96 850 R manual swap - reflashing of ECU necessary Topic is solved

Post by **Clemens** » 03 Sep 2022, 12:36

I finally have most pieces together for swapping my European 96 R from AT to M56 with a quaife.

What keeps me puzzled though is:
Do you need to reflash the ECU so it won't keep looking for the TCU or is there an easy wiring solution? I read somewhere in a british swap description that he did some magic to the wiring harness to regain AC and Cruise control along with the reverse light and got rid of the flashing arrow.

Some Germans on the other hand get the ECU reflashed and all is fine and dandy.

Any pointers in the right direction?

Post by **Sveedy** » 03 Sep 2022, 17:59

I would think that you'd need it reflashed. Unless maybe if you had the ECU from the donor car, and that car was the same year as yours.
Still I'd be inclined to get it reflashed. You could ask Aaron @ Vast Tuning about it.

Post by **Chuck W** » 03 Sep 2022, 21:03

The ECU on that is an M4.3 and VAST deals with the M4.4 stuff. It's an easy enough conversion to go from M4.3 to M4.4, and they can most likely sort you out.

The reverse lights thing isn't a big deal, you just have to find the correct wires and connect them to the switch on the manual trans.
Not sure what the transmission harness has to do with the AC, though. The cruise control shouldn't be affected, you just won't have the clutch pedal switch to disengage the cruise, unless you wire it in with the brake switch. the wiring diagrams show that pretty well. Not sure about getting rid of the flashing arrow, other than an ECU flash (but there may be a hardware solution, instead of a software one)

It is also possible for you to flash your own M4.3 ECU to a manual one. (Well, a spare one.). Motronic Suite has the euro R binary files. Our stuff is all M4.4 now, but I have flashed a couple M4.3 ECUs, just for kicks.

Post by **Clemens** » 04 Sep 2022, 13:42

Thanks for refreshing my memory ...
Thing is that various European tuners claim you lose AC for the 96 snd 97 Euro models once you convert them to M4.4 which made me stick to M4.3

I guess I will get a used ECU and try to reflash it. If this fails, I can send it in for reflashing to one of the pros.

Post by **Goupil** » 04 Sep 2022, 14:55

Some mods (software or hardware) allow you to keep AC with a M4.4 conversion, not all tuner might want to do the software one though
https://m44.fandom.com/wiki/M4.4_A/C_Converison

Post by **Chuck W** » 04 Sep 2022, 15:39

Clemens wrote: ↑04 Sep 2022, 13:42 Thanks for refreshing my memory ...
Thing is that various European tuners claim you lose AC for the 96 snd 97 Euro models once you convert them to M4.4 which made me stick to M4.3

I guess I will get a used ECU and try to reflash it. If this fails, I can send it in for reflashing to one of the pros.

Yeah, there is a software mod that allows the AC to function properly when you convert an M4.3 car to M4.4. The wiki link posted above would have all of the info to do an M4.4 conversion. You just need a proper 98MY M4.4 turbo ECU. Now there are some LPT cars in '97 that have a version of the M4.4 (like the US 97 GLT), but those do not play nice. Make sure it is from a 98MY turbo car. HPT or LPT does not matter.

The flashing for an M4.3 is basically the same process as the M4.4 using TunerPro, but the KLine is different (8 vs 36). You could also flash in Motronic Suite too. I was looking at the available binary files in Motronic Suite for the M4.3, and there is a manual R version in there.

Post by **hausmeister** » 06 Sep 2022, 05:27

Let me know if you find an easy solution... I would also like to get a spare ecu and flash it as a backup... either 4.3 or 4.4. I did look into it a bit, but it seemed too much effort for me as I am not familiar with the tools and process.

Good luck with the manual conversion!

Post by **foggydogg** » 06 Sep 2022, 10:50

Clemens wrote: ↑03 Sep 2022, 12:36 I finally have most pieces together for swapping my European 96 R from AT to M56 with a quaife.

What keeps me puzzled though is:
Do you need to reflash the ECU so it won't keep looking for the TCU or is there an easy wiring solution? I read somewhere in a british swap description that he did some magic to the wiring harness to regain AC and Cruise control along with the reverse light and got rid of the flashing arrow.

Some Germans on the other hand get the ECU reflashed and all is fine and dandy.

Any pointers in the right direction?

Robert Spinner - posting here as rspi - and his friends have done dozens of swaps. Maybe he can help. His website is
https://robertdiy.com/