Any progress on V8 engine swap options?

[titaniumdave]

PM and email sent

[Fiddlebog]

For those of you that have done the A8 swap: how did you tackle the ECU? Does it need an immobilizer or anything else like the 986 does?
I'm working on building a car with a 5-speed transaxle and am looking for the simplest solution for an engine to put on there.

[78F350]

Originally Posted by Fiddlebog

For those of you that have done the A8 swap: how did you tackle the ECU? Does it need an immobilizer or anything else like the 986 does?
I'm working on building a car with a 5-speed transaxle and am looking for the simplest solution for an engine to put on there.

There's a lot to learn about the ECUs and programming. I spent a couple months reading and learning about flashing the ME7.1 ECUs on NefMoto - Index , then practiced flashing and deleting the immobilizer code on some cheap ECUs that I picked up on eBay. It's been a couple years and I'd need to review to do it all again.

As far as I know, the ECUs for the 32 valve engines (ME 5.xx) can not be flashed and need to have the chip replaced to reprogram them. They are not 'immobilized'. 034 Motorsports sells a tuned chip.
The 40 valve engines use ME 7.1. Not sure, but 2000 year model might not have the immobilizer, but the later ones do.

Immobilizer delete and flashing are just a matter of following a detailed procedure with a computer program (software available from the NefMoto website). You have to have an interface cable and a way to power the ECU. Tuning and making your own modifications gets a lot deeper.

[specboxCO]

Originally Posted by Fiddlebog

For those of you that have done the A8 swap: how did you tackle the ECU? Does it need an immobilizer or anything else like the 986 does?
I'm working on building a car with a 5-speed transaxle and am looking for the simplest solution for an engine to put on there.

Immo off on a 40v is easy and well documented. I posted an ECU file from a Euro S6 that works with an AUX/AKB 40v engine earlier in this thread that I modified for immo off and eliminates the need for the Vehicle Speed Sensor (super important to making the 40v engines work)

You need a cheap vagcom cable ($5 ebay) and free software (me7_95040.exe & nefmoto)

[specboxCO]

Originally Posted by specboxCO

Immo off on a 40v is easy and well documented. I posted an ECU file from a Euro S6 that works with an AUX/AKB 40v engine earlier in this thread that I modified for immo off and eliminates the need for the Vehicle Speed Sensor (super important to making the 40v engines work)

You need a cheap vagcom cable ($5 ebay) and free software (me7_95040.exe & nefmoto)

To program my ECU with the S6 software, I used the Nefmoto software available for free from the nefarious motorsports website NefMoto - Index. I purchased a blue VAGCOM cable from ebay for $5 and took another trip to the pull and pay to grab a OBD2 socket and an AUDI/VAG ecu plug. The ECU plug is found in many Audi and VW cars from the early 2000s, I pulled mine from a 2000 A4. $5 for the cables.

I built a harness that used a bench power supply and connected the K line of the OBD2 connector to the ECU pin 43, 12v to the OBD2 connector and pins 21 and 3 of the ECU, and finally GND to the OBD2 and pins 1 & 2 of the ecu.

I could not program the ECU while it was in protected mode from the immobilizer, so first it must be defeated. I used a program called me7_95040.exe to dump the contents of the immobilizer chip to the computer. To do this, I put the ECU in boot mode, by grounding pin 24 of the immobilizer chip for 5 seconds while powering up the ECU. I then ran the program from the command prompt and dumped the file. To defeat the immobilizer 2 bits must be changed at locations 12 and 22 from 01 to 02 and the checksum recalculated. I used a hex editor to change the bit values and then used a program called 95040CSCalc.exe to write the fixed checksum. Using me7_95040.exe I uploaded the revised file to the ecu and the immobilizer was defeated.


Now the ECU will allow me to download and upload the main program. I used the Nefmoto software version 1.9.3.2 to download my old ECU software (in case something went wrong) and then uploaded the S6 Manual software I modified and posted earlier in this thread.

[AaronF]

Originally Posted by specboxCO

eliminates the need for the Vehicle Speed Sensor (super important to making the 40v engines work)

How did you remove the VSS requirement?

I'm using the no-VSS bin from your post in this thread (#189) on my S8 swap but my engine has S8 specific cams and a 1 stage intake manifold. I have a S8 bin for my AYS engine but can't figure out how you removed the need for VSS. I've compared the bin for both engines in TunerPro but can't seem to pinpoint your change.

EDIT: I think I may have found it. I modified the bin file at address 16778 from hex 7454 (5405 RPM) to 8070 (7200 RPM). I believe this is NMAXDV, "maximum engine speed on speed signal error detection". I just took the car out for another test and it revs all the way up to 7200.

[specboxCO]

Originally Posted by AaronF

How did you remove the VSS requirement?

I'm using the no-VSS bin from your post in this thread (#189) on my S8 swap but my engine has S8 specific cams and a 1 stage intake manifold. I have a S8 bin for my AYS engine but can't figure out how you removed the need for VSS. I've compared the bin for both engines in TunerPro but can't seem to pinpoint your change.

EDIT: I think I may have found it. I modified the bin file at address 16778 from hex 7454 (5405 RPM) to 8070 (7200 RPM). I believe this is NMAXDV, "maximum engine speed on speed signal error detection". I just took the car out for another test and it revs all the way up to 7200.

Yes - this is correct. This fix doesn't remove the CEL you will get, but allows the car to run properly without a VSS.

[truegearhead]

There seems to be endless Audi 4.2l options. Is there a year/model you want to stick too? Looking at the horsepower figures an 04 or later is good, an S8 is ideal and I guess the drive by wire or cable decision needs to be made. Am I missing anything? Has anyone attempted to proceduralize the 4.2 swap, even from a high level?

[1thenaton1]

Originally Posted by truegearhead

There seems to be endless Audi 4.2l options. Is there a year/model you want to stick too? .... Has anyone attempted to proceduralize the 4.2 swap, even from a high level?

You are best off looking at the C5 A6 and S6 variants of the 4.2. S6 has forged rods i believe and a better cam setup that makes more high rpm power. The D2 S8 version makes the most power from factory (same upgrades as S6), but uses a different mount setup, which can be swapped to the A6/S6 version relatively easily. The older ABZ works with a standalone ECU, but the stock ECU cannot be easily reprogrammed like the motronic ECU you get in the 2000-2004 cars. The 2004+ 4.2 engines are timing chain rather than timing belt, and require very expensive engine out service at around 100k miles, those would not be good engines for a swap for the most part.

Member AaronF who posted above has the best info I've seen for the swap, here:
https://sites.google.com/view/boxsterv8swap/home