Hi. I need to remove my ECU from my car to get it remmaped. I can get it done through the OBD but the guy that can tune it is too far away from me for me to travel so im sending him the ECU instead.

Does anyone know how to get the ECU itself from the car with out damaging anything? Any Pics or anything. Im assuming a few have had them out for serious modding so if you have and have some info please let me know as i need it out for Wednesday.

Thanks Guys and Gals.

 

it's in the engine bay it looks pretty straight forward..

basic hand tools should do it

 

I know where it is. And its not as straight forward as you would think. It not held in by anything exept two dodgy lumps that are invisiblt untill you take the whole bracket out. Then you realise your an idiot and it was easy. But without going to the trouble of taking the whole braket out you would never know. Thanks for your input anyway though. I will get pictures up at one point incase they are ever needed.

 

I just took mine out and found the two tabs you're talking about. I'll post pictures today for everyone.

 

OK here we go. This is the way the bracket looks from the top:


There are two plastic tabs that you need to push down firmly at the same time, and pull out the ECU with even force to get out of the bracket. It will slip out of the bracket with little resistance if you're pressing the tabs down far enough. My fingers show where they are when viewed from the top:





Here is a side view to help you see what's not visible when you're working on removing the ECU. My fingers are pointing at each tab:





I hope this helps anyone needing to remove their ECU. Mine is off in the mail to Evolve Automotive so I thought I would share with everyone. It's definitely not obvious where the tabs are when looking at the bracket from overhead.

 

just had to figure out mine as well, ive sent mine to rmw last week.

 

thats very useful thanks

 

Ditto

 

Be aware that the dealer will know that the ecu has been "adjusted". I took my car to a dealer two days ago for a CEL as my car was under warranty. Even though I removed the tune they were aware of the changes to the ecu because of the data log. Can't remember the terminology they used but I'm sure I'll have problems with them in the future since the car is only six months old. The Australian dealers seem to be harsher than the US dealers from what I read in these forums

 

Yup they are smart mofackos. I'm out of warranty so it's up to me to fix my car now.

 

what tune did you have? i have the RMW and always return to stock first and they have never mentioned anything for warranty and good will work. im in Aus to.

 

Yes I have the RMW too. Took it to the dealers for a CEL. As it turns out the intercooler hose had blown off. I looked for that but couldn't get under to see. When the dealer called got this spiel about changes to the (insert three letter acronym here possibly ending with E). I blathered about the water/meth which hadn't been connected yet as they had also mentioned these wires but I did have a lengthy conversation with Elie from Rennsport Racing.

Apologies for the thread hijack.

 

You I/C hose had prob blown off under high boost, and triggered a CEL at that exact point in time. When a CEL is triggered the DME records all data from the car at that specific point...including boost pressure. In this case they probably saw this and surmised you have messed with the ECU due to the high reading of boost that was recorded.

Other than that, the dealers do not have a way to scan your ECU and see what has been altered. MINI can....but not the dealer.

 

It was definitely high boost as I had given it the stick in second gear. Thinking back when they mentioned DME they threw me right out as I had never heard of it. They also mentioned the wires from the DME which are the wires from the Howerton water meth which I ran out the front of the the ecu rather than the rear and I now think they were attributing all the log data to this modification which as I pointed out was not even connected. The moral here is hide all the wires which I will be doing forthwith. Thank you very much for the info Thumper.

 

yeah good info thanks Thumper