someone I know asked me a question regarding the replacement of an ECU? any idea of the cost? do they have a certain life expectancy? do they get replaced, repaired or "reflashed"? thanks in advance.
You can buy replacement 360 ECUs or upgrade to the CS ECU or you can have your OEM units reflashed to change timing, fueling etc to give your car improved performance.
I was told by an Independent Shop that each car (360) has two ECU's (engine can be considered as two 4 cylinder engines mated together) and that the cost is USD $11k new. Not sure if that was each or a pair.
My 1999 360 Modena ecu's (2) were sent back to Ferrari in 2008 for software update. This is in the car's service records.
I'm not sure if each ecu controls each 4 cylinder bank or if one is a backup ecu which is my best guess.
I've had the ECUs in my 360 tuned (gained about 10kw atw, and averaging about 20-30% less fuel usage). They're situated within the engine bay behind the panels on each side of the car (close to the firewall). If you need to replace the ECUs, check the wreckers. They usually sell them for around the $1k mark for each ecu. Cheers,
ECUs are solid state and are designed to last the life of the vehicle. Its not uncommon to see a 500K car with factory installed ECUs. I have driven about 1M miles in total and never lost one. The odds for a 360/430 to have an ECU failure is roughly 200% higher / mile than a normal automobile because it has two ECUs. But the miles driven are much less, about 1/5th. So the 200% is factored down to 40% of a normal automobile.
Any long term damage to the engine if I were to reflash it to boost additional hp & torque? Say 360 spider ori 400 remap to 425,440. Tq for the feedback.
To answer your questions. Replacing the ECU(s) is not difficult. you have to remove some of the engine heat shielding. The difficulty lies in the immobilizer system inside the ECU, you can not just purchase ECUs from another car and plug them in and away you go. They would have to be programmed. And yes as someone mentioned before, on the 360 there are two seperate ECUs (they are identical however) that control each bank, they do communicate with each other via the can bus. They are the ME7.3 series ECUs ECUs will usually out live most other components in the car. Its rare that a bosch ECU fails, but its certainly a possibility as with anything. If he is certain the ECU is at fault, Id almost advise having the ECU Circuit board looked at before spending the large cost for another one. When ecu circuitry does fail often its inexpensive components that can be replaced at a fraction for replacing the ecu. You can find used ones online, depending upon your luck, from 800-1500 usually. Do you know the specific problem?
It all comes down to how decent the mapping is on that reflash you choose, if done right it will have no long term damage to the engine what so ever. When my company reflashes an ECU, Ideally I prefer to tune each car on my dyno, which is a way we can fine tune each car directly to get the most potential specific to the parameters we are looking for, but that doesnt always happen due to geographic limitations. However most companies offer what we call "canned tunes" which is a generic tune for multiple cars. Often they are safe, because they have to make them conservative because they wont even set eyes on the car, you're simply sending in your ECUs. Its important to know a bit about your vehicle, IE. modifications/fuel type/etc. If you're running say 91 octane out in california, its important that the ECU not be programmed with a tune that is designed for race gas. If you have any more specific questions, please let me know and I'll be happy to answer. Regards, Mase
Depends on the shop and what hardware/software they used to get them tuned. Make sure you find someone who's experienced and reputable. There's two ways to tune, one is via the OBD port and the other is to remove the two ECUs (how I got mine done). Some people might balk at removing the ECUs, but as long as care is taken, it's not a problem. Gave me an excuse to clean away all the dirt and crap covering the ECUs. I had my car on the dyno, did some runs and then had the removed ECUs plugged into a device, which is plugged into a PC. Rinse/repeat until the tune matches my requirements. My primary tune request was to maximise torque at low/mid range and to reduce fuel consumption for road use, within a safe tolerance level. Got what I wanted and I'm a happy camper. Hope the info helps.
Its not a requirement to get the ECU reflashed after a modification such as an Exhaust, however its always a good idea to be tuned specifically for those modifications, and you will achieve the most out of the engine this way. The factory ecu's look at the mass air flow meter, it will know if the engine is consuming more airflow. As for the flashing process. On the 360's the ecu's have to be removed, Im not aware of any aftermarket tuner who can flash the 360 through serial programming via obd2 port. We have a special connector when flashing the 360 ME ECU. Pictured here: Normally for a full custom tune, the ECU's are accessed. the car is up on the dyno, and when we want to make changes, we just unplug the ECU and flash them with that connector, takes a couple minutes to do, not difficult. Its nice not to have to open up the ECU into pieces! The 430 tuning procedure is much easier. It can be done directly through the obd2, so you do not need to remove the ECUs (unless you send the ecus in for a mail order tune obviously you will then need to remove them). In the picture here you can see where Ive hooked up to the obd2 port under the dash when tuning this 430. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Well I have stradale Ecu's If someone is interested. They will give a standard 360 an extra 20hp I guess...
Well that F430 picture looks familiar Still runs like a champ with the Mase Engineering Tune and sounds wicked with the straight pipes!
Looking at your profile (New Jersey), I did a Google search a while back and I remember a figure of around $1699 USD or something similiar (that was months ago) for 360s in the US. You have to remove the ECUs yourself and send it to them. They then flash it and then resend it back to you. I got mine done locally in Melbourne Australia, with dyno time and so I can't estimate a comparative figure for you. As a benchpark figure, I would say a tune like this would cost between $1k to $2k USD for a 360 due to the tedious task of dyno/remove ecu (if you're short, it makes it harder)/tune/replace ecu/<repeat process>, until the required results are achieved. I had my base maps stored and backed-up, incase I need to reset it back to factory settings (for whatever reason I can't think of yet). The connectors which MaseEngineering has, looks very identical to the one my local workshop uses. Those special connector leads from Italy are $$$$ I'm not affiliated with MaseEngineering in anyway but his reply is spot on. From his posting, I'm confident of his abilities, so why not give him a try if he's geographically closeby to you in the US. (My geography sux real bad.. so please be gentle). Good luck.
Resurrecting this post to ask about removing the immobiliser. I have purchased ECUs from a different engine. Is the re-programming tricky? Cheers, Wal
Honestly the easiest thing for you would probably be to have your nearest Ferrari Dealership program the immobilizer for you. Turning the immobilizer off is probably possible, but I do not have experience with doing so on these ECUs unfortunately. Sorry I could not be further help to you!
