Mysterious Connection Port

[corolla19]

Hi,

I was cleaning the interior yesterday, and i came along a white connection port just below the lever which opens the hood.

Does anyone know what it is ? :)

[Chris Barnes]

Yup..........its your OBD port ( On-board diagnostic)...we use it to find fault codes!!

[corolla19]

Thanks chris ;)

Can this port be used at home with a laptop for any reason other than reading fault codes ?

[spwolf]

it is an OBD connector, to connect Toyota computer with your OnBoardDiagnostics

[corolla19]

Thanks guys :)

[dawesy]

and if you have the software re map the ecu

[corolla19]

dawesy,

That's exactly what i had in mind when i came up with this thread !!! :D

Any experiences ?

[spwolf]

nope, you can not remap stock ecu

[dawesy]

i cant say how i know but yes you can

[HKS_TC_Corolla_GTi]

Dawesy is right, the OBD-II port can be used to 'flash' the ECU since it is connected to the K-Line making it possible.

It means that if Toyota discover any bugs in their ECU software, they just need to plug in and re-flash the ECU rather than having to replace the whole ECU. Its called progress - Many manufacturers are taking this route.

Its one of the reasons Atari went bust, when they paid millions for the rights to make 'ET' the game, once the game had been 'burnt' onto the ROM chips they cannot be re-programmed like the older Toyota ECU's. Unfortunately for Atari, there was a serious bug in the game software which made it unplayable - they had to destroy millions of these ROM cartridges, trust me, back then they were not cheap (hence the £30 tag back in 1985 for a ROM cartridge game).

In fact, alot of tuners can now remap your fuel maps and ignition on all VW/Audi without ever touching the ECU - just by plugging into the OBD-II port.

The correct term these days would be 're-flashing' and not 'chipping'.

Nad

[martenj76]

Dawesy is right, the OBD-II port can be used to 'flash' the ECU since it is connected to the K-Line making it possible.

It means that if Toyota discover any bugs in their ECU software, they just need to plug in and re-flash the ECU rather than having to replace the whole ECU. Its called progress - Many manufacturers are taking this route.

Its one of the reasons Atari went bust, when they paid millions for the rights to make 'ET' the game, once the game had been 'burnt' onto the ROM chips they cannot be re-programmed like the older Toyota ECU's. Unfortunately for Atari, there was a serious bug in the game software which made it unplayable - they had to destroy millions of these ROM cartridges, trust me, back then they were not cheap (hence the £30 tag back in 1985 for a ROM cartridge game).

In fact, alot of tuners can now remap your fuel maps and ignition on all VW/Audi without ever touching the ECU - just by plugging into the OBD-II port.

The correct term these days would be 're-flashing' and not 'chipping'.

Nad

That's really cool. So then i could (if i found it) download the "firmware" somewhere from the internet and with the right equipment download the tuned program into my ECU... cool

[mytbyte]

I would strongly advise against that. Corolla is a 16000€ machinery, not your average 100 € CD-burner you won't be too sorry for if it dies. You could wreck your engine if you use an unprofessionally or badly remapped control parameters...

By the way, I haven't seen any TTE upgrade chips for the 1.6 VVT-i, just the D4-D...will it become available any time soon or am I just daydreaming that this engine is capable of more?

[martenj76]

I would strongly advise against that. Corolla is a 16000€ machinery, not your average 100 € CD-burner you won't be too sorry for if it dies. You could wreck your engine if you use an unprofessionally or badly remapped control parameters...

By the way, I haven't seen any TTE upgrade chips for the 1.6 VVT-i, just the D4-D...will it become available any time soon or am I just daydreaming that this engine is capable of more?

No, i won't do that. I was just amazed it could be possible. But if i wanna do this i let a pro do it ofcourse.

[HKS_TC_Corolla_GTi]

Only an idiot would re-flash his/her ECU with a unproven data file to 'see-what-it-does'. For all you know it may not even be a Map file.

In the same note, like you say, it is not a good idea either to play around with the parameters unless you knew what they were for. You should not play with the ECU settings unless you were familiar with the code and you had a good working knowledge of how engines and Engine Management Systems worked. Getting it wrong will indeed damage your engine.

Since the ECU Map belongs to Toyota, I suspect that it will be a while until someone finds out how to alter the injector pulse cycle and ignition timing. That is, unless someone already has this information, otherwise it is a case of trial and error, most times this is the only way.

If I ever get my hands on a new Toyota ECU, I may play around with it.

What I do know, is that many Golf 4 1.8T owners are upgrading their Golfs to Audi TT 225 spec (injectors etc...), then simply re-flashing the ECU with the Audi 225 ECU Map - bingo the Golf now has 225 bhp instead of 150 bhp - its that simple.

In the same way, it has been proven that the new BMW Mini One and Mini Cooper share exactely the same engine components, except the Mini Cooper has more power - that is, until you re-flash the Mini One ECU with a Mini Cooper ECU Map!

[Unity Jon]

There is an amazing peice of kit recently available in South Africa that will download your current ECU maps and save them, then let you remap to your hearts content trying different pre programmed and customisable maps all on one hand held machine (like a palm top). I saw a bmw gain 40bhp !!!! from a re-map and saw a Toyota conquest (gti to us) gain 24bhp whilst the machine was tested for a mag write up ('Tuning' mag - i think).

When i get home i'll post the manufacturers details, it was a blinding bit of kit, when you first turn it on you input the model of car and it displays a map of where the correct port is to plug the unit in, then when you plug it in it tells you all about the current car, any diagnostic codes etc....

It wasnt cheap, but also wasnt over the top, imagine the money you could make from 20 mins work per car with those sorts of gains !? Will post later today (if i remember)