The ecu used for most PnP adaptronics is the same, earlier the 420, now the 440. I believe that the 1280 which has far more outputs and inputs is used as PnP on some cars which have 8 cylinders etc that the 440 can never possibly be used.
The 440 is used on ALL mx5 models because it
can run all mx5's and its cheap to produce. This doesnt mean its actually good on ALL models of mx5.
So your ecu on your na6 is the same internally as the ecu used on NB8B. NB8B has far more functions to run than an NA6, and the 440 just doesnt have as many outputs as the car has functions. This lowers the cars features as compared to stock, and makes it run improperly in many cases.
So basically im saying that your na6 will run on a 420 or 440 with features to spare but an NB8B especially a turbo one like an SE SP or aftermarket turbo NB8B is actually underfeatured and wont run properly in many cases and infact does need loom mods.
Let me give you some "Just not good enough" examples.
Example 1, cut straight from the MX5SP manual, but its the same for any NB8B with a turbo. It literally says to cut the VVT control wire, run +12V power (from where?) backwards up an earth and use the VVT output for boost control. How is this PnP? Its like this because the adaptronic PnP for this model is underfeatured in terms of hardware for this application, but if you do this it 'works'.
~Direct comment to StillIC, on your NA6 this isnt an issue because you dont need these features to run your model.
Heres another example. They have to do this because the ecu hardware chosen for this model doesnt have enough hardware to run the fans one at a time like the stock ecu can. So theyre forced to pin the same output to both fans and run both fans at once. This is far too much load at once for a stable idle so it stalls the car. It would be possible for the fan output to first idle up the car and to compensate with alternator control like ~haltech, MSPnP etc but it doesnt. instead the tuned the software to pulse the fans on and off so the ecu can see the idle drop a bit at a time and automatically compensate with aggressive closed loop functions. The result is the engine cycling up and down and the headlights cycling bright then dim and if youre trying to take off or drive sensibly in a carpark at low speed thats affected too.
Here is a screenshot straight out of the manual.
Once youve got the loom cut and spliced and understand that the fan control isnt really good enough for stock fans let along upgraded ones you get to the extras that 95% of people want such as an aftermarket wideband sensor seeing as the ecu (and most aftermarket ecus cannot either) cannot drive the stock one. So you click help/docs as seen here, and absolutely NOTHING happens. Its been disabled because its so out of date and misleading it cost a lot of money in refunding peoples time.
But you need to read it because how else can you know how to use the functions you need to tune your car? guess what? Its been removed from the website. but I know for a fact that much of it is completely wrong. I once followed the manuals instructions for a day and a half trying all of the recommended methods to connect a wideband many times over and when the email enquiry I made came through it turns out that it doesnt work that way anymore, hadnt for years and sorry but we forgot to update it. To fix those issues the manual is now not available.
So lets say you email a bunch of times and get your wideband hooked up. Now you want to tune idle. The next image is the idle tuning page in the software and let me highlight everything thats either broken or no one knows what it does or did but andy and select few others whove asked him personally.
In this image we can see "calmdown effort". It wasnt in the manual even when you could get the manual, and I asked what it does. Some guy with a engine swapped lotus with serious mods wanted a specific feature built into the ecu calculations so it was added for him and left there. Now when someone is chasing an idle issue they have no idea if thats relevant and it serves to confuse.
Same with all of the other circled functions. Not in the manual, no help icons and not named in a way which anyone can interpret.
"Do 'D'." What the hell is 'D'??
I could go on but I wont, Andy knows all of this which is why the incorrect and outdated manual is now hidden, new software was made and a new ecu with enough functions is released now.
The issue is that these were sold as PnP models ready to go and competitive in the market well well beyond their used by date. people bought these and wasted days and days and thousands trying to get them to work when they were broken or the documentation was outright wrong. Andy had to keep selling these even with all of this broken stuff because he needed to fund a new and unbroken system. Andy regularly showed up personally to fix issues no one else could, and gave refunds for wasted time. I wont pass judgement on that business tactic, interpret that as an individual.
Dann
