Look what came in the post for me today...



A complete chip burning system, and chip (the blue part in the middle).

Only thing missing now, is the ECU reader part (on backorder) so I can get some ECU dumps to play with.

If things go to plan I hope to be able to offer chips (to standard tunes) for very little $ (for example you have a GLi and want an XR tune, or copper tune, but can't find a replacement ECU). Custom tunes will cost more.

sneek peek:


Chip installed.

ECU Dumps:
6DBD - EL I6 Auto
6DNB - EL I6 Auto (Cop)
6TEE - EL I6 Tickford Auto (XR6/Ghia)
6DMA - NL Fairlane Auto (I6 XR motor)
* More Coming soon

Wanted:
???? - EL I6 Auto SA (South African)
More? Let me know you're catchcode and model/type.

(note: if someone wants to give me a XR8/GT to test on, I'll do chips for 8 bangers too)

April 2006 Update
I've cracked the speed limiter and rev limiter

From my EXPERIENCE the following are correct:
6DBD (stock EL) 180KM/H limited and 5700RPM limited
6BNB (cop EL) 210KM/H* limited and 5700RPM limited (*not unlimited as many believe)
6TEE (XR6) 180 KM/H limited and 5700RPM limited
6DMA (Fairlane) 170KM/H limited and 5700RPM limited (I guess because of the longer tailshaft)

Mine is now 255KM/H limited (which I think disables it altogether, but I don't think I'll be seeing more than 255 even on a dyno) and 6250RPM limited. Will get some dyno time soon, see how much more I can pull over the 150.9RWKW I got with the stock 180/5700 limits. On road test (in 1st) shows it still pulls hard to the new 6250 limit - good news for power I think.

Now I need to do auto shift points so I can make use of the extra RPM without having to drive manually.

Code compatiblity, all 4 ECUs have the speed limiter adn rev limiter in the same place in the code (yay, makes things easy for others - I hope). Howver the 6DMA is more than 50% byte for byte different to the other three (yes even the XR one) which diff by only around 200 bytes (out of 57344bytes in total).

May 2006 Update
I WON'T be removing people speed limiters, I had a major failure on the dyno tonight.
See: http://www.fordmods.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=27962

June 2006 Update
Base Idle Speed. Phew. Now I no longer have the ECU fighting against teh idel set screw (on the throttle body) to keep my monster RPD cam turning over. Set the idle in the ECU to 900 and it works.


Keep Watching

Last edited by data_mine on Sat Jun 03, 2006 12:29 am, edited 4 times in total.

im confused, are you saying you can make your own chips? or can you tune different chips (chiptorque for example)

He can make his own chips. Well, that is can reprogram the chip which he has.

The important thing for boys and girls to note is that he is taking steps towards 'cracking' the data contained in the EL ECU. Well, its not like its encrypted... he's taking steps towards figuing out what part of the data does what....

Which, once completed, makes it much easier for boys and girls to program their own



Watching with keen interest data mine.

i'd love a nice clean XR tune for mine suited to the cam/exhaust etc, would it be possible to tune it to near perfect AF ratios and that, cause my car runs real rich and i've no idea how to fix it

Yeah, that's the hard bit, as everyone knows theres next to zero support for aussie ford EECs around. And forking out $x,000 for a chiptouque/unichip doesn't appeal to me, no do I want to have to reinvent the wheel starting from scratch with something like a motec replacment.

But as I'm more computer hacker than grease monkey, so once I get the last bit, I'll dump my two ECUs and start comparing code differences so I know what differences the results should be.

When done I should be able to sell chips to people well under half the price of a chiptorque or unichip. Now if someone has one of these, and doesn't mind me copying it, I'm sure it'd help greatly too.

Watching keenly too.

i'm assuming this will go to covering more than just EL's? specifically, EF's?

Eventually. AS 4.9EF mentioned, someone has to 'crack' the code so tos peak of the aussie EECs. With the exception of tuning places like uni/chip/torque and they aren't to helpful with details, no ones done it. There's plenty of support out there for the EEC4/5 used in Mustangs, so I'm not shooting blind, just at a different really small target that's around a corner.

I'm starting on EL's well because I got one, and two becasue if I can get a bunch of EL dumps I can compare them, thus ruling out all the program code from the dumps, so only the tuning info will be left, then it'll be a matter of figuring out what does what.

sigh, this is gonna be a mamoth task, don't expect it to be done in weeks. FordForums have had a thread along these lines promising everythign to everyone, and last I checked, its now only avaialble to AUs, and is still many months away. I'm starting small.

I'll probably end up driving to work one day stuck to 80 cause I was playing with the speed limited! or having to pull out the chip on the side of the road because the engine won't start. Should be fun

I'd just like to point out a common misconception.. the Unichip isnt a chip, like the Powertorque chip.. it doesnt plug into the J3 Service port or anything similar.. It is a seperate computer which sits in between the engines sensors, and the ECU. It intercepts the signals to/from the ECU and changes them in a manner to acheive the desired outcome without the ECU knowing about it.

sounds awesome mate, will you be able to tune ecu's for forced induction application? or is that a bit out of its limits??? i got no idea, im more of a grease monkey than a computer wizz...lol

jeebus, your keen data mine - best of luck with it thou!
No doubt it will be many late nights and many drinks/laughs n crys lol..

I cant wait to see some of the results you start to observe, 10/10 mate!

If he can follow the footsteps of the TwEECer, with the Aussie EEC's in mind, yes, its possible. I'd assume things like that are years away.

The major purpose of this would be to copy existing ECU's that are available, and making MINOR mods, such as shift points, removing speed/rev limiter, etc. What would take alot of time would be creating an interface, and working exactly how to do full tuning work on the ECU's. If youre looking for that kind of scope, TwEECer or an aftermarket system is probably a better bet.

Although, maybe data_mine will have something to say about that

Well a number of EEC strategies are cracked but you wont get any info on them because to companies which have doen it won't let the data out. The thing you have to understand is that although chiptorque and the like are expensive, the main cost is to cover the huge amount of time involved with cracking the EEC.

BTW, just comparing the difference in binary dumps from 2 EECs is unlikely to get you very close to cracking them as they there are thousands of tiny changes between even similar EECs. I know the US guys have been working on A9L (the standard mustang EECIV computer) support for 5 or so years and its only getting towards full support now, but you don't need full support for most engines anyway. I run a Tweecer edit on my aussie EECIV and have the ability to edit 17 maps, 56 tables and 91 scalars with probably around 1500 or more individual parameters amongst them, and that is only partial support. Good luck getting through all that code but as you can see (and probably already know) it is a massive job.

Interesting, good luck, you could make squillions if you crack it.

Yeah just to add to EDXR8's comments.... once one EL code is cracked, this will assist in the cracking of others, but wont make the job easy.

As anyone who has seen the threads on FF will realise, there is so many EEC variants out there (catch codes).

i.e. EF GLi, EL GLi, fairmonts, fairlanes, xrs... and i believe that ford changed the catch code in each model roughly every six months... so, from 1995 to 1998... each variant.... and then we move onto the 8s... as one can see, the number of permutations is quite large.

These need 'defining' seperately (obviously data mine would be focusing on the EEC in his car...)... i.e. need to be able to tell the tuning software which part of the binary code relates to which function of the EEC.