Hi all,
First off, thanks for the plethora of knowledge contained here - it's awesome. I've learned a ton, and without paying a penny, pretty rad.
So I purchased a '00 b5 A4 1.8T ATW quattro w/ 5MT ABS & no traction control last January. Love the car, though I do wish it was an S4
I originally intended on following the guide here (
http://nefariousmotorsports.com/forum/index.php?topic=6955.0), but later realized that my ATW has a narrowband sensor, though I've read conflicting information about whether it is ME7.5 or ME7.1. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but it's difficult/impossible to self tune WOT without a wideband sensor, so without installing a wideband sensor I'm SOL for self tuning. Now I know that APR etc sell "Stage 1" tunes for my setup (stock lol), I am assuming they install an external wideband sensor, tune with that, and then just find the correct maps for a stock car and duplicate that; ie, if I went to an APR shop and dropped the $500 they would not be installing a wideband sensor, just putting new maps in that they derived years ago at their flagship shop with an external sensor on stock hardware.
So as much as I wanted (and still want) to tune my own car, it will require some new hardware which I don't have the time/money for right now. That said, I would love the performance boost, so it seems the cheapest option to do that in the meantime would be to find a "chipped"/"flashed" ecu on ebay/CL and throw that in, and then I would also have a spare ECU. As I understand it, my ECU is coded 06201, 06 for USA, 2 for quattro w/ abs and no traction control, 0 for 5MT, and 1 for A4. As I also understand it, I could take a stock ECU from a '00 b5 A4 1.8T ATW quattro automatic, recode it to 06201 with VCDS, and then drop it in my car without issue. However, I am unsure if this holds true for chipped ECUs - could anyone shed some light on this? I have struggled to find any info; my first thought is that changing the transmission option shouldn't affect fuel maps etc as they are located in different parts of memory, but I also understand that APR etc use at least some level of obfuscation, and also implement features such as changing the fuel maps with the cruise control buttons, so perhaps they would be too far modified to be compatible with VCDS recoding.
So I guess question #1 is can "stage 1" chipped ECUs generally be recoded for different transmissions, as stock ones can?
Second, I understand that my ECU part number is 4B0 997 020, and that this was used in the '99-'01 Passat ATWs and the '00 A4 ATWs. Are the only differences between these software? IE could I take a 4B0 997 020 out of a '99 Passat, recode it to 06201, drop it in my car and be on my way? Or is there more distinguishing each ECU other than just that part number?
Third, if those are both true, could I reasonably buy any (Passat or A4) "stage 1" 4B0 997 020, recode it to 06201, and be on my merry way?
Finally, when I am ready to drop some $$, is this a reasonable way to go:
http://www.audizine.com/forum/showthread.php/527070-ATW-ME7-1-to-ME7-5Thank you for tolerating my basic questions, and for providing such an awesome resource; I hope I made sense and that these haven't been answered a million times before.
