ECU Cloning

Quick question about ECU cloning. Does the stock ECU have any sort of internal clock and removal history? If I swapped the stock ECU out for the clone and then tuned the clone, would the dealer know if I swapped back the stock ECU before bringing it in?

No amount of hiding or coming up with ways to scheme Honda with warranty work will work. Honda has tools at their dispersal to find out if the car has been modified.

Ecu cloning for all intents and purposes is convenience only.

Iilac said:

No amount of hiding or coming up with ways to scheme Honda with warranty work will work. Honda has tools at their dispersal to find out if the car has been modified.

Ecu cloning for all intents and purposes is convenience only.

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That's my assumption, too, but I'm interested in the mechanism that let's them know.

I'm going to end up cloning my ECU anyway since I want to keep the stock original one. But I will probably wait until my extended warranty is up

In my case, I had the vehicle's original OEM ecu in there and the dealer flew in a field engineer to have a closer look. The field engineer said he found a "back door code" stored in my ecu, hence knew it had been tampered with in some way (the OEM one I sent to Hondata to be cloned to an unlocked one). They weren't able to say how or what was done to it... but they knew, and kept asking me if it had been reflashed. As a result, Honda denied warranty on my failed wastegate actuator despite the dealer's efforts to get it covered. This cost me $2,000.

I love my Hondata but save your money on the whole "buy a secondary ecu so you can put your original back in when you go for service thing." That's simply not valid.

VTECnR said:

In my case, I had the vehicle's original OEM ecu in there and the dealer flew in a field engineer to have a closer look. The field engineer said he found a "back door code" stored in my ecu, hence knew it had been tampered with in some way (the OEM one I sent to Hondata to be cloned to an unlocked one). They weren't able to say how or what was done to it... but they knew, and kept asking me if it had been reflashed. As a result, Honda denied warranty on my failed wastegate actuator despite the dealer's efforts to get it covered. This cost me $2,000.

I love my Hondata but save your money on the whole "buy a secondary ecu so you can put your original back in when you go for service thing." That's simply not valid.

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I had the idea of cloning it and reflash the cloned one thinking it would help to maintain my warranty if shit does happen down the road.... now that pretty much answers my question....

There is no point to try to hide you have modified your car they have the tools to find out. If that dealer won’t work on it try another one. Cloning the ECU in pointless unless you can’t have ANY downtime for not driving your car other than that pointless. Plus if you are going to mod it then you shouldn’t be worried about warranty because you because you should have never bought an extended one with the intention of modifying your car but just my opinion.

VTECnR said:

In my case, I had the vehicle's original OEM ecu in there and the dealer flew in a field engineer to have a closer look. The field engineer said he found a "back door code" stored in my ecu, hence knew it had been tampered with in some way (the OEM one I sent to Hondata to be cloned to an unlocked one). They weren't able to say how or what was done to it... but they knew, and kept asking me if it had been reflashed. As a result, Honda denied warranty on my failed wastegate actuator despite the dealer's efforts to get it covered. This cost me $2,000.

I love my Hondata but save your money on the whole "buy a secondary ecu so you can put your original back in when you go for service thing." That's simply not valid.

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Did you send your ECU to Hondata or did you just read it and send the file? I'm guessing the computer either registers a disconnect or records any record attempts

xGreyWorm said:

There is no point to try to hide you have modified your car they have the tools to find out. If that dealer won’t work on it try another one. Cloning the ECU in pointless unless you can’t have ANY downtime for not driving your car other than that pointless. Plus if you are going to mod it then you shouldn’t be worried about warranty because you because you should have never bought an extended one with the intention of modifying your car but just my opinion.

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Cloning the ECU might be pointless for warranty work, but if these cars end up holding value or appreciating, having the stock unmolested ECU is a bonus

VTECnR said:

In my case, I had the vehicle's original OEM ecu in there and the dealer flew in a field engineer to have a closer look. The field engineer said he found a "back door code" stored in my ecu, hence knew it had been tampered with in some way (the OEM one I sent to Hondata to be cloned to an unlocked one). They weren't able to say how or what was done to it... but they knew, and kept asking me if it had been reflashed. As a result, Honda denied warranty on my failed wastegate actuator despite the dealer's efforts to get it covered. This cost me $2,000.

I love my Hondata but save your money on the whole "buy a secondary ecu so you can put your original back in when you go for service thing." That's simply not valid.

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Just curious:
Let's assume I purchase a new ECU for my R. I now have 2 stock ECUs. I then send the new ECU to Hondata to be flashed and use that in my R. When it comes time to go into the dealership for service/warranty work, I replace the new flashed ECU with the original untouched OEM ECU. Will the field engineer mentioned still be able to detect that at one point I swapped in a flashed ECU, despite having an unflashed OEM ECU in the vehicle?

You need to clone the new ECU with the data from your OEM ECU. That data is specific to YOUR car.

In order to read your OEM ECU you have to 'unlock' it. Then you can write that data to the new ECU (clone it).

Unlocking it seems to make some change to the code on the ECU that is detectable. As in post #4 above.

The Infineon TC1793 chip on the ECU board is password protected.

It either writes a 'backdoor' code to allow password bypass; or it changes/removes the password... whatever it does is detectable even if the ECU is never 'flashed'.

RCX said:

You need to clone the new ECU with the data from your OEM ECU. That data is specific to YOUR car.

In order to read your OEM ECU you have to 'unlock' it. Then you can write that data to the new ECU (clone it).

Unlocking it seems to make some change to the code on the ECU that is detectable. As in post #4 above.

The Infineon TC1793 chip on the ECU board is password protected.

It either writes a 'backdoor' code to allow password bypass; or it changes/removes the password... whatever it does is detectable even if the ECU is never 'flashed'.

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Ok, got it thanks. That sucks.

I have no interest in ECU upgrades, at this time, but find the subject interesting.

You need to clone the new ECU with the data from your OEM ECU. That data is specific to YOUR car.

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Thinking about the comment above, I'm sure it's easier for Honda to pull info off an existing ECU but there has to be a way to flash the new ECU without an existing one. Lets say the car is vandalized, damaged, engine sold w/o ECU by a recycler, or I believe Honda even sells CTR engines via their grass roots racer program. They must have a way to supply a fully functional unit in these cases. If not, then the ECU is worth far more than the engine! What info actually has to be moved over, the immobilizer key info?

I'm also curious about full replacement units like Motec. I've read in other discussions that Honda ECUs do not record "disconnects" and that mileage is tracked within another unit, possibly the cabin ECU (don't quote me). I can understand Honda wanting to check the OE ECU for malfunctions & incident data, which would not exist in this case of an ECU swap, but if the car isn't heavily modified I don't see how swapping the OE ECU back in for a few days prior to diagnostics can result in general detection.

RStoR said:

What info actually has to be moved over, the immobilizer key info?

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I think so. The smart key fob sends encrypted immobilizer key (by RF); immobilizer unit receives the key. If it is the correct key it then sends a unique serial code to the ECU. The serial code must match the code stored in the ECU.

RStoR said:

if the car isn't heavily modified I don't see how swapping the OE ECU back in for a few days prior to diagnostics can result in general detection.

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I think motec would need the immobilzer code even if they competely replace the ECU. Same as replacing the original ECU with a new one thru Hondata. The original ECU has to read (jailbroken, unlocked, whatever we want to call it) and this leaves a change to the ECU code which is detectable.

I am far from an expert but this how it works to the best of my knowledge.

Crate engine would be different story. Maybe ECU is modified to not need immobilzer to start. Would make sense as some race car do not even need a key to start.

Very interesting read. Sorry - or not sorry - to bring this discuss back. But it seems there are still more questions about this ECU cloning than answers.

What happens if I go to Honda dealership to buy a new ECU b/c my existing ECU "Broke" ? Hell - I tried to clean my engine bay and the ECU got water damage. Whatever the reason. Then what? Or say - I tell Honda that my car was vandalized and my ECU was stolen ? Then what?

Can they link the new ECU to my car without having the original one for any of the above reasons ? Hell is even tow my car to the dealership with the missing ECU.

If Honda, or a nother repair facility like a body shop or mechanic shop replace an ecu for whatever reason, you will have a documented record of when and why the ECU was replaced. I have seen the damaged in accidents and had to replace them for body shops. Since it’s a documented, legit repair and done properly utilizing OEM practices then it would not effect warranty. But almost every manufacturer today, and pull information from a control unit. Usually key cycles, or flash counters. It’s easy to see a control module has been flashed. Also if it’s OEM or done at a legit shop there will again be a record of legit repair, replace or flash. So they can tell whether you installed a cloned ecu or not. Or if has been Jailbroken and flashed. They have to do this to protect themselves. It’s the same reason why they began incorporating engine over speed detection. To many people where taking advantage of warranty and claiming it under driver/owner induced problems