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2013 Evo X Arashi locked by Swiss tuner

2K views 4 replies 2 participants last post by  Dowser 
#1 ·
Hi All, my first post, go easy please :)

New to Evo X’s, but have experience of tuning early Impreza’s (up to WRX/sti04) and Evo’s (up to Evo 8) using EcuTek products. I’m looking to buy a 2013 Evo X Arashi and ultimately use FlashECU to reprogram it - but it has been tuned by a Swiss tuner, and they have somehow locked the ECU (they say, I haven’t tried reading ECU yet with EcuFlash). The Mitsubishi dealership selling the car on behalf of owner suggest they should be able to use their ECU tools to reflash a standard ROM onto the car, and I can then read it again.

Is this true? I thought I’d need to do a bench flash to over write what the tuner had done with a stock ROM, and was worried how to identify the correct ROM to use - can Mitsubishi dealerships do it for me safely, and then I can use ECUFlash to read the stock ROM as a base for programming?

I’ve test driven the car, the tuning is not that great IMO - based on another test drive of a stock 2015 final edition it just seems to overboost a little without that much more up top. Fairly sure I could do better myself, given my experience tuning the old 250ps Evo 8 to over 300ps using EcuTek.

Sorry, I’m sure answer is here somewhere already, but a quick search didn’t reveal what I needed.

Many thanks, Richard
 
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#2 ·
Haven't heard of a way to lock the ECU with Ecuflash on the X but I'm not a tuner myself. Tephra roms are Vin-locked but should be able to flash anything else over it.



However, to the best of my knowledge the Cobb Accessport will lock the ECU and you'll need the original Accessport to unmarry it from the car. I haven't used one so I don't know the specifics but I did read Cobb might be able to send you an unlock code or map.


If you can't get the AP, then a bench flash will be required. I guess it depends on how much you trust the Mitsubishi dealer (it's hit or miss here in the US) but I can't imagine they don't have tools to bench a stock rom into a locked ECU.
 
#3 ·
Thanks - have since spoken to Mitsu garage tech guy, he suggest overwriting whatever is there now is easy using his MUT tool, he can even grab me a copy of what is there before he does so if I like.

I also contact the original tuner, and he says he can reflash to stock for a small fee.

I’ll go with the Mitsu garage option I think.

Thanks!
 
#4 ·
Update time: I negotiated with Mitsu dealership to use their tools to flash it back to stock, and bought the car. Silly me, they said they’d put the latest software on it, and they have...but that’s version 56910011...standard definitions that come with ECUFlash only go up to 56910009...means I can read the ROM, but get an ECUFlash error “no definition file found”...

If i manually select the 56910009 definition file, ECUFlash opens the ROM OK, which is good.

I also have a stock oem 0009 ROM from a friend.

I assume I can then transfer the immobilizer and other dedicated car specific code, and then try and write the earlier ROM back to my ECU? And then I have a ROM file that lots of folks have already done work on, and would be the best base for me to start tuning with?

Does anyone know for sure?

Not sure if anyone is interested, but if anyone wants the latest Mitsu Evo X 56910011 ROM file, let me know

Cheers, Richard
 
#5 ·
Another update: I went to see a friendly Mitsu dealer and had a look at whether it would be possible to use their MUT tool to re-load the older 0009 ROM, but while technically possible the MUT update process means it removes all previous versions of ROMs once a new one was released, so there was only the one update set for an Evo X, using the 0011 ROM.

So I bit the bullet and did a bench flash - 2 hours to make the wiring loom, 10 mins to apply the original 0009 ROM. So am now ready for pump, hi-flow cat, 3 port and then apply a tune to it :)

One item of not - when bench flashing with latest ECUFlash, there is no option to select recovery mode. It will automatically detect the option of this based on ROM selected and ECU you are connected to, and you can then choose a recovery flash from the ECU drop down list.

Richard
 
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