I bought an 02 S model with lots of mods to engine and suspension that came with an RMW tune package. I know very little about ECM mapping and made the mistake of hooking up the flash tool thinking I could download the current file. Turns out I uploaded a corrupt file and the car no longer runs. Previous owner doesn’t have any of the files and I’ve been unable to get RMW to respond to get files from them. Dumb question but shouldn’t I be able to take the car to a reputable tuner shop to have it remapped?

 

Did the car come with the Flash Tuner? If you have the Dimsport it can hold up to 5 tunes, the stock tune maybe in the device.

If you really did hose that ECU, you maybe in a really bad spot, you might have to have your local MINI dealer reflash the ecu to stock, and then that will create a whole new series of problems if the car has, bigger injectors, a cam and/or a big valve head.

 

Honestly, your best option is to keep trying to get a hold of RMW and see if they can find some info on the car and the tune.
There are two different ways that the car could have been tuned, in person or remotely.
If you're lucky it was remotely tuned with the above mentioned flash tuner, and there is a stored tune file with your VIN attached to it, somewhere in the more recent RMW archives, if it was done in person, recovery will probably be more difficult since many of the in person tunes were done longer ago, and required less stored info from your ECU.
​​​​​​ Make sure you're explaining your situation to them correctly and not just asking them for a file.

And as mentioned above, you may have to start from scratch, beginning with a reloaded factory map from the dealer for your VIN.
If this is the case, the only thing you'll really have to be sure of is the injector size, if they are not 330's or 380's, you'll need to buy and install a set of 330's before you go to the dealer, most other engine modifications can be dealt with by re-tuning from scratch after the factory tune has been reinstalled, but injector scaling isn't one of them.
​​​​​

 

Couple of things, first, when I flashed my ECU I: 1.) removed the fuse for the power steering pump that is on the bottom side of the engine area fuse/relay box, 2.) disconnected my headlights, and, 3.) had a battery charger connected that had a LED readout so I could monitor the charge.

Secondly, suggest you hook your dimsport back up after doing all the above and have a camera ready to take pictures of each step it tells you to do. You should see the "tunes" that are in the unit select and I am thinking they are in the order in which they were loaded. Post the pictures here before you do any more "flashing." Might just luck out.

 

 

 

 

Problem is, the parts car ECU is mated to the VIN of the parts car, and the same thing would have to be done to it as would have to be done to your original ECU, buy a dealer.

​​​​​​The two advantages to having the parts car are:
1) you have a spare ECU in case the other one is corrupted beyond repair (but it's probably not)
2) you should now have the injectors (and cam if yours is aftermarket) you need for a factory reset flash from a dealer, since it looks like the car has a set of 550cc injectors in it now.

If RMW can't help you, I would try and find out for sure if the cam is stock or not, if it isn't or you can't find out for sure, I'd swap the cam and injectors from the parts car, get a dealer to reflash the factory tune, once it's running again you can then simply retune with the big injectors and possibly cam as if you were simply adding them for the first time.

That's my suggestion.
​​​​​
​​​​

 

 

Did Revolution Motor Works ever get back with you?

On NAM, when you type a vendor's name in a post they are sent an alert.

 

Just don't forget to first change the injectors at the least. The car Will Not start or run with the factory tune and those injectors (the 550's)

Here's the deal with that. Injectors MUST HAVE the proper global fuel scaling from the MAP, the factory scaling is set up for either the 330's or 380's, anything larger and the global fuel scaling must be altered, which of course the dealer can't do.
As far as the cam, some cams will allow the car to at least run somewhat, on the factory tune, but some cams won't allow the engine to run at all without a map change. If that cam isn't stock, it will be a crap shoot whether the car will run with the factory map in it, and I'm sure the dealer will need to test that the newly loaded map is working.
All other mods that could have possibly been done shouldn't stop the car from running, map changes for those are strictly to make the car run "properly", with those mods.
​​​​​