All electronics will fail with age.  A significant chunk of the failures are due to electrolytic capacitor failure.  These components are virtually guaranteed to fail eventually, even under normal use circumstances.  There are even calculators that can help you estimate how long a given capacitor will last!

So why do manufacturers use these components if they know they will eventually fail?  There really aren’t a lot of good alternatives that have the necessary specifications AND are inexpensive.

Bottom line: all electronic devices that have power supplies generally have electrolytic capacitors that fail.  Ford ECMs are no exception.

A9L Capacitor Replacement

Note: all of these pictures are fairly high res.  If you click them to view the original, you will be able to zoom in for much more detail.

There are three capacitors that typically need replaced in an A9L / Fox Body MAF ECM.

1. First step: Take off all the A9L’s clothes.  Both upper and lower case will need to come off.  These are TORX screws!

   
   

2. Next, locate the capacitors that need to be replaced.
3. 
4. Here is one of the cans, close up:
   

   Even in this extreme close up shot of the base, it is hard to see anything OBVIOUSLY wrong.

   

5. Next step: de-solder the old capacitors.  Like always, we recommend that you use a high-quality de-soldering tool such as the Hakko 808 or a Xytronic 988.  You’ll have a hard time if you try to use a de-soldering braid.  I had to apply a lot of heat and go really slowly in order to achieve solid results.
   Bottom:
   
   Top:
   
6. Next, it’s time to solder in a replacement.
   Bottom:
   
   Top:
   
7. And sometimes when you look a little closer you will see that those caps that looked OK from a distance really had more serious issues…
   
   
8. After you get it out of there, you can see the true mess:
   
   The capacitor really isn’t much better.  It pretty much fell apart being removed.  You can see that it was leaking pretty severely:
   
9. When you have goop on the circuit board, you should clean it up nicely before replacing the cap.  A Q-tip and rubbing alcohol was used here:
   
10. Once everything is cleaned up, solder away with the replacements.  This ECU pictured took about 30-40 minutes to split, de-solder caps, re-solder caps, clean J3 port and re-assemble.

The hardware portion of the NEMU tuning package requires installation in an ECU to be functional.  This install is NOT for beginners, although it is not extremely difficult with the correct tools.  This article will walk you through the install from start to finish with lots of pictures along the way.  If you still have any questions about the install after reading this, please contact us via email.

Tools

We are going to use the following tools:

• Cordless screw gun / drill (recommended) or Phillips screwdriver (required)
• De-soldering tool with vacuum source (required)
• Hot-air pencil (recommended)
• Soldering iron with relatively fine point (required)
• Extremely fine tipped tweezers (recommended)
• Pick or extremely small flat head screwdriver (recommended)
• Wire cutters (recommended)
• Wire strippers (recommended)
• Heavy duty snips/cutters, small hacksaw, dremel (recommended)

Procedure

1. Remove both the top and bottom case from the ECU.   You will want to have the ECU on a flat surface so you can apply a LOT of downward pressure before you start to turn the screw.  Nissan ECU screws have some kind of threadlocker on them from the factory and it is VERY easy to strip and/or break them.  We highly recommend the use of a screw gun like the one pictured here.
2. Find the 20×2 connector where NEMU will attach.  Use your De-soldering Iron to cleanly remove the solder from all 20 holes.  Be careful to not overheat the circuit board and burn up a trace.  ( Click herefor a video of a professional using high quality tools to effectively de-solder components.)
   

   Cleanly desolder all contacts of 20x2 header

3. Remove the 20×2 pin header connector and provided solder from the bag included in your NEMU kit.  Push the pin header through the 20×2 holes in the PCB you just de-soldered.  Make sure the alignment keyway faces INWARDS.
   

   Keyway faces inwards!

4. Use your soldering iron and the included length of solder to solder all pin connections.
   

   20x2 header, soldered

   Be careful not to use too much heat, too little heat, too much solder or too little solder.   Click Here for a video of a professional using high quality tools to effectively solder.  Davy Jones’ EEVblog also has a great series of video tutuorials on soldering.  (Part1Part2Part3)

5. Look at the bottom of the ECU.  Find the surface mount jumper labelled CJ1.  Use your hot air pencil and tweezers to remove and grab it.
   

   Remove J1

   If you don’t have hot air, you can CAREFULLY use a soldering iron placed parallel to the jumper to melt its solder connections while applying GENTLE pressure to free it from the PCB.

6. Use your tweezers and soldering iron to re-solder the jumper in CJ2 position instead of CJ1 where it was originally installed.  This enables the 20×2 port instead of stock ECU operation.  If you lose or damage the jumper removing it, you can use a small piece of wire or even a solder bridge.
   

   Solder CJ2 into place

7. Take your NEMU circuit board out of its protective anti-static bag and gently install it in the shrouded 20×2 pin header that you have just installed.  This is just a temporary install for fitment purposes – you do not need to fully seat the NEMU at this time.  Treat it carefully.
8. Now find the 4 pin connector with 4- 6″ wires hanging out of it.
   

   4 pin connector with wires

9. For the sake of tidiness, trim off the black wire as it is not used. (This is not REQUIRED but recommended)
   

   Datalogging header, ready to install with 3 wires

   Note: the position NOT the color of the wire is important.  If your pigtail has a different color wires, pay attention and pick the wire in the same spot in the connector.

10. Each of the three remaining wires needs to be soldered to a pin on the blue ECU connector.  The wires provided are much longer than they need to be.  We are going to trim the wires so they are closer to the length necessary.  Plug the 4 pin connector into the NEMU board and then move the three wires to the center of the blue connector for sizing purposes.
    

    Measure...

11. Make a cut right by the blue ECU connector to get started.  You’ll find that having wires that are almost the right size makes them a lot easier to handle.
    

    and cut!

12. The red wire is going to get soldered to the ‘top’ pin closest to the center divider on the left side.  Cut it closer to size.  Remember, it’s a lot easier to cut it shorter again than it is to have to solder two wires together to lengthen it!  If in doubt, leave it longer.  Repeat the sizing procedure for the yellow and orange wires.  They will go to the top and bottom pins closest to the center divider on the right side.  See the following picture of how things will look when they’re done: (The colors look a little funny because of lighting – red on left, orange center lower, brown center upper)
13. After you have sized all 3 wires, gently squeeze the black locking tab on the connector to remove the 4 pin datalogging connector from the NEMU board.  You’ll find the rest of this procedure is a lot easier with the freedom to move around.
14. Strip about 1/4″ to 1/2″ of insulation off the end of each wire with a pair of wire strippers.
15. Using the soldering iron, warm up the strands of each exposed metal wire for a few seconds.  After you’ve warmed them up, gently touch some solder to the wire itself NOT the soldering iron.  When it is hot enough, the wire will wick up the solder.  (this is called tinning the wire.  You can see a pro demonstrate here or here )  You just need a little bit of solder – don’t goop it.  Having the wires tinned will make it much easier to attach them to ECU pins.
16. I prefer to start with the most difficult wire to solder so there aren’t other wires in the way – I personally think this is the lower connection on the right side, with the orange wire.  Before trying to solder this connection, we are going to bend the tinned end into a ‘U’ shape so that it will “hook” on the pin.
17. Trim the wire so it is quite short.  You don’t need much of a hook for this technique to work effectively.
18. Hook the orange wire on the lower pin on the right side.  You may find it is helpful to squeeze or even wrap the tinned end of the wire around the pin so that it will stay on the pin without you actually holding it.  Apply heat to BOTH the ECU pin and wire with your soldering iron for at least 3-5 seconds and then apply solder to the area where the pin and wire are touching, NOT the soldering iron tip itself.  This is a little tricky, but hopefully you should get something that looks like this:
    

    orange (rightmost) wire soldered

19. If you like the hook-and-wrap method, you can use it for the remaining two wires.  I’m going to demonstrate a different method that works equally well, especially because we can reach the pins easier.  Let’s grab the red wire next.  Keep the tinned end straight but trim it so it is a similar size to the pin you are going to be soldering it to.
20. Bring the trimmed red wire to the pin.  Lay it on top of the pin so that they’re on top of each other.  Apply heat to BOTH the wire and the pin for at least 3-5 seconds, usually by placing the tip of the iron on one side of the pair where it makes equal contact with both the wire and the pin.  Then apply solder where the two are touching, NOT to the soldering iron itself – this is usually done to the opposite side that the iron is touching.  This is a little tricky, but hopefully you’ll end up with something that looks like this:
    

    solid solder connection on red (2nd from right) wire

21. Repeat the previous two steps for the brown wire, which attaches to the pin above the orange wire to the right of the center divider.  After this, you should have all three wires attached like so: (The colors look a little funny because of lighting – red on left, orange center lower, brown center upper)
22. Next, we need to modify the case to give the USB cable room to exit.  I used the oval area near where you normally look at the LED to check codes.  I cut the metal case with a large pair of diagonal cutters.
23. Now would be a good time to firmly install your NEMU board in the 20×2 header and connect the 4 pin black datalogging connector with wires soldered to ECU pins.
24. Connect the miniUSB->bulkhead cable in your kit to your NEMU board.  For extra safety (i.e. leaving your laptop plugged in and walking off) I generally tie a pretzel knot in the cable immediately before it exits the ECU case so that the knot will absorb any yank or pull.  Use the supplied zip tie to securely attach the USB cable to the case of the ECU.  Once you’ve done this, trim the zip tie for tidiness.
25. If you’re going to be using the extra analog inputs offered by NEMU, repeat the last step with the AuxBox cable.  This cable has a ethernet/phone jack looking RJ45 connector on one end and a small black plastic box on the other.
26. Re-install the case on the ECU.
27. Go to www.nismotronic.com for the lastest software download.
28. Enjoy your product!

Add C49 & C50 and C91 & C92 on back

C49 & C50 –> .004UF (Digikey part number 399-1230-1-nd )

C91 & C92 –> .00001UF ( digikey Part Number 399-1192-1-nd )

Add the 74hc373 SMD chip. (MFG part# SN74HC373NSR, Digi-Key Part Number 296-8310-1-ND)

Add a 29C256 eprom with bin written to it.

For RTP/Datalogging w/ Crome remove J4 on front.

Solder in a 4 pin header (snappable header pins 1×40 work GREAT for this and are VERY cheap)

All info is from the following threads:

http://forum.pgmfi.org/viewtopic.php?t=3112&highlight=chipping+jdm+computers

Special thanks to all the contributors of the above thread and katman for doing the pics in the first place… We love you katman

http://forum.pgmfi.org/viewtopic.php?t=4005&highlight=chipping+jdm+computers

Thanks to infotechplus for pics and info on C49,C50,C91,C92

ECU Chipping

You need to add a few additional components to the original Honda ECU. It requires some soldering skills and should not be attempted unless you have soldered before. (Chances are you know someone with soldering skills that could help you). Here is a picture of the P28 ECU that I chipped, before any of the parts were put in:

Before you can solder the parts in, you will need to de-solder the holes in the circuit board since they come filled with solder from the factory. You can buy a “solder sucker” to do the job, however unless you get a nice one (expensive) they don’t really work well in my opinion. The cheap and easy solution is to buy some solder braid. It’s just braided copper. Simply place it over the hole to be de-soldered, and place the soldering iron on top of the braid. It will then wick up the solder into the braid. It’s available at radioshack:

You’ll want to use a decent quality soldering iron to get the job done nicely. The important thing is to not use too much heat, and also make sure the iron has a fine tip on it. I’m using a standard Weller iron:

Here is what it should look like after the board has been de-soldered:

The parts that need to be added are boxed in with a dashed white line. The parts consist of (2) .1uF ceramic capacitors, (1) 1k resistor, (1) wire jumper (simply a piece of wire…I used a lead of the resistor), (1) 74HC373 chip, and (1) 29C256 chip (thats the EPROM). The resistor and capacitors have no polarity, so you don’t have to worry about installing them backwards. The 74HC373 chip does have a polarity. Pin 1 will be on the left side of the pic (you’ll see in detail later one). The same is true for the EPROM chip. Since it would be impossible to burn a chip and have the tune be perfect, it becomes obvious that you don’t want to solder the chip in. Instead, use a socket so that it can be removed. You have two options: for less than $1, you can get a standard DIP socket. The problem is these are very hard to insert and remove the chips since there are 28 pins (it requires a lot of force and is hard to grip the chip). Your second option would be a ZIF (Zero Insertion Force) socket, which costs less than $10. It is a socket that has a lever: pull up the lever, set the chip in/lift it out, and flip the lever back – VERY nice to have since you’ll be doing this many times while tuning. Be careful when ordering the ZIF socket, as many of them are too large to fit on the board without running into things. The first ZIF I bought was made by Aries, and it was a very quality piece, however, it was too large and bulky to fit without a lot of modification to other components on the board. I ended up ordering a different one that was much more compact. I am unaware of the brand, however it is blue and is referred to as a low-profile ZIF. The only problem was that the lever end of it was in the way of the 74HC373. The easy solution is to buy a standard DIP socket as mentioned above. Solder this onto the board. Then, stack the ZIF onto this socket, which raises the ZIF away from the board enough to clear the surrounding parts. This setup worked very well for me. The following picture shows the too-big-to-fit ZIF in the back-left, the low-profile ZIF in the front left, and the DIP socket on the right:

The ZIF socket stacked on the DIP socket for added height:

And finally, a couple of pics with all of the parts installed:

I ordered most of my parts from www.jdr.com except for the low-profile ZIF socket and DIP socket, which I obtained from www.jameco.com. The following table containse the exact part numbers that I ordered. You’ll notice that I ordered two EPROMS. This way, it will be easier to burn one while the other is installed.

Additionally, I have recently located all of the parts you will need from one source. DigiKey is where you can find them. Their inventory selection can be overwhelming, so here are the part numbers you will want:

And for a final update to this page, I’d like to add that you can find ALL of the necessary chipping parts at moates.net. It is a great deal in my opinion, and you’re guaranteed to get the correct parts the first time around. It’s under the name of “Honda ECU Chipping Kit”.

There are two tools available for datalogging on Honda ECUs from www.moates.net and they include the HULOG and the HondaLog.

HULOG: The HULOG comes in a plastic enclosure and ONLY requires a pin swap if it is an older unit. All the new units come with 1:1 connector pinning, so will differ from the pictures shown in that no pin swap is required or will be present on the extension cable. It can be mounted externally or internally, depending on whether you want to pass the 4-pin header cable or a USB cable out of your ECU.

HondaLog: The HondaLog can be mounted directly to the ECU with no interconnecting cable It can also be mounted at the end of a 4-pin tether cable. Either way, no pin swap is required (note color of wires and their order in the pictures). The unit is shipped with two pinning options in terms of the attachment header. It also comes with a piece of shrink-wrap tubing in case you want to ‘wrap that rascal’ when you’re done. Either way, it goes to your USB cable and PC on the other end.

Pictures are shown below for the two units. The installation header is a 4-pin latching unit, and comes with the moates.net Honda Chipping Kits. You can alternatively use a 4-pin 0.025″ square-post breakaway header. Please take note of the directionality of the latch on the interconnecting cable though, since that is critical.

HULOG Pictures

HondaLog Pictures



]]> https://support.moates.net/huloghondalog-installation/feed/ 0 https://support.moates.net/g2-adapter-installation/ https://support.moates.net/g2-adapter-installation/#respond Mon, 10 May 2010 05:27:16 +0000 http://support.moates.net/?p=841

G2

G2 TBI-Style 2732-to-29C256 Adapter Installation Instructions:Here is a pictorial depiction of a G2 installation in a TBI-style ECM.
It shows the following:

1) Disassembly and removal of stock socket body.
– Take note of the ‘stock’ 2732A chip orientation. Your 2732A chip will probably be in a little plastic holder.
– Try and overcome the challenge presented by the disparity between that fact and this pictorial guide.
– Take apart the ECM case, loosen screws that hold ‘daughterboard’, and get everything free so you can get to the underside.
– Be careful with ribbon cables which are often glued to the ECM housing areas.
– Measure spacing between row of chip socket pins, and make sure you order the correct adapter part (0.6 or 0.45″).
– Using small screwdriver, gently pry plastic off of pins. It should come free, leaving pins to be desoldered individually pretty easily. This may not work as well with 0.45″ spacing sockets, and you might have to desolder the whole socket at the same time or mutilate it a little bit to get it out.

2) Desoldering of stock socket pins, removal of solder from holes using solder sucker.
– Apply heat and remove each individual pin (assuming you were successful with step (1).
– Use solder sucker to open up each hole for acceptance of the ‘new’ socket.

3) Soldering in place of a 24-pin collet-pin DIP socket. (For 0.45″ spacing, 12-pin SIPs are used instead).
– Just like it says. If you want a very low profile install, skip this step and go to step (4), except solder it in place instead of pressing it in.

4) Placement of G2 adapter along with optional ZIF and associated chip.
– Just like it says.

5) View of relative clearance and reassembly.
– Check and make sure it’s not going to hit anything when installed back in the car. If you have clearance issues, you might want to consider the solder-in option mentioned in (3-4).

Note that the height can be reduced by not using the ZIF socket, and can be further reduced by soldering the adapter directly in as mentioned (bypassing the DIP or SIP socket install).

These pictures should give you the information you need with respect to procedures, relative socket / adapter / chip orientation, etc.
However, if after viewing this you still have questions, just let me know at my email address on the main page and I’ll do my best to field them.

Have fun!

]]> https://support.moates.net/g2-adapter-installation/feed/ 0 https://support.moates.net/nissan-20x2-boards/ https://support.moates.net/nissan-20x2-boards/#respond Sat, 28 Nov 2009 05:54:16 +0000 http://support.moates.net/?p=610 Versions

This is the documentation for the Nissan Boards.  At this point, there are only one version of the boards, 1.1nm  As future revisions to the board are produced, this page will be updated.

Applications

These boards are designed for S13 and B13 applications.  They will NOT work with S14a ECUs that have a 20×2 pin header.  They will not work with late S14/N14/etc. ECUs that have a 40×1 header. Known good applications:

S13 Silvia RWD “Red top” SR20DET (i.e. 62, E5, etc.) 240 swaps, etc.

S13 Silvia RWD “Black top” SR20DET NON VVTI (VVTI motors not supported) 240SX, etc.

S13 240SX KA24DE twin cam engine US Engine

B13 Sentra FWD SR20DE Sentra, etc.

U13 Bluebird SR20DET

About the Board Hardware

The 20×2 Nissan ROM board has two 28 pin sockets for an EPROM such as a 27SF512 or 27C256.  These are not “even-odd” style boards – chips installed in this board should always have identical programs unless you REALLY know what you are doing.  You will need to buy a ROM burner separately if you do not already have one – this board cannot program chips.

You can use two Ostriches with this board.  Insert each Ostrich like it was an EPROM.  Make sure JROM is not installed (see below for more) or you may have issues with addressing and Ostriches.  You will need a 5.x version of TunerPro RT to have native dual Ostrich support.  You can accomplish the same thing using TunerPro 4.x by also using EmUtility (available from tunerpro.net in the utilities section) to run one Ostrich in emulation mode while TunerPro natively runs the other Ostrich.

Switching and JROM

As previously mentioned, the 20×2 board allows the use of two programs with near instantaneous realtime switching.  The JROM is used to change between two programs when using 512k chips (i.e. 27SF512 or 27C512).  By default, the adapter uses a 32k program from 08000h to 0FFFFh.  When JROM is present, the adapter uses the 32k program from 00000h to 07FFFh.  You can mount an external switch for the jumper if you like.  This link has more information about programming multiple programs and offsets.

Software support

This board has no copy protection that would prevent you using it with a particular software package.  The technical answer to “software support” is to say that it will work with any software capable or providing a Nissan binary ROM file.  Software I have tested these boards with:

• Tuner Pro RT ( www.tunerpro.net )
• 925style.com ROM Editor ( ask google “925style ROM editor” – original site is down)
• Nistune

Just to reiterate – any software that can output a binary file will probably work fine with these boards.

Installation

Installation of the Nissan 20×2 boards can be quite tricky.  A proper de-soldering iron is required for good results.

1. Remove both the top and bottom case from the ECU
2. De-solder all 40 pins of the 20×2 connector.  remember, a clean de-soldering job is critical to this working correctly.  Be careful not to overheat and burn any traces as this can be easy to do.  When you are done, it should look something like this:
3. Place the installed pin header in the 20×2 header so that the “notch” in the header faces towards the blue ECU connector:
4. Solder the 20×2 header in place carefully.  Again, remember clean, accurate soldering is critical for this product to work correctly:
5. Find the jumper marked “CJ1”  – you will need to remove it and move it to position “CJ2”  as this enables the use of the ROM board.  (Putting the jumper back to CJ1 will enable the use of the stock program.)  Be careful when doing this.  The use of two soldering irons, a soldering iron and de-soldering iron or best yet – a set of SMD tweezers will make things much easier.  If you damage the jumper removing it, do not worry – you can use a small piece of wire or a paperclip instead.  (Trim any excess wire / paperclip if you use this method)
6. Finally, slide the 20×2 board onto the installed header: