Quote:
Originally Posted by Special_K
While I respect companies wanting to protect what they create, I really don't think laws like what's being proposed are going to stop anyone, all it will do in the end is make criminals out of the lot of us.
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It may not stop everybody, but it will become much more difficult across the board and stop most people. If it's illegal to access or modify the ECU, then companies won't even try because that opens them up to liabilities. So there go companies like ECUtek and Openflash, two of the most widely used and easiest to use tuning solutions for our cars.
Piggyback chips might squeak in under the law, because they don't modify the ECU itself, only the signals coming in and out of the ECU. But they're not as flexible or user-friendly as the two listed above. A standalone ECU such as MOTEC or Hydra EMS bypasses the law completely, but that's a much higher price tag and is much more complicated for basic users who just want a stage 1 or 2 reflash and maybe launch control.
Look at tuning solutions for the Toyota Tundra. There are a few piggyback chips that are iffy on what you get, and there are complete ECU swaps. There is no middle ground, because the ECU is so tightly locked down.