S2 Chips

[zcacogp]

Chaps,

The rolling road thread has gone off topic in a number of directions, one of which was S2 chips. I managed to dig out an old eMail about this from the Titanic forum. (It was sent before I joined Titanic, although was re-posted last year.)

It is as follows:

From: EECTuner@aol.com
To: porsche944@titanic.co.uk
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2004 10:21:21 -0500
Subject: [Porsche944] Chips with everyting !!!
Hi Richard here (a.k.a EECTuner)

Firstly thanks to Andrew for his testing/report on the S2 chip.

Basically I supply remapped chips for (Early) Bosch Motronic ECU`s. I have all the equipment / software and a good understanding of the 'black art' of mappings and ASM code.

In the late eighties Bosch kindly supplied their ECU`s with a socketed holder for the mapping ECU .. this allowed the chippers to play without having to solder out the chip.

The earlier 944 ECU`s i.e before 1985.5 have a soldered in eprom (or 4) so chipping these is nearly impossible , saying that there were a few 84/985 ecus (0 261 200 006) that did have a connection .. now I have the chip for these but to be sure open your ecu to check !!

I started chipping after standing behind the guy in Superchips as he did mine ... he charged me £250 for 5 mins work and did not really understand what he was doing .. seemed like he was guessing !!! I was not impressed and asked for my money back..
So I set to work finding out how to do it myself ... by buying chips and comparing them to the original I found out what they were doing .. I even bought some form the US that detted so badly I took it straight out. Believe me chipping IS a 'black art' some guys say they can chip but cant even read the code.

Everyone seems happy with their chips (especially the Vauxhall NOVA owners ... more money than sense). Im not here to get rich quick but to have a hobby that makes some extra cash... and give people a much more reasonably priced alternative to the big name chippers.

As a 1988(E) 2.5ltr 944 owner myself, I have joined the mailing list too.

I have chips for most of the 944 range ... please see Ebay ad`s for details. If you buy direct from me I will give a discount i.e (£47.00 as opposed to £52.20).. So if you want this price DO NOT BID ON EBAY !!.

Basically I have;

Porsche 924 2.5ltr 1987-88 24pin
ECU NUMBER 0 261 200 077
Titanic price inc p&p £30
"good reviews .. people notice this is much smoother"

Porsche 944 2.5ltr 1985.5-87 24pin
ECU NUMBER 0 261 200 076
ECU NUMBER 0 261 200 077
Titanic price inc p&p £30


Porsche 944 2.5ltr 1988-89 28pin
ECU NUMBER 0 261 200 086
Titanic price inc p&p £30
" hey fitted to my car .. really does give it a lovely roar
under throttle .. the most heavily tested chip I have"


Porsche 944 2.7ltr 1988-89 28pin
ECU NUMBER 0 261 200 089
Titanic price inc p&p £30

Porsche 944 S2 3.0ltr 1988-90 28pin
ECU NUMBER 0 261 200 195
Titanic price inc p&p £47
" Andrews chip ... "


Porsche 944 Turbo 1985-87 24pin DME/KLR
Titanic price inc p&p £40
" now this is what I like to call a reverse engineered chip
from a large manufacturer who charge £500 for it"

Other ECU`s not on the list will require me to have the ECU
for a couple of days, I will pay for ALL postage if I cant
chip it.

Any questions dont hesitate to ask !!!

If you have a meet I`ll see you there !!!


Regards.
Richard (a.k.a EECTuner)
Blitzchip
mail EECTuner@aol.com

I have no connection with this chap, but it sounds like the Blitz Chip that Fen mentioned in his post on the RR thread.

Does anyone else have experience of chipping an S2?


Oli.

 

[Fen]

That's the guy.

BTW the dyno thread has remained spectacularly ON topic for this forum given the number of posts. Normally by that many we'd be talking about cheese or something.

 

[zcacogp]

Fen,

Thanks for the confirmation.

Re: On and Off Topic - yes, it remained on-topic for the discussion of power outputs and dynos in general. Given that I thought that specified topic was that of a meeting on a particular day, I would consider it to have wandered, although remained within the same general sphere.

Had it switched to cheese, or Imperial Russia, or possibly the internal workings of a jet engine, that would have been wildly off-topic. (Note - this is NOT an invite to talk about any of those topics here.)


Oli.

 

[xenon]

I'm guessing that "reverse engineered" is a euphamism for "copied". I wish I could make the Silverstone thingy - I could bring an Eprom burner. (purely for research purposes, of course [])

 

[zcacogp]

Damn - now that IS a good idea.

I don't have one, and have never used one, but I think I see where you are going with this!


Oli.

 

[Fen]

I know someone who has one... So do many of you in fact.

BTW I like blue cheeses best, but my time in Russia (after the Imperial days I have to admit) was devoid of such a thing as they seem to favour hard cheeses more like Cheddar in that part of the world.

 

[xenon]

Eprom programmers are as cheap as erm, chips.

Given the price that these custom chips sell for on eBay I suppose one could turn in a tidy profit by buying one and selling copies you make yourself. That's probably what many of these sellers do anyway - they're probably all copies of copies of copies. Difficult to prove copyright too, I should imagine.

I'm tempted to get one to reverse engineer and compare the contents with that of the standard map. I'm a bit of a nerd like that...

 

[zcacogp]

Hard Cheese, eh? I guess I should expect it if I start a thread like this, shouldn't I?

Ian - Hmmmm. I think we need to ask the question.

Is there anyone who is coming to the Silverstone day who has an EPROM reader and burner?



Oli.

 

[xenon]

I can send you mine - then if you can blag a copy of a proven S2 chip, we'll both be alright!

 

[Fen]

Make sure you know the number of your ECU; there atre at least 2 different ECU numbers used by the S2.

 

[zcacogp]

OK, from the list on the other forum there are going to be the following S2's there:

7) Graeme Burnett 944S2 cab
12) Mike Holmes 944S2
21) Neil Haughey 944S2/Saab
23) Mark Knight 944S2

Without going back and reading all their specs, I wonder how many of them have chips?

Also, if (as Fen says - thanks) there are two ECU numbers for S2's (are they interchangable?) then we'd need to find what our ECU numbers are and ensure that the chip we ... ahem, reverse engineer ... comes from a similarly-numbered car.

Although, does this matter? If you buy a chip, do they need to know your ECU number to match it up to? (The listing above from BlitzChip says of the S2 chip "ECU NUMBER 0 261 200 195" What if you have a different ECU number?


Oli.

 

[Fen]

Yes the number is important otherwise I wouldn't have mentioned it [8|]

It was because I had a different ECU number that I ended up helping Richard with R&D. From memory mine was 04 something rather than 02.

 

[xenon]

I'll find out the number of mine. Passenger side footwell somewhere, isn't it??

 

[zcacogp]

Fen,

OK, thanks. Apologies for doubting your wisdom!

So, ECU number is important ... hence I'll need to make sure what number is what IF I get a chip copied. (To be honest, I doubt I'll do so as it is a bit of a fiddle - I know that if I turned up at a RR day and some little oik asked if he could dismantle some part of my car to take a copy of a chip which I paid lots of cash for then I maybe wouldn't fall over myself to say "Yes.")

The fact that you helped with the development of a different number chip suggests that he must provide more than one - perhaps you and he developed the second one after the eMail from him was sent.


Oli.

 

[zcacogp]

Passenger side footwell, pull up the carpet, you'll find a peice of board. Remove this, you will find a large tin frame held in with four screws. Take this out, and on the back of it is mounted (amongst other things) the ECU.

Number is easily accessible.

I'll do the same.


Oli.

 

[xenon]

ORIGINAL: zcacogp
(To be honest, I doubt I'll do so as it is a bit of a fiddle - I know that if I turned up at a RR day and some little oik asked if he could dismantle some part of my car to take a copy of a chip which I paid lots of cash for then I maybe wouldn't fall over myself to say "Yes.")

Well quite. I thought you might try a more subtle approach! []

"Let me just check that chip out for you to make sure it has no erm, viruses or anything...." - use your imagination!

 

[Fen]

Perhaps you'd need to cross the palm of the owner with some silver to get a copy of the chip - someone my have copies already though. I'm not going to suggest who unless they choose to identify themselves.

My ECU was termed "458" by Richard and our correspondence started on 28 March 2004 - the day after the mail you posted was sent, Oli. We had the whole thing bottomed out by mid April and gentleman as he is Richard didn't list any chips on eBay while my Superchip was being listed so as not to compete against it.

 

[zcacogp]

Fen,

You clearly know more than you are currently letting on, and I respect your discretion.

Another point here ... by copying chips, we are infringing on the intellectual rights of the people who developed them.

Which is a bit naughty.

And if this chap Richard is the gentleman he sounds, I may feel a bit bad about it.

Hmmm.

Ian - imagination is not my forte. Sorry! (Why else do you think I ended up with such a dul username on here ... and on everywhere else, for that matter!)


Oli.

 

[Fen]

I'd contact Richard and see if he'll sell you one. Retail was £47 including insured postage when I bought mine (but I ended up paying £25 all in because of the R&D - he even included a £2 coin for return postage of the chip I didn't need). If he's still around then pay the man, if not then he's stopped doing it so you have a clearer run.

However that only goes for one of his chips - if you were to copy someone else's then you need to go through the same exercise with them to my mind.

 

[xenon]

Nor would I advocate ripping someone's hard work - I'm just betting that many of the chips sold are copies of copies etc., where the original author is somewhat distant. I agree that if this Richard chap has developed these maps himself then he's entitled to keeping them.