ECU seems to be locked, and tools to unlock it?

[Chickeneatman]

Hello, this thread isn't about my car, but a close friend's. They have a 2015 turbo FRS and we want to make some changes to the tune. I have tried to read their ECU with my OFT and also the Tactrix OpenECU. Both systems are able to pull the calibration ID and VIN etc. but neither are actually able to read the ECU. Both of these work on my 2013 "stage 2" FRS.

They don't know who originally tuned the car so unfortunately we can't just contact the tuner and figure out if they locked it.

I know on some DSMs and the EVO 8 (and 9?) it is common for tuners to lock the ECUs and there are some tools to unlock them. Does that exist for the FRS?

I know one option is to just overwrite the tune with a new one, but we would really like to have the current tune which works in case we screw it up.

Any ideas? Thanks

[steve99]

Originally Posted by Chickeneatman

Hello, this thread isn't about my car, but a close friend's. They have a 2015 turbo FRS and we want to make some changes to the tune. I have tried to read their ECU with my OFT and also the Tactrix OpenECU. Both systems are able to pull the calibration ID and VIN etc. but neither are actually able to read the ECU. Both of these work on my 2013 "stage 2" FRS.

They don't know who originally tuned the car so unfortunately we can't just contact the tuner and figure out if they locked it.

I know on some DSMs and the EVO 8 (and 9?) it is common for tuners to lock the ECUs and there are some tools to unlock them. Does that exist for the FRS?

I know one option is to just overwrite the tune with a new one, but we would really like to have the current tune which works in case we screw it up.

Any ideas? Thanks

If its forced induction and you cannot read ecu with oft or tactrix, it very likely its an ecutek tuned car. Unfortunatly it also possible its brzedit but less likely.


If you know somone with an ecutek cable they can do a Query Ecu for you and it will tell you if its ecutek tuned as it will tell you if ecutek licience present in ecu.


If it says no licience then it brzedit.


Also most ecutek tunes will have multiple maps. Switched via cruise control, start xar the with cruse control off, puul cruise stalk towards you for a couple of seconds if tacometer jumps to 1000,2000,300,4000 then its ecutek tuned.




If its ecutek or brzedit you wont be able to read out rhe current tune or alter current tune, all you could do is write a complete new tune to car. This is evwn if you have brzedit or ecutek cables. Both systems the tune and ecu is locked.


To unlock you need to flash back a stock tune with the correct tune system.


If its ecutek you might as well stick with ecutek as the licience in ecu is worth $300, and its a good system for forced induction.


http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=106068

[Chickeneatman]

We finally had a chance to try the cruise control thing last night. No luck. We were able to confirm that delicious tuning has locked the ECU. They also refuse to unlock it. We don't know what software or devices were used to tune it. Going to try some tools to unlock the ECU tonight. If the tools we found don't work then we will attempt to make our own. We both have programming experience so we will see if we can make an ECU unlocker. I find it absolutely ridiculous that tuners find it necessary to lock an ECU. It is one thing if this was some super high end one off car/tune, but it isn't.

I'll update with what we find.

[Fred E]

Originally Posted by Chickeneatman

We finally had a chance to try the cruise control thing last night. No luck. We were able to confirm that delicious tuning has locked the ECU. They also refuse to unlock it. We don't know what software or devices were used to tune it. Going to try some tools to unlock the ECU tonight. If the tools we found don't work then we will attempt to make our own. We both have programming experience so we will see if we can make an ECU unlocker. I find it absolutely ridiculous that tuners find it necessary to lock an ECU. It is one thing if this was some super high end one off car/tune, but it isn't.

I'll update with what we find.

If Delicious tuned the car, it will certainly be via Ecutek. It's unlikely you'll be able to do anything to pull the tune file off, and even more unlikely that you'd be able to unlock it yourself to make changes. Delicious might be able to provide you with the final tune file of the prior owner and even make the revisions to that file that you want if you pay their re-tuning fee. They have no obligation to unlock the tune for you to make changes yourself because that would reveal whatever proprietary tuning settings/tables they use. Have you tried asking them if they'd revise the tune to your expectations if you paid their re-tuning fee? Alternatively, you could purchase an Ecutek tune from someone else or purchase the Ecutek tune-it-yourself package.

[mrjj]

Try contacting this guy. He seem to have cracked the Ecutek key seed:
https://m.facebook.com/logged_out/wa...80048265414396


Edit:

You can probably overwrite (unlock) the ECU using this method:
https://www.tactrix.com/index.php?op...pair&Itemid=41

[Chickeneatman]

Originally Posted by Fred E

If Delicious tuned the car, it will certainly be via Ecutek. It's unlikely you'll be able to do anything to pull the tune file off, and even more unlikely that you'd be able to unlock it yourself to make changes. Delicious might be able to provide you with the final tune file of the prior owner and even make the revisions to that file that you want if you pay their re-tuning fee. They have no obligation to unlock the tune for you to make changes yourself because that would reveal whatever proprietary tuning settings/tables they use. Have you tried asking them if they'd revise the tune to your expectations if you paid their re-tuning fee? Alternatively, you could purchase an Ecutek tune from someone else or purchase the Ecutek tune-it-yourself package.

I understand they have no obligations, and I have no interest in paying someone else to tune my car, when I am fully capable. I would just like to have the original tune in case something does get screwed up in the process. I also don't want to pay for even more tuning supplies when I already have an OFT and a Tactrix cable. I do appreciate the response, but the bigger point here is to open up the ECU and use the open source tools. I have spent enough money at this point and just want to use the tools I have and the knowledge available.

It is unlikely that I will be successful in unlocking the ECU. That being said, I am willing to try. Nothing would ever get done if everyone ran away when success was "unlikely"

My goal, once we have this figured out is to share what we have learned and make it available to anyone here that wants to tune their own cars. The Tactrix is a very powerful tool; it just has a very steep learning curve.

[Chickeneatman]

Originally Posted by mrjj

Try contacting this guy. He seem to have cracked the Ecutek key seed:
https://m.facebook.com/logged_out/wa...80048265414396


Edit:

You can probably overwrite (unlock) the ECU using this method:
https://www.tactrix.com/index.php?op...pair&Itemid=41

I would thank your post, but I don't have that ability yet! I did try contacting that guy, we will see if that goes anywhere. I would like to first see if I can unlock the ECU without overwriting the current tune. If I give up on unlocking I will be overwriting it, but I haven't gotten that desperate yet!

Thanks for the links!

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by Chickeneatman

We finally had a chance to try the cruise control thing last night. No luck. We were able to confirm that delicious tuning has locked the ECU. They also refuse to unlock it. We don't know what software or devices were used to tune it. Going to try some tools to unlock the ECU tonight. If the tools we found don't work then we will attempt to make our own. We both have programming experience so we will see if we can make an ECU unlocker. I find it absolutely ridiculous that tuners find it necessary to lock an ECU. It is one thing if this was some super high end one off car/tune, but it isn't.

I'll update with what we find.

You don't need to "unlock" it. You can overwrite what is on there with any ecutek cable/dongle.

[steve99]

As above mike is correct, if its ecutek tuned you can simply overwrite the current ecutek tune using any ecutek cable.


You can overwtite it with a stock tune to unlock ecu.


Or overwrite it with another ecutek tune you create yourself ot from any other ecutek tuner.


What Deliceous was likly saying is they wont unlock the current tune thats in ecu ie give you a copy of that tune you could see or edit. That pretty well what most ecutek tuners will say.


But its easy to overwrite tune or unlock ecu with any ecutek cable kit


Please note there is i difference vetween unlocking the tune and unlocking the ecu.


If you want an unlocked forced induction ecutek tune that you could edit then contact James at HRI tuning, he is one of the very few ecutek tuners that doesnt lock tunes.

[Chickeneatman]

Alright guys I understand. I misspoke. I want to unlock the tune. It is my opinion that when a tune is paid for, that it should be unlocked. I don't believe in locking hardware.

I thought I had made it clear that my intention is to read the ECU, but clearly I did not say enough that I do not want to overwrite the current tune. I want to modify the current tune.

Thanks

[churchx]

Then it's upto dececision who locked your tune, if they will be willing to resupply you with same tune but non locked. Most wont. It's known, it's how they protect their work against copying, live with that.
You can only keep using current as is, pay extra same tuner to do wished changes/revisions to tune as you need (still locked new changed too), or install open unlocked tune without all the changes/work done in existing one, requiring for work to be done anew.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Chickeneatman

Hello, this thread isn't about my car, but a close friend's. They have a 2015 turbo FRS and we want to make some changes to the tune. I have tried to read their ECU with my OFT and also the Tactrix OpenECU. Both systems are able to pull the calibration ID and VIN etc. but neither are actually able to read the ECU. Both of these work on my 2013 "stage 2" FRS.

They don't know who originally tuned the car so unfortunately we can't just contact the tuner and figure out if they locked it.

I know on some DSMs and the EVO 8 (and 9?) it is common for tuners to lock the ECUs and there are some tools to unlock them. Does that exist for the FRS?

I know one option is to just overwrite the tune with a new one, but we would really like to have the current tune which works in case we screw it up.

Any ideas? Thanks

Originally Posted by Chickeneatman

I understand they have no obligations, and I have no interest in paying someone else to tune my car, when I am fully capable. I would just like to have the original tune in case something does get screwed up in the process. I also don't want to pay for even more tuning supplies when I already have an OFT and a Tactrix cable. I do appreciate the response, but the bigger point here is to open up the ECU and use the open source tools. I have spent enough money at this point and just want to use the tools I have and the knowledge available.

It is unlikely that I will be successful in unlocking the ECU. That being said, I am willing to try. Nothing would ever get done if everyone ran away when success was "unlikely"

My goal, once we have this figured out is to share what we have learned and make it available to anyone here that wants to tune their own cars. The Tactrix is a very powerful tool; it just has a very steep learning curve.

Originally Posted by Chickeneatman

Alright guys I understand. I misspoke. I want to unlock the tune. It is my opinion that when a tune is paid for, that it should be unlocked. I don't believe in locking hardware.

I thought I had made it clear that my intention is to read the ECU, but clearly I did not say enough that I do not want to overwrite the current tune. I want to modify the current tune.

Thanks

There is something very shady about this whole thing.

[Chickeneatman]

Not sure what you are saying is shady. I have a friend, well my girlfriend actually that has a turbo FRS. We want to change the tune on her car. I would rather not start from scratch.

Once I found out it is common place for tuners to lock the ECUs I made it a goal of mine to figure out how to unlock the tune. We both have backgrounds in computer science. I think with some messing around that we may be able to figure it out.

Her car works, we just have some small things we want to change. If we can figure it out, I would like to provide the tools to unlock ECUs to the masses. I find it ridiculous that someone can pay for a tune, and then they aren't allowed to touch it after that.

I understand they don't want their work to be copied, but anyone building their own car should be getting a custom tune anyway.

I have already learned a lot about how these ECU work in the past few days. This is honestly a long term project. I am just trying to get the gears turning ahead of time.

Anyway, this is getting completely off-topic. If you know of any way to unlock a tune please help out.

[churchx]

Well, if you have backgrounds in IT, probably have heard about EULAs, which, believe me or not, supposed to be binding legal contracts, even if reading was quick pgdowns to scroll and enter to dismiss. I'm more then sure that one buying tune, even if was too lazy for that, was informed by shop, what exactly he buys, with what features/possibilities, what he can or cannot do and what exactly tuning shop selling tune must provide and what is upto their goodwill to provide.

"I bought this copy of photoshop, paid for it". "It must be opensourced, so i with my coding skills can modify even more and sell as product renamed to uberpaint, at 1/4th the price of PS, or even release it for free!!" Well, Adobe may have different view on that, and might have different things what's in their best business interests, no matter what customer may wish or expect/request them from their product. And you cannot fault them for not quietly doing anything what you may which/request, all you can do is vote with your valet to get their product or not.

As for unlocking possibility, i'm pretty sure that even if there had been a way for someone via eg. some unofficial vendor alternative encryption key set to hack around/unlock locked tune, then it's in interests of ecutek as vendor and tuning shops choosing/using it exactly for there to not be publicly known such possibility. Locking/encryption feature might be not the only one/main one, tuning shops stick to ecutek as tuning solution, but it is used feature due existence of which many shops may have chosen this platform aswell. So i doubt that even if someone knew how to unofficially crack locked ecutek tunes, that he would share such nfo, be it from ecutek themselves, be it from some tuning shop or be it some hacker that found some weakness/vulnerability and found ways around .. waiting to be hit with legal action, once publishes that nfo in open public. Be it due DMCA or whatever else alike.