Flashing
 

Does anyone know of a good software program to flash the ecu from a laptop. I have found many logging software programs such as www.digimoto.com but cannot find any that will reflash a 99.

Do you know exactly what you're doing or you wanna play?

I have access to a dyno and very knowledgable people tuning wise. software wise not too sure on whats going on. i plan on putting a computer with touch screen monitors in and wanted to do the tuning off of the computer which plugs into the obd 2 port.

Ok. Well, there are lots of ways you can do it.

Basically, what you're dealing with is a serial communications port. You need to identify which of the pins in the OBD2 access port do what. There should probably be 3-7 active pins minimum and potentially more. I had an SCT programmer for a while (best programmer on the market hands down). It used a cable that was a DB9 on the programmer end and a standard OBD2 adapter on the other side. That shows that we only need 9 pins max to access the computer.

After you cover the physical layer, you need to attend to the protocols and packaging and voltages. The ECU and OBD2 systems are on 12V FWIR and serial is 5V. You'll have to do some work stepping up and down the voltages.

After you've gotten base communication out of the way, you'll have to worry about power consumption and error handling on a half duplex connection. Eeek.

If you'd like to learn more about how to do it yourself the old fashioned way, here's where I like to study EEC. http://www.andywhittaker.com/ecu/obdii_software.htm

I hope that helps. I have a couple packages laying around that may handle the large part of that for you. Other than that, you can use a separate engine management computer which uses more commoditized software and connection mechanisms. If I can dredge one up for you I'll post it on my web server and pin a link up here for you.

This is not a small thing, not even the least bit easy, and probably dangerous in many ways.

EDIT:
Another source of neato stuff http://www.wmsracing.com/wmsweb/sds.htm
This guy seems to be a ford engineer who helped build the EEC 4 and 5 http://www.contour.org/FAQ/FAQ.php?s=articles&display=2

i really appreciate your info but tat is not wat i was looking for. i was basically looking for software like hypertech's hyperpac that would run off of a computer instead of having a seperate monitor. sorry for not explaining exactly what i was looking for.

I know exactly what you're looking for. I'm also giving you the options that are reasonable to actually do this on and flexible enough to make it worth while. There's opensource software for simple base engine management but you want good datalogging, tuning interface, dyno sim, and touch screen. That all requires custom software written for the specific application and hardware. Sorry I couldn't be of more help the way you wanted it but it doesn't exist.

You're trying to do something very advanced that requires a lot of knowledge in a lot of highly technical areas. There is no plug and play product of this type that I know of, particularly since laptop screens are almost never touch sensitive and EEC coding is so precise a thing.

really the only thing that i need is the engine managment. the digimoto will do everything else. thanks for lettin me know though that i am not really gonna find anything so that i am not wasting my time

if all you need is basic engine management, and you're not stuck on the touchscreen idea, any PMS (pulse modulated) capable EEC software will do.

A quick google search will reveal oodles of EEC software that's free and some that's pay. The first link I gave you is the one you want to follow. Read that carefully and learn up on the subjects and it's really not that hard, just really involved.

Are you looking to tune variables while the motor is running or do you just want to see the realtime data logging and tune with the motor off like normal?

Tuning while driving would be nice but if i have to stop and shut the engine off thats ok too. i know that i am asking for a lot but i was just curious if there was anything else. the touch screen idea that i was talking about was by putting a touch screen monitor in the dash and running a normal computer in the trunk. searching for carputer on google will give you a good idea of what im looking at doing. like i said before the hyperpac does it and i wasnt sure if there was software to run off of a normal computer to achieve the same.