Will a Auto ecu work on a Manual car thats been converted to auto?

moneypit94

Active Member
May 23, 2003
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Macomb, IL
Having issues with tuning my car so I have been thinking about trying another ECU just to see if it helps. Looked on ebay and i can get an auto ECU for a lot cheaper and theres more of them.

Are they interchangeable and what would be different about them?
 
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sorry, i'm a little confused by the way the question is worded ....

it sounds like your car was manual but is now automatic ... does it have a mechanical shift mechanism in it such that there is no computer control of the shifting?

and do you have an EEC for a manual in there currently?

for what it's worth, mine is a manual that was converted to AOD, and i have an EEC for an automatic in there, and it seems to work fine.

:OT: on your combo, how high does that victor/elbow sit up compared to, say a typhoon intake, and would there be any chance to get it under a stock hood?
 
I had a manual transmission and i put a powerglide in. So its a manual shift auto. So if yours was a manual and you put an auto in it with an auto computer then I should be good i would think.

Not sure as far as comparing the two intakes. I have the cobra RR hood so im not sure about fitting under a stock hood. I was worried about mine for awhile and found out the intake cleared the hood easily it was the turbos that got in the way.
 
Yes, an auto PCM (U4P0, W4H0) can be reflashed as any other in the same family (J4J1, T4M0). Cannot flash a stick car to run an auto transmission though.

Wes

Not sure what you mean "reflashed"?

I just want to throw a different ECU/PCM/ECM/computer, or any other name for it, in my car to make sure that my computer isn't the problem with my random tuning issues.

If it doesn't help I sell it back on ebay.

So which ones will work?
 
Not sure what you mean "reflashed"?

I just want to throw a different ECU/PCM/ECM/computer, or any other name for it, in my car to make sure that my computer isn't the problem with my random tuning issues.

If it doesn't help I sell it back on ebay.

So which ones will work?

Your chip will plug directly into any of the PCMs listed above and work properly.

Wes
 
Let me see if I understand this...

You have the power-glide "auto that acts as a manual" transmission, correct? And you are going to put an auto U4P0 ECU in it?

I think it will mess you up. Everything else being equal, the auto ECU is going to expect your "manual auto" transmission to shift. So, it will do all the things it does when the auto would normally shift at 5200 RPMs. Same thing it would do if there was a T5 bolted in there, I believe.

Now, I do not know precisely what the computer tells the car to do when it is time to shift, but I would assume if you changed the shift points out to like 8,000 RPMs (just someplace where it never enters its shift mode while you don't want it to shift), then you would be good to go. I am thinking that, for example, with the auto ECU, you have the car in 1 and you are tooling along, you can always shift it manually into 2, even before you hit the WOT shift point, right? But, what happens if you are at WOT in 1 and hit 5200 RPMs without shifting? I don't know, to be honest. But, I seem to recall that if you have a T5 and you hit that point where it wants to shift you get all sort of issues.

Just throwin' that out there...
 
I just put the computer in today and holy cow im in a good mood. My car started right up and found idle. I was actually comfortable enough to take it for a drive and the A/F stayed a wee bit rich but not bad the whole time. This was without me really playing around with my PMS at all and the best part of all when i came to a stop sign it actually stopped and kept running and idled (to the average guy this doesn't seem like much but it was HUGE for me). I even opened it up on the road and it was rich but it was safe.

I was really starting to get down about this whole new setup because whats the point of having all this potential power if the car isn't streetable.

Now if this holds up like it should. I can start working on next phases of my project. Get a good pump gas tune. Then put an E85 tune on it and put a boost controller on it and start raising the boost. Between the e85 and the boost controller i am hoping to hit 1000 hp! :)