per DME, no way around it. Atleast not at the dealer level. I don't think anyone that has extensive knowledge of the Drive-away protection system is going to be foolish enough to divuldge that information.

 

Makes me just want to take all the e-crap off the car and put an old-fashioned throttle setup on. Screw the EPA, the DMV, the feds, the state, and all the rest. Give me a screwdriver, a strobe light, and a good old distributor I can rotate!

Well, maybe the points could go away. I just hate the car thinking it's so damned smart!!

 

it's an open source ECU system. Last time I was at the site (a while ago for sure), there was talk of drive by wire support, and OBD-II support as well.

But like all systems, it has it's own issues. But at least tuning it isn't one of them!

Matt

 

For those who are interested, here is a link for lots o' info on the DME/ECU and EWS. It confirms what fullcollapse was saying - kinda, but I don't think the VIN is the issue. It's the anti-theft. ALL of it is tied together. Not to mention the encryption.
You can skip to page 19. Best I can tell, the MINI uses EWS 3.3.

I forgot to add, my mod money for the year, will be going to my ECU replacement. Sucks.

 

actually the DME has the vehicles vin burned into it. it is permanent unfortunately. whenever you start your car the dme communicates with the EWS ( driveaway protection ) and sends a "rolling code" and verifies that the two modules match each other. this is to prevent someone running around with a dme stealing any car they can slap it into.
they are actually not "b.s-ing" you.