I purchased a backup set of F40 ECUs on Ebay. The part number on the outside (written in Euro handwriting) is: WE4F.07/50B.10 The number on the outside of my current ECUs in the car are: WE4F.07/50C.11 My car is a 91 US version. The ebay seller (which is Gemballa who is apparently race prepping a car and is replacing the ECUs) stated they were from a US F40. Any chance of hurting anything by swapping them out for a test?
Just from the looks of the Serials on the ECU's it appears that the versions they have are from an earlier car. This would corrolate well with the fact that your F40 is '91 car and likely has the latest or one of the most well developed ECU's put into the car during its lifetime. I don't know if damage would be done beacuse I don't know the difference between the ECU's. I'd try to find out what year the F40 is from. On a semi on topic note, perhaps people in tech section would be better versed than I. Best of Luck.
Steve, My car is a late '92 and has the C computor in it. My car will work with other computor assemblies, But will not work if I try to just change chips. Plug the new ECU's in and see what happens. If the car starts you will be fine. Let up know what the differences are in the way the car feels. Rick
Thanks, Rick. A while back I had a bad set of chips from Carobu (they re-made a set and sent them up with no hassle, tho). You're right - the car simply doesn't start if the chips are bad. I'll experiment a bit and let you guys know what I discover.
Steve, I would not plug a different ECU in my car unless I know what is loaded in it. Firing order, ignition timing, injection, fueling setup, turbo settings: boost, wastegate..... Your test run or even your first engine warm up might end up being very costly.
Steve, your F40 stores its Fuel/Air maps inside those ECU's on the 27C128 chip, which I can scan. I can show you the differences between the Fuel/Air maps from your 91 U.S. version F40 with the WE4F.07/50C.11 compared to the WE4F.07/50B.10 chipset, if you want to mail me your chips. If your F40 is running Motronic ECU's (or really, any flavor of Bosch), then I can graph out your Fuel/Air and Ignition Timing maps on those chips, in addition to showing the differences between the chips. This is by far the best way to know what each set of chips is doing to your engine. The pictures below are how some of those Fuel/Air and Ignition Timing maps look when graphed out from my 348 Spider's Motronic 2.7 system: Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Rick, that's interesting. That may explain why this pirate web site ( http://www.motorart.net/seaita/database/originali/FERI_F40.HTM ) makes such a big deal about the checksum. The F40 chips have a checksum of "EF96" It's possible that the F40 ECUs attempt to calculate that checksum prior to starting as a safety measure. If so, that would thwart many entry-level ECU programmers from modifying the Fuel/Air and Ignition Timing maps.
Actually, I have a GALEP chip scanner, so I will mail you the .bin file from my stock chips and the new one if you want. Would be extremely interesting to see some graphs comparing them! PM me your email address? Thanks! P.S. Just checked out your Web site. I also have a 94 348 Spider. GREAT choice in car, and your example looks well cared for. I also have some 348 ECU info that might interest you, but we better discuss that offline.
Have you considered programming your stock C series ECU for your speed run (with a chip checksum that will pass the startup verification routine)?
