Ecu swappable? Potentially locked ecu

[kill3rwill]

Hey guys, just picked up a 13 brz 6 speed yesterday. I have a wrx as well and tune myself using romraider/ecuflash/tactrix etc. So I go to flash the OFT stage 1 and get an error. Pulls the Vin, ecu code etc, hits the seed prompt and then exits. Previous owner swares it was never modded/tuned so I'm hoping this is a connection error with my tactrix. Im running all the newest ecuflash versions, drivers, xml's etc. So I'm left with either a loose obd port, or a locked ecu. My first question is can I swap ecu's on these cars without anything needing to be flashed at the dealer? I can swap between any 16 bit ecu on my wrx and from what I can gather it's the same here as the Vin is not located in the ecu, but I'm not sure about crossing into the immobilizer. So I can find a used ecu for a reasonable amount, can I just slap it in, tune it and be good to go? I'll update if I can flash it in a few hours when I'm off work, only tried once late last night. Sorry for the sentence structure, on my phone!

[kill3rwill]

Just an update, I was able to flash it this time. I had tried to flash it without waiting atleast 15 seconds, so I think that was the issue, in the wrx world you have to turn the ignition on and hit OK as soon as you hit flash, only a few second window, so this is kind of the opposite! I also found info that you can swap ecu's in the cars, you just need to register the key with it, which includes jumping 2 obd pins and waiting 30 minutes with the key in the ignition/fob in the car. Other than that the 13-15 ecus should be swappable, atleast with manuals

[steve99]

Originally Posted by kill3rwill

Just an update, I was able to flash it this time. I had tried to flash it without waiting atleast 15 seconds, so I think that was the issue, in the wrx world you have to turn the ignition on and hit OK as soon as you hit flash, only a few second window, so this is kind of the opposite! I also found info that you can swap ecu's in the cars, you just need to register the key with it, which includes jumping 2 obd pins and waiting 30 minutes with the key in the ignition/fob in the car. Other than that the 13-15 ecus should be swappable, atleast with manuals

Did yoy actually swap an 86\brz ecu using that proceedure ?

[kill3rwill]

No, I was able to use the factory ecu without switching. I was considering that as an alternative incase my ecu was locked. But I gathered that info from various posts on here and romraider, a guy swapped in a 2015 ecu into his 2013, loaded with the 2015 tune and it ran, albeit in limp mode due to a code which slips my mind, but he was able to delete the code with romraider and it ran like normal. He did this without any dealer interaction, so that tells me there is no immobilizer/Vin code locking in the ecu. It controls the motor and nothing but.