Hondata mod - a warning
A quick “heads up” to the K20A2 builders out there, looking to use the OEM ECU with a Hondata modification.
I sent my, believed to be working ECU, to one of the UK agents for modification. Before sending it I spoke with the agent, confirmed the price, and turnaround - I was told the modification would take “about a week”. My ECU was sent on the 13th Feb, and was received by them on the 15th.
After a number of calls to chase up the ECU, once the week expired, I eventually got the ECU back on the 2nd March. I was pretty pleased to have it back, as I thought I’d finally get my engine started, and I’d pass one of the major milestones. Unfortunately this wasn’t to be; Upon plugging my ECU into my loom, and connecting the laptop to upload a map, all wasn’t as it should be, and I found myself unable to upload to the ECU. I tried 3 other computers, and a couple of cables, to be as certain as possible it wasn’t a PC issue, but alas to no avail.
I then thought, perhaps, despite checking and double checking many a time, that my loom was wired incorrectly. To satisfy myself I hadn’t overlooked something when I first put my loom together (the best part of a month previous), I checked all the input / outputs. Everything was fine.
After the weekend I contacted the modifying agent, and explained my difficulties, and they said to send the ECU back. I did this, and they received it on the 7th March. I was called and the agent confirmed they experienced an identical problem when they installed the ECU in their EP3 Civic Type-R. The assumption then made was that the socketing (for the Hondata daughterboard) was most probably faulty, so the agent said they’d send it back to the company they use for the hardware modification, and that I should expect a conclusive report early the following week.
It’s now the 27th March, and despite numerous calls, I’m still without an ECU, and haven’t a clue when I might have an ECU I can use. To say I’m disappointed is an understatement - I’ve spent £750, and as far as I’m concerned it’s taken the best part of 2 months to achieve nothing but waste time checking wiring, and making seemingly pointless phonecalls.
In retrospect I missed a couple of tricks, so if you send your ECU away to be modified make sure you insist upon the following:
- your ecu is tested and confirmed serviceable BEFORE any hardware modifications are made – it transpires the agent I sent my ECU did NOT check my ECU! Furthermore, when pressed, I discovered the agent had no way of checking an ECU sent to them! My engine was clearly running just prior to the donor being written off, and it wasn’t a flood damaged car – I can see no reason to suspect the ECU is dud.
- your ecu is tested post modification, and that it is sent with the map you require uploaded, and any features disabled that you require disabling.
Arguably a prudent firm would have carried out these checks as a matter of course, so that leaves me to suggest you choose your agent carefully!
A slight rant I concede, but the whole episode has truly annoyed the hell out of me, and it’d be a shame for someone else to follow my example and join me bashing my head against a brick wall!
Cheers,
John.
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