The most expensive part of engine swapping; software. Why?
 

Hey all,

More of a learning question for me if any software engineers can help out.

Something interesting I was thinking about. It is unfortunate there really is no standard for software in terms of ecu software. Relating to engine swaps. The most expensive part of an engine swap on the 86 is software. The motec harness is like $5000. $5000?! For consumer software. Its honestly highway robbery. You can get an LSx for a couple grand... a T56 trans for another couple and its in the affordable realm. Plug the LS ECU in the 86 harness and the code would already translate and understand each other.

Why isn't it like how Microsoft has standards. You can successfully run a piece of software written in 1995 on windows 10.

I just dont understand it.

because every company wants their stuff to be proprietary, and/or not easily copied.

if everything talked to each other so easily, either 1) everyone is running the same piece of code (and someone is getting rich off it), or 2) we all drive the same cars.

I really don't think you should use Microsoft as a reference for "standards", unless your conception of a standard is a ship with swiss cheese holes all over the outside.

In 1995, the OBD2 standard was born from something similar to this.
Unfortunately, there is absolutely no competition, nor viability for them to decrease prices. There is a ton of work that goes into figuring this stuff out, and they'd like to be rewarded for the work on the rare occasion someone benefits from it.

Imagine if you were a one man team who made a harness and decided " HEY, I'm going to sell the CANBUS harness for using a H22 engine in a BRZ! Even the speedometer and fuel mileage functions will work!!"

After 4 months, you've done it. Every night after work, while your kids wonder where you are and your wife cries in the kitchen a you toil away, you promise them their sacrifices will be worth while. You register a domain and market your product. you're asking for $800 bucks because you want it to be fair.

9 months later, someone asks a question about your H22 swap harness.
"Hey bro, will this work on the H22A without Vtec?"
and you think to yourself "Shit, the motor I designed this for had VTEC. Uhh....maybe? Buy it and find out?"

2 years later and you still don't have a buyer, and you wasted months of your life and created a void in your family. BillyJo has daddy issues and your wife left you for Hank, the man who was mowing the lawn in your absence.



EDIT:: I just realized, I totally misunderstood what you were asking. You meant the software, not the work going into making it translate.. I'll leave my comment for humor. There is no standard because nobody wants there to be. Until people stop buying cars because of their software, it will continue to be a thing.

For argument sake lets say Chevrolet is Microsoft and Subaru/Toyota is Apple.
You can't run Windows application on Apple...
So...I don't know what you're complaining about exactly.
If you don't want to shell out big dollars for Motec just use the Chevrolet ECU like many of us have.

$5000 is pretty much the complete package with ecu/harness/license. If it was truly highway robbery then someone would be offering the same quality or better for cheaper.

Because it is hard to code :)

They're not making it for you, the clueless, cheap shadetree mechanic. They're making it for race teams that spend much bigger bucks and have high needs. Just go buy a corvette.

Bad analogy only because Microsoft software can be run on an Apple.

Mass market = Cheap


Niche market = Expensive

Software is hard. I know, it's my day job. CANBUS is a great standard, but each OEM has different designs that interface over CANBUS.

Here's a quick example of why things are expensive: As a consultant at my last company I was billed at about $150 an hour to produce A Thing in a given time period. That rate was then extended to every hour I'd provide ongoing maintenance and support. My simplest project was a three month affair, leading to $150 * 40 hours per week * 12 weeks = $72,000 for the production ready code. I then continued to provide dedicated support and enhancements over the next 6 months at the same rate (Total $144,000 for support)

That total of $216,000 was small beans for the company that paid for it. That's also a relatively normal contract rate in the software industry.

Now you can argue that the devs working on a Motec unit aren't being billed that high, but they likely are making $200,000 a year across the board because ECUs are on the extremely complex and highly optimized end of the software scale. That means to pay a single person to keep up with supporting all the platforms, enhancing the features, and ensuring you can plug an LSx into a Subaru CANBUS (Or pretty much anything, Motec is really good about proprietary systems) it would take 40 people/teams per year buying their systems at $5,000 per unit to cover a single dev working 2080 hours a year (Standard 40 hour work week.)

There's more than just one guy though, so you have to scale that number over a relatively small and highly competitive market. That's why it costs so much. This is the same reason a high quality racing suspension is $2k on the low end, vs consumer setups starting under $1k. It's the same reason a high end guitar costs thousands vs a cheap beginner guitar costing $200. You're paying for quality. Accepting a little compromise can really lower the cost across the board, but then the AC doesn't work in your car.

When this movie comes out on Netflix I'm watching it! :thumbsup:

I guess I should have worded it better but still can’t run Windows application on Mac OS.

I have Word and Excel on my Mac :word::iono:

That's even creepier ...