How to Recover/Replace ECU Thread

We might be able to get HPtuners to create a recovery method as well. I have my doubts as we are a small crowd compared to the big 3.

 

Well got two tunes in on a 2021. Then today appears to be bricked. Failed around 8% on the first write. Tried a few more times and would actually start then eventually said controller init failed to start. Likely going to order the same part number ecu and go that route. Only thing that was really different this time was I had turned the truck on a few times before, battery was on a tender but may have been too low.

 

Man, what's with all these bricks lately?

 

Seems that with every brick, there is a story behind it. Makes sense to me, considering how easy it is for it to happen. In ponderosa's case it seems he had a low battery, big no no. HPT also tells you to disconnect the battery for a bit before writing another tune. I am going to hook up the wideband I bought before I do my data logging to send over to @snivilous. This way, I will hopefully only have to write 1 more tune.

 

Have you tried to disconnect battery. Then resync mpvi to computer. Try to write, if it takes longer than 30 seconds to initialize cancel it. Retry resync until it does initial process before writing. Try pulling radio, entertainment fuses?
I'm also curious if newer tundra ignition cancel out obd connection in on position.
Newer GMs seem to have this issue.

 

I have had my OBD MX link app opened for a while on acc. Never lost communication.

 

I read on HPT forum that this happens with newer GM's, 2018 +. HPT recommended they pull like 5 additional fuses and the canbus does things differently in on position than before.
@Ponderosa_Pine
I'd submitt a help ticket in the meantime to get hpt on board and made aware of several instances of this happening.
Good luck.

 

Just a thought based on what GM people discussing on hpt forums.

 

Yes going to try a few things tonight, these are good ideas. Likely put in a ticket in if it doesn’t work too. I checked with my volt meter and I was at about 12.9-13v when mine failed. I was trickle charging all night in the previous tunes, so likely higher voltage (with engine off). But may be you do need to pull accessory fuses as well.

If I get a junk yard ecm with an identical *part number* (edit), is it plug and play or do you have to update its vin using something like techstream?

Edit: Unplugging the battery did not work so far in my case. I think there are two phases to the ECM bricking where one is a failed flash, but the ODB connection still can get to the ECM. Then a second phase where the ECM is unreachable. It seems people can recover from the first situation, but second is much harder. I got to the ECM and figured out the part number, glad I did as it's not a super common ECM version. Got one ordered from a junkyard and will see what happens!

 

No. It's identical part number for plug and play. If you can get your VIN assigned to the new ecu then you don't have to shell out another 4 credits to hpt. I

 

My understanding is, its plug and play, but since you have a different vin, you have to get more credits or program your vin to the new ECU.

 

There has got to be something extra with the late model 5.7's obd. I haven't looked at the wiring schematics but it's odd this is happening. Myself, snivilous and others write/change tunes on the side of the road. No charger or battery disconnect. Hmmm

 

I'll contact HPT too and see if they can look into a recovery option, if D3 and VFT can do it I'm sure they can if they're persuaded.

It is odd there's so many lately, but I feel like usually it can be tracked down to something specific. With that said, my truck at least continues to be oddly reliable. A few weeks ago I flashed it and went to start it and the battery didnt have enough juice to crank it and needed to be jumped. So I do wonder if certain ECUs are more prone to it, or maybe there's more of a luck factor at play than we think.

 

Hopefully it can get escalated to a decent engineer who will look onto it.

 

Someone mentioned recently that there was a way to pull the error logs (or whatever. computer stuff) from the failed flash. Has anyone tried this? Might show what actually caused the failure and take some of the mystery out of it

 

I’ll take a look for that tonight. There didn’t seem to be anything obvious on the front end interface when it failed but may be in some files the software makes and/or findable in the GUI somewhere.

Edit: Took a look and the Editor GUI doesn't seem to have an error log I could find outside of the info it came up with below (which I think that error shows whenever its not connected to a vehicle). The program files also seem to be very simple and all the files are from 2022, with nothing hidden in these folders that would appear to be logging anything. It may be possible to connect the ODB connection to the vehicle and run this info and get more information (possibly a specific error of why it can't connect).

 

Yeah that same error happened to me when I flashed the first time. I had opened a ticket with HPT when it got bricked so I still need to send them that data they want out of the debug file so they can investigate.

So last night @snivilous wrote me a tune using D3 tuner because I know I’ve never had issues flashing with their software and I needed a more stable tune because D3 wasn’t working with me, they told me to get a dyno tune instead. Good customer service right there. Anyways I flashed the truck and it was super lean on idle like 19-20afr and was stumbling trying to stay running, so @snivilous thought that maybe the injector flow rate was backwards because everything on their software is backwards. We made the change that would make sense if that were true, went to flash it and nope you need more credits. Keep in mind my truck has the full pro tuning software with no restrictions, so I said screw it I’ll pay the $200 in credits and try again, nope credits won’t show up on my account. Can’t do a damn thing now, seemed like my D3 account is locked out or something. So with a last ditch effort to get my truck running again I tried HPT one more time, prayed to the ecu gods and it flashed no problem. The truck has never ran so good on the first revision from @snivilous.

I sent out an email to D3 in hopes they will rectify the situation, fix my account and refund me the $200 in credits that I shouldn’t have needed.

 

That's great and sucks at the same time. I think you might be out on the credits since it's attached to you account, but who knows. This is why I decided from the get go to go with @snivilous. My SC brought the VF Tuner dongle to tune it with a canned tune from Magnuson. Since I know from previous experiences that canned tunes suck, I just went straight to buying a laptop and the HPT software/programmer. Dont get me wrong, I am on my first base tune. I still need to do some data logging so he can make some tweaks, which I am sure will happen. Then it's off to praying to the ECU Gods that it writes it with no issues.

 

Throwing this up here. Someone sent me this awhile ago.

The resistor in reference is a 1k

 

I also submitted a ticket to HPT begging for them to implement an ECU recovery feature for the Tundra. Maybe if other people also submitted tickets requesting that it'd up the priority.

 

Will do! Should have my junkyard ecu by Monday, will be interesting if you can just plug in and fire up the truck as is. I would think the NA tune is okay for low rpm driving.

 

Yea it should be fine, the larger intake will cancel out the larger injectors to some extent. I drove my truck on the stock file for a few miles originally, that was with the smaller injectors, so in your case it'd end up more rich if anything which is the better spot to be in. And the fuel trims have a lot of leeway, so they'll try to make up the difference before throwing a too rich code.

 

I’m also going to buy a junkyard ecu and swap my VIN over with tech stream so I have an extra on hand just in case it decides not to play nice.

 

I was surprised how many different ecu part numbers there are within a single year. My part number wasn’t listed on any site I could find to look it up either (glad I didn’t guess). There appear to be more common versions and less common in a given year too (with some being 150$ and some being 600$).

Im curious how different they really are or if it’s the same part but a different tune/accessories available.

 

Like was said you can do some driving. I had to drive with no tune from Gig Harbor over the Narrows to Toyota in South Tacoma. Stayed about 55mph. Just no boosted driving!

 

Hey what are the steps to make a junk yard ecu work . I got exact part number .. I have tech stream and vf tuner .. I’m sure I have to rewrite the vin . Is there anything else ? The truck is a 2016 Tundra Tia !

 

Preparing the patient for brain surgery.

 

Im about to find out. I think it’s plug and play as is. But to reuse HP tuner credits ($200) people are using techstream to update the vin on the new ECU. I am not sure there is any reason to update the vin besides this, however the newer trucks other systems may not like a random VIN on the ecu (will know in a few hours haha).

 

So dropping in ecu as is you get crank no start. Guessing the different vin/immobilizer prevents the truck from starting. So will try the ecu reset now, not sure that works on the newer tundras though. The good news is my obd mx and hp tuners scanner can talk to the ecu/truck and show no error codes. Vs the bricked one you couldn’t connect.

 

It would be nice to know the model year cutoff where they most start just dropping it in. Some need the handshake method via obd and others techstream.