VN 808 ECU with Kalmaker

[creesy]

So I've currently got a stock 808 ECU in my VN 5L auto. It was tuned by electronic automotive in Melbourne, so its my assumption that it was tuned with kalmaker.

I'd like to be able to plug into the ECU and do some realtime data logging and tuning, adjust idle and a few other things (basically want to learn how to do a bit of tuning myself)

Just wondering what my options would be and what the best way to go would be.

If possible I think I'd like to keep my current ECU and tune so that I have a solid fall back option if things go to shit haha

[antus]

Firstly use delco ose flashtool and get a read of the bin. I'll detect and read kalmaker. Keep it as a backup.

Then if everything is working there are kalmaker street pro 3 XDFs and ADX and you can use oseplugin and tunerpro.

You might eventually find you want to move to 12P so you can be talking the same language as everyone else but you don't have to. But if you upload the wrong thing and kill it at some stage and find you need a programmer anyway that might be a good time. You can put 12P on the kalmaker hardware with a chip programmer.

[creesy]

Thanks for the reply, I currently don't really have a way of communicating with the ecu, what is recommended?

I think I'd like to move to 12P straight away anyway so I can just tune and make changes in real time. Does anyone sell modified ECUs that are ready to go? Or is it all DIY?

Can i convert the kalmaker tune to 12p?

[antus]

Pull the lid off the end of the computer and post up a photo of what is in there. If they just tuned it and put it on a normal memcal, then you dont really have any tuneing hardware so you need to start at the beginning with a comms board and an ecm nvram. Have a look in the FAQ area (green question mark up in the top right or at the bottom of my post and have a look at the guides at the top there.

[creesy]

Thanks mate believe it or not I have done a fair but of reading haha

Pretty sure i opened it up a while ago and it looked like the NVRam wasn't a blue standard memcal.

There wasn't any plug or usb in there though.

So if I got the USB comms board assuming I already have the NVRAM from kalmaker, that would allow me to dump the current tune and switch to 12P but still retain the ability to revert to the Kalmaker tune if it all goes pear shaped?

[antus]

Yes. So there are number of things but if you had a working kalmaker nvram (eg the battery in the chip is not too old and still working), and so its not some kind of custom memcal with an eeprom instead. If the pcm has the write wire on the underside of PCB added, and you had a comms board, you'd be able to use tune kalmaker from tunerpro. If you had an offboard programmer to replace kalmaker with 12P on the NVRAM then you could use 12P from then on.

[creesy]

So this is what is in the ECU, doesn't look like NVRAM after all.

So my first steps would be to get a usb be comms board, solder that in, then dump the current tune bin to the laptop.

Then get an nvram module and use tunerpro to write it to the nvram and then i should be able to log and tune in real time? Or have i missed a step.

[creesy]

So I've done a bit more reading and some help from chatgpt.

It's a 32kb eprom so not the NVram I was hoping for. But anyway it's my understanding that I can purchase a chip programmer and read the bin from the kalmaker eprom.

Or is it better to get the usb comms cable and read it that way?

From what I've read kalmaker tunes are protected and even if i read it and wrote it to NVRAM using tunerpro the car would only run for a few seconds and then die. Is this information still correct or outdated? From what i understand xdfs aren't available for all kalmaker operating systems.

[antus]

Yeah that is correct. So the computer is unmodified, and the chip is a UV erase eeprom. Ideally you should put a bit of tape over the glass window on the top to stop UV light getting in. Eventually that'll erase it. But in practice there is not enough UV from the sun to make it happen in a realistic amount of time, and no sunlight when the PCM is closed. Still a good idea to block light getting through the window anyway.

The ECM is totally stock standard without modification. There needs to be a wire soldered on to two points on the bottom to make it support an NVRAM. This wire connects the write pin from the CPU to the NVRAM. Its not connected in stock form because the eprom does not support write.

The protection is that LIT032E chip. It puts some data in view to the CPU that is checked when it is running, and if it is not there it shuts down the injection. It doesn't make any difference there or not for 12P.

Its always useful to have a programmer. It is too easy to accidentally upload the wrong thing to an NVRAM, or short circuit it to the case and erase its contents. If that happens you need a programmer to recover it. In your case you'll probably want to get an eeprom and program it then replace that chip on the memcal when your car is tuned and keep running that board as it cant be erased and doesn't have a battery that can go flat after 8-10 years.

So you'll probably want the ecm nvram, ecm comms from here (send PM to Gareth, as asked in the for sale thread), and a programmer and a 512kbit eeprom or a couple from ebay.

Example programmer https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/196800597472 (I have no connection to the seller)
Example eeprom: https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/124104730447 (Also no connection to this seller. Almost all of these chips on ebay are some kind of fake. Some are chip pulls from old computers (this is good - they are the ones that work, others, who knows? But cant find any that claim they are chip pulls at the moment). Make sure you buy from someone who has a decent number sold already and clearly states their products work and they have some kind of warranty).

This will allow you to read what is on that memcal either in the programmer (best) or over ALDL. (there is a bug in factory code where the last 2 bytes are corrupted, this is fixed in 12P, so if you have the programmer use that). This will allow you to check the VE table and spark table and there are some older posts on the forums with spread sheets that allow you to paste those tables in to them and which will average out the data to the size of the table in 12P to help you migrate the tune across.

[creesy]

Thank for the detailed reply. So what you are saying is i should get the USB comms and NVRAM and use that to tune the car but swap back to the memcal with the eeprom memcal for long term use?