MR2 Turbo ECU swap from factory to Apexi Power FC

I finally got round to installing the Power FC ecu that was on the shelf for ages, into the car. Installing the ECU was simple, as its located in the boot space behind the carpet.

Running the cable from the ecu to the cockpit for the hand commander was the tougher bit. It involved jacking up the car at the rear, so I could work at a decent height, then pul the plastic trim off the seat belt cover in the passenger side compartment to allow access to the firewall grommet/hole so that the cable could be passed from the cockpit to the engine bay. From there it came out below the airbag and was fed up over the suspension strut and down to the cable gland in the boot space/rear engine bay firewall. I then punctured a small hole in the ecu wiring loom gland so the cable could pass through with the main engine harness. After that, plug it into the Apexi.

As the Apexi doesn't have bolts for the original ecu brackets to bolt it to the firewall, some 3M velcro tape works wonders.

After that, I powered up, without starting the engine and downloaded the map from the previous user who owned the ECU. I then reset the ecu back to base map and performed the 30 minute idle calibration as per the Apexi installation manual to let the ecu calibrate itself.

I then compared the previous owners map to the base map........and they were both the same! He had reset it before selling it on. Good from a safety point of view, so If I was someone that just bolted the ecu in and hit the gas pedal I could risk running a higher boost than my engine can stand. However, its just a pity he didn't as it would have been nice to have another map to reference for future tuning.






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